Mods
Man i dont even know where to start lol, freshly running and driving as of 72 hours ago after almost 2 years (644 days from start to driving under its own power to be exact) BUT i figure the easiest way to tell someone thats never seen it before is to go bumper to bumper?
Front bumper is stock other then speed holes for air flow
has no more safety bumper inside of it nor a ac condenser
the fenders are hollow to save weight
it has no inner fenders
the firewall has been shaved
the front crossmember was almost cut completely out of the car and redesigned to allow the oil pan of the 385 series 460 to sit down where everything lives happy from engine mounting angle all the way back to driveshaft angle
that gave me the ability to use 1983 ford e350 rubber motor mounts and from there made custom motor mounts .
the engine is out of a motorhome and i went through it top to bottom , got the pleasant surprise of a decent size cam on first start up but ill get into that below .
it has the factory 4r70w transmission crossmember that i used to locate the c6 and based everything off of that , it goes down a custom driveshaft made by colorado driveshaft service down to the factory 8.8 rear end that is still 2.73 gears and open for now .
there is a 8 gallon fuel cell in the trunk along with a rear mounted battery , its 6an line all the way from the fuel cell down to a inline filter then to a bulkhead fitting that gets it out of the trunk where it runs down the frame and into a oldschool mechanical fuel pump and up to a edelbrock carb sitting on top of a 2 inch spacer for linkage clearance and a desperate attempt at intake volume . the battery is 0 gauge from the trunk all the way up to the ford starter relay thats mounted on the firewall .
the charging system is factory 1983 ford e350 and thats what i wanted just because all ive ever done is gm one wire , its like 60 amps ? and ran by a voltage regulator also mounted on the firewall .
ignition is a cheap ebay 460 hei dizzy with a accell icm
cooling system is a ebay 3 row radiator for a sn95 4.6 5 speed gt with dual fans , 1970 boss 429 lower radiator hose , factory 96 crown vic upper radiator hose cut in half with a dodge dakota inline radiator filler neck . overflow bottle is a amarula bottle in a custom mount .
the interior is completely gutted (not a single factory wire is left in the car anywhere)
dash is heavily heavily modified and in the progress of being finished as im shaving and smoothing it .
has a super simple and to the point wiring harness and the whole car is on one fuse super ghetto like until i get a painless harness (worth it now)
all the gauges are mechanical
has a trans cooler but its not hooked up yet
fiberglass racing seat on a custom slider
floor shifter out of a 1976 jaguar xj6l
air shocks
stock wheels out back with 235/75r15s , sn95 mustang wheels up front with tires way way to small (again now worth doing)
Front bumper is stock other then speed holes for air flow
has no more safety bumper inside of it nor a ac condenser
the fenders are hollow to save weight
it has no inner fenders
the firewall has been shaved
the front crossmember was almost cut completely out of the car and redesigned to allow the oil pan of the 385 series 460 to sit down where everything lives happy from engine mounting angle all the way back to driveshaft angle
that gave me the ability to use 1983 ford e350 rubber motor mounts and from there made custom motor mounts .
the engine is out of a motorhome and i went through it top to bottom , got the pleasant surprise of a decent size cam on first start up but ill get into that below .
it has the factory 4r70w transmission crossmember that i used to locate the c6 and based everything off of that , it goes down a custom driveshaft made by colorado driveshaft service down to the factory 8.8 rear end that is still 2.73 gears and open for now .
there is a 8 gallon fuel cell in the trunk along with a rear mounted battery , its 6an line all the way from the fuel cell down to a inline filter then to a bulkhead fitting that gets it out of the trunk where it runs down the frame and into a oldschool mechanical fuel pump and up to a edelbrock carb sitting on top of a 2 inch spacer for linkage clearance and a desperate attempt at intake volume . the battery is 0 gauge from the trunk all the way up to the ford starter relay thats mounted on the firewall .
the charging system is factory 1983 ford e350 and thats what i wanted just because all ive ever done is gm one wire , its like 60 amps ? and ran by a voltage regulator also mounted on the firewall .
