I used to collect Zippo's. If I find them, I'll PM ya and mail them to you.

 

Really? That would be awesome. I have a total of 7 now. Only one of them gets used though, it is the oldest one and came in a camel cigarette deal that my brother got. If you could find yours that would be really cool.

 

Yeah man no problem. I just have to remember to look!

 

Ha alright.

Well today marks the day where I shed off my procrastinators cloak and get busy. Time to knock out my thermostat and the temp sensor. Does it particularly matter what side the gasket goes on?

 

The gasket goes on the thermostat housing side. Otherwise I don't think it'll seal lol.

 

Yeah that's where the old one was. Pretty beat up. I got pictures but right now the housing I'd drying. I went and bought a new ones, the old ones was corroded and in worse shape than I thought. It only cost $12 for a new one.

 

Alright I got almost everything buttoned up. Last step is to put the upper hose on. I didn't to this step cause it's freaking cold out and I wanted to let the RTV set overnight before putting the hose on. Tomorrow I will get that hose hooked up and get some more coolant in. The coolant that came out was nice and green like fresh stuff. Pretty cool.

I got some pictures in the mean time.

Ok here is all the parts gathered.


This is the old T-stat. Turns out it was a 180* as well.


The old messed up housing.


Hoses compared. New one to old.


I got the old plug thing out, this was before I planned on buying a new housing. I tried taking a torch to it, but being that it was just a bottle of camping propane and a torch adapter, I don't think it really did much. Instead, I grabbed the handle from a small floor jack handle and slipped it on the handle of my socket, then braced the housing between my feet and cranked it till it broke loose. I wasn't so concerned if it broke since it was off the truck and I had the means to replace it. It actually didn't look as bad as I imagined.


Here is the new housing. It came with both of those plugs and one gasket which I already had.


Got 1 full coat of flat black. I use it as a primer kind of and to reduce the amount of gloss that I need to use.


And the finished product so far. I think it turned out ok, but it looks like the temp sensor isn't in far enough. The coolant will still hit the little peg inside but the end of the peg is pretty much flush with the housing around it. It should still work this way but do you guys think it is sticking out too far? I also plugged that wire in and it fit right on the end.


It was pretty easy to do it all, just kind of messy. And I kind of got coolant everywhere, I didn't realize there was pressure under the old t-stat until i started peeling it up and then coolant kind of just gushed out haha. I caught... some of it, in a bucket. The rest soaked into the gravel below me.

 

Looks good! as long as it's in there almost as tight as you can get it, it'll be fine. Most pipe thread (NPT thread) won't go in all the way since the threads are tapered. Most everything I have that's pipe thread sticks out like that.

 

Alright, sounds good. I got it as tight as I felt comfortable with. I didn't want to stress it more than needed and break something.

 

Yeah, especially on an aluminum housing lol.

 

Yeah. When I originally took the old housing off, the bolts felt like they were just going to twist apart but I found out that the bolts had RTV all over them making it hard to remove. I made sure i did a cleaner RTV job this time around. I just hope there isn't any leaks.

 

Well, I screwed up. I seem to have bought the wrong hose. I mean I knew it was wrong but one end is too big and its too long this time. I might take it back to AZ and see if they have something else or I can just cut the big end off. All I know is today I won't be getting the job done. With the football game on and family coming over, I am just going to hold off for a bit.

 

Does anyone know the affects of running something like 91% isopropyl alcohol in a tank of gas? Would it do any harm or would it help? I figured it would mix with the water in the gas and burn it easier. Just an idea. My dad was telling me to run some through a tank of gas then change the filter a few times to help clean the tank out a bit. Kind of intrigued me.

EDIT: So I googled it, so far it doesn't seem to damaging to an engine but it also doesn't seem like it would do to much to help it either. A guy mentioned that after running it through hi lawn mower at a 50/50 gas/alcohol mix, it cleaned some carbon build up off. Either way it seems like it wouldn't have much benefit for me. I could always run HEET but that's usually more expensive than a 32 oz bottle of alcohol...

 

Got everything done today. Unfortunately my "modification" for that new hose failed me... I decided instead of driving all the way to the parts store to try an exchange this hose for a different one, I would just trim off what i didn't need. Bad idea. I ended up cutting it just a bit too short so I had to use the old one. Got that one all hooked up adn fired the truck up. After I let it run for a while, I felt the hose finally get hot telling me the t-stat opened, then the temp gauge started rising. So that's all working now. But I just ran into a new issue, over in the engines side of the forum for the 355 engines (includes my 351) they say NEVER to use the generic store brand t-stat due to it not having the proper flange to block a coolant bypass within the block.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/8...ermostats.html

I learned that I should only use a RobertShaw 333 t-stat... Which sucks since I just got done with all this work. Anyways, I got the coolant topped off and everything seems to be holding up fine.

Failed experiment


Old hose is a bit stretched but still works


After letting it run a bit.


I know I certainly won't be changing out the t-stat for a while till I have done other things, I don't drive much and the engine isn't ever run really hard so overheating cylinders 4 & 8 isn't my biggest concern. If I end up swapping a 460 in before I decide to redo the t-stat, then that is less work for me.

In other news, the truck ran and drove a lot better after I let it sit and warm up for 20 minutes haha.

 

Hey the gauge works!