6.0f100

Wow i just decided to check in on your project and I am blown away!!!you are doing some awesome work. Are you going to do your own tuning yourself??

hackster

Thank you, probably not doing the tune myself...I have done a little bit of tuning on megasquirt, but nothing on the gm EFI Live stuff. There are a couple of people local that I think I can trust. I am not shooting for huge power but good reliable power.

As far as the grill goes, I think it might be a 69 grille, but I love it. I have seen lots of the early bump side grilles and this is by far the best looking in my opinion. I am certainly not a bumpside expert though.

Done working on the truck till next week.

I did manage to get it back together yesterday, the truck is just about fully wired (5 or 6 wires left to connect, but they are all run)

Its plumbed, wired and pretty much bolted together.

First time seeing it in the daylight.









I think I ordered everything else I need tonight to finish it up. Front coilovers are on their way along with a bunch of little stuff from LMC and Dennis Carpenter.

So looking forward to starting this thing up

Sean

JosephIV

iTrader: (14)

Really nice build. I'm definitely a fan. With your fab skills you should be able to remove the rear bumper, trim the forward facing top portion back until it's flush with the license plate recess, section / shorten the bumper to bring the ends inline with the bed corners, and move the whole thing closer to tuck it in towards the bed. With your skill I'm sure you can come up with an aesthetically pleasing solution.

I wonder it would look like with the thinner front bumper on the rear? Looking forward to more updates. BTW, I enjoy seeing your other rides in the background as much as looking at the truck. Ramcharger or Trailduster in the one picture?

hackster

That is exactly what I am thinking of doing with the bumper. I might just use a front bumper and see what I can do with it. I think it could look pretty slick on the truck.

That tan thing is a crew cab cummins first gen pickup I built to Drive to the Artic Circle towing a little tiny off road camp trailer. It was featured in Petersons 4x4, as the Crawler Hauler. I did the full build on it. cummins swap, dana 60/70 rebuilt getrag, Hutchinson beadlocks and 37's with a flat bed. Truck was awesome. It lives in Texas now....I miss it a lot. my 05 dodge is boring as hell.



Not quite finished up but you get the idea...

Thanks for the compliments too, keeps me motivated.

Sean

6.0f100

Sean, What coil overs did you purchase for the front suspension??? My truck sits a little higher from the front than the back and I was looking in to some coilovers also to correct that.

hackster

I ordered the single adjustable fronts from Naake. Mike is the owner and is a great guy to deal with. Here is a link to what I ordered. Did you do a crown vic front swap on your truck already I am assuming?

http://www.naake.com/MercMarauder.html

I need to drop the front at least a couple inches to get it leveled out with the rear.

Hoping that I can get it there with some 450lb springs and the adjustable's.

Sean

DEEDDUDE

The truck is looking great Hack. Keep up the hard work.

Mike Naake is a great guy. When I was racing I bought several sets of shocks from him; full of knowledge and willing to share.

6.0f100

Yes I did a crown Vic swap with an lq4 as well I just got it on the road. I need to lower it in front a lill. I'm keeping it level with air shocks at the moment but I want to lower the front so I can keep it low in the back. Thanks for the link!!

hackster

Your car is bad *** man. One of the builds I have followed along with for a long time now.

Mike has been great to deal with, knew what he was talking about and was totally straight up with me. I was super suprised to see these show up in just a few days from when I ordered them. Look good too.

What are you running for rear suspension? Did you do an Spring under setup or just lower springs? I am running a flip on the rearend and the rear is a couple inches lower than the front still.....


So these showed up Friday afternoon and hung out in my office all weekend along with a bunch of stuff from LMC Truck.

Headliner, seat slider **** and the wrong brake pedal pad.....I think it was my fault though.



But these are pretty sweet.

I have been sick for the last three days, battling some nasty *** cold but really hope to get some time to get all this stuff installed this week once I am feeling better. Having the truck not at ride height is just bothering me.

I heard From Aaron that the hood and door panels got some paint on them last week, they were waiting for them to harden up a little bit before bringing them over to install and align the hood and frontend.

Sean

6.0f100

Hi Sean I am running a spring under 8.8 from a 99 crown Vic. I made my own shock mounts and set up some air shocks just till I get the cash together for the coilovers.

hackster

Nice work. I hear that crown vic rear is a pretty good swap for the rear. I like the 8.8's they are nice and strong.

