Hey all,

I`ve got a `66 F100(long bed), and I`ve come to a crossroads with it. I`ve been considering swapping a complete crown vic frame under the truck. This would yield me a fuel injected engine, OD tranny, good brakes, good handling, and a nice low ride. I`ve seen a couple people do this, but not with exactly the same truck, and I have yet to find a very detailed write up.

Ideally I would find a `92-94 vic, and cut the body off of it. Depending on what is easier, I would either make new mounts to mount my cab down, or graft in some of the crown vic floor. I pretty much need to replace the whole cab floor anyway. The bed would either get cut down to match the shorter wheelbase(be roughly the same as a shortbed), or if it couldn`t be made to fit I would just build a flat bed for it.

Anybody see any major problems with this plan?

Thanks in advance,

 

As a welder and fabricator I can tell you pretty much anything can be done when enough time and money is invested.
With what you are proposing to be done as a quality mod would require huge investments of both. This is a project I would love to watch in progress.
Good luck and post lots of pictures. I'll definitely be following allong!

 

I think most people graft in a front clip only. And I'm not sure it turns out to be any cheaper than an aftermarket front suspension. Its certainly not as rigid as aftermarket clips.

Remember that a car body supports the frame its built on and the truck cab and bed won't. It could fold up in the middle. A truck frame supports itself using no support points from the cab and bed. That's why you can't simply saw off a car roof and make it a convertible. The roof supports most of the middle of the frame.

 

Crown Vics are a full Parameter type frame. Structure removal on this type of frame has no issue.

Removing structure on a unitized car like a mustang or camaro has these issues as they use sub-frame assemblies and the body provides the rigidity.

Before doing any type of frame swap check with your DMV if it is even legal.

The Frame on 65 66 is what titles the vehicle as the body has no VIN stamping's.

Garbz

 

I`m thinking that with a full donor car that is in working order, I can lessen the cost with the addition of time....(I`m not afraid of wiring, luckily )

As stated below, the vic has a full frame just like our trucks. I won`t be racing the truck anyway, just street duty and some light towing.

I`ll check on the legality end of it, I`m more asking about logistics of it here. Thanks for the heads up .


Here is the build I saw where the guy used a Mercury Marauder(same chassis as a vic) frame and drivetrain. I`ll PM the builder and ask him some questions.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...r-chassis.html

And here are some pages of interest:
A drawing of a vic frame: http://www.thedirtforum.com/CrownVicFordframe.jpg
And some pictures of an actual vic frame: Crown Victoria Ladder Frame

 

I never knew the Crown was built like that. Makes things a lot simpler.
Kinda of gives me some ideas for the '66 shortbox...

 

Ya, I`ve had bad thoughts every time I look at a vic since I found out....
Though the vic`s WB is 114.4" IIRC, so it should be within an inch of a shortbed slick.

 

After a talk with MarauderPU(thanks Karl!), I decided to go for it. I don`t have any leads on a vic yet, and I have some stuff to send back first(stuff I bought for the 300 I was planning on using). But I got the truck apart over the last two days. The front clip is outside, the cab is on it`s side in the garage(on cushions!), and the bed is loose on the frame parked safely out of the way. Should have some pics of this uploaded later.

I can keep this updated if anybody wants me to.

P.S.- If anyone needs chassis/drivetrain parts for a `66 in southern Ohio, PM me....

 

YES keep us posted!!!

 

ya if mine was a short bed I would have done a full frame swap so I just used the front end and rear end

 

Ok, will do. Not promising the first bit of photos will be great, but I`ll do my best to keep you guys up to date.

I considered that, but with my main use for this truck being transportation and the fact the I would need to replace the bed floor anyway, I decided a short bed would work fine for me.


These first pics are from my cell phone, so bear with me on quality for awhile. I tried to clean these up a little on photobucket, but not all of them came out good. So far I just have the truck apart. These pics show that process. The guy in white is Gary, a friend of mine who will appear at random during progress pics. His shirt really made my crappy cellphone camera angry...

















These next couple show the rust issues I have. The two pieces with the body mounts fell out of the core support when I lifted the front clip the first time.

 

This was my supervisor for the first part of the teardown





Getting the cab off. This was a trick I`ve seen a few times. Just put cushions on the floor(like off the two couches in the background of the pics), and GENTLY roll the cab off the frame onto them. Sounds so simple



And finally the frame with the bed loose, ready to go to it`s resting place until I sell it or need the bed. Gary steered it with our homemade joystick, and I pulled it back there with my Samurai. I`m disappointed I didn`t get a picture of the whole thing, it was quite a sight .







That`s all of this installment.

 

my main use for my slick is transportation also but mine is a uni little bit harder to make a short box haha

 

I`m probably going to cut mine down, so not really any harder than making yours a short bed! I wish I could find a short bed, but around here most of these trucks have rusted to the point of being unusable.

I didn`t even know they made long bed unis?

 

ya u prolly right I'm just to lazy haha