1968 F100 6.0 ls build
 

Found this forum through a friend and it seems like it might be a better place for me to get good feedback on my project.

Little bit about me and my project.

Car guy through and through, have a few pretty neat projects over the past couple years and really not a fan of the mainstream. I am 35 and a steamfitter/ service manager by trade. My dad recently retired and we finished his 64 ranchero this year. We decided that next summer we need to take a major road trip, kind of a trip of a lifetime if you will. Now I needed something cool to take on this road trip, something that is not another c 10 or a nova or a mustang.

I am a huge foxbody mustng fan, have owned several of them in the past from all different years. I would not call myself a ford guy though.

Started to search for an early bumpside F100 shortbed in descent body shape. I found a 68 white shortbed, clean with a dent on the passenger side of the bed. No motor in it but it was in the bed.

So the journey begins.

We loaded up the trailer and headed from home here in Portland down to Grants pass. Truck was exactly what he said so we paid the man, loaded it up on the trailer and headed for the house.

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Finally got it in the garage after our big Alaska adventure and got to work. Pulled off the front sheetmetal, got it up on stands and proceeded to chop the frontend out from under it.

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Once I was down to some framerails I started to mockup the 2003 crown vic stuff I picked up in Seattle, pretty easy stuff really, ran some .25 wall tubing through the framerails and burned in the mounts.

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Got the frontend hung under there and built some tabs for the rear trailing arms and got those burned on there as well.

Truck is getting a 6.0 from an 03 hummer lq4 and a built 4l80E.

Power will be assisted with a Borg Warner s480 turbo, 80 lb injectors, circle d triple disc full billet converter and a HD-2 shift kit. Looking for somewhere in the 700-800 WHP range.

So, I got to work getting the engine in place and building some motor mounts.

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Engine is nice and low in the engine bay, tranny should work out nicely and the engine is staggered to the passenger side to assist with steering rack, booster and exhaust clearance.

Here are the engine mounts all finished up and ready to go for powder coating. I am using the OEM locations on the front K member with some poly bushings sandwiched in there, trying to leave some room for the 4" downpipe.

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So, I got the brake booster and brackets from a 75 and swapped the pedal into my 68 assembly, pulled everything I could from the firewall and dropped all that stuff off at the powder coater on Monday and that gets us up to speed for the weekend.

Hope to finish any work on the firewall and get that shot with some paint so things can start going back together.

Hope at least a few of you folks follow along, should be a fun little winter project.

Sean

Had an epic weekend.

Saturday morning my buddy Asher and I loaded up the tools and headed out to the yard for some digging.

I came up with exactly what I was looking for, 1981 ford F100. 9" axle, 65" wide, 31 spline and 5x4.5 lug pattern. The axle that we found was missing some hardware on one axle end, but it was complete other than that.

By the time we got home it was about 1 pm. We got busy getting to work.

Pulled the motor back out and set it aside, stripped off everything from the firewall that was left. Sanded, sanded and sanded some more, little work with the wire wheel to clean it up where there was some rust and hit it with two coats of epoxy primer.

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As that was drying, we got with the program and unloaded everything I was storing in the bed and got that sweet bumper pulled off, unbolted the bed and got that set aside.

Oh what fun, more rivets to get off for the rear crossmember. I have a pretty good method though. Grind off the head with a flap disc, then drill out just a little bit of the rivet and it pops right out.

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So with a little time I was mocking up the fuel tank and see what I was going to do back here.

My buddy Dan came by in the evening and was awesome enough to tackle the Trans GO HD-2 shift kit installation in the 4l80E tranny. He got it all finished up with the exception of a pan gasket and a filter.

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Although not a terrible task, I was able to keep working and knew that it was in capable hands with Dan on the tranny.

Pretty much see what I left in the garage on Saturday night.

Sunday morning was clean up time, we left it a mess on Saturday.

Saturday started by buttoning up the tranny so that I could get back to some dirty work.

Picked up parts and got that done early.

I have seen a couple folks build the frame and set the fuel tank inside the framerails. While I like the idea of gaining some clearance in the rear, the idea of having to pull the bumper, the bed and the rear crossmember to get the tank out was not for me. So I went a little different route.

