I have an older kit, maybe 7+ years old, but only started using it since Dec 2019 and had no issues with it. My son took it and used it on his Jeep YJ for a year before I installed it, also with out issues.
If the plug was not tight you might try popping out the brass part and close the grip a little on each one to see if that would have helped.

I left my truck parked in the garage as it is still some what clean from the last wash, we have rain and did not want to drive it to work and get it dirty.
Beside with no AC, 73*+F and rain so I cant open windows it would not have been a fun drive
Dave ----

 

AC is next on my list, saving up for a four seasons compressor

 

After tomorrows trash run I will see if the truck is parked other than trash runs or I suck it up and get a compressor, needed hoses and bits.
It's only been low 80's but humidity is 96% so no fun with out AC.
Dave ----

 

Today I spent my day looking for thing to keep my 03 Explorer Sport Trac on the road. First at the Stealer ship, yes the Stealer Ship; were the parts manger knows more about "pot" then the parts he's selling.(Is it just me or is everyone high on something these days). I picked up my new one of a kind, special over night prize. Left the stealer ship thinking how great a place this has grow to be.(every where I turn, there's new dealership being built, but the car company are all hurting. And that is why you see hundreds of brand new overprice vehicles all seating around , waiting for the new sign on the dotted line customer.
Sorry, looked for a bore scope from one of the parts store. It cost me 150..00 dollars to borrow this. (I can buy one for under 60.00, brand new); Anyway drove back and inspected the timing chain teensier hole, only to find out the Timing chain cassette has broken inside the valve cover, front LH side.
The tensioner has a number 10./.406 2-03 the vehicle has 255k on it. I just bought this truck, It never run in over 5 years, till few days ago and I'm very impressed, with it.
Stay tuned for more.

 

What my plan is for my '82. I already replaced the I beam pivots with polyurethane bushings from Prothane bushings, my leaf spring bushings and leaf spring shackle bushings will be poly from Prothane as well. But cab bushings will be replaced with OE rubber bushings to isolate the cab from the rest of the frame.

The poly isnt bad if you use the grease Prothane recommends it allows no squeaking and I prefer the Prothane on suspension components as they will pivot with no resistance against them unlike rubber which is the suspension is trying to twist the rubber itself. With poly the suspension moves freely giving for a slightly softer ride. But the biggest thing is I beam bushings in our trucks get hammered out quite easily when they are rubber but prothane poly bushings are supposed to last longer than standard rubber and take more of a beating.

Just dont be crazy and go all poly as that will make it ride like you have no bushings in the entire vehicle.

In other news I did some digging at work at all my left over spare parts from holley sniper installs Ive done as most people buy the complete kit that we end up not using a bunch of the parts with the complete kit. So I found I have six brand new Earls vaporguard hose ends in -6AN which is exactly how many I need for my build, I also have two hose ends in forty-five degree in -6AN but not sure what brand they are, they dont have the vaporguard hose end barbs but should still work and a pack of eleven number sixteen fuel injection hose clamps when I only need around ten of them. This helped me out by saving me a good twenty-five dollars in parts for my fuel injection conversion, but it still left me with some fittings I had to order. I have two quick disconnect fittings but wasnt sure if they were in 5/16" or 3/8" and I needed two of each of them, Since I was unsure I went ahead and ordered two Russell quick disconnect EFI fittings in -6AN to 3/8" and another two in -6AN to 5/16". I also picked up a Vibrant Performance push on EFI adapter in -6AN to 3/8" for the female side of the fuel filter.

I was going to buy this stuff from summit or jegs but found out that I could save a good chunk of change buying these fittings off amazon and funny enough Summit/Jegs were around $78 for these fittings while I got them from Amazon for $46.78 with tax and free prime shipping. So I am very happy as not only did I save money by repurposing left over new parts from work for my fuel injection setup but I also saved another $30 by buying from amazon over Summit/Jegs. Could have possibly saved more as honey was showing me that the fittings I was buying has changed price multiple times in the last thirty days going from $5.50 per fitting to $8 per fitting. I didnt know if they would drop again but figured I was already saving $30 so let me go for it.

Another thing on my fuel injection setup, I am going to call up David at Texas Auto Gear, we use him at work from time to time and he from what I am hearing can cut my '85/'86 fuel tank open and weld in a baffle for my fuel tank. I will be doing this but will also be seeing how much he will charge to cut the end of my fuel tank off forward of the forward tank mount and add in 4 to 6 inches of length of the tank. From my math if I am doing it right based off dimensions provided by Spectra on the fuel tank, 4" should give me 3 gallons of extra fuel and 6 inches should give me 5 gallons of extra fuel that should increase my 16.5 gallon fuel tank (thats what spectra lists the fuel tank at) to 19.5 to 21.5 gallons. I believe I have enough room to the front to add an extra 6 inches to the tank but I still want to crawl under the truck and take some measurements. My main goal of this is since I have to have the tank cut anyways to put baffling in I would like to get my short bed tank increased to atleast 19 gallons. Then what I will do is fill the truck up and measure it to see exactly how much fuel my truck will hold from empty to the top of the neck.

