2006 Crown Vic front suspension

to the board...

 

I think you are going to find this is way, way to wide for a Maverick.

My other toys are 61-66 F100 pickups and this crassmember generates a lot of interest in the truck circles. This front crossmember is big with the 67 and up F100 crowd. It will work under a 61-66 but not without the funky backspace wheels. There are people that narrow the aluminum crossmember and the rack. If you go to the expense of buying the crossmember, doing the narrowing and buying special wheels you would be money ahead to go with a Mustang II or strut front end.

Try this link and look in the project section for a few trucks using the Crown Vic frame and see what we have to do for wheels, and we are a lot wider than a Maverick to begin with.

JMO,
SPark

 

Let's look at this one item at a time.

#1 - You are 3 inches too wide for the Crown Vic's outside cradle brackets to make it to the outside surfaces of the Maverick frame - no problem, just remove 3 inches on center out of the cradle and build a nice tube frame to weld it back together.

#2 - Now that gets you mounted up to the Maverick frame but still leaves you 5 inches overall too wide (was originally 8 inches total). You will have to deal with that extra 2.5 inches per side with offset wheels as it is not realistic to go and shorten all of your A frames to get rid of the 5 inches.

#3 - Your rack ends might be able to be shortened that 1.5 inches per side to make up for that 3 inch difference.

#4 - Your stock Crown Vic sway bar is way too wide but, because you are still 5 inches overall too wide, a stock Maverick bar is too short - I can't see you having any problem finding a sway bar by length and diameter at an auto parts supplier - also mount it more conventional and not the way it was mounted in the Crown Vic cradle

 

And I would think about loosing those 4 long vertical bolts (2 on either side of the cradle where it would need to mount to the outside of the Maverick frame)

After looking closer at the Vic's cradle, I have to ask if this is aluminum? If so, that might make this all a bit tougher

 

Humm, that looks interesting. What is the width hub face to hub face? I might be able adapt that to my 47 Lincoln.....

 

The cradle is aluminum that all the truck guys are migrating to.

SPark

 

I had a feeling it was - that takes care of welding it to a Maverick frame - that must be why those 4 long bolts are there - for bolting it to the rails of the Crown Vic - back to the drawing board

 

This seems like it's going to be a real challenge. From what Im reading there are many obstacles to overcome. Watching to see how it plays-out.

 

Basically just a bad idea in this situation. Too wide, no good way to attach it, cheap to buy but expensive to make work.

Why mess with this when there are so many other good front ends out there available for the Mav?

Just because you "can" do something doesn't mean you "should" do something.

JMO,
SPark

 

I've been going over what I have and I know it's not easy. But I think I have an Idea! I can discard the cross member and build one that works for these parts minus the sway bar. I've done it before with the mustang II, I can just build it up and have it fit perfect and it would still be less than a kit. I will do some tight measurement tomorrow and draw up ideas.

 

if I'm in over my head I can always back out

 

My mind was racing on how this could be done until I realized the cradle was made out of aluminum DUH! - if it was steel, and you could have cut it down and welded it in like a MII cradle, you would have been close - your Maverick frame, having no accommodations for bolting the Vic's cradle into, kind of puts the brakes on that version

You just might get your best shot at it working with your idea of custom building a steel cradle to actually fit a Maverick frame along with mounting all of the Crown Vic's suspension - if you choose that route, I can't wait to see the progress photos

 

I have just got back to the suspension and I have found something very interesting. the lower control arms from the mounting bolt to the stud are both 20 inches. You know what that means? ....I don't need a cross member and with some modification i can start there and work my way up. you'll see soon

 

You'll still be needing some sort of fabricated cross member to mount the rack to.

 

After going over it again and again, you're right. I have the materials and now I just need time to work