THAT'S your "unfinished" house? I was imagining studs with tyvek.

Compared to the room-by-room gut renovation I did to a circa 1910 cottage (while simultaneously living in it), you're almost there!

Would it be possible to insulate the smallest room in the house with foam and iso-board and live out of one room with a super efficient space heater? Hang curtains and canvas to cover the walls for the winter so you don't feel like you're living in a cooler . That's basically what I had to do in a -20 degree Utah winter. It was plenty cozy!


If the truck is running now, just leave it as is for the winter and give it some major parts TLC in spring.
Spray down the inside of distributor cap and wire terminals with WD40, then seal up the cap with RTV to keep it dry and together for the snow. Pull the plugs and scrub them with some carb cleaner, re-gap them, then call it good for a few months.
Save your money to bribe the farmer with beers if something goes wrong.


Maybe take pic of your engine wiring to see how screwy it is. I was split between fixing my stock harness or doing the HEI conversion, but after poking around for an afternoon I figured out where things were supposed to go and kept it stock.


When I was considering HEI, this is the writeup that made most sense to me:
TRICKY or TRICK? HEI Module Inside Duraspark Case - Ford Muscle Forums : Ford Muscle Cars Tech Forum
(I know you don't have the old module for a case, but a chunk of aluminum or copper works too.)

 

If you decide to go with the GM module make sure your sink mounting is clean and flat.
Use plenty of heatsink paste.

 

If you want to go the duraspark II box route, you need to get the matching coil. Don't mix and match coils with the duraspark II box, it's most reliable with the coil that's made for it, as well as the resistor that's made into the harness of your truck. It may be there already, some of these trucks had harnesses for both types of systems. Your system used a white/blue wire for the coil, the duraspark II used a green/red wire for the coil.

When it's all said and done, if you use the duraspark II box, just measure the voltage on the coil + with the truck running. If it's around 9v or so, you are ok. If it's up near 12v, you will need to add a resistor.

All this is only if you are going to run the duraspark II ignition box.

 

Thanks so much once again for all the advice!

Funny you mentioned heat sink compound .... that is how this whole thing started!

The tried died on the way to Lowes. Poked around and found no spark. meter said I was getting power to the module so I knew it was the module or the pick-up. Turns out it was both ( had to pull the distributor apart to get replace the hall effect sensor). The guy before me had replaced the module ( on the distributor ... found the dead on in the glove box ) but had not used any heat sink compound!

That was when I found the broken ears on the distributor and the cap "just hanging on".

As for the house .... it truly is almost done ... at least to the point of living in it.

After getting some ridiculous quotes, we decided to be our own general contractor and sub out a lot of the work ( framing and such ). The house is two bedrooms but fairly large. Wheelchairs need a lot of room to maneuver. It is what I am calling an "open concept" house. Only walls upstairs are on the bedroom and bathrooms.

We had all kinds of problem .... heck I even have the furnace installers ladders still here ... he got half way through the job and left! I got the 14 gas leaks I found fixed and started the furnace and hot water tank myself ... still have no return ducts but that can wait. Framer kept taking off for months at a time.

Really what I need to do is get the driveway fixed up and then build a ramp for the wife.

Electric wheelchairs sink in mud! They don't like stone either .... hmmmmm.

Last year we parked the RV in the mud and I put down 1/4" chip board so she could get from the RV to the van. I might have to do the same thing.

This was going to be a one story house but we hit ledge. So we took the same design and just lifted it out of the ground. The first floor is the "basement" and unfinished. All the living area is upstairs.

The idea was to buy an elevator. We were told we could one for $15K. With a grant of $7K-10K we figured this was a good option.

Then we went to buy one ... since my wife can't use her hands she need automatic doors and such. Plus with an electric wheelchair, you need a large lift. Quotes came in for $35K - $40K .... ouch!

OK, so I purchased an old electric forklift. The mast is now in the house. I am planning on building my own elevator. I was hoping to get it done before winter ... no way.

So I do now have a room down stairs ready to go. Like I said, just need to get the driveway done before the dirt turns to concrete ( it can freeze after it is smooth and level ... full of ruts and washed out in spots right now).

