Thanks Chris, even if you do look like the Grinch

 

The other major item that needed to be done was, in addition to the wiring and front sheet metal, removing the 86 bumper. 25 year old bumper bolts do not want to come off easily. Even with lots of PB Blaster they weren't going to give up! I finally wrung one off, cut the chrome caps off a couple more and got it off.

Then came more fun, after 86, Ford went to a different bumper mounting system using built-up brackets mounted to the side of the frame horns instead of bolting the bumper directly on the ends. I had to drill clearance holes for the 1/2" bolts by lining up the brackets and hoping I was right (the originals are slots).

 

There is a new bumper, left outer brace and rub strip to go on later. The owner of Big Ugly bumped the corner of one of his Corvairs with the very end of it.

 

Several more major items needed doing on the rear portion of the truck, replacing the rear brake line, replacing both fuel tanks with the 90 tanks and high pressure pumps, changing the rear harness to the later harness, installing the high pressure fuel lines and replace the rear axle with a later housing in order to use the electronic speedometer.

The brake lines needed to also be reworked up front as the newer trucks do not use the differential pressure switch and they have ABS. Since I was not going to install ABS, I had to splice the rear line from the master cylinder to fit my truck.

New rear brake line installed. It is in 3 sections on these due to the length. After that was done, it takes 2 to bleed brakes...

 

One of the things I had to do in order to use the later wiring was to change the configuration of the left side of the firewall. The 87-91 trucks have the ECM in a recess in the left cowl area which would have required cutting almost the entire corner of the donor cab up and doing the same to mine. In 92 Ford changed the steering column and moved the ECM slightly inward to reside between the column support and the inside wall of the cowl. The parking brake on the older trucks has two studs that go through the firewall in an indented area that sits right about where the ECM ends up.

I took an old washing machine back panel as it was fairly sturdy and after making a cardboard template cut it to size and shape. Once that was done, I made the holes needed for the ECM, front harness and rear harness connections. With the panel finished, I cut out a corresponding are on the firewall eliminating the indent and attached the plate with self-drilling screws.

 

Once the panel was made and the column support could be attached I started on the steering column itself. I had the column out of a 92 F150 with AOD so it has the correct number of detents for a C6 or E4OD it just had the wrong lever for the E4OD. I had also gotten the lower steering shaft to match it. BTW, has anyone ever noticed the way the column sits on the 1980-1991 trucks? It's slightly angled outward. The 86 column goes through the floor to a sealed joint then down to a rag joint at the steering box.

The 92 up has a U-joint inside, a slip joint collapsable section and another U-joint at the box. There is a rubber cone shaped boot at the firewall that the slip joint upper end passes through. With the column mounted and the steering extension installed I used another cardboard template to locate the three holes for the boot. The firewall side has a raised rubber seal and originally on the 92 had not plates welded on the engine side for 8mm X 1.25 thread bolts. I used heavy hex headed sheet metal screws to do the same thing. The 86 column opening is sort of "peanut" shaped so the extra area had to be closed with some sheet metal. The end result is nice and tight, the column sits straight and drives nicely.

The brakes needed some changes too, I had the booster and master cylinder from the 90 and after a little research, determined that the same cylinder was used for all 1 1/4" applications from 87-92 and 93-97 without cruise, 93-97 with cruise uses an extra port for the cancel switch.

 

Enough pictures for a bit. Other issues were, the dash and interior of the 92 truck were blue along with parts from the 90. I had acquired a red 88 dash when that was the plan. I went to one of my favorite places with a friend searching for stuff for his V8 Ranger project Pick and Pull. I discovered a pretty good condition 95 red dash there and removed it and the kick panels and "A" pillar trim. Since we ended up finding a Mountaineer V8, we ended up going back the next day and getting the entire powertrain as far as the transmission. I had pulled all the wiring out of the dash along with the modules on Saturday as I didn't think I would need it. When we went back on Sunday, I went ahead and picked up the harness so I would have it. I already had the 92 dash harness, but the wires to the rear harness plug had been cut. I had a 93 and a repaired 95 front end harness so a 95 dash harness would work well. As I started getting the harnesses ready I discovered Ford had not only changed the plug for the roof lights, they had moved it to the other side of the cab. Since I had to pull the whole thing out inorder to reverse it, I priced a 95 harness, it was cheap enough at around $27 from Ed that it wasn't worth modifying the old one. I had a 1996 power window/lock harness so that was easy. The rear cab wiring plugs were different and located on the column support rather than on the cowl side. I picked up a cut off section of that to go with the 95 dash harness.

For anyone who is wondering, all my wire splices are soldered and covered with heat shrink then taped up again. I do not use the butt splice crimps.

