Holy smokes! I wasn't sure I was looking at the top of an engine at first!

I always did hate seeing old trucks with gnarly front bumpers. Every other little bit of damage has been no big deal to me, but a messed up bumper just bothers me.

 

Nothing today, but yesterday ordered my hardware and software for my EEC-V system.

 

I'm going to put the valve body back in my transmission today.

 

been working on diagnosing some minor things as I have free time. in the meantime cosmetically a bunch of faded trim was bugging me.


hubcaps were equally faded.

also cleaned the steelies and touched them up too




also removed the tailgate trim, half the red strip was broken and gone, it looked terrible. it looks a lot better without it IMO, even if there are 8 holes leftover for now. need to find some time soon to grind away the small spots of rust all around down to metal and hit it with some primer.

 

Made a trip to the salvage yard today. Needed a few Mustang parts, but had to check out the truck section. Found a date and time option on one, and it had a almost perfect set of bezels to go with it. It is now on my truck, and I am looking for a factory AM radio with push button select. Found a set of black bezels also in nice shape so I got them also. Planning for next project I guess.

It is so nice having a old time junk yard. They let me take my wagon with my tool box and would let me spend the day if I wanted. They do come by now and them to make sure I am allright.

 

Well, I got the valve body in and the truck running, so far so good! I haven't taken it down the road yet but it shifts in and out of gear firmer than it did before, if I put it in 2nd and try to move it, it feels much more peppy than it ever has.

 

I got the transmission separated from the engine FINALLY. And I didn't get hurt this time. lol

I pulled the dipstick tube and the transmission decided it wants to drain itself, so I'm probably gonna need some bottles of trans fluid before long.

I'm gonna be driving it to church Sunday morning, whether it likes it or not. lol

 

Please show pictures of what you found Kirby.

Do you think it was due to some starter engagement anomaly?
I certainly hope the new flexplate turns out better.

 

I will get pics Saturday when I start back to work on it. I kinda would like to put in a new torque converter while I've got it apart, but money's too tight for it. Now that I know how to get it apart now though, it shouldn't be a problem to pull it back apart later on.

It looks like the weld broke all the way around, and when I felt along where the ring gear would have been, I felt rough, almost jagged edges where it separated. I don't know if it was just fatigued from 30 years of heat cycling, or what...not sure if the starter had much to do with it aside from being the force that finally broke it loose.

There is a flat spot that I'm pretty sure was causing my starter gears to get chewed up. There are metal shavings all over the area surrounding the starter mounting hole on the inside of the bellhousing, where the starter gears had been chewed up over the years.

The shaft on the torque converter looks really good. There is only a little bit of wear and the metal is nice and shiny. The inside of the bell housing is surprisingly clean with no trace of oil, transmission fluid, or much of anything anywhere.

The fun part comes next...juggling a TC back onto the transmission without knocking it off the jack. I need to find my chain so I can strap it down for that step. I'm kinda leery of those flywheel bolts, but I've wrestled bigger bears before.

 

Just a quick question. You've helped me out in the past, so ill try to return the favor. My buddies 85 was doing the exact same thing. After a little investigation I found that somebody had run a jumper wire in the back of the fuse panel. The lights had no juice flowing to them, so they decided to steel the juice from the emergency circuit. Found that the headlight circuit had rubbed up against the metal dash framing and eventually cut the power supply. Half hour after finding the issue, fixed. Good luck my friend

 

Re-acquired it! I sold this '86 f250 460 to a friend in fall '04. Been big jeep guy ever since, they seem to multiply quickly, but lately have been needing a work truck and I knew my old one wasn't being driven too often. It got less than 3k more miles on it since he bought it and he didn't change anything - its a trip having it back, like a friend from a prior lifetime. I'm looking forward to driving and working on it again. First plans are to just give it the TLC it needs after sitting so long. Last night was addressing the exhaust, both header collectors broke off from the exhaust - turns out the professional who installed the exhaust 10 years ago just hard-mounted the exhaust to the frame which is no bueno when the motor needs to twist with torque.

 

Welcome back Varnish.

Glad to hear you've reconnected with your 'friend'!

 

Did lots of hauling with my truck today, 2 yards of heavy wet bark, and 390 pounds of scrap that went to the dump today. Truck ran great, shifted great. And it didn't use all that much gas for being heavily loaded and in stop and go construction traffic, with very hilly terrain.

 

Slight issue, I took my distributor apart to fix the sticking mechanical advance, that works great now. But the damn oil pump drive rod somehow pulled up a tiny ways and is jammed now, it's kinda crooked in the hole. Before it was not jammed, now it is. Oh well, slight dilemma, looks like the washer got cocked in the hole a tiny bit and is jammed. I just need something long and skinny to poke down there to un jam it.

 

Double post...