The gages did not come back up, they stayed at that half letter lower til I got home.

I am thinking I need to recheck all grounds and the harness before proceeding any farther. Who knows, The current 5.0v IVR might be right with good grounds.

I do need to remove a bunch of Scotchlocks from the rear harness. The PO installed a trailer harness with them. Actually there were two sets of them. One for the trailer harness and another that apparently ran to a slide in camper. I removed that one when I got the truck, but the trailer harness remains. Till I get a dry day. And since it is a 7 round pin plug, I need to convert to a 7 flat(rv) plug to match my flatbed trailer anyway.

BTW, where do these Tags come from? The ones at the bottom of the page? Are they generated by the board?

 

Dunno about the tags, but would guess that they are generated by the board's software so Google will find things on here quickly and put FTE hits at the top of the search page. And, it seems to work as I've frequently found my own posts, often ones I've just made, when I do a Google search for something. An example is porting 351M heads. I'd just posted something about that the day before and found my own post.

I hate the insulation-displacement connectors, and especially on wires like those at the back of a truck where they are subjected to all the elements. You know the water and dirt are going to find a way in and eventually the connection will go. Then when you open it up the wire will be so corroded that you have to cut some out to be able to solder to it.

Anyway, this thread is about gauges and IVR's, and I don't know what would cause the gauges to drop and not come back after a several minute stop.

 

Well Gary, since it seems only you and I are interested in this, we can ponder on it.

The PO had cut the block/frame/battery cable at the frame. This left only the block to frame section and it is not pretty. I put in a new ground cable from the batt to block(2 gage), but have not looked at the frame to body yet. Or any of the other grounds.

Supposed to rain through Wednesday, so.....

 

There should be a ground somewhere from one of the bellhousing bolts to the firewall. The battery has a good ground to the engine block(and originally the frame also) but the engine/tranny/rearend springs are mounted in rubber mounts. The body is also mounted in isolated rubber mounts, so the only way to get a good ground is to have small straps from the engine block to the sheetmetal, and if you have a good ground to the frame, you can have small straps from the frame to the cab.

Here I go again, but I have fallen into this trap myself, and have gone and changed things around, only to find the real problem later. I do this with many different things, and realize Ford or whoever would not have sold a truck that did this or that when it was new. They would not have sold a truck that had bad steering, gauges that go up and down all the time, keyswitches that you have to wiggle to make the wipers and the gauges work, etc. These trucks have a lot of common quirks when they get old, but they didn't do these things when they were new.

Your idea about different gauges is a sound one, if you really want to know what's going on with the systems in your truck. I can't blame Ford too much for their gauges, most people do not even look at them. It's the enthusiast who is concerned about their truck that would have liked to have had real gauges with real numbers, I add them under the dash on all my trucks and some of my cars.

 

The two 81 351M's, two 82 351W's, and one 85 351W's I've owned had the cab ground from the rear bolt of the intake manifold on the driver's side to the firewall. In fact, jstitts got the one off of Brownie last night. And, as Dave said, everything is mounted in rubber so that ground is necessary. If yours isn't good then the gauges would be the first thing that would show it because the voltage drop across the connection would, IMO, cause the IVR to give a lower voltage.

 

Dave, we do think alike. I like real gages that work.

What I hate is having to look that far down while driving. When building my racecars, the gages are just below the windshield so a quick glance and you can see everything. And with how much I do look at them, below the dash is not an option for me. And with my thoughts of keeping the truck relatively stock looking, inside the stock cluster is my only option.

BTW, I do not remember a strap from the bellhousing/intake to the body. Hmmm. It wasn't there when I did the intake manifold reseal.

And I do have to turn the key back to make everything work....

 

I've been eyeing two places: The little compartment to the right of the column, and the area above the radio but below the clock. I'm pretty sure there's enough room in the compartment and can fab up a piece of plastic to house gauges there, but it is a bit low - although quite a bit higher than the ones under the dash. I'm not sure there is room above the radio, but it looks like there is if small gauges are used.

 

I am not going to cut holes in the dash panels. Mine does not say "Ranger", "Lariat", "XL". it is blank. No clock. And I like it that way. I wear a watch so no need for a freaking clock.

When I refer to in the cluster, I mean like how I mounted the voltmeter in place of the factory ammeter.

When someone looks into the windows of my truck, it look stock, And I want to keep it that way.

I don't have A/C so those vent spots are available, but really they aren't.

 

When I was a kid, with a new license, I so wanted a pickup. Just down the road was a 80's F250 almost the same as what I now have. My dad would not let me get it. I had the money in a trust account, but he would only approve a car. So I ended up with a 1975 Chrysler Cordoba. Little did he know it had a 440 4bbl. And Corinthian leather. Ever since then I have wanted that old truck. I now have it and it takes me back every time I drive it. As such, I want to keep the 80's look.

 

Both Rusty and Dad's truck have aftermarket oil pressure gauges below the dash, and I'd bet Dad's has been on there since the 80's since it is an SW of that era's style. So, isn't the 80's look?

 

The tags are entered by the forum users, or I can add/change/delete them.

Not only are they useful for Google but also the forum software; in the Advanced Search form, one can Search by Tag.

Most people here enter tags incorrectly; they do NOT have to be just one word! They can be many words separated by commas.

But, people try and enter things such as:which creates individual tags for each general term, making them useless.

A better way of tagging that would be:No commas, that three-word term becomes one tag which can then be searched on.

I am trying to implement Tags in the Sticky replacement stuff (coming soon to a theater near you).

 

Yes and no. I have never liked gages below the dash as they are so far out of sightline.

Guess I just want the factory stuff to work as well as possible. And if that doesn't work, then put aftermarket in their place, but make it look as stock as possible. For some reason, this 82 is special to me, and I want to keep it that way.

I say all this and my Superduty has 8 aftermarket gages, 3 in the pillar(Boost, Pyrometer, Fuel Pressure), one on each side of the steering wheel(Water Temp, Trans Temp), and 3 in a pod on the lower dash(High Pressure Oil Pressure, Engine Oil Pressure, Engine Oil Temp). I hate the lower pod. I want to move it, but where do I mount 3 2 1/16" gages?

 

Chris - Thanks for the explanation. Hadn't realized you could search for a tag. I'm using some of my threads as a way to document what I'm doing and do go back to them frequently - like today to get the before pic on the throttle bracket. Knowing sorta what was said I found the post fairly quickly, but if I put a tag in ..... wait - the tag is for the thread, not the post. Oh.

Anyway, thanks. I think. Maybe.

 

After looking under the hood, I have no ground strap from the intake to the firewall. According to the EVTM, the ground wire that was there was part of the EEC harness that I yanked.

I got a generic ground strap from O'reilly's, but where does the firewall end bolt to? The closest bolt seems to be one of the wiper motor mount bolts.

 

I'll post a pic tomorrow. Is that early enough?