ignition is a cheap ebay 460 hei dizzy with a accell icm
cooling system is a ebay 3 row radiator for a sn95 4.6 5 speed gt with dual fans , 1970 boss 429 lower radiator hose , factory 96 crown vic upper radiator hose cut in half with a dodge dakota inline radiator filler neck . overflow bottle is a amarula bottle in a custom mount .
the interior is completely gutted (not a single factory wire is left in the car anywhere)
dash is heavily heavily modified and in the progress of being finished as im shaving and smoothing it .
has a super simple and to the point wiring harness and the whole car is on one fuse super ghetto like until i get a painless harness (worth it now)
all the gauges are mechanical
has a trans cooler but its not hooked up yet
fiberglass racing seat on a custom slider
floor shifter out of a 1976 jaguar xj6l
air shocks
stock wheels out back with 235/75r15s , sn95 mustang wheels up front with tires way way to small (again now worth doing)
Build story
I didn't used to be the most pleasant person on earth and to be completely honest I'm still working on it, I have been homeless most of my life do to my poor choices until very recently (relatively speaking) and indeed I was homeless when I first saw my car and I could have never guessed what life had in store for us..... I was sitting at a friends house who had just refused me passage to stay the night at his house when another friend offered me residence for the evening. He'd be on his way shortly but I had to meet him outside the neighborhood, he and his wife picked me up in the vic.
I loved the color from day 1 and still do and i also thought it was cushy but the only things that really struck me was it wasn't the normal whale vic I had known about but an aero..... I thought it was atrociously ugly and it was down a cylinder bad enough that it would barely get out of it's own way. Months went on well I did my couch hopping and just being a general screw up , another night popped up where I was at his house... him and his wife had developed some relationship issues as I had (I was a relationship issue lol) so we found solace in being in the same head space at the same time and I kinda just never left.
His wife moved out of state and in an attempt to save his relationship he followed her BUT on his way out the door he asked me if i wanted to buy his car because he didn't want to take it. In an attempt to safe MY relationship I bought it for my significant other lol.
She HATED the car , hated everything about it and just generally hated me lol.
When she left she through the keys at me and said "now you can build it into a racecar like you want "
That was the last thing she literally ever told me ?
With my friend and his wife gone and my now ex gone it was just me and the car , I was able to finish his lease out with the agreement I'd clean the house for move out and I kept hush hush. I went to work (self employed mobile mechanic) and came home , I was extremely bitter and didn't want anything to do with anybody but there was 1 person that wouldn't leave me the hell alone....her name is Taylor, this women took me in...loved me, cared for me and I ignored her, left her on read for days and just didn't care....until she didn't care. -good feeling gone-
I worked my ass off to get her back and I've never looked back since , At the beginning of our relationship I'd sleep in the car outside of our apartment and was still struggling with letting go of my past and letting Taylor in. She still stayed, slowly I came around and then the day came where everything changed for her me and my car.... She hated HATED her job and I hated literally everything about my job aside from turning wrenches , much discussion led us to her quitting her job and taking over my business and becoming my boss.
that'll never change , shes the boss
She had and still has a dodge journey that we decided to move now her business into as it was overall more comfortable and overall more efficient and reliable .
The vic sat at the apartments untouched , undriven and unloved as we were fighting to get the title.... Although I had paid the car off in full my friends wife refused to send anyone the title on the simple premise she just didnt want to deal with anyone or anything anymore .
Months go by and we finally get the title , not going into how we got it lol.... I'll just say i got tired of waiting and may or may not have caused a scene at a steak house to acquire it .
Taylor has always been 100% supportive of my dreams no matter what they are even when I've been more unsure of myself then anything . I had it in the back of my head that i wanted a racecar so she said "then build one then...."
Well ok then
The first thing we did was pull the interior out and throw everything away besides the seats dash and door panels which immediately got me written up by the apartment complex ? , played with it that way for awhile including going out to the desert and rallying the f***out of it with taylor and scaring her shitless as I almost smacked a sign with all 4 wheels locked but I wanted more.... we also took it to rifle gap and the rifle falls fish hatchery , we brought it to denver on a rescue mission for another car but mainly it just sat at the house .
