I just don't get it. Why would anyone think that cutting the frame is
less work than fabbing up some body mounts? Cageman makes it
sound easy, but I have my doubts. Besides, he still had to fab up front cab mounts after all that other work.
Might just be my personal lack of experience with fab work that's
that involved, I dunno. To me, it's like saying you can build a stock car chassis in three easy steps.
When I swapped mine, it was in the back lot of a buddies automotive shop. Out in the dirt and gravel. We used this boom lift he had built on the back of his 76 F-250 to lift it enough to roll the chassis out/in. I took the hood off and we triangulated the straps to the core support for the lift. Before I rolled the new one under I ground off the rivets holding the front body mounts on, which was so much better than laying under the truck to do it.
(Later I kicked myself for not doing the rears as well. Oh well, live and learn.
)
Once I bolted the core support to the frame, we used jack stands to hold the cab up (IIRC). I carefully measured to be sure the cab was centered on the frame front and rear. and we were good to go. Then I just took the old front cab mount under the truck, and Dad bolted it to the cab floor while I lined it up where it needed to go at the frame end. My buddy brought his welder over and tacked things into place. I had to make some lift blocks for the cab to get it level, but it wasn't hard. I had a chunk of pressure treated 4x4" lumber I used. (I thought I'd replace it later with metal, but I never did. Worked fine.
) Once everything was verified, my buddy finished the welding of the cab mounts on. Done!
Then I attacked the steering. I looked (breifly) at reusing the old column, but making the adapter was beyond what I could do at the time. After some careful measuring, it seemed the newer truck's column would work, so I just borrowed the plasma cutter and notched my firewall. Lined up so perfect it was scary!
There's been alot of interest in this as of late. So I guess I'm gonna have to get over to storage and get the picts I need to do my write-up on it. What really sucks is that I really don't have much for build-in-progress picts. And what few I may have I can't find at the moment. I've been slowly getting all my boxes of junk sorted and tossed so I can get my Swepts home. (Need a place to work on 'em once they get here. They are going back into service asap!
)
All this to say, I didn't find it that hard at all. If you plan on a really low truck (like what Slick is building), it's more work. Personally, I think that 12" at the rocker panel with 31" tires on a 2wd is a nice height. In the pict below I was running 235/75r15's and had about 11' rocker height. Handling is amazing! You'll never regret the swap! PM me if ya need to, and good luck!
In this pict, I am standing next to the white 66. This was in 1994, only a couple of years after the swap was done. I stand 6' tall, and as you can see, I can easily look over the top of the truck. Low enough for me!