I wanted to be able to roll with the little bit more strength of the 9" if I was doing just the 6.0, I totally would have gone with an 8.8.

Been making really steady progress on the truck.

Got the coilovers installed and the hood on and front sheetmetal all aligned including hood latch and all the other little bits.







Its all wired up now, fueled up, interior is all buttoned up and turned the power on for the first time last night. Went through a couple little bugs, mostly the need for a better ground up to the motor directly from the battery and found I had 4 coils wired up backwards.

Here is the video....no idea why I cannot get it to imbed on here but I am pretty sure you guys can click on this...


I need to deal with a little fuel leak at the tank and build some exhaust. Should be time to take it for a spin in the next week or so. Super stoked on the fact that it is running though

Sean

will69camaro

iTrader: (19)

Man I really love this build. Good job!

Jimbo1367

Congrats!!
Sweet build.

hackster

Thanks Fellas, I am enjoying finishing up all of the small details on the truck. I think its one of the things in life that I excel at.

Had a crazy busy week at work but I did manage to order in a few things this week. Mostly exhaust parts, but did order in this cool little catch can for the radiator.

Measured about ten different ones but ended up with this little guy from Summit Racing.

Its a great fit and was a pretty straighforward install. This area is getting a little busier than I had hoped for but trying my best to keep everything very simple and clean but still very functional.





Also in some crazy feat of a miracle all of my exhaust parts showed up. I have 8' of 4" 16 guage tubing, 2 mandrel 180's 2 mandrel 90's, 2 mandrel 45's 1 4" flex coupler, 1 Dynatech race muffler, 3 hangers and a few other bits.

Trying to decide if I want to try and run 4" Exhaust up and over the axle and clear a rear mounted gas tank lowered truck and not a lot of clearance or just do a side exit angle cut in front of the passenger rear tire...

Suggestions?

Sean

1slo5ohh

I'm a fan of rear exit but 4 in over the axle and clearing the tank would be no easy feat. Go with side exit, your truck will look sexy either way

AAIIIC

iTrader: (19)

I think the side exit would be better, and obviously would make your life easier fabrication-wise.

Or even tuck it up with a turn-down (angled to direct exhaust gases out around the rear tire) so that it's invisible. That's the way the stock exhaust was on my brother's old M-B G500 - it wasn't just a turn-down, it came off the back of the muffler and looped around to point the exhaust down and outward. You couldn't see it all unless you stooped down to look underneath. Keeps a clean look and preserves ground clearance (which is a good thing on a lowered truck with a 4" exhaust). I can't find a good example pic online, but this one isn't too bad. I wouldn't expect you to try that sort of loop with 4" piping, but you get the idea.

hackster

Thanks for the input fellas. It was all good stuff.

I went up to my neighbor Brians place and got the truck up on the lift for the day to work on the exhaust.

It was a damn good thing too, it would have taken me 4x as long to get this done on the garage floor. Actually, I might not have been able to do it on my floor at all with the clearance needed to pull the parts and weld them out.

Turns out that it would not have worked well at all to do the side exit in front of the tire. It would have made it necessary to remove the exhaust to get to the battery and it kind of looked terrible.

I ended up running 4" from the downpipe, over the first crossmember, then to a flex pipe and hanger then a 4" Vband to split the exhaust in two pieces for removal purposes.

Then into the muffler, over the rear axle and out the passenger side between the bumper and rear tire.

It was a ridiculously tight fit getting past the tranny, over the x member and below the body then over the axle and between the spring and fuel tank.

It turned out pretty good. Under the truck has awesome ground clearance, under the tank the very rear is pretty low but still a good 5 or 6" off the ground. I am not worried at all.

Here are a few crappy pics....I am going to paint the rear most section with high temp satin black paint to make it not stand out as much.













Also pulled the tranny pan cleaned everything up and checked it for flatness and it looked good. Put the pan back on with a new non neoprene gasket.

I need to torque it in the morning and put the fluid back in there.

Tomorrow should be rearend fun...

Sean

Jimbo1367

what size and brand rear tires? They look really wide.

bad *** build !!!

hackster

315/35/17 sumitomo tires. I got the wheels and tires off Craigslist for a really good deal since I knew that the Rushforths were going to take a while.

Thanks Jimbo.

Sean

jerrad

iTrader: (5)

Such an awesome project. Everything looks amazing man, keep up the good work.