With her grandmas permission and interest in my project as well as not being able to work on it at home we moved it east and left it there well I worked on more ambitious goals . I wanted everything that didnt make the car run and drive gone , I wanted the battery mounted in the back and I wanted the inner fenders out . Idk why i like that look but i do lol. We ran the business mon-friday from fruita Colorado to glenwood Colorado with us living in parachute , wed be up at 5:30am and get home some time between 7-10pm .
Saturday one or both of us would go up to Taylor's grandmas to work on it , I figured it would only take me a month and it took me 4 months ? (waiting and having it sitting becomes the norm lol) At the end of it it was SUPER ghetto janky wired and hobbled together.... Power steering gone , emissions gone , ac gone , wiper fluid bottle gone , literally as gutted as you could get it and still run the factory computer as well as have heat and working windows .
I loved it ! So I thought....
I'd soon learn I'd created the stupidest thing on earth , come to find out power steering is nice for alot of reasons......
Lesson #1 consisted of me hitting a bridge expansion gap on a back road crossed up going way to fast , taylor following I get the car off the ground and when it comes down it decides its gonna take the wheel and I almost spun it out .
Lesson #2 when its literally freezing Armstronging a car when your dressed like the stay puff marshmallow man
Lesson #3 and Taylor's favorite, when you try to take your wife out to a nice dinner and it happens to be a touch more busy then you thought it would be in a tiny parking lot and you ABSOLUTELY MAKE A FOOL OF YOURSELF!
Wifes laughing like a hyena and I'm borderline rage quitting life......
Ya , I started to lose interest lol . We had it to the point where It would hit the speed limiter at 114mph so hard it was like someone shut the key off and slammed on the brakes but there was no more without getting stupid so it sat until we moved....
We used it one time in between the day we found the speed limiter and us moving but it was rarely ever driven , to busy and no interest .
3 weeks before we moved beds and ourselves we started running stuff up , on the first trip I found out my wife had acquired a birthday present.... not 1 but 2 ford motorhomes with 460s .
I was raised by my step dad and he taught me everything I know and set me down the path of automotive madness , I heard him and his friends my entire childhood talk about how theyd go pull a motorhome engine and stick it somewhere it didnt belong and I had always wanted to do it.
The next 3 weeks I started asking around and found out very quickly people hated the idea and I was told flat out it couldnt be done for 1000s of reasons , it got so bad I was being hazed for ruining the car and then wanting to further "ruin it" by attempting to put a motor in it , assuming I'd fail and another vic would go to scrap or a derby guy .
I listened to this for a very long time to the point where I just shut down , from the time I moved until about 7 months ago I went silent stuck my nose down and got to work .
First thing I did was get the garage clean and setup to be able to work on the car , once that was done it took me about 2 hours to have the motor and transmission out and the engine bay completely empty . Got my first look at the crossmember I'd be fighting with later , I set my mockup motor in the car with no oil pan and it fit fine but the main caps where literally sitting on the crossmember so that wasnt gonna work .
I got the idea in my head i wanted to use factory motor mounts so I tried those and that wasnt gonna work , they where short and didnt reach the crossmember and on top of that the crossmember was wavy and didnt have much flat surface to work with so....... i cut as much of it out as i felt was possible and still keep structural integrity then proceeded to flat plate it in , made a channel for the oil pan to sit in using a old bed frame (same thing the fuel cell is mounted with) .
We cut the mounting bolts off a old set of motor mounts , attached them to the mockup motor and put it back in . We spray painted around them to give me a guide on where to drill my holes for the new one , installed the new motor mounts and tried to drop the real engine in to find out it needed to go up 2 inches or so to clear everything and not be rubbing .
I took the factory clamshells and put them on the motor mounts , welded a plate to the back of them and made a plate to bolt to the engine . Lots of cutting trash pvc gave me the pieces I needed to match in steel tube , took some roll cage tubing and made the real pieces .