Off topic but maybe interesting to some ... my wife needs care every 4 hours ( she broke her neck jumping in a pool when she was 12 ... she is 34 now). She had never traveled so I got the idea when we met of reworking a motor home ... adding a lift and hospital bed. The RV has a 1999 Ford frame with a V10. I bought it just so she could travel, never expecting to live in it for over two years.

Again, cost was the driving force. I paid $18k for the unit. I got a quote of $25K to install a side lift and $10 for an interior lift. I designed my own lift, cut an new door and built it .... project took almost a year working part time after work and on weekends .... got it done the week before the wedding .... honeymoon was the test run.

I put pictures of this project online at: https://mcsele.shutterfly.com/2299

My wife started a blog about the building of our house: Mike and Maria's Blog | Life is a journey, not a destination.

Thanks so much again ....

Mike

 

Well done, Man. That house and property is killer.

The fork lift-retrofit is genius- I'm surprised you even need to ask for truck advice!

Your dog Buttons cracks me up in almost every photo.

 

I got lucky with the property. It took me 2 years to sell my place in SC but when I did this one came up.

Only down side was that for the price of my place in SC ( 6400 sq ft building, two trailers, 3 acres, .... ) I only got the land here in VT.

Taxes in SC on all that were $700 ... My tax bill here is $7000!

We were going to move down south but my wife has a job here and her health insurance is here so I moved up ( I was originally from the Buffalo, Niagara Falls area anyway so I have seen my fair share of snow).

Forums like this are great ... I love seeing how other people "fix" things.

I have a tendency to go way over board. For example, I have never used a "junk yard" engine. When my last engine needed rebuilding ( and this was several years ago ), I tore it down and took it to a automotive machine shop that builds race motors. By the time I had everything done ( line bored, rods sized and balanced, crank magnafluxed, ground and polished, new valves, guides and springs, ......) I had far more money into the engine than the car was worth. All this was to make it a more dependable engine, not a race engine.

I am sure it was the "right way" to rebuild it but definitely not a "smart" decision. I am sure the engine outlasted the vehicle.

Using the GM module is a great fix for this truck that I would not have thought about.

It is also great to find people who can identify parts. I understood what I wanted was a distributor with a magnetic pick-up coil ( not a hall effect sensor ) but had not idea what years they where used on the ford 300's.

I think the forklift will work well as an elevator. It is simple with very little to go wrong. It was rated at 3000 lbs .... I am lift 500 max. I have added a limiter on the cylinder so even if I break a line, it should come down at a controlled rate ( not just drop ). It is battery operated ( 24 volts so I am going to use two batteries in series and just keep them on a battery minder ) so no fear of a power failure. I will make sure I put safety switches on the doors and power locks so no one can walk under it when it is up and on one can open the upper door and try entering when the lift is down.

I think I will have $2500 - $3000 in the project when done ... a lot better thank $40K ( or even $30K if I could get a $10K grant ).

Mike

 

I actually work now at a rehabilitation center as a electrician. They are always experimenting with new technology and ideas for wheelchairs. One of my jobs is to keep the electric doors working. We just had a client who could not push the buttons for the electric doors, so we converted some of them to a style that you just wave something in front of it and it triggers the doors.

They also have a special gravel we buy that wheel chairs seem to run well on. They go all the way across the mountain to Charlottesville I believe to get it. It's not cheap, but it's a fine gravel that has a green tint to it. It's almost like crush and run, but it has no dust in it, and no large gravels in it either. It packs well and the wheel chairs run good on it. I don't know what they call it, but I could try and find out, they may sell it other places.

 

I would be very interested to find out what others find is best. As you know, those little front wheels seem to get caught in just about everything.

The idea situation would be to pave ( or cement ) everything ... not likely on our budget.

I am hoping by next year I can start putting up a path around the house.

We are lucky right now ... we parked the RV on the poured concrete pad for the workshop ... she has a 50 x 60 area to wheel around on.

You understand probably better than most why I make most of her equipment. As soon as you put the word "medical" on anything, the price jumps through the roof.

She just needed batteries for her chair .. two deep cycle gel units. Medical store wanted $400 each. He showed me them ... Intersate batteries. I went down to the Interstate store, same exact battery .... $125!

Mike