KsC - It is excellent progress when you wife both asks to see it as well as starts talking about painting it. You've obviously done a good job of balancing the floor work and truck work.

Bill - You don't have to have a sub-frame to fit the floor?

Matthew - You've given me hope. And probably raised your MPG by 2 points.

 

Thanks lol, I sure hope it raised the MPG. I bought a 14x3" air cleaner that I will install on the truck when my 1/2" spacer and PCV elbow arrives for it. That might also help, since my old filter is a 9x2"

It finally takes off like I think it should now. I should have done that stuff last summer.

 

Gary, the Qualitex subframe is for a Ford 1980-97 seat pattern, I am replacing the outboard seats with the Lincoln Continental ones. The driver's side Qualitex seat needs repair and the whole thing needs reupholstering anyway. I had the extra set of Lincoln seats from the parts car I stripped.

 

Now I understand. Thanks.

 

Re adjusted the rear brakes and emergency brake tonight. Brakes are super strong and right at the top now and the E brake works great.

 

That's great info Bill, very helpful! Thank you for that. I will try to trace down the problem from there.

This year still had the mechanical fuel pump. The tank has a sending unit only.

 

Try grounding the yellow/white wire at the C177 plug, the gauge should go to full or even beyond. These are the older thermal 5 volt gauges so it won't jump. Did you replace the sender in the tank? If you did, try grounding the tank, again a lot of replacements aren't grounded properly through the plug.

 

I haven't changed it yet, but did have it out to clean the tank. It worked some, but I assumed it needed to be exercised and have some fuel covering it to get it cleaned up. Now it just lays dead. That particular sending unit is hard to come by. JBG is claiming to have some new stainless steel ones.

 

Not much I can do today, but I managed to order some parts while my wife is having sinus surgery. She should be out in about 90 minutes. I ordered Flowtech headers, a Magna flow dual in/dual out muffler, and a Spectra radiator. I'll stop by autozone tomorrow for new radiator hoses. Basically I'm collecting parts right now so when I assemble the engine over the next week, I use as many new parts as possible. I want no contamination in my system.

 

Today I built an engine. Details here, but I'm really looking for your input on color for various things.

And here's a teaser:

 

That looks tough!! That's real close to how I want Jr's engine to look when I am through. Only not as polishy.

 

Engine looks great! as far as what I did to my truck today, drove it. WOW does it drive so much nicer with brakes that don't stick and squeak. I got it up to 45 where it used to sound like it had to work to maintain speed and now it's just cruising.

 

Besides starting the engine noise diagnosis today (see other thread), I started planning the HAM radio installation.

I have the antenna mounted on the left rear of the bed and ran the coax along the frame an into the rear of the cab using an existing grommet.

I plan to mount the radio along the rear cab wall and put an external speaker just behind the dome light, mounted on the metal trim rail.

The radio head will be remote mounted on the center bezel above the existing radio (I think where the clock would go? Mine says "CUSTOM" at the moment but that will be gone..
The head unit has a remote mount bracket and connects to the radio with a CAT 5 cable. Should make for a clean install.

In terms of power, I decided to fix a few other issues at the same time and clean up the wiring.

I've ordered and will install a Blue Sea 5250 fuse box. I'm installing it with a circuit breaker as well.

There will be a 4g wire going from the battery to the input of the surface mount breaker, and then 4g from the output to the + input on the panel. I'll also run 4g from the neg side of the battery to the ground bus on the panel. I can then run my radio power as well as my KC lights and any other accessories from that panel and clean up the wiring.

The panel is made for marine use and is water tight.

Should be nice when done.

Taking the HAM tests on 4/26 - If all goes well I'll have my General Class. (Extra is just too hard to study for right now..)

 

This is what I found last night. Besides going outside to find the passenger side headlight on with the switch off and the key out of the ignition. I found the socket for the drivers side marker light to have a short on the ground wire inside. There was an arc drawing inside of it when the turn signal would come on. So something is funny with the socket. I hope one of the parts stores has a replacement socket for it.

I don't know if that is the entire electrical gremlin issue or . There is a red wired in the main gang that says "resistor wire do not cut or splice" all over it and that wire was getting so hot it would almost burn you, but where it splices in the wires on the other side are not hot to the touch.

 

What was causing the headlight, and that one only, to come on? Given the way they are wired I would have said it isn't possible for only one to come on unless the other one has a bad ground or is burned out.

As for the red wire, is that the one to the ignition? Are you running the MSD or DS-II?