OK Folks, here goes...
Almost a year ago, my loving son who lives about 600 miles away near Atlanta, found a '53 Ford F-100 on Craig's list located near Atlanta. He bought it and dragged it home. Immediately after that he found another one about 50 miles SE of him and I decided to buy it. I thought it would be a great way to promote the Father-Son bonding thing if we were both involved in similar projects. Little did I suspect at that time this whole thing would expand and develop to proportion it has now. If you look at this website, you can tell that I have gone from virtually nothing to a junkyard at my house and it is still expanding. I may be on the verge of my wife leaving me. I keep telling her that all the extra vehicles are just for parts and I will haul the rest of the stuff to the junkyard She ain't buyin' it... She says if I bring home more trucks she is going to leave me.
I'm gonna miss her...
About two years ago I bought a slightly damaged but running '91 Ford Explorer. I got it cheap and at the time it was my intention to find an older truck or car body to put on the Explorer rolling chassis. When my son first found the '53 for me I was thinking about putting it the Explorer chassis. However, by the time I got around to that point I had developed a strong affection for the old '91 Explorer as I have been using it as a yard mule to drag around the stuff I work on. As a part of my business, www.wfmservice.com , I restore and rebuild old Lincoln and Miller engine driven welding machines. By this time I had decided the old '91 was too valuable to hack up so it has been granted a reprieve. I also learned that my original plan of dropping in a 302 was a bad idea for a number of reasons, the first being that the auto tranny would not take the extra power. Before completely scrapping the idea I bought an '83 F-150 4WD with a 351-W and 4sp. that I though I would use in the Explorer chassis running against the Explorer front and rear diffs. Here again I was plagued by the thought of loosing my yard mule. I have since found and bought a '99 Explorer minus the engine and tranny with a few missing parts and some minor body damage. That now will be the base for my '53. My plan is to use the Explorer rolling chassis with the floor pan and firewall which I will graft into the bottom and front of my '53 F-100 cab.
OK, first a little about the project. There will actually be very little left of the original truck in this project. Only the windshield, the title and the VIN plate from the glove box door will be used in this project. Those are precisely the parts I bought the truck for. The rest of it is either junked or sold. You can go to http://www.pvpmedia.com/53F100.htm and see some details about the trucks and my plans for them. Since that stuff was put online I have defined and more or less finalized plans for this first truck.
How many of you Remember the Radio Flyer kid's wagons? Guess what, they are still in business. Anyway, I never had one as a kid and I have decided to have one now. Only my Radio Flyer is going to be this truck project. let me explain... I'm one of those guys with too many interests. One of those interests besides cars and trucks is Amateur Radio, commonly known as Ham Radio. One of the main problems with having too many interests is that they have to share time. So, I figured out a way to combine those two interests.
I decided to build this truck as a cruiser and pack is with about four different types of Ham Radio gear. That gave me the idea to paint the truck bright red and put the Radio Flyer logo on it as well as white oak side racks in the stake pockets. I'm not a mudder but I do like 4WD trucks. That inspired me to start this build using the rolling chassis from a '99 Explorer as the base platform for this project. That's where the Explorer ends though. I will be using a drive train from a '90 Thunderbird Super Coupe I bought wrecked and maybe adding a few minor performance enhancements. Nothing radical, just enough to scare the hell outta those rice grinders.
It will look something like this
UPDATE
I recently acquired a wrecked 1990 Thunderbird Super Coupe. It has a supercharged 3.8L V6 with a five speed manual overdrive transmission and independent rear suspension with big disc brakes. I bought this car to break it up and sell the parts or just sell whole to make a profit. I did consider the possibility of rebuilding it but I decided it was not worth the time and effort to me to have just another car. Now I have decided to use the complete drive train in this project. I will be integrating the IRS from the bird into the '99 Explorer rolling chassis I am using. There are two issues at this point that I need to resolve to move on with this plan. First there is the matter of finding and linking a transfer case to the five speed from the bird. Several folks have mentioned that the five speeds used in the Explorer Sports and the Rangers are essentially the same transmission and the transfer case from one of those can be used. I have since discovered that the the manual 5 speed tranny with transfer case used in the '88 to '94 F-150 4WD trucks and full sized Broncos will bolt up to the SC engine and it is the same tranny internally the the SC used. I have also located one to buy. The other issue is the matter of the electronics, instrumentation and control. This is a bit of a problem in that I was planning on using as much of the instrumentation and control along with the dash from the '97 Explorer I harvested the stuff from. One possible way to do this is to find the electronics and wiring harness from a later Super Coupe with OBD-2. One way or the other, I'll get this thing to work. I am sure with a little informed help to provide the info, my background in electronics and instrumentation and control, and a bit of red neck ingenuity, I can do this. After all, if it wasn't a challenge, I wouldn't be doing this. I am one of those guys who gets as much or more enjoyment from doing the build as I do from driving it. As a matter of fact, when I do a project like this, it never gets finished because I am always changing or adding to it long after it's on the road.