 

Time for some more information. Due to the death of a good friend from colon cancer my post Christmas schedule go somewhat rearranged. After fabricating the steering column, PCM mount and wiring panel, it was time to put the 95 dash in. I had actually found most of the XLT Lariat trim for it but needed AC louvers for the right and center vents. I ordered them from Ed along with an E4OD shift lever since the 92 column had come from an F150 with AOD. I installed the dash and removed it several times in order to get all the mounts correct, unfortunately while shaping part of the lip, I slipped and broke the windshield. After getting it installed, I fabricated a temporary harness to allow the use of my DSII ignition, and put a ground wire on the fuel pump test lead to keep my one remaining in-tank pump operational.

 

From there it was back to the rear, time to do some heavy work on the 10.25" rear end collection. The one in the truck spun a left rear wheel inner bearing in 2000 and would eat a hub seal up in a year after some old fashioned home machine work. I had the SRW rear from the parts truck which had a limited slip in it. I needed a DRW housing. Pete's Custom Auto sold me a drum to drum DRW axle for $450 and saved the parking brake cables, speed sensor etc, the only problem, it was a 4.10, both the others were 3.55. I ordered a ring and pinion installation kit and with my young assistant, proceeded to put the 90 and the JY rear ends on the rear frame for a work stand (cherry picker hoists are great!)

We tore down the two and found that the JY one had gotten water in it so the gears weren't usable anyway. After disassembling the 90 rear, I put the innards in the JY housing which turned out to be a 93 or newer based on the gear PN stamped on the pinion. I set everything up without a spacer to get my pattern then rolled a pattern, Perfect center of contact the first try! We buttoned everything up on the center, then took the hubs apart. New seals, torqued the nuts and backed off then rebuilt the brakes. My truck had 2 1/2" wide shoes even though it was an F350 DRW truck, the 90 was the same, the JY rear had 3" wide shoes, so that's what it has now.

 

Once the "new" rear end was ready, the fun really began. I had left the rear tank out so I had better access to the rear. The U-bolts on the rear end had been bolted together for at least 25 years. I found that the bolts were M16X2 thread and was able to get a die nut from MSC Industrial Supply. Lots of wire brushing, PB Blaster and the die nut and I was ready to try. Long breaker bar and lots of hard pulling and they unscrewed. The spring plates on mine were kind of rusty, in fact one had a hole in it. The "new" rear had come with two U bolts and spring plates so that wasn't a problem.

After getting everything broken loose, I chocked the front wheels, took off the parking brake cables, driveshaft and removed the outer wheels. I put 4 lugs back on each wheel then loosened the u bolts and took them off. I took the outer wheels and reversed them and put them on the new axle so it would roll. I lowered it to the ground behind the truck and using the cherry picker attached to a large drawbar in my V5 receiver hitch, raised the back of the truck high enough to be able to roll the old axle out to one side.

While it was out, I cleaned off the springs, re-centered a couple of leaves and got things ready for the new axle.

 

After getting it back together I was able to have a working electronic speedometer.

 

WOW alot has gone on. Great progress!

 

I guess I had better get some more documented on this. After getting the rear end back together and re-bleeding the rear brakes, it was time to do some needed work on the engine. I needed to fix a bad balancer and leaking front seal. I would have installed the EFI front cover, but it had no place to attach the fuel lines so I had to re install the carbureted cover.

In mounting the poly-groove belt system I discovered a small glitch, the timing pointer sits in the same place, but on 88 up engines it has a "hook" to clear the bottom of the right side accessory support casting.

I used the air pump from the 90 EFI engine and fabricated a set of air lines to use the dual outlets of the 90 pump to feed the split system on the 86.

I went ahead and installed an EFI roller chain set rather than replacing the obviously worn Morse chain (which was a pre-1972 set).

In mounting the left side accessory support bracket I discovered another issue. The EFI heads have four 7/16-14 holes in the end, the carbureted heads have three 7/16-14 holes and one 1/2-13 hole. The casting won't take a 1/2" bolt through it, so, out came the big drill.

 

A little creative plumbing and everything was working again, but before I could really start serious work on the EFI change, I needed to find all the pieces, first was to install the rear fuel tank, by leaving the front tank in and the selector valve on the front tank position, I had been able to install the new rear harness. I took the fuel lines from the 90 F250 and extended them 35 inches to allow for the longer wheelbase of the crew cab. All this was done before the EFI conversion.

Unfortunately, I had gotten some contaminated gas in the front tank. Instead of trying to drain it completely, I went ahead and installed the EFI front tank and cut the aligning tabs off my in-tank low pressure pump so it would fit.

After re installing the rear tank, I put the receiver hitch back together using new bolts on both sides.

 

Now came the serious preparation. I had found that my fancy DeeZee lighted running boards had badly rusted supports and they would be seriously in the way of the upcoming transmission swap (C6 to E4OD). It was time to enlist my trusty helper, Kaitlin. She helped remove the running boards, of course most of the bolts broke after 25+ years of rust.

After contacting DeeZee, I found that they do not make these boards any more, but do have some similar ones. I was able to purchase a bracket and bolt kit from them.