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Its going to reside between the rear crossmember and the next crossmember forward. I am hanging it under the frame and holding it in place with two straps.

I got the tank where it needed to go, marked it out and bet up some straps. Welded some nuts to the inside of the crossmembers and got the tank hung.

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Also went to town on the rear frame with a wire wheel and lots of elbow grease. The frame is in perfect shape though and I have still yet to find a single spot of rust on the entire truck. Body mounts, cab corners everything is in great shape metal wise.

So with the tank all mounted, the weather looking good I hit the firewall with some scotchbrite and knocked down a couple of little flaws, mixed up some paint and tacked off the firewall....Here is the end result of my driveway reshoot on the frontend. Aside from a run or two, the paint turned out great and should allow me to get to putting stuff back together this week.

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I dont know how, but it was still only 1 pm at this time.

We headed over to Daves place who runs Old School EFI here locally in vancouver. I took him my ls harness a couple weeks ago. He set it up for stand alone operation, added in relays for fan 1, fan 2, fuel pump, starter and all the works. Literally a three wire hookup and it runs. He did an awesome job on the harness and reprogram.

Got back and went to work on the rearend. Cut off all the brackets off the new 9" ground everything down after Asher got after it with the wire wheel. It was looking good. Took some measurements on the old rearend and got everything tacked up. Doing a spring under swap on the rearend.

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Pulled the old rearend and amazingly every bolt came off without any major problems. Rolled in the new rearend and lightly bolted it in.

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Oh what a difference the stance of a project makes. Looks a lot better, front end might need to come down a little bit but its a heck of a lot better.

Pretty much where I left it off this evening.

Hope to get brakes plumbed and start on the firewall reassembly this week.

Sean

Welcome to the site Sean. Looks like a sweet project. Keep the pics coming.

Cool truck!

And a Chevy motor in a Ford? Makes sense to me. :thumbsup:

Wow, you got a bunch done in a weekend....

What are the plans fo the outside? Leave the patina or new shiney paint?

You didn't need to spell it out it's pretty obvious you sure aren't a Ford guy:lmao:

Sean

Welcome to the site. You made a lot of progress Hackstering that truck so far. :superhack:

Looks like you have some talent those were some nice looking welds on your mounts. :thumbsup:

I'm sure this latest C10 build will be very popular.:lol:

It that a pea soup Volvo in the background? What's the story on it?

:cheers:

Welcome to the site Sean,very nice work so far,like Rob said the welding looks great on the mounts.:welcome3:

Pretty sure that it is going to get a nice coat of shiney new whimbledon white all around.

Trying to decide on wheels right now. Thinking 20x9 up front and 20x10 in the rear. Going back and forth between 18's and 20's though....18's seem much better to drive on, and a little bigger tire.

The pea green Volvo is a 1982 242. That was last springs project. Makes a little over 300 hp on just 2.1 litres. Not a big number in this crowd but a very fun car to rip around town. Rear wheel drive with a mustang t5 tranny and a spool makes for a pretty fun little car.

All work done in my little shop on this one with the exception of the intake manifold built from scratch by my friend Nathan.

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Uhhh...20's all the way around. :underchair: :underchair: 20's fill up the wheel well on trucks nicely to me.

Got home a little bit early today. =)

Went to work on a little cleanup in the garage and rolled the truck out in the driveway. On the jackstands once again and prepped the rearend for some paint work. One light coat of primer to help with adhesion and some flat alk200 with some catalyst added in to add a little bit of hardening and shine. Turned out a little glossier than I anticipated but looks pretty damn good for just hitting it with a wire wheel.

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Also ordered my torque converter from Chris at Circle D. Most money I have ever spent on a converter. Tripple disc, full billet 4l80E converter. He said it should hold up to 1000 hp no problem. Good thing I am only shooting for somewhere between 700-800 whp.

Sean

Cool truck!! Should be fun to cruse when it's done.

Welcome to the site!!!:cheers:

welcome to the site,

putanlsinanything.com is going to go public and be huge lol...

great engine, great project. Love the Volvo too.

You spooling this one too?

