Poor Man’s RZR build

[fordpickupman]

Well, I got busy and haven’t made anymore progress on the bed cage.
however we started to get winter today and my road drifted shut. I had about 20’ more to go and I would have been out of the deep section. I had to let off as the wind was blowing the snow from the wheel well onto the windshield in quantities like a snowblower and I couldn’t see if I was still on the road. When I slowed up progress stopped and I was stuck.

 

[fordpickupman]

Well, almost a year ago, the heads lifted on the 4.0. Poor thing had been slowly burning water for the entire time I have owned it.

So, to fix it properly, I swapped in a 5.0 4r70 out of a rolled early Mountaineer I had picked up just for this purpose and had stashed for a couple years. Mucho thanks to 410Fortune for all the priceless morsels of info I needed to complete this swap. Ford should have built them this way.

 

[fordpickupman]

The hearts

 

[dvdswan]

Awesome build. I do have to say I like the 71 better.

 

[fordpickupman]

I tried really hard to use the cast Explorer oil pan. Everyone was correct, it won't fit. I moved the engine back as far as I could and wanted it low. The humps and bumps in the pan will not clear the TTB crossmember and pivot mount. I trimmed the pivot and eventually cut it off and the pan still fought me. Just order the fox body pan kit from Summit.
The fox body headers fit with some smashing a couple tubes to clear on the steering shaft and trimming the upper frame flange on the passengers side.
I replaced the steering box joint with a smaller one from Summit.

 

[410Fortune]

Good info there for ttb trucks
Plan was for me to perform the wiring and we were going to do some horse trading well turns out we couldn’t get on same page (8 hour drive) and so he just did the wiring with the info I guided him through
Awesome truck! Every Gen 1 needs a sbf and 4r70w

 

[fordpickupman]

I freshened the 5.0 before I stuck it in the hole.
New bearing, moly rings, and flipped the pistons/rods and a mustang gt cam.
It runs quite a bit better than my bride's '01 5.0 sploder.

 

[fordpickupman]

I also ported the heads and upgraded the valvesprings.
Oh
And a Jmod stage 3 valvebody out of a crown Vic.

 

[Josh P]

So, to fix it properly, I swapped in a 5.0 4r70

I like your style! Nice work.

 

[fordpickupman]

Yeah, I try to "fix" things better than stock. It even gained fuel mileage.

 

[410Fortune]

Please educate us on the rod and piston flip setup

 

[fordpickupman]

It's an old poor man's HotRod trick.
The piston pins are offset in the pistons. So if you swap sides and rotate them it increases the stroke and compression.

 

[fordpickupman]

NeoMustangs on YouTube has a decent video on it.

 

[fordpickupman]

It pulls 37s w 4.88s like they are 35s

 

[fordpickupman]

The 4r70 has a much better 1st gear than the a4Ld does. Love it.

 

[fordpickupman]

This thing is my winter weather driver so I can save my '71 from the salt. I finally got tired of trying to hook things to the roof.

So I've started the roof rack cage project. The easy part is almost finished.

The cross bars should line up with where the verts for the cage should protrude through the roof.

 

[410Fortune]

Sweet!!
Anything to help that *****in 71

 

[Fix4Dirt]

We had a blast at KOH19. We watched some of the racing, cruised around looking at some of the cool builds, and hit the trails. The sploder earned some rock rash and in my opinion performed well considering what it is. The Saginaw pump died near the end of Claw Hammer. Armstrong steering is a bummer in the rocks. It never moaned once.

We had a good time. The 20 drive was a bit of a haul.

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you can tow with a cruise america?

 

[fordpickupman]

you can tow with a cruise america?

You pay extra for them to open the hitch up. We may have far exceeded the suggested gvw.

 

[Fix4Dirt]

You pay extra for them to open the hitch up. We may have far exceeded the suggested gvw.

10-4. I knew you could tow but i heard the limit was 2k. Clearly its *capable* of much more haha