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Between 1984 and 2001, Daimler Chrysler built about two million eight hundred thousand Jeep Cherokees. They were built in several combinations—two and four door, two and four wheel drive and stick or automatic and with three different engines. The vehicle was not well received. In print they were tagged as being too long, too heavy, under powered, poor brakes , and worst of all—uni-body construction. Before every Tom, Dick and Mary had an SUV in the driveway, young families were getting to work, going to school and having weekend fun. Give credit to Jeep for introducing a lot of young people to off-roading thru the Cherokee line.

ADVANCED ALTERNATOR

Until now, rodders have been severely limited by the battery-charging alternators they’ve had to select from. Rodders either utilized an OE or an OE-style alternator for their custom engine applications, or they selected one of the aftermarket units that were polished or chromed. Now, with the introduction of MSD’s Advanced Power System (APS) alternator, that’s all changed for the better.

MORE THAN A CAMEO

Gil Palmer just loves cars, trucks, and motorcycles. He’s owned more than 100 miscellaneous cars, ranging from ’40 Fords to ’55 Chevys to a ’70 Monte Carlo. He’s owned a few pickups, too, and this one originally came to him as the bonus gift, so to speak, in a trade of his ’32 Ford Cobo Hall winner for a motorcycle at the Detroit Autorama. The ’57 Cameo that he received in the trade had an entire ’55 front end on it, and because of that, everyone thinks it’s a ’55. But this truck was in pretty sad shape when it arrived at Palmer’s Southern California home. Just picture this one item in your mind for a minute, and you’ll get the gist of the kind of shape the truck was in: There was a hand-painted (we’re talking 4-inch-wide brush, here) Chevy Bow Tie on the tailgate. The 10:1 compression supercharged engine would overheat in a matter of a few blocks.

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GET IT HANDLED

How to Install ’69 Pontiac Grand Prix Door Handles in a ’56 Ford F-100

Author

Warren Boughn

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Before the advent of the “smoothie look,” people were slicking down the lines of their cars and trucks in numerous ways, and shaving door handles was one of the more popular mods. Today the trend is to fit later-model door handles rather than no door handles at all. This still provides a simple way to clean up your vehicle with very little effort, yet retains the convenience of manually opening the door. If you have the patience, talent and imagination, you can borrow the parts from a donor car or truck and fit them to your own project, thereby achieving a cool, smooth look that will be unique to your vehicle.

Not all people like to worry about electrical entry system malfunctions or dead batteries, forcing one to resort to a hidden mechanical release to get into a parked vehicle. Many would rather retain the 100-percent mechanical advantage, thus providing a certain peace of mind.

We’ve come across a nice door handle modification, which includes the installation of 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix outside door handles on ’53-’56 Ford F-100s. The installation is a straightforward, clean and simple swap. You retain the outside door locks and inside door handles, as they do not interfere with the new Grand Prix handles. How cool is that?

The only thing you need to modify is the door strikers, which is very minor, and you’ll have to fill in the old door handle holes. Follow along as we watch the folks at Precision Street Rods & Machines show us how it was done in the good old days. The process takes less than a day to perform, minus the paintwork, of course, making this a modification that almost anyone can do.

Here’s a look at the stock F-100 door handle and lock. As you can clearly see, the handle protrudes from the door quite a bit.

First we removed the outside door handles. There are two mounting points that secure each handle to the door, one inside the door and the other at the door’s edge by the rubber seal.

With the handle gone, we can see the latch assembly and how it functions. This is the linkage arm that the door handle plunger pushes against to open the door. The Pontiac door handle works on the same principle. That’s what makes it a logical choice.

Here’s a look at the ’69 Pontiac Grand Prix door handle we’re going to be installing.

Before we install the new door handles, we’re going to fill in the old handle holes. This process starts by grinding the metal surfaces clean.

We made a filler plug for the larger door handle hole. A magnet was used to temporarily hold it in place while we tack welded the plug to the door.

The magnet was removed and the welding began. We cooled the welds with water to cut down on the warping.

The welds were then ground smooth.

These are the door handle mounting buckets. The top bucket is what they looked like before we modified them to fit the F-100 doors. Basically the angle was removed from the one end and made straight.

This is how the door handle and bucket join together. There is a lip on the outside handle to prevent it from falling through the door. This sandwiches the door when the bucket is installed from the rear with two 1/4-inch bolts.

The door handle location was marked on the door with masking tape. The door handle opening measures 3/4-inch high by 8-1/2 inches long. We came in 1-5/8 inches from the door’s edge and again at 10-1/8 inches for our vertical cut lines. We measured up from the top of the key lock hole 3-5/8 inches and again at 4-3/8 inches for our horizontal cut lines.

We drilled a 1/2-inch hole at either end of the door handle template so our pneumatic saw blade had a starting and a stopping point.