^^^^the reason our trucks should have hour meters AND odometrs

 

Hour-meters are nice, but may not be quite as useful as you may think - for instance I know folks who put theirs in as part of the key-on accessory circuits, and those same individuals then proceed to light up work areas and what not for hours on end leaving the ignition on but engines off - guess what happens then, hour meter keeps ticking but the engine ain't seeing none of them hours. I've personally installed only one hour-meter, I wired it up with an oil-pressure switch so that if engine ain't running hour meter stays asleep as well, but this adds quite a bit more work that many impatient types will not go for...

Additionally, while the electric high-idle is fairly easy and cheap to install, it is also pretty limited in functionality - it will only bump your idle up to about 900 rpms or so, which may work for rest areas and such but is hardly useful if you're running a PTO or hydraulic winch or trying to jump-start something that takes lot of juice (for instance another IDI). The better way of going about this all is using a so-called vernier throttle cable, you will probably find one of those in just about any dump-equipped junkyard gem and also many 18-wheelers - one of mine came from a big International cabover tractor, and I recently salvaged another one for no real purpose at all, lol.

 

With the age of our trucks, its a bit late to think about an hour meter. My bucket truck spends more time idleing then driving down the road. And countless miles driving backwords

 

The high idle is adjustable, mine was closer to 1400 until I adjusted it down. Turn the plunger in or out with a wrench to adjust. I do agree the adjustable throttle cable is a better way to go for PTO applications.

 

Ok have a question about high idle (might not be the high idle switch itself) after driving the idle seems to stay high in my 86 f250 6.9 t19 trans and the idle slows if I let off the clutch when stopped

 

The high idle solenoid has only a limited amount of travel. So just turning it out with a wrench only works so well, then you start adjusting your hot idle.

LCAM suggested using a throttle cable from an IH dump truck. Another option i've seen is a bicycle shifter cable and a short piece of lamp chain so the cable wont interfere with the main throttle. I'm probably going this route.


86f250, if the high idle is off, and your idle is still high, but drops after some time, you might have a problem with your governor in your injection pump sticking. Standard suggestion here is to go buy some "Diesel Kleen", dump the diesel out of your fuel filter (or just get a new filter), refill it with the diesel kleen and run it for about 30 seconds. Then let the truck sit as long as you can. Hours is good, overnight is best. Then drive it normally and see if it doesnt get better.

 

Ok I will try that!