Weld them all together , add some braces and now its sitting on factory motor and transmission mounts the same exact way it was in the van .
Then it finally hit me just how many holes where in my firewall..... it was unacceptable and I've always wanted a shaved firewall so that's the first thing I went after , unfortunately I dont have many if any pictures of the process but it was a couple weeks of filling holes and body working it to get it straight .
When it was done I painted it black , wife and I both hated it... had no clue what color to paint it , didnt have a preference so i just started grabbing paint until i found one that hit .
Gloss cranberry , stole it from my wife and I'm absolutely in love with it .
With the firewall and front crossmember done I got a wild hair up my ass and decided to pull the body off the chassis , with a bunch of cinderblocks , 2x4s and a floor jack I went about removing the body and it stayed outside well the chassis went back inside .
It was at this point that i refreshed the actual 460 i wanted to run , replaced and cleaned literally everything except the long block .
We bought a ebay hei distributor and built a control panel on a dresser drawer , rolled it outside to find out the cylinder numbers and firing order are nothing I had literally ever seen before between that and a holley that refused to work I immediately caught this thing on fire . Frustrated I rolled it back in the garage and left it for a bit until my wife decided to be my fairy god mother and come in and redid the spark plug wires.... low and behold this thing finally fires after ten years of sitting .
Roll it outside and paint the chassis
Now it was time to put it back together , put the body back on the chassis and reassembled it . Wired it with the harness it still has and fired it as a car for the first time , I got back on social media to claim my crown and was greeted with the idea of starting a youtube channel so people could follow along .
I created my channel and dumped all the media I had onto it and have never looked back .
With the car in mockup the long road of making it function as a car began , first was the cooling system.....
The thermostat housing had to be shaved down so the hei could fit , inside it is a 160° thermostat because I dont want it getting hot hot . The thermostat housing sits above the radiator core support so I needed a inline radiator filler cap and a radiator without a filler cap , I didnt want anything I cant replace almost anywhere so after a couple of attempts we came up with dodge Dakota for the filler . The radiator is sn95 5 speed gt mustang , idk why but there inlets are opposite of the crown vic which matches the 460 .
The radiator came in and the upper mounts fit but not the lower mounts so I made new lower mounts .
The lower radiator hose in 1970 boss 429 mustang , you have to have a blow torch vaseline and a lot of patience to get it on but it fits . Upper house is crown vic cut in half flipped over , its shrouded with 2 electric fans and a factory water pump .
For a overflow bottle I wanted something rat rod ish , so I finished a bottle of amarula said fuck it and made a mount for it out of a metal ring , file , soup can and some cork .
Boom we have cooling , now let's prevent the lack of power steering I fought at dinner that one night...... I had a local hydraulic company make me a custom high pressure hose to go from the factory Saginaw 460 power steering pump to the factory crown vic steering box , put some heat wrap over it and ran a simple return .
Had no idea if it would work but it did so boom we have power steering that's light as a feather .
You sent Today at 10:12 AM
Next was figuring out how to get fuel to it , I waited for a fuel cell to come up second hand and with some patience a blue 8 gallon fuel cell came up I was able to trade for a antique oil lamp I paid like $35 for .
I used some old bed frame angle stock to make the mounts for it to sit in the trunk but be tall enough I feel gravity may be helping with head pressure to push fuel down the line , mainly for when it gets ran empty .
Had to get some an fittings and 25 feet of fuel line but we adapted the fuel sell to 6an then to 3/8 , ran it to a fuel filter , then a bulkhead fitting , down the frame into the fuel pump and up to the edlebrock carb I acquired 2nd hand as well . It sits on a 2 inch resin spacer and has a velocity stack air cleaner .
Boom fuel system is done , were getting closer but the next one got me for awhile . Let's get on that charging system , now... I could have done gm 1 wire but that's all I've done and I dont get to experience anything new .
So I said were going factory on that to , 1g alternator and the factory voltage regulator is the system I decided on . 2 alternators , many many wiring diagrams and 3 voltage regulators later I had a working charging system I'm extremely proud of .