Mike

I had to read the putanlsinanything.com twice.....Yes I agree. Daily Driver is an ls swapped volvo 240 =) It is just so easy and make stupid power.

Yes, this is getting boost too. Borg Warner t-6 framed single s 480.

Sean

Nice!

It will look good in white too...

Instigator.

http://www.domrep.ch/images/smilies/bomb_ie.gif



lol

Little bit of progress..
 

Made a little progress on the truck the past few days.

Ordered in a weld on sump from Summit and it showed up a lot bigger than I imagined. Trimmed it down and rebent all the flanges to fit the back of the 70 mustang tank. Took it over to a buddies shop and got the tig machine out and welded it all up. Put the tank on a water test and all checked out ok. Need to order a sender for it.

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So I got busy, self etch then some high build, got the tank pretty flat and shot on some single stage gloss black. Turned out descent enough for a gas tank hanging out under the back of this truck.

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Rear brakes also showed up, Wilwood dynalite pro setup with the two piece rotors.

Assembled those with some help again from Asher, he did all the safety wire on the two piece hats while I put the rest together.

We bolted those onto the fully painted and assembled rearend.

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Pretty happy with how the rearend turned out. Also got some shocks on the rear, s10 something or others, but they should do just fine.

Assembled the master cylinder, booster and powdercoated brackets and got to work on plumbing all the brakes. Had a couple of wrong fittings but all in all I think it turned out nice. Here a couple shots of the whole mess on the firewall.

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Really happy with the lines we ran. They all look great and are tucked up and out of the way. Master cylinder is painted with a coat of rustoleum hammered gray. I like the look of the raw master but know it would rust. This is the closest thing I have found to keeping it looking cast.

Not really worth pics but the front suspension all got pulled back off, front framerails all wire wheeled down to bare metal and metal etch primed, primered and shot with the same alk200 I shot the rear frame with.

Front brakes all got cleaned up, painted and installed along with new rotors.....Not wilwoods but 12.5" brakes look big on an old ford pickup.

Front sheetmetal is all pulled apart and bumper got straightened out and ready to head out to powdercoat along with the grille and headlight bezel.

The first rust I have found is on the inner fender underneath the battery tray. Need to do a little patch work on that. Should be good work for this week.

Sean

Now that a cool project,like these trucks:thumbsup:

curious what the master cylinder is from? I need one that ports from that side.

Thanks, Joe

Trying not to hijack here, I'm not sure which MC he used, but I used a AC Delco 18M973 from a 2000 S10 with a 4.3L V6. It has a 1" bore and the outlets are on the right side like you need.

Tubbed 69- Your Camaro is unreal. I read through most of your build thread the other night. Amazing and good motivation for a guy like me.

Wanman- 75 ford two wheel drive f350. 1"bore as well.

Dropped off a load of stuff at the coater this am. Front bumper, grille, headlight bezels to get coated dull aluminum and cleared. Also the core support to get sand blasted.

Converter should have shipped from Chris at circle d on Friday.

Still battling a nasty cold so progress is kind of slow.

Sean

Thanks hackster, and aggie91

Now after seeing some of the sheetmetal work that is done on these board, my at home hack job doesn't seem very special, but gotta keep the build thread going so bare with me.

Trying to get the front engine bay sheetmetal work done this week while I am waiting for the converter.

There was a good bit of rust below the battery box and that area was not very good looking and flowing with the rest of a pretty good looking inner fender. So I cut it out bent up some sheetmetal and welded it in for a nice straight and flush fender.

Here it is in raw metal, still needed a bit more metal work at this point but I was running out of time.

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All bodywork and high build primer done. Still needs a little more attention before paint but its getting close.

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The plan for the engine bay is just have mechanical parts in there, very little if any wiring. Going to tuck the headlight, turnsignals under the inner fenders and mount the battery in the rear of the truck. Trying to make it a very clean and pleasing engine bay.

Sean

Nice build! Welcome to the site!

Cool build, like it a lot!!

