1968 IH C1300 2wd Restomod/Build

[budget76]

It ain't the prettiest, and I had a couple shots where the original metal was too thin, but the pass inner fender is patched. Under the battery tray so nobody sees it anyway. Have seam sealer on the way to seal it up

 

[budget76]

a couple of you guys are following, could use a little input on seam sealer use. Am I right to think it's fine to use similar in application to caulk on house shit to make a sealing bead, and not just to cram between seams? never used it before

going to have to patch the dash vent area, and if I were gonna go the whole route of drilling spot welds I should have done it 6 months ago. Going to patch it up from the inside and make it water tight knowing it won't be 100% under the cowl area. hindsight I should have yanked the cab and sent it to Chaz up the road for patch work, but that didn't align with the "get it running and have fun for a year" plan that I later went against.

I'm going to have to re-fab a little bit of the elevated lip the vent flapper sits in, then make a patch panel similar to the battery tray spot for the interior "wall". Weld access will vary. Figuring as long as its sturdy I can use the seam sealer to cover it all up good.


oh, and I'm pretty sure the cheap Ebay headers aren't going to fit between the frame rails and I'll have to find some block huggers. Was hoping to use the Ebay kit because it had the Y-pipe and everything for a simple DIY exhaust run, but looks like I'll have to alter. All signs point to them not fitting, but I'll see for sure once I have it hanging above the bay. rough measurements are 28" wide at the header collectors and 26-27" frame rail width. Doubt I'll be able to return them so I'll have to try to recoup some $$ on the used market

 

[budget76]

Update. Trans is on. Engine is in. Exhaust and steering may get interesting, they may want to populate the same space. We'll see. engine/trans dropped the front another inch or so. Oil pan sits 2" or so below the crown vic crossmember, it may get a skid plate if not a pan swap down the line

eBay headers may barely fit with a little bfh persuasion. Steering shaft may force a change tho

Shifter sits right in the back of the tunnel opening. Cross member is gonna be very easy. may adjust the mounts to kick all forward 1" for the shifter location, need to look back at OEM pics for where the rad and sheetmetal live

I think next steps will be cross member quick, then cowl patching. Then I can stick the dash back in and figure out steering column mounts. Then hydroboost mounting and pedal.

 

[Grendel]

I have a chinesium oil pan kit for that, if you want it.

 

[budget76]

I'm pretty sure you're right near my buddy in Derry. I may hit you up if/when we head up that way anytime soon

not too worried about the pan clearance. It's going to lift up a fair amount when I put decent sized tires back on the front and not the crown vic rollers. Think I'm going to be able to run the same ~30's that were on it when I got it, just with a much better ride than the original front suspension. Won't know till I slap sheetmetal back on sometime in the future

 

[budget76]

quick update. spent more $$

measured and found a C10 crossmember is the right width. I can't buy the steel for this price and mine would have just been a straight tube. This has the humps for exhaust clearance. It fits well, I just have to add some tube across the center U to raise the trans mount up 4" or so. May wrap that up tonight. very nice piece for $44

And I'm starting to grab other parts / figure out what's going to fit.
-Clamps for brake lines & 2 25' spools of NiCopp were bought.
-wilwood pedal and clutch master ordered. there's a chance I return it and buy the clutch/brake combo set, or I may just order a 2nd one for the brakes (hydroboost). I don't love the OEM pedal setup and am thinking these pedals will make it more enjoyable to drive being a tall guy in a regular cab. Plus, at least for the clutch, the master is essentially bolt-on versus having to adapt and figure out pedal ratio positioning etc so life is simplified

 

[budget76]

oh, and the headers I bought for a GMT800 were oh-so-close to fitting, but I gave up on them. Frame is about 1" too narrow for them to fit well. I tried massaging the drivers' side some, then decided I'm fighting a losing battle and even if I get clearance it won't be much and I can see things moving and rattling. Other issue was the output spat right into the crossmember and not below it. I could make them work, or I can cut my losses, hopefully sell them to recoup some of that cost, and buy a set that actually fits. Appeal of this setup was it was headers + Y pipe, so it would have been a super simple straight pipe to muffler and dump. now I'll have to figure out Y pipe and stuff. owell

on the plus side, it looked like the steering shaft would clear the headers so I may not have too much of a nightmare connecting that up.

so I'll order another set or two (returnable this time) to see what fits. AFTER I have the steering column in place and can eyeball steering clearance as well as frame clearance.