Alright what's next.....
Throttle cable , stock crown vic with a custom mount and the end is cut off . I replaced it with a dune buggy universal end .
So sick
It now runs on it's own , starts on it's own , charges on it's own , feeds itself , cools , is easy to steer.......
Fuck yes
Then it died lol , couldnt figure it out and walked away in frustration . Upon my return to the project I put an accell icm in it and found the connectors not making a good connection.....
Good shes back to life
A whole bunch of life happened and it sat around for awhile , checked the oil on it one day to find it alllllll the way up the dipstick and it was mainly fuel.....
Guess who washed the cylinders when he killed the icm ? Ya it's a ye boi .
Changed the oil and oil filter , charged the battery and she was back and more ready then ever .
Then it was time for the final piece for first drive .
First I had to order a yoke , come to find out there not rare but not super common . From there it was a couple quick measurements and phone calls to find the best customer service and someone I could build a relationship with , that turned out to be colorado driveshaft service . That had my driveshaft done within 24 hours of my call and ready to pickup up a few days later when I had time .
Brought it home and it fit perfectly.
Before I forget , i pulled the floor shifter out of my jaguar and installed it . It has park to drive but not 1st or second which is fine .
Put it up on jack stands and started filling the trans , clicked it into gear and nothing.... burp the throttle and it moves , go to drive and same thing .
More atf and first drive , more atf and I took it out on the road for the first time in almost 2 years . Next day I added more atf and played with it some more lol .
Now i see yalls car show and you know i gotta get in on that , so all that leaves me with is making yall a video.... as for this all that's left is future plans I guess haha so let's finish this off , I hate typing and I wanna go play with the big block before it snows 2 feet this weekend and I'm stuck inside !
You sent Today at 10:35 AM
1st off , it needs a transmission kickdown cable . It is very confused , wont shift higher then 3200rpm and is very soft at that .
That alone will wake the car up , on top of that it's getting a new ignition system . I put copper plugs in it with the hei to see if it was a runner , clearly it is so now it's getting a super hei kit from msd with ngk platinum plugs .
Carb needs a tune up and I need a battery that doesnt die anytime it doesnt have a charging system on it .
We are keeping the 2.73 gears but are getting a mini spool and reseal the leaking rear diff cover .
Drilled and slotted rotors , new pads and calipers .
Wheels and tires
Cowl hood
Harness bar and harnesses
Flaming river steering column and a painless wiring harness
And anything else to put it back on the street and be able to enjoy it , 83% of the time I've had it it hasnt ran so we are extremely happy with it as is .
im sure ive forgetten more then i remembered but it was fun none the less , thank you and god bless !
I loved the color from day 1 and still do and i also thought it was cushy but the only things that really struck me was it wasn't the normal whale vic I had known about but an aero..... I thought it was atrociously ugly and it was down a cylinder bad enough that it would barely get out of it's own way. Months went on well I did my couch hopping and just being a general screw up , another night popped up where I was at his house... him and his wife had developed some relationship issues as I had (I was a relationship issue lol) so we found solace in being in the same head space at the same time and I kinda just never left.
His wife moved out of state and in an attempt to save his relationship he followed her BUT on his way out the door he asked me if i wanted to buy his car because he didn't want to take it. In an attempt to safe MY relationship I bought it for my significant other lol.
She HATED the car , hated everything about it and just generally hated me lol.
When she left she through the keys at me and said "now you can build it into a racecar like you want "
That was the last thing she literally ever told me ?
