info wanted on 1978 LTD II parts swaps.

Ive owned 3 LTD II's over the years. The first was a 77 Royal Blue 4door with a 351 and C4, Second was a Grey 77 4 door with a 351 and C6, and now my current is a yellow 2 door with a 351 and FMX.

Parts from 70's Ford Cars where alot alike, pretty much any of them will work with your car, however, the LTD II, being the oddball that it is responds best to parts from the Fullsize LTD, Gran Torino, OR other LTD II's.

later,

Dustin

"what years and models of suspension parts interchange?"

Physically, 73-79 will fit, but you have the newwer wheel bearing style, so I'd recommend 77-79 only. The 77-79 Cougar XR-7's and police LTD-II's have larger control arms and rotors (the 12 inch rotor). That may be worth upgrading to. Additionally, shocks from a 92 Crown Vic will fit the 73-79 mid-size family (suspensions are similar, but no you can't stick Crown Vic stuff on your car) - this would allow a heavier duty shock for a tighter suspension. See a recent issue of Car Craft magazine for info on shocks and shock choices. BTW, the 77-79 series are prime candidates to upgrade a 73 suspension from - small changes, but the best available.

"parts needed to convert over to a manual tranny of some sort?"

A manual transmission that will bolt up behind whatever engine you have that came out of a mid or full-size car of similar vintage (not sure exactly which ones would work, but most should) - and then get a shift kit like B&M or something that has all the linkage. Center Consoles were made for 72-79 mid-size - one of those would make a nice housing for your new shifter instead of your column shift setup.

The Mark IV stuff is 5x5 bolt pattern, not 5x4.5 like you car was, just as an FYI, you will also need the Master Cyl and you'll want any distribution valve that car had to use the discs.  Hooker Super Comps are the only headers available for the 460 in this chassis, and they are about $400 from Summit Racing, they are 31" primary, 1 7/8" tube, std pass car flange with a 3" collector (they will fit CJ heads, as my D3's are ported to CJ sized port exit).  If you're going to do much with the 460, go 3" all the way back to the tips, that's what I have and run low 13's@104+ with a full weight '76 S&H Torino and a stock stall speed C6 (4.33 gears though)..  Shocks are also available from Bilstein and KYB, there are even several GM products that use the same shocks.. (have to look in the parts catalogues carefully to see part # crossovers).  I think you'll have a lot of fun with the car,  also Network54.com has a great big-block forum for the 385 series motors (429/460)...

Oh yeah, the 3" tails are built from mandrel bends sourced from NAPA's truck exhaust parts list. just some 90's and a pair of 180's, weld it together right and you've got monster pipes

Hooker 6126 is the part #, the web page for Summitracing is:

http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?part=HOK%2D6126

I don't have any pics of the exhaust, Might be able to get some but I dunno, the current garage doesn't allow for jacking the car up much, it's the headers followed by a 3" Dr Gas universal X pipe, then into 3" Borla XR1's, then header flanges so the whole middle section can be removed, then 90's then the 180's then 90's and a little bend and tuck by a muffler shop to point them out the back into 3.5" polished SS tips..  I think the bends were like $20-25/ea  It ended up being fairly expensive because of some of the parts I used, but since the car only sees maybe 2000 miles a year at most, and never in salt or even rain if I can help it, they should easily last till I go up in engine size and need 3.5", and I did it over 5 years (headers merged to old exhaust, headers to X to Flows and dumps, then tails, then Borlas came last)..   I don't suppose you would have made it to Evansville, IN for the big S&H reunion this past fall?