One thing I found out that I am not sure about though, Blueprint who sells a 306 short block I was going to pick up they dont have any ford short blocks listed on their site anymore. Not sure why. Summit lists the 306 short block as not avaliable but other places like speedway, scroggins, and jegs still show the 306 short block as still being in stock. Not sure what is going on hopefully its just a change to blueprints page due to the virus and not that they are actually ceasing production of the short block fords.

 

Finally got my two Russell 640863 EFI fittings for -6AN to 5/16" quick disconnects. One step closer to having all I need for my EFI conversion. Need to look up the NOS part number for a 85-86 sending unit since I am sure the ohm scale is setup as a linear setup vs the factory non linear setting. Tank I will have to pick up later on as I got to see what my options are for enlarging the tank as well as installing a baffling.

I also need to figure out the fuel pump connector. Im playing around with an idea of breaking up the old replacement sending unit to get the two terminal connector so I can have a plug and play conversion harness made so if I ever decide to switch back to carb I have that option. Just not sure how well that will work out.

But at least I am getting closer to finalizing my engine build though. Only thing not on my list is my 3G conversion as that is one thing that has me scratching my head mainly because I need the wide 8" pivot mount but I cant find a 95A 3G in anything but the smaller 7" pivot mount. I know there was a 95A 3G with the wide 8" pivot mount at one time but it appears no one offers them and trying to get help on other forums is a pita as they just all want to tell you to just run the larger 130A which I really dont want to run but it appears I will have to run and just deal with belt squeal that may happen even with a soft start regulator.

 

Installed 87 up sun visors in my 1981. Big inprovement over the type
that came in the truck.

 

Thats the one with the clips right? How did that work out for you? I got reproduction visor arms as mine were messed up and I couldnt get the old sun visors off. But the new ones just swing out every time you hit the gas and I thought about trying to retrofit the newer style visors with the retainer.

Another option I thought of is like was done with a customers '82 they made a fabric bracket that slips up under the windshield trim that holds tension on the visor to keep it freely sliding.

I dont think I would want that though, my only choices is do like you did and install later model visors with clips or take my visors out. I thought of trying to tack weld on the visor to keep the arm from being pulled up when you try to tension the spring but that would require welding on the visible outside.

 

It worked good. The most critical part is locating the clip position.
The only other thing I did was to shorten the plastic post that is on the clips
to make them seat better.

 

I ordered a set of visors off ebay from a 87-96 f150. I just mounted the new visors and eyeballed where the clips went. Drilled two holes for each clip and it went right in without issue. This is probably the most useful upgrade I did to the truck (that and intermittent wipers).

 

Got a shroud on my radiator last weekend after a run to the dump got me getting quite high temps sitting in line. Had to drop to neutral and get the RPMs higher to move some more water and any bit of air. Still have my 195 stat in there from the winter (I get better heat I have found) and need to drop in a 180 for the summer here shortly when it decides to get hot in the PNW.

I have been putting it off since I thought I would have to remove all the belts and the water pump pulley since the clutch is attached with the same bolts. Finally just sucked it up and went at it, turned out that the pulley stayed in place after probably not being removed in decades. Got the fan off and dropped the shroud down into the clips that surprising where still there. Though had to zip tie at the top.

The shroud doesn't totally seal against the radiator and not sure if it ever meant to?? Either case, I actually have air being pulled through the radiator when idling at a light or in line at the dump.

 

A good test to see if you have air flow at idle is use toilet paper, I used writing paper, held to the grille. If it stays put you have good air flow so I should be good once AC is installed.
If you have good air flow you should not need to swap out the stat for a cooler one.

I wanted to add a shroud to my truck as I was planning on installing AC and the parts truck did not come with one that the AC parts came from.
Thing was you needed to know the number off the old shroud to get a new one, how to do that? I also did not have a lot to pick from for an 81 w/ 300 six.
I was able to find a 90's shroud the right measurements just needed a little trimming, I think were yours does not sit close to the radiator, and it fit like factory.
Dave ----

 

They say you can't polish a turd, and while I agree, they also never said you couldn't try. Wasn't much paint left on it to begin with and I probably cut off half of what was there, but it at least brought the Canyon Red back a little bit.

And yeah, the hood is terrible, but I can't make up my mind whether or not to paint it or leave it be. What i'm NOT gonna do is paint the whole truck. My '67 Mustang comes first.

 

I like the color combo
Nice job looks good
Dave ----

 

Love that "patina"! Leave it as is!