With my friend and his wife gone and my now ex gone it was just me and the car , I was able to finish his lease out with the agreement I'd clean the house for move out and I kept hush hush. I went to work (self employed mobile mechanic) and came home , I was extremely bitter and didn't want anything to do with anybody but there was 1 person that wouldn't leave me the hell alone....her name is Taylor, this women took me in...loved me, cared for me and I ignored her, left her on read for days and just didn't care....until she didn't care. -good feeling gone-
I worked my ass off to get her back and I've never looked back since , At the beginning of our relationship I'd sleep in the car outside of our apartment and was still struggling with letting go of my past and letting Taylor in. She still stayed, slowly I came around and then the day came where everything changed for her me and my car.... She hated HATED her job and I hated literally everything about my job aside from turning wrenches , much discussion led us to her quitting her job and taking over my business and becoming my boss.
that'll never change , shes the boss
She had and still has a dodge journey that we decided to move now her business into as it was overall more comfortable and overall more efficient and reliable .
The vic sat at the apartments untouched , undriven and unloved as we were fighting to get the title.... Although I had paid the car off in full my friends wife refused to send anyone the title on the simple premise she just didnt want to deal with anyone or anything anymore .
Months go by and we finally get the title , not going into how we got it lol.... I'll just say i got tired of waiting and may or may not have caused a scene at a steak house to acquire it .
Taylor has always been 100% supportive of my dreams no matter what they are even when I've been more unsure of myself then anything . I had it in the back of my head that i wanted a racecar so she said "then build one then...."
Well ok then
The first thing we did was pull the interior out and throw everything away besides the seats dash and door panels which immediately got me written up by the apartment complex ? , played with it that way for awhile including going out to the desert and rallying the f***out of it with taylor and scaring her shitless as I almost smacked a sign with all 4 wheels locked but I wanted more.... we also took it to rifle gap and the rifle falls fish hatchery , we brought it to denver on a rescue mission for another car but mainly it just sat at the house .
With her grandmas permission and interest in my project as well as not being able to work on it at home we moved it east and left it there well I worked on more ambitious goals . I wanted everything that didnt make the car run and drive gone , I wanted the battery mounted in the back and I wanted the inner fenders out . Idk why i like that look but i do lol. We ran the business mon-friday from fruita Colorado to glenwood Colorado with us living in parachute , wed be up at 5:30am and get home some time between 7-10pm .
Saturday one or both of us would go up to Taylor's grandmas to work on it , I figured it would only take me a month and it took me 4 months ? (waiting and having it sitting becomes the norm lol) At the end of it it was SUPER ghetto janky wired and hobbled together.... Power steering gone , emissions gone , ac gone , wiper fluid bottle gone , literally as gutted as you could get it and still run the factory computer as well as have heat and working windows .
I loved it ! So I thought....
I'd soon learn I'd created the stupidest thing on earth , come to find out power steering is nice for alot of reasons......
Lesson #1 consisted of me hitting a bridge expansion gap on a back road crossed up going way to fast , taylor following I get the car off the ground and when it comes down it decides its gonna take the wheel and I almost spun it out .
Lesson #2 when its literally freezing Armstronging a car when your dressed like the stay puff marshmallow man
Lesson #3 and Taylor's favorite, when you try to take your wife out to a nice dinner and it happens to be a touch more busy then you thought it would be in a tiny parking lot and you ABSOLUTELY MAKE A FOOL OF YOURSELF!
Wifes laughing like a hyena and I'm borderline rage quitting life......
Ya , I started to lose interest lol . We had it to the point where It would hit the speed limiter at 114mph so hard it was like someone shut the key off and slammed on the brakes but there was no more without getting stupid so it sat until we moved....
We used it one time in between the day we found the speed limiter and us moving but it was rarely ever driven , to busy and no interest .
3 weeks before we moved beds and ourselves we started running stuff up , on the first trip I found out my wife had acquired a birthday present.... not 1 but 2 ford motorhomes with 460s .
I was raised by my step dad and he taught me everything I know and set me down the path of automotive madness , I heard him and his friends my entire childhood talk about how theyd go pull a motorhome engine and stick it somewhere it didnt belong and I had always wanted to do it.
The next 3 weeks I started asking around and found out very quickly people hated the idea and I was told flat out it couldnt be done for 1000s of reasons , it got so bad I was being hazed for ruining the car and then wanting to further "ruin it" by attempting to put a motor in it , assuming I'd fail and another vic would go to scrap or a derby guy .