Thanks man, looked at your thread as well, looks like we think a lot alike :thumbsup:

Made good progress on the fenders last night, passenger got several hours of body work, priming and sanding and little bit of spot putty. They are far from perfect but pretty sure they will do just fine for inner fenders. Drivers side got the battery box cut out of it and the new flat patch panel put in it's place. Everything is all welded up and ready to start grinding and body work, I hope to be done with body work tonight and shoot these on Saturday.

Got a nice little box in the mail yesterday....

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Got this amazing piece from Chris at Circle D. He was amazing to work with and this thing brings the beef. Full billet triple disc 4l80E converter along with an SFI approved flex plate. The plan is to get that bolted up and installed this weekend.

Sean

Well, did not get much done last night other than make a big mess of the garage.

I did get the entire steering column torn down prepped and painted in hopes of getting it installed today.

Today I got some help from a friend, more productive after lunch =) (Thanks for the hand and the company Ole)

Managed to get the column all rebuilt today, new bearings and all new hardware, all brackets were powdercoated gloss black, inside and outside. Stainless hardware installed on this as well as new rubber boot.

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Looks like a tiny bit of progress, but it was a suprising amount of work to get it all nice, much better than it came from the factory.

Very happy with how this area has turned out so far, hope I can keep up this theme with the rest of the engine bay.

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With the column finally back together and in the rig, I could layout the final steering linkage from the rack to the column. I had picked up all the linkage from a 05 crown vic earlier in the week and cut off the bottom of the steering column so I had lots to work with.

I machined down a little spacer with what I have here to work with to mate the crown vic stub to the 68 steering column. Welded the crown vic stub to the spacer then welded the spacer to the shaft. They were both an interference fit, hammered together and then welded. I know its not flaming river pretty, but it looks pretty descent and did not dig into the wallet, not even a dollar.

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Got the 6.0 torn down to just a long block with covers and a pan, cleaned up everything and prepped it for paint. Shot it with several coats of gloss black. Planning on doing the Holley black valve covers with the coil mounts on them directly, should look pretty descent. Happy so far with the little engine clean up.

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Another round of blocking and sanding and a couple rounds of real eopxy primer laid down on them, a well as the freshly sandblated nice straight core support.

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Not really worth taking pics of but I also got the final upper braces for the frontend painted and installed with the proper spacers under them and measure for the tranny, its gonna be close if it clear the crossmember at the pan or not. Hope to find out tomorrow.

Sean

Dang Sean,

"Well I didn't get much done last night", So the next day you made up for it, lol.

You are moving along! You must have a way to powder coat in your shop?

Joe

Very nice! You're gettin' it done pretty quick, when do you want to be driveing it?

No real goal for an on the road date other than spring. Would like to take it on the power tour this year, maybe make it to the LS Fest this summer, both are a long ways from home though.

Not the best day of work in the garage for me, but I did manage to get more sanding on the inner fenders, they are at this point done and ready for paint... Tired of taking pictures of them though.

Got the tranny all cleaned up and put a nice dusting of aluminum paint on it to freshen up my freshened up tranny before it went into its new home.

Asher came over and we bolted up my new SFI approved flex plate, filled up the amazing circle d triple full billet converter and stabbed it in the tranny. Holy crap this tranny is a big heavy girl, but up to the task of holding big power for the long haul.

Keep in mind, never even a test fit on the tranny into the hole and over the crossmember....and into the truck we go.

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I took lots and lots of measurements and was pretty sure that it was going to be close on the tunnel and at the crossmember.

It fit like a glove, plenty of clearance all around the big girl and the motor sits nice and low in the chassis, looks good in there.

So now my big debate is to go turbo now or finish the build na and go turbo later. Going to take a lot more $$$ and time for the turbo setup but it sure would be nice to do it all now before it goes in for paint.

Sean

Looks good in there and the motor mounts look perfect, nicely done!

Looks like things will slow down a little bit for at least a week or so.

Just ordered turbo...

Borg Warner S475 T6 frame along with all of the exhaust stuff I think I am going to need to get it put together.

Should be fun, but a lot of work. Goal for the truck is somewhere between 650 and 750 WHP.

Anniversary tonight, so no garage duty :waveflag:

Sean

So, got the tranny x member buttoned up and installed, turned out pretty good too. New poly tranny mount too.