 

[budget76]

Cross member fab is done. Not bolted to the frame until I am certain on fwd aft placement of the engine. Dependent on headers and steering shaft

 

[budget76]

Cowl patching underway. Won't be perfect but it'll be water tight anyway. Cut the upper section for access to patch the rest. Seam sealer is curing then I can close up the driver side and move to the passenger

 

[budget76]

regretting tossing the OEM driveshaft setup. it was a 2 piece and I had no plans on using it. now I'm reading up and realizing I'm going to need a shaft longer than 1 piece generally are made (rough msmt was 80") and am probably gonna have to fab in a 2 piece. If I had kept the OEM stuff I'm pretty sure I could have just left the rear, modified the front part some to mate to the AR5, and run the thing with the OEM rear axle for a while.

plan is Ford 8.8 rear swap, but damn if I had kept the driveshaft stuff around it'd have been way less work to get it moving.

hindsight sucks sometimes

 

[budget76]

regretting tossing the OEM driveshaft setup. it was a 2 piece and I had no plans on using it. now I'm reading up and realizing I'm going to need a shaft longer than 1 piece generally are made (rough msmt was 80") and am probably gonna have to fab in a 2 piece. If I had kept the OEM stuff I'm pretty sure I could have just left the rear, modified the front part some to mate to the AR5, and run the thing with the OEM rear axle for a while.

plan is Ford 8.8 rear swap, but damn if I had kept the driveshaft stuff around it'd have been way less work to get it moving.

hindsight sucks sometimes

annd I may grab a driveshaft out of a box truck for cheap locally, if the guy still has it and it's long enough to be trimmed down/have different joints welded on. Making a crossmember for the carrier bearing is easy enough

other cheaper option is a 2 piece shaft out of some modern car. Acura MDX looks like it's got the length as a random find, but it'd need the yokes changed (I think anyway)

 

[budget76]

I am now the proud owner of potentially useless massive driveshaft parts. they're out of some big assed bus or box truck or something. thankfully they unbolted, it's about 16' of driveshaft. my plan of strapping it to the roof of the yukon was NOT going to work

honestly stood there for a minute debating if i'm an idiot or not for buying them. for $80 I got 3 pillow blocks/bearings, 3 4" tubes around 46", and a 48+" tube with slip joint. All steel. In my head I get a shop to adapt one end of the slip yoke side to 1350 yoke, bolt to rear axle, make simple crossmember for pillow block and shorten one of the other shafts to go from the AR5 to the pillow block/rear shaft mating.

this is probably a stupid idea

,

 

[budget76]

More amateur work.

Driver side vent area repair. Done except for another layer of seam sealer everywhere I can reach. Would have been way easier to seal off but I wanted to keep the vents. all patch pieces are 16ga

would it have been better to remove the cowl skin? yes. but I didn't so here I am

 

[budget76]

Passenger side. same situation, slightly worse. Ready for seam sealer before I add the last closure panel. I'll add a small patch or two to the holes on the right as well

yeah there's rust out towards the fender on both sides. I'm looking at it as that's just extra drainage at this time. It's all going to get bombed in paint/cavity wax/something anyway, these repairs should outlive my ownership.

 

[budget76]

I've got the dash out. So why not apply some deadener while it's out. Big pieces on

 

[budget76]

new aluminum firwall blockoff plate for the pedal and steering column mounts. old one jutted outwards, no need with the hydraulic pedals.

it'll get a little more closed cell foam, but dash is mostly covered in 3-in-1 deadener. think I used 4 sheets. MASSIVE improvement, highly recommended for anyone with a sheetmetal dash like this

Close to having the steering column mounted then steering connected. Have 3 or 4 different sets of headers coming to mock up and return the non-fitting ones. Frame rail width and steering shaft are the 2 main challenges

 

[budget76]

no pics uploaded at the moment but i spent some time test fitting things. I got 4 sets of headers delivered and am pretty sure I am going to run the cheap cast iron aftermarket manifolds. Its either those or generic shorty headers, long tubes even the C10 ones don't play nice where they dump and block huggers I don't like how they'll cook the starter. The cast ones visually look the part better than the headers and I'm not going to lose any power between the two. Returning the ones I don't keep will cost me $30-40 in shipping, but I've got some decent fitment pics to potentially save the next guy the effort.

