Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forums - First pull with the F800 last week.

Got the 1987 F800 with 7.8 I6 hooked up to the 2012 Heartland Landmark Key Largo. Was taking a short trip to find any bugs. :-hair Found a few in the 25 mile trip.
5 miles from home hear a sound and know a belt just left the motor. Got where I could pull over, AC belt and Air Compress and water pump belt is on. So drove to Auto Zone 9 miles away, They did not have the belts. So walked a mile across town to get belts. Get back to truck I had left the Sleeper AC fan blowing :-arrgh Dead battery, so had to get jumped off. Make it to the campground and about to back in when the other belts lost there grip.:-X21 Got backed into the site shut the truck down as it was getting hot.
Now the fun part, Some :-X09 fool that put the new motor in the truck did not feel the idler pulley and bracket needed to be mounted on the Air Compressor. They had found a belt they could flip on the water pump and compressor without the adjustment .:-X19 !!! :-blah So after getting the Alt belts on and 3 trips 9 miles one way back into town. :-X15 Found a Kevlar belt at TRactor supply that we could roll on the pulleys. (Plus half price of a normal belt I picked up at Napa.. Get all belts back on other than the AC belt. Will not put it on until I have the bracket and factory size belt on the air compressor. Make a mile run to test out everything. You guessed it the same Stupid Fool that did not put the bracket on the motor also used the old top water hose. It started leaking so one more trip to get a new one. $345.79 later in parts for belts, Hose, and pulley and bracket ordered this part is fixed. Will replacing all hoses on the truck within the next week or so.
While camping for a week with friends we worked on the old truck. Doing rewiring and putting in LED toggle switches in the dash. Cleaned up some issues on the outside with wiring. Thinking we used 7 rolls of new wire to replace the junk that was on the truck.
Mounted a 3 pod gauge deal on the inside and in there is my EGT, Turbo Boost gauge and Water temp gauge. All three of these are LED lighted and 2 of them I can change the color of the gauge like that part a lot.

Now trip home, Widows down ear plugs in.:-jammin heading home. Hit the first good hill coming out of the river Bottom your in a slow speed zone. Then a curve and about 200 yds to the bottom of the hill. Hit it at 50 MPH and pulled over the top @ 46 MPH. MY Duramax does about the same :-X03 . 10th gear and pulling great for this small hill. On the way home pulled better then I thought it would with a 13'4" high 41ft long and pushing 17,000 lb camper. Thinking about 50% of the time I could skip a few gears with the camper back there. Can still be in 10th gear and running 45 MPH in town and still have power then you give it fuel.
When I turned off Hwy 64 to go home, i'm in 6th gear and around 35 MPH his this hill about half mile long and steep. Was in 8th and around 45 before I crested the hill. :-X06 Same hill empty I can be in 9th so that is nice.
On the 4-lane and 65 MPH zones I could run 70 with ease, So looks like I may just leave the gearing along for now. But still feels wrong too be turing 2000 RMP's @ 55. Hope when I get the all new Exhaust mounted new 4" SS pipe all the way from Turbo back and the Donaldson M10058 MUFFLER mounted. Donaldson shows 19-25 dBA sound reduction and it MEETS 88 NOISE REQUIREMENTS. :-jammin Hoping it makes the sound quite and able to hear my tunes or talk without screaming at the passenger. Those 5" Chrome stacks will be for looks only want quite.:-blah

Will be mounting new Steer tires in 10 days if I can find some at a price I like. Back 4 will be left on until next year. There recaps but in great shape and enough miles on them that they should be good for many miles.

Pete