Hackster's Autocross Track Day Truck (Garage Build)

[hackster]

A few of you guys followed along with my ls swapped f100 build. The builds here are amazing and guys have more money into their wheels than I have into my entire builds.

But you guys do give some awesome feedback and have some builders on here that have some amazing talent and I appreciate your pointers.

Follow along as I try and get this thing done in time for Thunderhill OUSCA



Truck was found behind a friends shop with some locked up brakes and a little frontend damage but all in all, pretty ok.

Its a start and was extremely cheap.

Wanted to make sure I had a good straight and square frame so once I got it torn down, I sent it off to a local frame shop.



Donor car.....I am using everything from this car, engine, Transmission, rearend and rear suspension.



Stripping down the framerails for some new front suspension



Plating in the framerails before setting in the front Crown Vic setup.



Rear lower control arm mounts



Bolted in and ready to swap ends. Oh yeah, I am doing every last bit of this myself in my small shop with just a few tools, you could call it an extreme budget build.



Starting on the rear, I spent a ton of time on the back of this thing, good to go back and see where I started.



Thats a better working surface



Mocking up the mustang rearend and rear suspension



Rear end pretty mocked up and ready to weld it out. 3 link with a panhard bar. QA1 adjustables, double in the front, single in the rear Factory mustang Sway bar. Should handle extremely well.



Rear suspension all welded out, you can see the frame plate are in on this one and the rear shock towers are in as well. They should fit under the bed....should

[hackster]

Getting close to setting it on the ground again to hold up its own weight, but a whole lot lower this time. I am about 8" lower than stock now.



I built all of the suspension points from the good stuff that the mustang has. Those are b&r upper and lower control arms, poly on one end and adjustable heim joints on the other for some good adjustability. Also, have some separation height on the upper, lower and Panhard bar adjust-ability to be able to really dial in the rear suspension. The one thing that is poorly engineered on the mustang is the upper 3 link bar. Its rediculously short. So I chopped it up and made it about 5" longer at a total length of 75% of the lower bars much better geometry through the range of travel this way.



Then this happened....





Let the frame clean up and plating commence. Idont really have the budget for an aftermarket frame so trying to make this one as solid and clean as I can.







Close to ready to set the body back on.



Plumbing some brake lines...all Ultra Bend stuff, its amazing.





1970 mustang fuel tank, fit up to the old truck, hole cut for the Aeromotive Phantom 340 fuel pump. I will have enough pump, filter and delivery to support a supercharged setup in the future.



Starting to look like something. Coyote has a 6 speed manual attached to it at this point, motor and tranny are in for good, hydraulic pedal assembly is built from scratch and installed.

Wheels are what I could afford, Iforged 18x10 Square setup all around Dunlop Direzza tires in 275/35/18 ( i plan on running bigger but needed to start somewhere)

[camarodude87]

So cool!

[LS3 HQ]

Awesome work!! Love a good garage build.

[DBasher]

Ridiculous! You're killing it with these old trucks, nice work! Thunderhill....

[67XR7]

Amazing!!

[syborg tt]

Great looking build


Marty-MJ
www.garagescene.net

[hackster]

Originally Posted by will69camaro

Tank and battery mount looks awesome.

How did you make that box? You have a bender?

Keep up the good work!

Thanks, I have access to a bender but currently do not have one at home. I doubt if any of the big shops would ever do work this way but I make my template and then score the piece of metal with the thinnest cutoff wheel I have. Then I have a good place to start the brake and can make it bend where I want it. Once it is all formed up, I just weld it all up. It might take me longer but it gets done on my timeline which is something I have learned to respect more and more.

Originally Posted by rustomatic

This truck is killer! I really like how you went old-school (in hot-rod theory only) with the already-capable donor car and tried to use as much already-engineered stuff as possible. This (approach to building) has been my obsession lately, after so many years playing the bolt-on game.

I'll look forward to seeing the finished product at Thunderhill next year!

Thank you, the idea was to take something that I know works, and works really well and stuff it all under the 68. I hope it works =)

You and me both look forward to it at T Hill. I have very little road race/autocross skills so it will probably be terrible but its a place to start to say the least.

Originally Posted by Sonar Chief

Wow .... this is some nice hot rodding!! Question: I see you have a lot of dimple die action, I saw a couple photos of the press and a model, who's dimple dies are you using? What rating is the press! Is most of the bracing 3/16th?

Looks awesome ...

Michael

Harbor Freight press and its a 20 ton unit. Dimple dies are just some off pirate I bought years ago. Most of the plating on the inside of the frame is .120, the thicker suspension brackets are all .250 and a little .188 mixed in there.

Thanks for the props!!

Originally Posted by syborg tt

Great looking build


Marty-MJ
www.garagescene.net

Thanks Marty.

Having a rough day at the office today so I decided to come in and update this a little more today. Making good progress but not 100% or even 80% sure that I will make T Hill.

Built the rest of the fuel system, its all push lock style fittings and hose. I have had great luck in the past on it.

Main run up the frame rail is 3/8" Stainless hard line with -6 ends braized on.



I am running the fuel pressure regulator at the rear for the clean look. Not sure it will be perfect but I like it. Some manufacturers run them back here so should be alright. Running DOT Airline hose for pressure reference to manifold



Got rid of the pesky fuel filler while I was at it.



I need to do a little touch up with the proper paint method but you will never be able to tell it was there when I am done.



Then I started ont his project.....I should have just ordered new ones from Dennis Carpenter or something because this has been my major time suck lately well this and wiring, wiring for weeks now.

These had some rust issues and I was going to section up a couple of old inner fenders and make 2 good inners.



What I missed was that there was rust in other places on these and they looked not that great once they were welded up. So I cut off everything that was crappy and rebuilt.

Remember, paper first



Metal second



Welded along the top edge and ground down the weld and metal finished. I was able to do these without filler and they turned out great.

[hackster]

Once those were done I did a bunch of metal work on the core support and needed a place to paint.

Oh, here is the mockup...looks good to me



Getting the radiator mounted up, its a generic one from Northern but fits the opening about perfect. Need to come up with an upper mount for it as well.



In mockup



Final fab on upper mount. Turned out good....I am no sheetmetal fabricator or welder so for this to turn out like this I was pretty happy.



Any Dexter Fans out there????







Its a matte Pebble Beige, the finish is exactly what I was looking for.



Starting back with some assembly on the frontend.



Power Steering reservoir and lines installed.



Spent a bunch of time on the sheet metal this weekend. Color sanded the passenger fender and got it fairly flat and hit it with the buffer.



Sean

[waynieZ]

Sean, nice job on the inner fenders and the radiator cover came out great.