Also been figuring out steering column / brake booster / clutch master layout and pedals. thought I was going to use 2 wilwood pedals for brake/clutch but the packaging doesn't allow for that - definitely using the factory brake pedal, not sure if I'll just use the factory clutch too or stick the wilwood in there instead. steering column is where the brake booster would have to live with the Wilwood pedal, and that has to be there for shaft angles and exhaust clearance. Think I have the brake packaging figured out

wanted the pedals to feel more like a sports car than truck, but owell, it is what it is.

firewall rust repair is 90% done. 2 small pieces to weld in on the passenger side and I need to jam some more seam sealer in everywhere I can get my hand. Then I'm going to reach up thru the vent and spray bomb it with rattlecan just to get a coating of something in there. Then I plan to use a garden sprayer and shoot a bunch of fluid film into the cavity. Figuring that should keep the rust at bay for a bunch of years

 

[budget76]

Photo dump of the header/manifold test fits.

C10 swap long tubes. Passenger side kicked up and almost hit the cab so they got ruled out. Also would have sucked for clearance going back past the crossmember, you can kind of tell in pic #2. Dunno why they're designed that way. O2 sensor angle IIRC was OK. I wanted to use these, but no dice

Generic swap shorties. These fit just fine. Didn't love the flange design at the collector end, but they'd have been just fine. Almost kept these. Passenger dump pic #4 looked close to the bellhousing at first glance, but mockup with the flanged piece not shown it had plenty of room.

 

[budget76]

cheap block huggers. Would have worked, but I'm not that desperate for clearance and REALLY didn't like how close they go to the starter. Preferred the collector flange on these to the swap shorty design

Steering update. used one of these mounts for the upper. Had to fab up an adapter from some studs and flat stock to connect it to the stock column mount/brace/support. Sits about 1" lower than ideal, but that's a future problem if I want to fine tune it

firewall plate cutout for column. you can see clearly how the rack-column alignment with joints mocked up worked out in the pics of the shorty headers

pedal/column area. have to run the factory brake pedal, packaging didn't allow the booster to sit where the Wilwood pedal would have required. unsure if I'm going to run the Wilwood for the clutch or not. packaging will fit, and it won't require any fab for the connecting shaft and is already at a 6.5 or 7:1 ratio as designed. Simpler but will look out of place

 

[budget76]

Winners. Ebay cast manifolds. Fitment is good, and they look like they belong more than the shorties. Heavier but who cares on this build? Doubt there's 0.1HP difference between these and the shorty headers. My only open concern is the aftermarket dipstick may want to contact the manifold, I may have to go back to the OEM style or fab up a heatshield or something. I only replaced the OEM because it got destroyed when dropping the pan, it was seized in there

they're currently getting degreased and a coat of clear high temp paint then slapped on and the header discussion is finally done. I'm happy with the way the packaging worked out, it only took 5 sets of headers to get here.

and the heater box/core. Rodents called it home for a while. Core doesn't appear to leak with a hose running thru it luckily. Slapping on a heavy coat of Rustoleum, adding a couple pop rivets and seam sealer, some fresh foam, and calling it good.

 

[quigleysiding]

Nice truck .I learned to drive on one just like it. My dad brought it new in 69. Whenever we stopped for drinks, he would always let me drive home. I was like 13 at the time. Always loved those trucks. ours was green. We had another one years later but my little brother smashed it up.

 

[budget76]

Hydroboost unit is mounted. Steering is connected, i just need a steering wheel and it'll steer. I'll swap out the washers/nuts eventually on the plate so they fit right. Cut it pretty close, think I'll have 3/8-1/2" clearance from the HB cap to the hood support. Phew

And I spent last Saturday morning grabbing a 8.8 and driveshaft out of an explorer. They had 5 explorers, no LSD's. Grabbed a 3.73 open, found at least the pinion bearing is shit after I had the thing 3/4 of the way out, but took it vs starting over - I was limited on time and working in mud with limited tools. Figure that'll force me to throw a LSD in which is the end goal anyway. truck only had ~60k miles, so i bet this is why it got parked

 

[budget76]

oh and I ordered a harness that is probably wrong, but claims to be right for my setup. it'll get returned if it doesn't have the right DBW connections and such

I have the early 00-02' DBW setup and older LS1 red/blue PCM. Cheap harnesses generally aren't setup for this uncommon DBW setup. Converting to DBC would cost me $200+harness since I'd need throttle body, cable, brackets, and a pedal of some sort. not worth it, I'd just pony up for a plug-and-play harness for my current setup at that point

 

[JohnnyJ]

Have you tried fitting stock plug wires on those? I have some shorty headers with similar dump location, but what I dislike about them is they are tight on wires. If these run stock wires, I may look at them if i ever burn another set of wires.

