Hairba11 makes a Flexus. F100-LS400 mashup.

[hairba11]

So I had been making a build thread on scale but since that went down I am gonna continue it here.

I will add a link to the crosspost on ford truck enthusiast if you want to see the early progress.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...-stepside.html




Once the steering shaft extension was done I put the tires back on and set it down. It is now half a roller.

Time to work on the back half


Forklift with the extensions picked it up easy and got it outside


Back inside and ready to get going.


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[hairba11]

Meanwhile back at home I used the tractor to jockey some things around and was able to sling the truck bed.


Got it to work and used the forklift to sling it on the truck.


The car wheelbase is 3 inches shorter than the truck. A custom driveshaft would be expensive but shortening the bed is free.


I chopped 1.5 inches out of the bed and made a lap joint that butts up to the stake pocket


Then I bolted it together. There is almost 1/8 inch of bondo in spots from the previous owner and I don’t want to work that hard to weld it.


Now the wheel is centered in the well.


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[hairba11]

I made some filler panels and tacked them between the car and truck A-pillars.



Then added 3x4x0.25 angle iron to the chassis to help reinforce where I notched to clear the subframe.


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[hairba11]

After getting the rear frame reinforcements on, a friend who has built fast cars from the ground up before suggested tying everything together with a cage wouldn’t be a bad idea.
I kinda agreed because the Lexus was a vault compared to the thin floppy truck.
So I ended up nearly doubling the project cost and bought a manual bender and a pile of 1.75x0.120 DOM tubing and taught myself how to bend the cage.


My very first double bend was only out by about 1/4 inch for the main bed hoop!



Up next was the second hoop, ears off the first and then some shock hoops


Then I put a main hoop inside the cab and was able to tie it to the 2x2 box rocker bar I put in while doing the floor.


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[OSRC]

Some very cool stuff going on here!

[hairba11]

Thanks Old School


And here’s the benefit to putting the bender on fork pockets. I can get bending done which would normally be a lot harder. This was putting the tumblehome into the cab hoop.



For notching the tubing i am using a big Jarbe horizontal mill. Three axis power feed and a 5hp spindle make quick accurate work.




I added a harness/shoulder/cross bar to the cab hoop and ran connectors through the cab and bed walls to tie the cab and bed cage.


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[hairba11]

Then I got the A-pillar bars and halo in


And then we get to the interesting part...


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[hairba11]

My buddy John and I had been discussing the rear suspension. The original coilovers for the car anchored to the parcel shelf above the rear seats and were 26” tall. They were also 5” in diameter and I only had 4” between the frame and inner wheelwell on the truck side. I was thinking about finding a generic short coilover and he talked cantilever and then he threw the leafs on the rear frame and said cantileafer?



So I started by cutting out four plates. Then welding them together and gang milled and drilled holes to make them identical.




Then I knocked out quick mounts for the pillowblock bearings and made some test links from tractor links




We got it on its wheels for the first time in 16 months and gave it some test bounce. The Cantileafer suspension is a success! Or at least didn’t immediately collapse!


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[hairba11]

https://youtu.be/lddY6HGbh4c
And here is the video that broke a piece of the internet.


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[hairba11]

After posting the short video it went mini-viral with thousands of likes, shares, and comments.
The Drive online magazine even did an article.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/36828/...s-ls400-mashup


I then got the rear crossmember I had removed when shortening the chassis reinstalled and removed the last unistrut brace.





I then knocked out some mounts for the bedsides. The rear has bolts into the chassis and the front will make contact with the chassis too so there will be 8 supports.



After the bounce test I decided the 2 leaf packs were not enough spring so a trip to the salvage yard found me good 4 leaf packs on a 79 f150




The pair of two inch spacers came in for the rear and the truck is now back on all four wheels.


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[4wd4ws]

Dude, that's nuts. Love it!

[tcanin00]

So this is why you have a spare instrument bezel laying around? I am impressed, both by the machine equipment you have and the fabrication project you have started.
A Toyota in a Ford? I bet you have gotten a lot of interwebs hate from keyboard commandos. Personally, I try to stay with the manufacturer with a motor/driveline swap. But your project is something else entirely, and I approve. Keep up the good work!

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[HumboldtEF]

The "Canti-leaf-er" suspension is wild! Also the fact that its leaf sprung yet independent suspension is really cool too especially since its not done the Corvette way

[hairba11]

Thanks guys.
Tcanin yeah. The this where the bezel came from. The one in my 78 is broken in two from a previous owner sloppy hack job trying to put a radio in. I’m planning on the whole Lexus console and dash going in the 77 so I can upgrade the 78.
And honestly I was surprised by the response I got on the ford forum. Only a couple were same/same mfg swap. A few were just happy it wasn’t a Chevy LS, and most were exited to see something different


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[hairba11]

Measure twice and get close enough. I found Monroe shocks with 6.625 inch of travel and a 5/8 loop on each end. The vertical link has 6.5 inches of travel so it’s perfect. I made some upper mounts and got them installed. The rear of the truck is planted now.




It’s officially rolling so I pulled it out and turned it around to keep working on the front end.


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[4wd4ws]

[meatmonkey]

I'm digging everything I see here. Except those cheap bluey monroes. Surely such a grand project deserves some real shocks? Even some KYB or budget Bilstein dampers would greatly improve ride control and handling over what you have.

Otherwise, keep up the out of box thinking and fab work. I think you invented the word cantileafer.

[hairba11]

Meatmonkey: I knew how I wanted to mount the shocks and I knew how much height and travel I had to work with so when I started searching for shocks the only spec chart that came up was for Monroe. At $44 for the pair I know they’re cheap. I can always change them later if I wanna.



I started out tying the shock towers to the rocker bars and the firewall




Then John and I got the engine and trans back in.





Then I ran bars from the A-pillar bars, through the firewall and over the shock towers to the frame.


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[hairba11]

Threw some sheet metal on front just for the motivation factor


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[meatmonkey]

Hows this crazy conglomeration coming along?