With the weather here descent for a day, I figured it was bout the last opportunity to shoot the inner fenders and core support, so I setup my "Paint Booth".....aka driveway mixed up some paint and finally after too many hours of cutting, welding, sanding, priming, sanding, priming, wipe down clean and then some more of all that above, I shot some paint on them and the core support.

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Pulled them inside to dry after they had setup for a few minutes. Bodywork looks awesome for my skillset and background. Paint turned out pretty descent as well, little orange peely on one and some specs in the other but keep in mind that I shot these in my driveway.

Inner fenders will have nothing mounted on them, all the holes were filled along with the battery tray on both inner fenders totally deleted. Should be a good look, nice and smooth.

Worked a little bit on the front of the motor, got the dirty dingo idler relocation bracket bolted onto the freshly blasted and painted accessory bracket. Looks descent.

Moved the steam port a little to make room for the ls1 intake, moved the electric throttle body from the truck over to the ls intake and got it set in place. Water pump installed, power steering pump back in place and got the power steering lines all figured out. Good Progress.

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Needed to get the bed mounted up to figure out where to cut out for the gas filler door. So we moved the bed from my driveway over onto the frame to see how she looked for the first time.

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Rear stance is pretty descent, According to my preliminary measurements, should tuck wheel in the rear on the 20x11 rears =)

Sean

The LS looks good sitting in there!

Looking Good there Sean!

Awesome project. Your doing a great job on it .

Thanks guys, appreciate the nice words.

Managed to stop in at oil filter sales and service this morning and picked up a bunch of fittings.

First up on the to do list was to make some modifications to the fuel rail. Cut off the excess brackets for what I believe was the coil covers. Then I drilled out a -6 steel fitting until it sat right on the inner ridge of the fuel rail return fitting and brazed it on.

Did the same thing on the supply line only with a -8 line on this one.

Rails are early corvette with supply and return lines.

Then what started out as some prep for paint turned into a couple hours with red scotch brite pad, some 320 grit sandpaper and some matte clear and finally think that I am happy with the results. Normally the stock rails are a little less than pretty. Think this is an ok outcome of trying to save a few bucks.

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Also picked up some 6x1x110 bolts for the intake, got it all cleaned up, cleaned the heads off and stuck that pig down for good.

Also had to see what the engine bay is going to look like with the inner fenders on.

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Turbo might show up tomorrow.....little bit excited about that one.

Sean

Another terrific project
 

Followed you over from T-Bricks. Enjoying watching you build another amazing vehicle. I'm glad you decided to go turbo from the start...

Haha, another turbobricker on here. Thanks for the props man. Turbo or bust for 2014 Power Tour!

Good couple of days...

This showed up on Tuesday afternoon.

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I laid out a bunch of exhaust parts on the parts table and got to work.

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SO I started to get everything mocked up. Its big. Bigger than I thought it would be.

I really wanted it straight in the engine bay aesthetically, but there was just no way to make it fit there. So, it got clocked into this position and I built a mount to hold this big girl in place.

Checking for clearance to the front inner fender. It is close but not really many options at this time. Pretty sure a compressor blanket is going to be in my near future.

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Wastegate showed up yesterday.

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It, like the turbo is bigger than anticipated, where am I going to fit all this stuff?

Managed to get home at a descent hour last night and started on the fab work, this is what I enjoy doing so it was fun. Both manifolds chopped off, v bands tacked into place and all of the hot side tacked up. Still need some flex pipes, another v band and the wastegate but pretty happy how this all came together.

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Exhaust is going to be almost too close to the oil fill on the valve cover, do they make valve covers with oil fill on both sides? Other than that and the wastegate and dump tube, I am pretty good for clearance on everything.

Thinking about just running a dump tube with a muffler on it instead of trying to snake it back through to the exhaust.

Sean

Worked on the downpipe tonight.

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Looking for ideas for the wastegate placement now. Ordered a single 60 mm, but now, thinking I should have just done two 44's instead.

Any ideas out there or suggestions?

Got the last v band, and flex connector today. Have a few hours off tomorrow, hope to make a little progress on it then.

Sean