^^ This. Process of elimination. Jack it up and start twisting stuff by hand. You'll find it.

 

the few areas i would check right away are each individual wheel/brake

the U-joints

and lastly the rear end. if the ring and pinion or spider gears have burred teeth, when they meet it will cause a bind. it will happen every XXX amount of rotations and is normally very hard to detect

 

I jacked up the truck today, checked the rotation of all four wheels, checked the brake adjustment, drove it into the street and back into the garage several times. I found nothing amiss.

So then I installed the 6 volt headlight relay I got from Classic Haulers (Tootsie Rolls included) and the headlights look brighter to me. I'm glad I decided to try this before buying more expensive headlights.

This relay was actually pretty easy to install, since I already had the wires split up to go to the terminal boards mounted next to my fuse panel under the dash. I got the power and ground from the left side of my fuse panel.

Here's a look.



Before the relay...



After the relay...




Hope everyone enjoys the 4th. Unless you decide to go for a 5th!. BBQ steaks for us tonight.

 

Joe,

I hope you get you intermittent problem solved. I know that can be very frustrating!! Congrats on your other progress.

 

Got the Patent Data Plate installed after getting helpful suggestions on how to remove the "screws" holding in the original.

It's no show truck, so I used regular screws to attach the new one after I stamped the VIN.

 

I noticed my high beam indicator was no longer working and contorted my back to look at the back of the speedo. My repair to the socket didn't last very long. The wire was detached from the socket.

When I removed the socket, I broke the bulb...

I now have new bulbs and sockets for the turn indicators on order.

Pics to follow ...

 

Joe, nice to see you working on the old girl again! Will be following...

 

Thanks for the moral support guys. I hope to find the reason for that intermittent locking up issue somehow. It's a different problem than the one I had with the brakes. The new M/C fixed that. This felt more like gears locking, and I'm leaning toward something maybe loose in the tranny???

I hope to be replacing the oil pan gaskets this weekend, and I'll try to include pics, although most of you have probably already done this. I'm also going to try to find some thicker oil to see if that helps plug it up and stop the leaking. I currently have 10W30 in it. Maybe some motorcycle 40 weight would be better. That's what I run in my bike.

And I'll post some pics of the final light bulb configuration for my dash. The PO had the dash lights plugged into the turn signal "holes" on the speedo when I got the truck (among many other strange things). I found some sockets online which I believe will work, so I can have the turn signal indicators working instead of just the tiny lights on the turn signal arm itself (which I can barely see). So, altogether, there are 2 bulbs for the dash lights (in the speedo), two for turn indicators and one for the high beam indicator.

 

Got some more done tonight. I drained the oil and removed the clean-out plate this morning before the granddaughters came to visit (we went bowling). The oil was black, which concerns me since I changed the oil when I first got the truck and have only driven it 100 miles or so. Do you suppose the new oil cleaned out the engine?

Tonight, I decided to try to drop the oil pan. I didn't follow the instructions in the Shop Manual exactly, because I don't have to jack up the truck to roll under it. That may have made a difference in the final analysis... not really sure.

I had to remove the starter, per the book, to reach the last two bolts on the oil pan. Don't laugh, but I didn't know how to pull the starter. OK, go ahead and laugh.

Anyway, after the starter was out, the pan dropped, but wouldn't come past the crank pulley. It was jammed. I worked with it for a while, trying not to tear anything up, and finally got it down to the... tie rod.

Maybe the tie rod isn't in the way if you jack up the truck? I don't think that would have made a difference. Anyway, it was easily removed on one end since the new ends have only about 100 miles on them.

So, the oil pan is on the garage floor until later. I have the new gaskets and lower seals from Chuck's Trucks, a new gasket for the drain plug and for the inspection plate. I bought 5 quarts of 20W50 Castrol GTX and ordered a Fram C4 oil filter. I want to clean everything thoroughly and paint it before it goes back on. I may even clean and paint the starter since it's on the work bench now. I'll take pics before and after the paint. I guess all this was originally Ford engine red Dupli-Color DE1605.

This brings up the PO one more time. The oil filter was a Fram, but not a C4. It's the right length, at 5" but is only 3.5" in diameter. It's supposed to be 4.1" wide. I wonder what problems this may have been causing. Glad I only have a hundred miles on the truck.

 

Personal opinion, a trans that locks up "sometimes" is a disaster waiting to happen. I would pull the trans and be done with it. Here's a perfect example of "a stitch in time" -- just barely in time: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...l#post12238316

The bearings could easily have come apart enough to nuke the trans. Your problem sounds like something similar. The spur gear trannies are so noisy anyway that it's hard to detect a bad bearing.

 

Yeah Ross, I was just telling my wife a few minutes ago that while I have the truck disabled with the pan off, I ought to check the tranny to make sure it's not the problem.

 

Ross, do you know if the parts in your pictures are readily available? I looked them up and the input bearing 8MTH 7075 and output bearing 7EQ7065 are different, but the snap rings are the same 8MTH 7070.

Of course, I need to look at them first to see if that's the problem.

 

Joe, why not consider draining the oil, removing top cover and side cover from that tranny. With these two items removed, you can pry on bearings, move gears and should be able to get a pretty good idea of the shape of the transmission. Much easier than pulling that heavy chunk of iron.

Let the transmission drain a few days and most of the oil will drain off. I know of at least two transmissions that were driving, running when removed, so used parts are available. I seriously doubt if any of the bearings were proprietary. BTW, I am betting on the lock up problem being in a universal joint or the slip joint.

 

I can't tell you the parts situation on the 4-sp, Joe, but on the 3-sp's the bearings are readily available. There should be plenty of cores around, too. Whether they are or not, you can't drive on bad ones.

Ray's got a good point. By dropping the driveshaft and pulling the rear mount/retainer, you can actually get to the rear bearing with the trans in the truck. You can get to more gears thru the top. That's not the whole story, of course, but if there are problems seen there, you'll know you need to go further.

 

OK, thanks guys. I had already planned to drain the tranny and pull the side inspection plate off to see what I could see. Didn't really know there's a top plate too. I looked in the Shop Manual and Parts Manual but only saw pics of the case for the 3 speed, 4 speed synchro and 5 speed. I'm sure I'll figure it out when I remove the tranny cover from the cab.

So, when I had the rear wheels off the ground and spinning in both directions with no noise or chattering, wouldn't that eliminate the u-joints and slip joint? Ray, why do you think that's the problem? Is it common for them to go bad? Also, why does the tranny need to drain for a few days? Won't it be empty after a few hours?

Sorry for all the rookie questions, but that's what I am. Still...