Ford Maverick owners have been modding their trucks from the start, but I’d argue no one else has gone this hard so far. Adam Edwards was one of, if not the first to lower the Ford pickup, and he’s far from finished with his minitruckin’ project. Those suspension mods were only part of it as he continues to literally hack away at his 2,700-mile Maverick—and to think, some people have been waiting months or more for theirs to leave the factory.
“I have people come up saying, ‘I’ve been waiting for mine for six months and you’re cutting yours to pieces? It’s not even good anymore!’ And I just laugh,” Edwards told me over the phone. “Another guy was like, ‘Why would you do this?’ And I said, ‘For the simple fact that people like you asking me why I’m doing it!'”
It was one thing when he cut the springs and swapped the shocks to drop it four inches up front and six inches out back. It quickly became another when he started taking off the bodywork and physically cutting it down the middle to create a bed-break on the unibody pickup. That’s what Edwards has been working on, and he makes a case for it by explaining that he’s never seen a true minitruck without something to split the cab and bed. Even though this one won’t be twisting and tilting high in the air with hydraulics like you see on other builds, it’ll at least be more true to form for the culture.
“Basically, I just made the line I wanted and cut it out. I split it, just cut it down the center,” Edwards elaborated. “Then I put it where I thought I wanted it, but I didn’t like it, so I shaved some more off. It was basically the outside skin—there was nothing to make it go in toward the unibody. I used cardboard templates and once I got the division where I wanted, I started plating the backside so it wouldn’t just end and be a single layer. It wraps around like you’d normally see on a bed.”
He admits that this job hasn’t been easy, which seems pretty clear after seeing all the photos with the Maverick’s inner structure completely exposed.
“It’s a lot different than lowering it, which was pretty self-explanatory. Of course, I had to cut the inner fenders like you would on the bed of any truck, all the way up to where it’ll lay out. When it lays out, it’ll probably be 3/4-inch from laying on the pinch weld,” Edwards explained.
That’s low—likely lower than any Maverick we’ve seen so far. The best example at present is Kenneth McCay’s bagged and hand-painted minitruck, which has other crazy mods including a partial soft top. Doing this requires even more careful work to ensure it’s pulled off cleanly.
“I used the original axle but moved where the hub mounted to the rear end. I moved that up three inches and back two and a half because the rear wheel comes really far forward [in the wheelwell]. I’m not saying it’ll be totally center because with me being the first one, I’m just guessing,” Edwards explained. “It’s essentially doing what a spindle does to the front end, but to the rear.”
“I want to lay it out. I want it to be the first one where people see it’s not just a simple bag setup, it’s really been cut apart,” he added.
There’s definitely more sawing and cutting to come as the front-end still needs doing, too. While there won’t be any new seams added there, it’s looking like a lot more work to fully lower compared to the rear.
“The front’s going to be very difficult. Oh, it’s going to be a mess,” Edwards added. “The upper rail is very short compared to other unibody vehicles.”
The way he explains it, the upper rail is effectively on six-inch stilts, which means the front wheels hit it that much quicker. “I’m gonna have to cut that rail and that strut tower,” he mentioned. It’s apparently similar to slamming a Chevy C10 pickup, which requires what’s effectively a Z-notched frame rather than a more traditional C-notch up front.
All this is coming in due time, and Edwards plans to have it finished once SEMA rolls around this November. It’ll take a lot of nights and weekends to complete seeing as he’s busy running Tedder’s Body Shop, which he owns, in Searcy, Arkansas.
Source: The Drive
