if you dont mind me asking, why didnt you just get a 4x2 XLT with some Limited Slip so you wouldnt have much of a problem with any bad weather? if you were looking to lower a truck??? dont get me wrong but lowering a 4x4 isnt the best idea but do like how it turned out. well if you ever consider getting or trading let me know i would be glad to trade trucks i have been looking for a fx4 flareside, i have a xlt triton flareside and hope to put in a limited slip in after i am done with deployment

 

I wanted 4WD for the lower gear in the TC and the 4WD, I wanted the Scab for the room, and the wife picked this truck out after several weeks and probably near 200 trucks at every lot from Harrisonburg to Christiansburg to Lynchburg and Richmond and Lewisburg, WV. .... while I was staring at a beautiful "non dirt paint" orange looking Raptor. This was the only one she got excited about, it was one of four Flaresides we looked at (a silver one, a black one, a white one, this one).

I don't take you wrong, your just young and your ideas and mine simply differ. Lowering it just makes it better for the majority of my uses while not hurting it's capabilities for the rest of it. Enjoying a 4WDs benifits doesn't mean you should have to have a step ladder to get in and I don't care to hear loud tire roar and I got my fill of mudding back in the '70s (fun at first, but after awhile, it wasn't so much).

Besides, it wasn't that I wanted to lower a truck, had it been a 2WD likely wouldn't have thought of it. I just think these trucks look better on street tires if the tires are up in the fenders some and not showing all that space. OK for larger tires of an off road rig, but that ain't mine. Besides, the couple inches really make it a lot easier on the wife getting in and I find just a couple inches is like 3 or 4" less reach up over a side into the bed.

Thanks .... but I guess I'll keep her (the truck and the wife).

Thanks also for your service!

 

well your wife has great taste!!! as for the Raptor i love them but i think the truck is a lil bit of over kill but still a great! truck. I personally would rather just customize my own.

Either way raising or lowering or big M/T tires or street tires a flareside f-150 still looks great especially in red. This why i kinda upset that ford stop making flareside beds but what I would like to do is get the 2012 eco boost crew cab 6 ft bed and changed out my current bed with the eco boost bed

and no need to thank me for my service but i do appreciate it =)

I wanted to serve my country!!! RED,WHITE,BLUE!

 

morenorb



That's a sharp looking truck you got there.

All red and some chrome really go together. I somehow missed that you had a Flareside but the last post led me to look in your garage.

Prior to my '77 F150 4X4 in 1986, I had two Chevrolet PUs, a '70 and a '72. The '70 was a 8 foot bed regular cab Custom Sport Truck with a limited slip (posi, etc) and that truck had a HD tow package with big block 402 and it set up level, had good ground clearance. maybe someone before me changed frt springs? Anyway, it was 2WD and I had a set of deep lugged off road tires, about 11.00-15s or something like that, they were big for the day. It was a chore to keep clean being a black truck, but back then I was "much younger" and didn't mind and it saw more off roading than either of my Ford 4WD trucks later in life.

I've had police cars on worse roads in deeper slicker mudd than my trucks see. There wqs that time I pulled into a median to work radar one night late and didn't know they had hydroseeded it .... car sunk to where the bumpers were down in the mudd. Took a wrecker's cable to winch it out from the shoulder.

But point is 2WD, a set of good tires, a limited slip ... and some careful thought ... will do wonders.

 

Not much for lowered trucks, but yours looks good!

 

well thank you!!! i still have a lot of work on her, she is the only reason why i want to get this deployment done and over with ha good thing i dont have a gf or wife (yet) because i know she would be jealous of Peggy!!!

As for the chrome its a pain to keep clean(even if i like to keep her clean) especially the old rims i had(HUGE PAIN). Do you know if the paint is orginal from factory on your truck? If so have you ever noticed that at night the red doesn't look red at all??? really weird! one reason why i want to repaint with a red that stands out a lil more.

I hope your talking about a Crown Victoria especially the 70's ones. my first car was a LTD Crown Victoria 78 i loved that car, we drove that car threw hell and back but yeah your right about the set of good tires, I dont know much about limited slip but am trying to learn so I can pick out a good set(any suggestions)

 

Thanks!


My 2007 is original code E4 Vermillion Red (the red is NOT metalic) ...
... and code CX Dark Shadow Gray Metalic.
It looks "red" almost always but some certain lights at some gas stations / conv store canopies will give it an orange hue at times. Has to do with light wave length of different lights.

I wouldn't paint it to change that 'cause those lights might still have that effect on new paint.

A life long friend of mine once had a "Quesal Gold" 1971 Pontiac GTO, gorgeous car, fast, that was in early '70s. There was a certain station we would use out on Rt 29 and their lights really made it look like a different car, still beautiful, just not "gold". Looked greenish under those lights. That car was totally original, it was new even.

If I were installing a differential, I'ld look at a locker or selectable locker type (air or electric locker) maybe. I say that as most of my driving is on the road but I'ld be doing the rear for those times not on good road. There are instances where a locker can put you sideways on ice or etc, when it'ld be better without .... maybe break out chains or use studded tires. But I'm not in Nebraska.

I never had a '70s Crown Vic, had a '81 that was durable, but slow as crap. My first police car was a '78 Plymouth Gran Fury with 440, it was fast. My last three police cars were Crown Vics, totally different from that '81 with 351 VV 2bbl crap. "98, '00, '06 CVPIs. They would run rings around the '81.

A '78 CV likely had a 400 2bbl or 351 HO .... maybe with 4bbl. .... or was that '79? VSP bought only Plymouths from '67 thru 1980. Dumfries and PWCo PDs had them and going on a call, I'ld come up behind them in that '440 and they'ld be like poking along at 100. I'ld go by 30-40 faster at times on I-95 or 66.




