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Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2016 4:02 pm
1954 R110 Restomod
Just a little bit of history first. My dad drove a 52 L110 in high school, and had to sell it later in life. On a family vacation we spotted it on the farm of the people he sold it to, and he bought it back. He and I then started working on it together. I wanted to get it drive-able for my 16th birthday, but a frozen engine put a stop to that. Instead, my dad surprised me with a 1954 R110 out of Kansas. It used to work for Foster Farms there, and you can still kind of see where that was painted above the windshield. I loved it. Unfortunately a rod got thrown through the block just before I went to college, and the truck sat. After college, my dad and I put in a short block with my head and accessories to get it mobile. While it ran, the compression was so poor that it could hardly make it up a driveway. Then it got parked. Now I'm a "big kid" and have a garage, and no longer have to live on a grad student salary, so I get to dig into this truck I've spent nearly half my life with.
I'm going for a resto-mod on this truck. Before you start wailing and gnashing your teeth, hear me out. Between my dad and I, we now own many original 100% stock trucks, both in amazing and poor condition, so I'm not shorting myself a perfect vintage vehicle. Plus the truck wasn't "numbers matching" so to say, since it had a replacement engine. Another factor is that I want my children to be able to drive it and enjoy it , and those brakes, steering, and minimal oomph can be a little intimidating. So I'm modernizing it in a few places, and keeping original where I can.
The engine I'm going with for updating it is the Jeep 4.0 straight six. Okay, clearly the truck won't magically run 10's, but I like the idea of sticking with a straight six, just with fuel injection and all that fun stuff. Plus the 4.0 is cheap, hearty, and there is plenty of aftermarket support for anything Jeep related. Also IHC put AMC engines in some later pickups, so it sort of fits thematically, if you hold your mouth right. The 4.0 is mated to a 2WD AX15 five speed trans, and I have a Ford 8.8 waiting to replace the rear end. This puts disc brakes in the back, and I'll go with a TSM kit up front. The 4.0/AX15 is much smaller than the SD220 / 4 speed, so fitment is mostly not a problem.
So far there aren't any deal-breaking problems with this swap; just a lot of small questions that need to get sorted. So here goes!
1) Fuel: My tank is salvageable, but rusty inside. A few radiator shops around me say they can boil it and line it, but I'm tempted to try myself with a combo of shaking with chain inside, Evapo-Rust, electrolysis, and Red-Kote. Does anyone have any experience with this? Or should I just have the pros do it? I'll need to install a high pressure fuel pump to feed the EFI engine, so I'm guessing I need to drill that hole before applying the sealant coat, correct? Also I've seen some threads talking about replacement sending units. If I can't get one specifically for the R110, which Ford unit is interchangeable? I've seen mixed results on this board. What is the correct resistance for full / empty? My rusted to pieces (and sunk float) unit just shows 75 or so ohms and open circuit. I don't think that's correct.
2) Ford 8.8 mounting: As I asked in another thread, where can you find spring perches for these small 1.75" leaf springs that will fit the large 3.25" Ford housing? Is the best bet to get 1.75"x3.0 and grind away excess (thanks to one response in Buzzman's thread, by the way)? And then just do weld-on shock mounts, or is there something better out there? I'm keeping ride height the same, so it will still be spring over mounting. I looked through the parts thread a bit, but couldn't easily find a set of bushings for the leaf springs. Anyone have good part numbers?
3) Power Steering: Everyone on here seems to go with "the Saginaw box," but which one? And I'm guessing everyone mounts on the outside of the frame rails? I no longer have the diagonal braces due to engine clearance, so there's a good chance I can go with something in the original spot, if there's enough vertical space inside the C-channel. This https://www.summitracing.com/parts/clp-cp50006c/overview/ steering box is the correct orientation / mounting if I can fit it in between the top and bottom of the C-channel. I want to keep my original steering column at least to the firewall, and then run u-joints to the steering box. How does one support the outer steering column housing independently from the inner column in a clean way? There seems to be a spring inside the outer column that pushes it down compared to the wheel, and I don't want that fighting the u-joints the whole time. Again, I looked through the parts thread and didn't see anything, but is there a consensus on drag link and tie-rod part numbers that get away from the ball-in-socket method?
4) Pedal assembly: Since I'm going to power brakes and a hydraulic clutch, there's not much point in keeping the original pedal assembly. Not to mention the original trans / bellhousing is now gone, so there's no place for the pivot end to bolt. Replacing the brake setup won't be too bad. There are good bolt-in solutions like this: http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Universal-Brake-Pedal-7-Inch-Power-Booster-1-Inch-Master-Cylinder-Unit,74286.html which has a booster small enough it will probably fit. Or if it's too big, I'll run a hydroboost system. The clutch is where I'm running into trouble. I can't seem to find an under-floor pedal that mounts on the OUTSIDE of the frame rail rather than the inside. There are twin-pedal systems like this: http://www.speedwaymotors.com/TCI-600-6570-56-Under-Floor-Power-Brake-Hydraulic-Clutch-Assembly,46286.html, but if I mounted that on the inside of the frame, I don't think it would fit through the existing hole in the cab, and then the driver's feet would be swung WAY over to the right. Does anyone know of a clutch pedal like I might need? Worst case, I guess I buy a similar mount to the brake one and cut / reweld it to the side I need? I could always cut that twin pedal system down the middle and run it through the frame, and then re-assemble together, kind of like what IH did in the first place, I guess.
Okay, that's a ton of information and a ton of questions. Apologies for the wall of text, but thanks in advance!