Ok what about the first start of the day? It's sounding more and more like the glow plug system.

 

double post

 

First start of the day is the same way. Lots of cranking and persuasion. I'm going to test the glow plugs tonight.

 

Didn't get around to testing the glow plugs yesterday or today, but I will tomorrow. I did however, fully drain and flush the engine block, and refill with the proper coolant. All that was in there was straight water, unfortunately. I caught it in time though. I washed and scrubbed all the filth off it while I was working on it, too.

List of things that don't work:

left turn signal

rear tank (starves and dies when selected)

brakes (need bleeding + vac pump)

fuel gauge

horn

parking brake

 

Quick way to check glow plugs is to unplug all first. Take a test light hook the clamp to the positive bat term then touch each glow plug with the tip. the ones that don't light are bad.

 

I did the spark test with a simple wire and found three bad ones. Two Awfullites and one Motorcraft. They all came out easily and in one piece. Starts quite a bit better. Not perfect, but much better.

 

One small complication bogged me down a little today in my effort to replace my vacuum pump. One of the bolts was rusted, seized and nice and rounded over. Sprayed it with PO, and welded a nut on to the preexisting head. The flange on the bolt head made this very convenient, actually.

 

Good thinking! How'd it work?

 

Thanks! The heat from welding made a tremendous difference, I think, and the bolt threaded out perfectly.

 

think about deleting the front tank, and installing a rear 38 gallon tank,
you can get em on e-bay for 100$ delivered, comes with mounting hardware and copper tube to extend your pick up.
then you can delete the problematic fuel switch valve.
this mixed with a new showerhead, and your fuel problems will be solved.

 

That's good advice, I have the 38 gal tank and love it. Had to fashion my own stand-offs for the skid plate bolts and make some kind of buffer between the plate and tank so they don't rub and rust each other out. I ended up fixing my selector valve and use both now but the 38 is great!

 

Thanks for posting this. My rear tank has a good leak if filled all the way, so that would be a pretty damn good replacement.

 

Well folks, not too much to speak of with the truck. Other than the horn and left turn signal and a little more brake work, she's pretty solid.

 

More work on the truck. Tightened the return line from the fuel filter, and I will see if that fixed my air intrusion issue that came about after my $35 IP replacement. Welded up a new muffler, a 31" glasspack, which coupled with my IP turned up 1 flat made it run damned good! I mounted a small switch panel and a light bar to the front. I kind of always thought light bars were for silly highschool kids to put on daddy's truck but this one was free and actually is pretty nifty!

 

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