The Bandits 72

[The Bandit]

Thought I would post a little comparison photo to show the difference in the wiring harness after it's all thinned out.
I'm hoping to hook it all back up and see if the motor spins over or not tomorrow.

Now I need to turn my attention to the rear mounts for the lower control arms on the front.

[Ohiotinkerer]

You're the man - I'm not brave enough to tackle that - wiring has ever been a good experience for me.......

What are you doing for your control arm mounts? I ordered a set of these......

https://www.outcastautoworks.com/produc ... arm-mounts

I was going to go with the weld on plates until I saw these - you'll have to call Kyle and leave a message and he will call you back to order them since they are on backorder but I haven't heard a bad thing about them - it's about a 3 week wait for them is the only drawback if you need them now and he will be upfront with you on that!

Also meant to ask you what thickness plate did you use to box the frame for the CV swap?

[The Bandit]

I used 3/16in steel to box in the frame up front and probably went a little over board with ow far i boxed it in but it's what I wanted.
I'm sure it works and I almost settled on doing the plates but I really didn't want to cut and rotate the bushing in it's sleeve and then weld it back and have that much heat so close to the rubber bushing.
Thanks for posting those I haven't seen those yet. Is that price for the pair or each? I have started on my own little setup and it's really not to far off from what he has there.
I'm going to check with a guy I know and see if he will cut these on his plasma table out of 1/4in steel.

[Ohiotinkerer]

That's the price per pair on them - I thought about making my own also since the weld/fab dept foreman is a friend of mine and makes me anything I need on the laser we have but I'm not gonna be putting my CV front in for a while so I decided to go with theirs that way I wasnt having to find someone to do them when I'm ready to do it........

[The Bandit]

That's the price per pair on them - I thought about making my own also since the weld/fab dept foreman is a friend of mine and makes me anything I need on the laser we have but I'm not gonna be putting my CV front in for a while so I decided to go with theirs that way I wasnt having to find someone to do them when I'm ready to do it........

I got to speak with Kyle for a bit the other day and he is getting ready to make a move to another state and is trying to complete the orders he has and didn't really want to take on anymore right now because he wasn't to sure when he could fill the order by but was more than happy to let me pick his brain on why he did his the way he did them. Super nice guy!! If and when I do another truck like this I will certainly be hitting him up for the parts that I need to get it completed but for now I will proceed with making my own.
I decided to just cut these out the hard way myself yesterday with my angle grinder with a cutoff wheel and a hole saw in my drill press and then start piecing them together. Only took me a couple hours to get this far with both of them so it wasn't bad at all.
Think I will finish up welding them today and get the holes drilled in them to mount them in place. Next on the list is either finding bushings to fit or just making my own for them.

[Ohiotinkerer]

Those look really good - really close to the ones I bought! I just got the postal notification that mine are on the way so I should have them by the end of the week....... .......on your bushings you could do like I did for my inner control arm bushings on the TBird IRS and get some Delrin round stock and turn and sleeve them - it machines out really nice and saved me some major $$$$$........there's a pic of them on my project thread......

And you're right about Kyle......super nice guy......

[hfdco4]

Very impressive freehand work Bandit!

[The Bandit]

Very impressive freehand work Bandit!

Thank you sir! I must admit though I cheated a bit.. I cut out test pieces from some 1/4in plywood I had here with my cnc wood router and then glued them together and tested them first. Prototype I guess you could say.

With all the time I've had in the wiring harness deleting this and tracing this wire back to see what it went to and reading and following diagrams to see what wire does what it ALL paid off to night!! I've been working on wiring in the original switch from my truck so I could use it to start the truck and got everything plugged back in to all components and decided to drag the crown vic fuel tank back it to see if the fuel pump would prime and with the first turn of the switch I got to hear that awesome sound. I had a running fuel pump ready to prime something. Also with that try I heard all kinds of electronics starting up and the throttle blade centering its self so I hooked up the pedal to it and sure enough it works as well!!
Next I decided to see if I could get it to spin the motor over so one the very first try.............nothing happened... Check power to relay and all is good there Check wiring diagram again for the 159999th time and followed all wires out again for it and all wiring was there and waiting...
Oh wait a minute I said is the trans in park or neutral??? and it was... well shoot. I messed with it for a couple hours and followed the wiring all out again on the diagrams so I could check to see if I had power passing through the NSS on the trans and I got to pull the connector off the trans and the dang thing wasn't plugged in all the way. pushed it in and gave it one more try with the switch and she tried to fire right up!!!
Must have been some fuel sitting if the fuel lines as there are no fuel lines what so ever hooked to anything...

Anyway long story short IT WILL RUN!!! and that gives me motivation to get moving on this project!

[sargentrs]

Impressive! Congratulations!

[hfdco4]

[The Bandit]

Those look really good - really close to the ones I bought! I just got the postal notification that mine are on the way so I should have them by the end of the week....... .......on your bushings you could do like I did for my inner control arm bushings on the TBird IRS and get some Delrin round stock and turn and sleeve them - it machines out really nice and saved me some major $$$$$........there's a pic of them on my project thread......

And you're right about Kyle......super nice guy......

Great Idea on the delrin round stock! I read that over in your thread about using the round stock and managed to find some that is 2" and have it coming to me now. It should be here tomorrow sometime and then I can get to work on that next and be done with this little project.

[The Bandit]

Finally got the delrin round stock material in for my control arm bushings so I could get them made. But seeing now I do not have access to a lathe to turn these down I decide to see if I could make them with my cnc router I use for some wood working projects. I use Fusion 360 for all my cad things and to write the Gcode for the router so it's pretty easy to come up with something simple to do this. I put on my cheap router and holder and loaded the code in to the cnc program and let it work. I had it bore the center hole first and then had it set up like a tool change so I could remove the clamps and fastened the part down through the center hole so it could machine the outside.
Here are my results. I think they will work just fine.

[Ohiotinkerer]

Nice job on them..... .......router was good alternative way of doing them! One thing on the delrin is you'll have to grease them or they might squeak some - I'll let you know what to use on them as soon as I remember what I did with the paper i had it written down on............

[The Bandit]

Nice job on them..... .......router was good alternative way of doing them! One thing on the delrin is you'll have to grease them or they might squeak some - I'll let you know what to use on them as soon as I remember what I did with the paper i had it written down on............

I try to always make use of what I have on hand and it gets me by most of the time.
Thanks for the heads up on the possible squeaking as it would have driven my crazy looking for it for sure. I have a ton of the grease that you get when you buy the poly bushings for like my mustang I betting that would be a great grease to use on these.

I got to work on the truck today some and was able to get them all welded up and test fitted on the frame now to just finish up with drilling all of the mounting holes for them. I'll have pictures of them probably on monday installed on the frame.
Thursday I finally tracked down a fuel tank that I'm going to use in the back of the frame and ordered it. It and the sending unit and the fuel pump assembly will be here on monday so I should be able to test fit it i. the frame rails.

[hfdco4]

Very resourceful of yourself!