Six month update

I've been driving this thing for six months now, racking up a little over 6,000 miles, and figured it's long overdue for an update.
Lots of little details have been taken care of since my last post- Carpet is in, windows & door locks working good, wiring has been cleaned up, the cutout in the bed floor covered, some of the body work on the bed & a cab corner are done (thanks to Troy), exhaust has been through several iterations, and I even entered it in a car show and received an award!  Here's a few pictures I've taken along the way...

Drove in the Paddy Hough Parade with the Slo Poks 

Took a little time off my project to give Troy a hand building his own "Cruck", which is what we've taken to calling these Crown Victoria trucks.  His is a '66 F100 on an '05 Police Interceptor frame.  

Got a new engine cover, added trim rings and center caps to the stock Vic steel wheels

Went to the Portland Transmission Warehouse show, Troy's truck made it's first appearance as well

Picked up a different steering wheel at the Portland Swap Meet, I think it's a big improvement

Threw in a temporary wood cover in the bed to keep things from falling out 

Went to a Slo Poks Alley at Troy's, showed the truck off to a few guys that were interested in the details

Crystal & I took the truck to the Clatskanie Cruisers annual car show.  It was a great show, I plan to go again.  I even won an under construction award, sponsored by the Clatstkanie Volunteer Firefighters Association

Troy helped me out with a cab corner and started body work on the front passenger side of the bed

I installed rear air suspension out of a civilian Crown Vic (police models have extra stiff springs in the rear).  I don't have it set up to go up and down quickly, but it does allow me to adjust the ride height as needed.  There's quite a bit of travel.

I also cut the front springs down a bit since the police cars sit higher than normal, and swapped out the chrome center caps for some chrome lug nuts.  I don't have a lot of wheel options and the tires are good, so I'm trying to do what I can to make them look decent.

Made a quick video to show the new ride height

I also took the truck on it's first big road trip, but I'll save that for the next post...

Taillights, mirrors

Haven't posted much lately, been too busy driving it!  I have made a couple of minor improvements-  Replaced the mirrors, installed some '50 Pontiac style tails, tweaked the timing and shift points, rebuilt the passenger door internals so the window goes up and down... minor stuff.  Mostly I've just been out driving it and enjoying it.  Here's a few pictures for now.

'50 Pontiac tails

And here's the original tail light style, it's a big improvement

A picture from Red Door Meet in Portland

Went to Cars & Coffee with Troy & Wendy

And a picture from Dave, he had the cool bug parked next to me

Bed and Front Bumper Installation

Yesterday was the two month anniversary of this project, and boy was it a long day.  At this point I can officially call the swap complete... there's still body work left to do and other improvements to be made but everything is put back together solidly and I the two vehicles have been merged into one.  On to yesterday's accomplishments...
I met Troy at his work at 8:00.  First we got the bed up on a table and cut out a section for the rear end/gas tank hump:

Next came the task of widening the fenders.  We needed close to an inch on each side to allow for the wider track of the Crown Vic.  The stock fenders curve in towards the tire, we needed to make them more or less vertical.  I'll let the pictures do the talking here:

There will be some further welding and shaping needed later, but this gave the clearance needed.

After some test fits we figured out where to cut the rear frame off and build new frame pieces.  Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of the new rear section, but I will try to get under the truck and add them later.

This all took longer then expected, so I forgot to keep snapping pictures.  After the new frame section was built we test fit the bed, got it square and level, and fabricated mounts in the four corners.  The bed was bolted into place and Troy got to work fabricating a front bumper mount while I wired up the rear lighting.  We probably should have saved the bumper for another day, but we were getting so close to done we had to push on.  Finally, at 7:00 in the evening, it was all back together:

So happy with how it sits, this project has far exceeded my expectations.  It's amazing how far it has come in two months, and it never would have been possible without all of Troy Jackson's hard work, knowledge, and skilled fabrication.

Today I did tie up another loose end, mounting the Vic gauge cluster in the dash (it had just been sitting in there).  I trimmed the cluster down, cut out the stock dash bezel, put a thin sheet of lexan behind the bezel, then secured the cluster.

Maybe someday I'll get some retro styled gauges, but for now it gets the job done.

I also added an extra touch, just something to hint at what's going on underneath this old truck:

This is the Police Interceptor badge I hacked off the trunk of the donor car.
That's it for now, I will try to get a walk-around video up in the next few days and will continue to post when I have major changes to report.  But mostly I'm just going to get out there and drive it around every chance I get!
Feel free to ask questions or request pictures in the comments of any post and I will be happy to help.