!

[island45]

Yes I cut up my beloved '79 fj 55 I have had since '85. I love the chassis and all 4 of my kids learned to drive in it. The body was toast thanks to trips into the mountains of BC and their love of road salt. Years of thought and perhaps 20 years of old 'jailbar' ford trucks which are '42-'47 has prompted me to re-body my strong running 55 into a island running 'old truck'. I may lengthen the frame to 114" wheelbase so I can utilize a stock cab and 1/2 ton bed, but for now I'm working out the sheet metal geometry with a factory ford cowl I happened to have. Once I have thje sheet metal alignment worked out I will decide what becomes of the back half

 

[PabloCruise]

Should be cool!
I sure wish UPS hadn't lost your grill...

 

[scrapdaddy]

Awesome!

 

[island45]

We need to get to the bottom of that grill thing. I will bug UPS some more this week. I have a bunch of odds and ends still. Some, like pedals and other mechanical stuff will go into this build.

 

[island45]

Well I got a bit further today. I have a nicer grill/center section, but this one was hanging on a nail and easy to get at. The good one is still bolted onto a parts truck with 70 year old rusty bolts. This part confirmed that all will line up and should work. Crazy how crooked these engines are mounted in the frame. The ford bumper and brackets will bolt to the outside of the cruiser's boxed frame and come out right in the center of the cut-outs in the ford grille section. Weird. Just like both steering column tubes being exactly 1.50". The 55s column will pass right through the ford mount under the dash, and the U-joints and splines should make alignment an easy task.

 

[island45]

Not really sure why the title of this thread is (!)... I guess I didn't pick one. I found a great hood in my ford junkyard this morning but it was missing the hood spear trim. Then I found a good front bumper and some nice hood spears. I ended up getting them both, but ran out of atcetylene cutting the bumper bolts off. Now I have all the parts in front of the '55'. Here's the hood before today's harvest.