I listened to this for a very long time to the point where I just shut down , from the time I moved until about 7 months ago I went silent stuck my nose down and got to work .
First thing I did was get the garage clean and setup to be able to work on the car , once that was done it took me about 2 hours to have the motor and transmission out and the engine bay completely empty . Got my first look at the crossmember I'd be fighting with later , I set my mockup motor in the car with no oil pan and it fit fine but the main caps where literally sitting on the crossmember so that wasnt gonna work .
I got the idea in my head i wanted to use factory motor mounts so I tried those and that wasnt gonna work , they where short and didnt reach the crossmember and on top of that the crossmember was wavy and didnt have much flat surface to work with so....... i cut as much of it out as i felt was possible and still keep structural integrity then proceeded to flat plate it in , made a channel for the oil pan to sit in using a old bed frame (same thing the fuel cell is mounted with) .
We cut the mounting bolts off a old set of motor mounts , attached them to the mockup motor and put it back in . We spray painted around them to give me a guide on where to drill my holes for the new one , installed the new motor mounts and tried to drop the real engine in to find out it needed to go up 2 inches or so to clear everything and not be rubbing .
I took the factory clamshells and put them on the motor mounts , welded a plate to the back of them and made a plate to bolt to the engine . Lots of cutting trash pvc gave me the pieces I needed to match in steel tube , took some roll cage tubing and made the real pieces .
Weld them all together , add some braces and now its sitting on factory motor and transmission mounts the same exact way it was in the van .
Then it finally hit me just how many holes where in my firewall..... it was unacceptable and I've always wanted a shaved firewall so that's the first thing I went after , unfortunately I dont have many if any pictures of the process but it was a couple weeks of filling holes and body working it to get it straight .
When it was done I painted it black , wife and I both hated it... had no clue what color to paint it , didnt have a preference so i just started grabbing paint until i found one that hit .
Gloss cranberry , stole it from my wife and I'm absolutely in love with it .
With the firewall and front crossmember done I got a wild hair up my ass and decided to pull the body off the chassis , with a bunch of cinderblocks , 2x4s and a floor jack I went about removing the body and it stayed outside well the chassis went back inside .
It was at this point that i refreshed the actual 460 i wanted to run , replaced and cleaned literally everything except the long block .
We bought a ebay hei distributor and built a control panel on a dresser drawer , rolled it outside to find out the cylinder numbers and firing order are nothing I had literally ever seen before between that and a holley that refused to work I immediately caught this thing on fire . Frustrated I rolled it back in the garage and left it for a bit until my wife decided to be my fairy god mother and come in and redid the spark plug wires.... low and behold this thing finally fires after ten years of sitting .
Roll it outside and paint the chassis
Now it was time to put it back together , put the body back on the chassis and reassembled it . Wired it with the harness it still has and fired it as a car for the first time , I got back on social media to claim my crown and was greeted with the idea of starting a youtube channel so people could follow along .
I created my channel and dumped all the media I had onto it and have never looked back .
With the car in mockup the long road of making it function as a car began , first was the cooling system.....
The thermostat housing had to be shaved down so the hei could fit , inside it is a 160° thermostat because I dont want it getting hot hot . The thermostat housing sits above the radiator core support so I needed a inline radiator filler cap and a radiator without a filler cap , I didnt want anything I cant replace almost anywhere so after a couple of attempts we came up with dodge Dakota for the filler . The radiator is sn95 5 speed gt mustang , idk why but there inlets are opposite of the crown vic which matches the 460 .
The radiator came in and the upper mounts fit but not the lower mounts so I made new lower mounts .
The lower radiator hose in 1970 boss 429 mustang , you have to have a blow torch vaseline and a lot of patience to get it on but it fits . Upper house is crown vic cut in half flipped over , its shrouded with 2 electric fans and a factory water pump .
For a overflow bottle I wanted something rat rod ish , so I finished a bottle of amarula said fuck it and made a mount for it out of a metal ring , file , soup can and some cork .
