WhitsEnd Transformation

[popeyes71]

Yeah, funny thing about gravity! Great to see you back up and moving on your project! Looking forward to seeing progress on your truck.

[WhitsEnd]

Got home today and this was leaning against the garage...






and look what I found inside!




Switch to automatic is driving the need. I'm adding an external cooler as well, but wanted the added cooling as well as initial warm up help. Original radiator didn't have leaks, but there are coolant stains on it and it has a very low pressure cap. This makes me wonder why the previous owner added such a low pressure cap.
Anyway, a 47 year old radiator is not what I want to be relying on.

I like the KKS unit because they use formed tanks that look more OEM. I'll paint the tanks and brackets black and leave the fins natural.

[WhitsEnd]

Parts are still rolling in. Motor mounts for the FE to bolt into the Crown Vic sub showed up at my doorstep today!!
I decided to buy them because I don't think I could have engineered a better component and certainly would have had more time in them than the cost of these.

[WhitsEnd]

Hard to make a lot of progress when I only have a couple hours at a time to work at it. Luckily, pulling the motor gives the illusion of accomplishment.

[Manny]

Very nice and those are some pretty mounts.

[WhitsEnd]

Very nice and those are some pretty mounts.

Thanks Manny. They're from Outcast Autoworks
https://www.outcastautoworks.com/produc ... -mount-set

I don't recall ever seeing them used on this site, which is shocking because they are specifically for Crown Victoria subframes. He has them available for other engines too. I just did a Google search for FE engine mounts for a Crown Vic and starting looking at images. He's a good guy to talk to as well. If you look at the mounts, there are areas that aren't welded. An engineer's eye will see they are welded where they need to be with nothing beyond that. Well engineered.

[Manny]

They hopefully work as good as they look! Some nice fab work in them. Cool your keeping the FE on the crown vic frame. Whats your plans for the motor?

[WhitsEnd]

The truck will be my daughter's vehicle until she finishes high school, so I'm not going too radical at the moment. I want it to be stone reliable, so I'm doing a stockish rebuild and adding EFI. However, after that I'm either dropping in the 535hp 428 that's in my Cyclone GT or stroking the 360 with BBM or Edelbrock heads.
It will remain on truck duty, since I have other toys.

[Manny]

Very cool wanted to build a 445 or 410 for the highboy....... but a dove 429 with dove heads and a zf5 overdrive fell in my lap. Envious of the monster fe power but got a good deal. You thinking like fi tech??

[WhitsEnd]

This weekend's goal was to get the original front end out from under this thing. I have a local guy I found on Craigslist that has an automatic steering column. I told him he can have all the heavy steel scrap in exchange for the auto column.

First, the stuff that comes off with bolts...

[WhitsEnd]

Fired up the plasma cutter, got the fire extinguisher close by and away we went. "WE" means myself and my 15 year old daughter. I taught her for a bit and then handed over the reins.

[WhitsEnd]

Don't worry, I've got measurements. I didn't weld a temp crossmember in because I wanted the access while cutting.

[WhitsEnd]

Here's Ellen (15) cutting out the original crossmember

[WhitsEnd]

If you look closely at that last pic, you'll make out a pair of mini Vise Grips clamped behind my daughter's head.

I gave her my leather apron and told her to tuck her feet back in case any molten drops wanted to seek out her toes. The apron is huge, so the shoulder straps had to be pulled up and clamped together to keep the apron high in front.

She did great.

[Manny]

If you look closely at that last pic, you'll make out a pair of mini Vise Grips clamped behind my daughter's head.

I gave her my leather apron and told her to tuck her feet back in case any molten drops wanted to seek out her toes. The apron is huge, so the shoulder straps had to be pulled up and clamped together to keep the apron high in front.

She did great.

Thats great having fun on a project and getting the family into it too. Also good your teaching her the safe way to do it right. I learned via "Bet you wont try that again!" Great stuff close to vici front end!