If any of you folks out there info, ideas, suggestion and comments I welcome them. Just e-mail me at db1@pvpmedia.com . You can even tell me it can't be done or just tell me I'm crazy because that sort of thing just inspires me that much more.
Here is a picture of the wrecked SC. It's dirty from being stored on an impound lot for two years but the engine runs good.
Look close and you can see the blower mounted on top of the engine.
THE ROLLING CHASSIS
This is the rolling chassis I harvested from a partially parted out '99 Explorer I bought for $250.00.
Here is a shot of the sand blasting and primer coating process about mid way through the job.
Below are some more shots of the job.
Below are some shots of the clean chassis. If you look close you will see that the rear axle and springs are not well cleaned and primer coated. This is because they will be removed and replaced by the complete double wishbone independent suspension system complete with limited slip differential and disc brakes that I am going to harvest from the '90 Thunderbird Super Coupe that I will be using the drive train from.
CUT & FIT
Below are some shots of the ongoing process of mating the old '53 F-100 cab to the '99 Explorer floor pan and fire wall section. The red cab in the picture is just for practice cutting and fitting. It is too rusty and too far gone to use. If a make a mistake it won't matter because it can be done correctly on the cab I am going to use. Unfortunately I only have one floor pan & fire wall section from the Explorer so my cuts there have to be right. That is why this is such a slow process. It's a matter of cut a little then fit again and again.
Above are two shots of the cab sitting at the right position on the floor pan. I positioned an old front fender I have to see what the height would be and it sort of surprised me. I won't have to Slam this thing. It looks as though the fenders will only be about 8" above the ground. One of the unexpected benefits with this set up is that the Explorer frame sits way up high in spite of the lower body parts being so close to the ground. The chassis parts and drive train will all be up high enough to stay away from damage. Of course that does mean that the body parts are less protected but I don't really plan on driving it to places I would have to worry about that.
I plan on using the complete Explorer dash. the one in the picture is a stripped one I am using for practice fitting. I need to lower the front cross brace so I can test fit the dash. That is why it looks so wrong right now. It is just sitting there on the braces.
Below are four shots of test fitting the practice dash shell I have. It looks as though it's going to work out and the defroster vents are going to line up well. What amazed me is that the curvature of the dash matches the bottom of the truck windshield.
Below are some before and after shots of work done to prepare for the repairing and fitting of the front cowl section of the cab to the Explorer firewall. Eventually this area will be sealed in and not accessible so it must be cleaned, rust proofed and sealed with a rust and corrosion inhibitive coating.
Below are a few shots of the lower hinge pocket work I did by making a new pocket from the opposite upper side pocket from the practice cab I cut up for scrap.
This is what I started with
Here is a shot of the harvested hinge pocket from the practice cab.
They don't look like that much of a job but these two lower cowl panels above were probably some of the most difficult work of the cab project.
I will continue to ad pictures as the project progresses. If you want to follow the project just bookmark this page. You can also follow the project on my build thread that is running on the Darksider's Realm board. CLICK HERE for the thread.
Stay tuned...
THE OTHER '53
Now, what about the second '53 F-100??? As Of now I am not sure about it. I have a clear title and it has a lot of good parts. If over time I collect enough extra parts I may make a second truck. I have since acquired a '97 Aerostar with electronic all wheel drive that I think would make an excellent economy minded suspension and drive train package for an old Ford truck. I think it would be even better for a '53 to '55 F-100 panel truck. So, I looked for one. I found two rust buckets that might have added up to one. They were too far away and way too expensive. $2.000.00 each is just too much for partial rust buckets. So I came up with a novel poor man's alternative... CLICK HERE
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