Boom we have cooling , now let's prevent the lack of power steering I fought at dinner that one night...... I had a local hydraulic company make me a custom high pressure hose to go from the factory Saginaw 460 power steering pump to the factory crown vic steering box , put some heat wrap over it and ran a simple return .
Had no idea if it would work but it did so boom we have power steering that's light as a feather .
You sent Today at 10:12 AM
Next was figuring out how to get fuel to it , I waited for a fuel cell to come up second hand and with some patience a blue 8 gallon fuel cell came up I was able to trade for a antique oil lamp I paid like $35 for .
I used some old bed frame angle stock to make the mounts for it to sit in the trunk but be tall enough I feel gravity may be helping with head pressure to push fuel down the line , mainly for when it gets ran empty .
Had to get some an fittings and 25 feet of fuel line but we adapted the fuel sell to 6an then to 3/8 , ran it to a fuel filter , then a bulkhead fitting , down the frame into the fuel pump and up to the edlebrock carb I acquired 2nd hand as well . It sits on a 2 inch resin spacer and has a velocity stack air cleaner .
Boom fuel system is done , were getting closer but the next one got me for awhile . Let's get on that charging system , now... I could have done gm 1 wire but that's all I've done and I dont get to experience anything new .
So I said were going factory on that to , 1g alternator and the factory voltage regulator is the system I decided on . 2 alternators , many many wiring diagrams and 3 voltage regulators later I had a working charging system I'm extremely proud of .
Alright what's next.....
Throttle cable , stock crown vic with a custom mount and the end is cut off . I replaced it with a dune buggy universal end .
So sick
It now runs on it's own , starts on it's own , charges on it's own , feeds itself , cools , is easy to steer.......
Fuck yes
Then it died lol , couldnt figure it out and walked away in frustration . Upon my return to the project I put an accell icm in it and found the connectors not making a good connection.....
Good shes back to life
A whole bunch of life happened and it sat around for awhile , checked the oil on it one day to find it alllllll the way up the dipstick and it was mainly fuel.....
Guess who washed the cylinders when he killed the icm ? Ya it's a ye boi .
Changed the oil and oil filter , charged the battery and she was back and more ready then ever .
Then it was time for the final piece for first drive .
First I had to order a yoke , come to find out there not rare but not super common . From there it was a couple quick measurements and phone calls to find the best customer service and someone I could build a relationship with , that turned out to be colorado driveshaft service . That had my driveshaft done within 24 hours of my call and ready to pickup up a few days later when I had time .
Brought it home and it fit perfectly.
Before I forget , i pulled the floor shifter out of my jaguar and installed it . It has park to drive but not 1st or second which is fine .
Put it up on jack stands and started filling the trans , clicked it into gear and nothing.... burp the throttle and it moves , go to drive and same thing .
More atf and first drive , more atf and I took it out on the road for the first time in almost 2 years . Next day I added more atf and played with it some more lol .
Now i see yalls car show and you know i gotta get in on that , so all that leaves me with is making yall a video.... as for this all that's left is future plans I guess haha so let's finish this off , I hate typing and I wanna go play with the big block before it snows 2 feet this weekend and I'm stuck inside !
You sent Today at 10:35 AM
1st off , it needs a transmission kickdown cable . It is very confused , wont shift higher then 3200rpm and is very soft at that .
That alone will wake the car up , on top of that it's getting a new ignition system . I put copper plugs in it with the hei to see if it was a runner , clearly it is so now it's getting a super hei kit from msd with ngk platinum plugs .
Carb needs a tune up and I need a battery that doesnt die anytime it doesnt have a charging system on it .
We are keeping the 2.73 gears but are getting a mini spool and reseal the leaking rear diff cover .
Drilled and slotted rotors , new pads and calipers .
Wheels and tires
Cowl hood
Harness bar and harnesses
Flaming river steering column and a painless wiring harness
And anything else to put it back on the street and be able to enjoy it , 83% of the time I've had it it hasnt ran so we are extremely happy with it as is .
im sure ive forgetten more then i remembered but it was fun none the less , thank you and god bless !