f100_dreamin

Talk about this here

Been a while since there has been anything to update on this old girl, the plan had always been to upgrade the 6 cylinder and manual to a V8 and auto for the ease of cruising, it will also provide the opportunity to upgrade to power steering and allow me to run an AC compressor as an air compressor for the Airbags. So just the other day I was able to pick up this from a friend, who had removed it from a customers pick up to replace with a crate 350, apparently it was a good runner when it came in to be replaced (aren’t they all though haha) my mate had planned to take it to a swap meet to sell, but never got round too it, and he ended up just wanting it gone from his workshop, so a deal was done and it’s now sitting in my garage, The numbers break it down to a 2 bolt 283ci (4.6 litre) engine. Nothing flash, but with a freshen up and a little cam it should do the job nicely luckily he also had a bunch of spares to give me too, Including an old school Offenhauser inlet manifold on top of that one of my friends has been stripping a VN V8 station wagon for the engine to put into his VL sedan. so in exchange for doing the wiring and a couple of the shit jobs he doesn’t want to do I now have a 700r4 to go behind the engine. will be a while away until anything gets done from here as the Plymouth is the main priority, but I’ll slowly be collecting bits and pieces for when the time is right!

Had a delivery from Rockauto a couple of weeks ago, Diff rebuild kit and Rear wheel bearings for the explorer 8.8, Engine mounts and a new water pump for the 318, Started with the water pump today, which then let me fit all the ancillaries, cleaned up the engine mount brackets and put the new mounts on. I was originally planning on ditching the AC and running a set of gilmours, but I can’t make them work with the PS, and I’m not willing to ditch that for now. So I figured if the PS stays then the AC may as well too! still need to get a new harmonic balancer, and I’m taking the belt pulleys to work to run through the turbowash, I’ll get them cleaned up, painted and mounted so I can work out belt alignments etc.

Shit that’s awesome Clint! Nice work!

Sweet cheers @cletus, If there’s no one local then I guess that will be the go to,

More small jobs have been done , I’ve cut all the old brackets off the diff housing now so I just need to order some spring perches for it now. Has anyone got any suggestions of a local supplier to save me having to source them from the US? I also put my big boy pants on and started cutting the rear 1/4 panels off as marked by my metal guy (so that the inside structure can get blasted too) Before (you can see the lines drawn by my metal guy): after: No more rust than expected, which is good I suppose haha, one side down…..one to go……..

Shit that’s an effort and half! Nice work!!

Took the axle tube to work and cut it down, then when I returned to our Wiri site I used the press to push the axle tube back into the housing luckily it just fit then I welded it back up, I plug welded it where the factory used plugs to hold the tube in, plus I also welded both tubes to the centre as with it being a press fit it’s not unheard of them seeping. Bloody handy having these tools at my disposal at work. I’ll order some spring seats soon and make a jig based on the old diff to weld them on, not a huge amount of progress, but better than nothing.

Thread dredge….. aside from scraping more under seal there’s not too much I can do to the body for now, so I’ve been working on the Ford 8.8 I pulled out of an explorer. everything looks good inside, so that’s a plus I wrapped it up to limit the stink, Because there isn’t much that stinks worse than diff oil haha I drilled out the 3 bungs that hold the long axle tube in and took the diff housing to work, with a bit of persuasion from the 10t portapower and the gas plant I pressed the axle tube out, tomorrow I’m going to work at our Drury branch where the engineering department is so I’ll use the drop saw to knock 3” off the axle tube, and then work out how I’ll press it back in so i can weld it up, then I’ll be one short axle and spring seats away from a shortened super strong rear. feel free to discuss here

Very cool, looking forwards to watching this build!!

Rear 1/4 panels have arrived, shipping and GST was $950, which is more than I expected, to be fair I had nothing to base my expectations on so not a surprise haha. sat one of the panels on the car, they look good and the lines seem to line up good so I’m happy. the side marker lamp hole at the back of the guard is different because these are technically earlier year Dodge Dart panels, not that it matters as they will be getting filled in anyway,

Well rear quarter panels have been ordered and should hopefully be on the way to my shipper in the next week or so. ended up going for Goodmark panels through getallparts.com after a recommendation from an American mopar site I’m on (FABO) so far they have set me back about 790 NZD shipped to my shipper in California, so once he charges me the GST and freight, I think I’ll still be pretty happy with what they cost me.

Flogging a dead horse there mate, @Shakotom has forgotten he own the olds I think haha

Haha yeah I saw that, and then I saw the price too. Depending on the exchange rate and shipping I shouldn’t be too far off getting two of them to me for similar money (I hope haha)

Yeah it’s not what I was expecting, but luckily I’m super happy with how it’s come out. Now a bit of jewellery is done, I guess I’ll have to go back to scraping under seal haha