It was lowered too, just backed the torsion bar bolts a couple rounds the day I graduated after a 2.5 hr drive home.
The rear was stock .... for some reason they came off the truck front end high? For 5 months of basic we did our daily runs right by our cars, I knew that front had to come down.

 

Just a follow up, I did get the front end alligned.
Camber was way off after lowering, way too much tilt in at top like about 1/2".
Toe was out a lot as well ... toed out a good 5/8" total.
Caster was "OK" but I added a hair when correcting the camber.

Camber and Toe affect tie wear a lot ... but Caster not so much (it mostly affects direction stability and willingness to return to straight).

She sure drives good now.

I think it must have been out before lowering as it used to "dart" around just a little before I lowered it like I had to pay more attention to lane position and less to mirrors, etc.
No "darting" or "wander" now, she stays much straighter .... so either I have better toe figures now or that extra Caster helped a ton.

Easy to see when I got under there that it had never been alligned since it was built as LCA bolts had never been moved ... so likely it was out a little before my lowering and subsequent allignment. She only has 37K on her odometer. (I know that negative Camber increased as a result of lowering as I had measured it at stock height just prior, but I didn't bother checking the Toe or Caster prior to lowering. Out of curriosity, I wish I had now.)

I also loosened and retorqued UCA inner bolts (110 ft lbs) as well as LCA inners (250 ft lbs) and lower shock bolts at LCAs (351 ft lbs spec, I'm close! .... ugh!) with the front at the new lower ride height to unwind the bushings.

 

I waited awhile to reply to this concern ....
.... and here I am after a few thousand miles, and all is well (though I had no doubts)

I actually have more weld area than stock shocks have on them where the lower shock eye is welded on. My factory welds were just two two short welds, one on each side where the lower stub end was welded to the eye, I welded in steps cooling between to not melt rubber or boil fluid in shock .... but all the way around and built up .... like why use two 16 penny nails when 4 work (carpenter saying)?

There's not any side stress on the welds, they just keep the shock lower in a straight line with the center of the bushing and mount bolt. It's "push / pull".

Besides .... my truck sees 99% highway / rural road driving so shocks tend to last well, it has under 40K miles. The stock shocks have a lot of valuable life remaining, I hated to discard them.

 

Just an update.

Here we are 2-1/2 years later, several trips, some local driving, and all is well and tire wear is superb. Welds are fine still, as I knew they would be considering I have twice as much weld or more than stock did.

 

Kudos for pulling that off, but more importantly, having the ***** to do it

 

Well, here it is .... 3 years and 11+K miles later. It's a good time to follow up I think.

Truck drives great but over the last couple years I had noticed a very slight, not aggrivating, but just noticeable tendency to wander with road irregularities, like where one side of the lane dips ..... like most of "my favorite roads" do. On interstate or other highways, it never has wandered to speak of.

I also notice that tire wear is superb, even though the fronts are worn a little more on the edges which was the case back at 37K 3 years ago when it was still stock height. I think they've done well as they are now 48K miles old and still have 5/32+ tread in groves .... so no complaints.

But to that very slight "wander". I have checked everything under it, no looseness anywhere. All ball joints and tier rod ends are snug still. So I thought about checking my "TOE" adjustment ....
as a toe out attitude will lead to some wander or darting otherwise known as "oversteer" ....
where toe in will result in less wander or "understeer" and straight line stability.

Three years ago I set my toe using some spacers against the wheel lip to space a pair of cast aluminum levels out from the wheel while levels sitting up on blocks off the floor above tire bulges. I weighted them and pulled a tape across at frt and rear and set toe in to near 1/8" at front as best as I could see then.

Well, this last week I made a "new to me" toe checking tool that is light weight, very rigid, that is adjustable in that it will allow me to index off the machined wheel lip at frt and rear across center of the wheel of my several vehicles, and transfer that to the floor to be recorded on masking tape stuck to the floor at exactly 30" for measuring across with a steel tape.

As long as I use same tool to do both sides, any slight error that possibly exist in the tool will self cancel it's self out like if it adds 1/16" on rear when marking drivers side, it'll add same 1/16" on front when marking passenger side.

I found that my toe was now actually "dead on zero" as near as I could see with my reading glasses on. Using some math, I can decipher an angle from these numbers.

That's within Ford specs, but only barely and not optimum .... it's no toe in, no toe out. Spec is 0.20 degrees, =/- 0.20 degrees so Ford was OK with between 0.00 and 0.40 degrees positive toe (in).

Well, that's not my intent and it explains that very slight wander, I needed me some positive "toe". So I adjusted a hair in on each tie rod end, just a hair ... and repeated measuring each time after backing the truck and pulling back into position .... until I had about 0.268 degrees toe in .... after overshooting 0.20 several times. So, that's where I'll leave her.

She no longer wanders with those dips on the back roads or Rt 11 ..... amazing what a quarter degree of toe can do for the attitude.
Gonna drive her to supper today .... up in Shenandoah, Va.

I edited to add that yes, I did check the camber on both front wheels as well, still just under a 1/4" tilt in at top measured with a level on a level floor. the wheel lip is 20" and 1/4" tilt is about 0.71 degrees .... well within specs .... so I felt pretty good about that.

 

come on over and do mine! I've always wanted to give a try at aligning at home. Especially when I had to replace the whole suspension on our 69 camaro, just throwing everything on, it had some major toe in.

 

You should then. It'll brush you up on math, trig, and is a great excuse to get a new tool. You will need a level place.

 

Did you check the driveshaft angle after? I don't know if lowering would affect it.