F-100 Crown Vic Swap

HARD WORK EARNS BIG REWARDS

Hard Work Earns Big Rewards

PROJECT TRUE BLUE, OUR 1963 FORD F-100 UNIBODY, NEEDED A NEW LEASE ON LIFE. If you’ve been following along in the previous issues of F-100 Builder’s Guide, you know that we decided to breathe new life into our clapped out and rusted Uni by way of a full Crown Vic makeover. For the new readers here, we’re smack dab in the middle of doing a “body swap.” Taking this worn out ’63 F-100 that would usually just be junked or be a parts truck, we’re now mating it to a 2008 Crown Vic Police Interceptor rolling chassis to give True Blue a second shot at road duties.

Since the last update, we took a trip on over to I95 Motorsports to get the F-100 merged to the CVPI. First thing we did was get it into the shop and on the lift, and then we proceeded to remove the body from the factory frame. Once the frame was out, it was time for the real fun. We supported the truck on boat stands as well as the lift to be extra safe. Solomon from Unibody Union has done this swap before with I95 Motorsports on Project Black Sheep. So, they already had a leg up on where to cut on the F-100. The plan was executed using cutoff wheels, Sawzall and a plasma cutter depending on the cuts/area needed. They made quick work of removing the old rusted out firewall, cab floor and bed floor.

Once the truck body was all cut out, some final trimming was made to the Vic. The sides of the firewall were thinned, and the front and rear frame rails were shortened. It was now time to test fit the body of the F-100 to the new floor and chassis. Remarkably, it fits without too much trouble. Some final cutting was necessary, and it was sitting in place where it needed to be mounted.

Kenny at I95 Motorsports started with creating a 2x2 brace that will hold the center of the Unibody; since there is no rear cab mounts or front bed mounts, this will become that mount and offer more body structure. For the front and rear body mounts, Kenny fabricated some mounts in place on the F-100 and then welded them in place.

At this point, the truck was considered done for the work needed by I95 Motorsports, and Solomon can get the rest finished out over time.

To follow along on this build in between issues you can follow @ Unibodyunion on Instagram or search the #Truebluef100 hashtag. Until next time!

01 Here’s what we’re working with here. Now you see why this one needed some major saving.

06 We setup the CVPI roller so we could easily get measurements off the Crown Vic as we cut, cut, cut.

07 With precision we removed the entire firewall and floor from the F-100.

03A closer look at the battle we were up against.

02 We made quick work and got what’s left of the F-100 body unbolted from the frame.

04 LEFT. Next, we got the truck on the lift but set it on its own weight using boat stands so it was secured for what came next.

05 RIGHT. Solomon got dirty for once and dug in to cut the firewall.

13 After our cuts, here’s how the Crown Vic frame, firewall and floor looked.

08 Now the true test! We test fit the F-100 to the Vic to see what still needed final snipping.

09 We still had to cut a little more off the Crown Vic firewall to make it slide into its new home.

11 Kenny from I95 Motorsports cutting out the bed floor. The entire bed floor was cut out, but the factory tubs were left in place.

12 You can see we still have quite a bit more rust to work with.

10 1The Vic frame also had to get shortened up a bit.

16 Kenny built and mated some custom front body mounts for the F-100 to adapt to the Vic chassis.

14 The initial fit of the truck to the Crown Vic chassis went pretty smooth all things considered.

15 We welded in some 2x2 tubing as a mid-brace in the F-100 Unibody bed for more support and mounts.

17 True Blue is now a roller! The truck is fully mounted on the frame, she still needs a lot of sheet metal love but she’s now ready for the crosscountry trek to Norcal. Stay tuned!