The Projects Keep Piling Up!

Not very much progress was made on the truck this week. This week was filled with highs and lows. Nothing very dramatic. I am on a budget for this build, there is no “oops I went over.” Once the money runs out, that’s it. So in the spirit of building on a budget, checking the ENTIRE internet for each part is time consuming. For example: I have been searching for a disk brake conversion kit for maybe two weeks off and on. I had finally found one that wasn’t $1100.00 it was $800. Except the eight hundred dollar kit was for a 4X4 1967 F-100, this wasn’t realized until moments before the purchase was being made. So it wouldn’t work. Back to the $1100.00 option. However, the eleven hundred dollars was a tough pill to swallow – I began to extend the search – now it had become a search for a complete front end rebuild to include independent front suspension. The kit I was looking at is eleven hundred dollars and was manual rack and pinion steering. Fortunately I have Rich, and Rich found a better deal for the disk brake conversion – back to a “reasonable” number.

Rich and I have been going back and forth about what to do for the powertrain. First it was let’s find an engine and have it rebuilt. Then it was, well let’s just see if we can buy one already done. Then it went to maybe we can source an engine, have it rebuilt. There are so many options and I could really turn this truck into a money pit if I’m not careful.

I talked about going to look at a 1987 Crown Victoria in the last post of the blog. Well, we did; and it was not a waste of time. The car runs and drives wonderfully. It has a 302 or a 5.0L fuel injected engine with an unknown amount of miles on it. The transmission that is in the crown vic is also going to be used in the truck, which is great. It is a ford AOD transmission and shifts so smoothly. Lastly, we are taking the rear-end out of the crown vic and using it.

Now during this past week, Rich and I have gone back and forth about using the electronic fuel injection (EFI). He isn’t familiar with EFI systems, so to the forums I went. I searched high and low for anything I could find on doing the swap. Some say it’s an easy install, and others say they wouldn’t attempt it. I’m going into this ‘adventure’ of using the EFI with this mind set: if it works, wonderful; if at some point we decide we’ve had enough of the (expletive) we would take off the EFI and slap on a 600CFM four barrel carburetor and all we would have lost is time. As far as I am concerned we got the engine for free, so we can’t lose.

As for the truck and any progress made this week was ‘behind the scenes.’ As I alluded to in the beginning, we ordered many parts, that we knew we needed; this week. We bought another car this week, to source parts off of. So really if you think about it, because we bought the other car, there is a lot more work needed to be done now. We need to completely disassemble the crown vic, and we have to do it with care. We need to be mindful of every wire and every connection. Because we need the entire wiring harness, we need to be careful while taking the crown vic apart.

Next week hasn’t been planned out, so I’m not sure what we will be doing. I do know that Rich and I need to finish his 1964 F-100. He has everything complete except for the braking system. We did a disk brake conversion on his truck and it isn’t acting like it should. Rich thinks we need to shorten the plunger in the brake booster, and adding a proportioning valve should do it, hopefully! Once those things are done then bleeding the brakes, and more bleeding; until all of the air is out of the lines and it stops on a dime. Hopefully, next week I will have news about the truck and anything we do to it this week.

Until next time. -