 

[budget76]

Have you tried fitting stock plug wires on those? I have some shorty headers with similar dump location, but what I dislike about them is they are tight on wires. If these run stock wires, I may look at them if i ever burn another set of wires.

I'll test fit and take a pic. I'm figuring worst case I have to spend the $50-100 on the ceramic capped ones.

I THINK they're essentially OEM manifolds but cleaner looking. but my OEM ones went in the scrap load months ago so no 1:1 comparison to be done

 

[_stucky]

Those are similar to the hooker blackheart manifolds I used. Mine have a dimple molded into them to clear the plug wires. Haven’t melted one yet. Pretty sure I went with stock style ac delco wires.

 

[budget76]

putting some things back on. valley pan cover cleaned up. new Delphi knock sensors. high temp RTV around the grommet for water purposes - not putting the foam blocks back under the intake manifold so this will be "open" to the elements

Brake stuff was sitting in a box. bolted the calipers back on

had to mess with where to mount the soft line bracket. Decided a rivet nut and a small hole into the subframe would work and also decided there's no way a 3/8" wide 1/2" deep hole into that aluminum is gonna make any strength difference. This was easier than fabbing up a bracket. the lines are too short to reach the frame and this looks good clearance wise. they BARELY make it to full lock without putting too much stress on the hose.

and new flex fuel injectors and retainrs are installed. Rail is back on the engine. Still not sure if these are really OEM, or knockoff injectors. Not confident there's really any way to tell this day and age. Fingers crossed they work fine either way.

 

[budget76]

no big progress, was away on vacation. still trying to slowly bolt some parts back on so I have less loose shit sitting around

realizing I have a SERIOUS paralysis-by-analysis problem I overthink way too much instead of just doing something or ordering something. Trying to get into the mindset of make it work, you can adjust it to perfect in the future

• intake is on. Decided I'm running rubber fuel injection line instead of making up the fancy braided stuff. Got adapters for the pressure side from hard line to push-on, return side I'm just going to push the 3/8" hose over the 5/16 metal and give it a good clamp or two.
  
  
• Sound-deadened the whole passenger firewall area where the heater box goes. Going to add another layer or 2 of foam, but its good for now. pic later
  
  
• grabbing bubble-to-double flare adapters for the front hoses so I can finish up the front hard lines. Planning on just putting a plug in the master rear-output for now until I get the rear axle in
  
  
• committing to ditching the DBW setup and going to DBC. the early DBW is special, and makes engine harness a pain in the ass to find. Grabbed the below generic pedal to make work, and working on grabbing a DBC throttle body locally. Wanted to keep DBW but screw it, and my PCM can run cable, so might as well switch

• need to send the PCM out for VATS delete and remote tune. No reason to not, now that I'm committing to cable throttle.
  
  
• haven't made it to NAPA yet to adapt the hydroboost-to-rack line.
  
  
• Need a steering wheel so it can actually steer
  
  
• found I never tightened down the engine mount bolts. did that last night, before I forget again
  
  
• found the lower strut mount bolts had one nut loose, and the other missing. need to grab a nut locally, wasn't a size i had in the random hardware bucket
  
  
• Need to drill 4 holes and final mount the trans x-member now that I've got position of the engine set. it's resting on its' own weight, just need to bolt it down
  
  
• got the ebay LSD for the 8.8 rear. Cheap enough to gamble on if its crap. Not sure if I'm going to strip the axle and drop it off somewhere to have the gears setup, or do it myself. Likely the former because of time restraints. Need to pull the cover off to see if the gears are destroyed, there is basically no pinion bearing left

 

[budget76]

oh, and i have a line on a VintageAir unit for $250 locally. planning on sticking that on the shelf

 

[budget76]

Couple pics

$160 Ebay ford 8.8 LSD

Sound deadener in the heater box area. the area the box buries got another layer of foam while I had access

"refreshed" heater box back in

Crossmember is bolted in. factory E-brake cable still fits - planning on adapting it to the Explorer 8.8. may be the first truck I ever own with a working e-brake

This area is getting tight. Hole drilled for the clutch slave. ran outta time to mount it and the pedal last night but it will tuck in nicely. Wilwood pedal/master setup makes it easy