Might be time to look for an OD trans from a later truck! But then again, nah, for what you use it for the wind up is probably not that hard to get used to. Man, those are some low gears tho!

Nice job, saving and using that truck.

 

Well, not so fast. In 1985 that code was a 3.54 axle good for 6.3M. The 5.13 and 11M didn't come until 1988. Axle Ratios - ???Gary's Garagemahal

 

your chart is much more in depth than the one i looked at, thank you. and to be honest, id rather have the 3.54s. A bit more manageable.

I will verify the code whenever i pull the rear cover in the coming months. i want to drain the fluid and change the pinion seal.

 

That's a Ford chart, right out of their Master Parts Catalog. It is sometimes wrong, but it is miles better than anyone else's.

 

That's a big difference between the two. A non OD trans with a 5.13 would have that 460 singing big time at moderate speeds. I'm sure you could do the math, but can't imagine it doing 70.

 

I sure do love the crackle rap of Cherry Bombs though, especially when down shifting

 

A 460 with headers and cherry bombs is just too much. But, every once in a while it sounds good.

 

I concur...with daily driving, it can get on one's nerves. My 76 Elite's 460 dual exhaust with no cats through to Cherry Bombs can be a bit overwhelming at times

 

ok guys, im trying to figure out this distributor cap deal. the cap that is on it looks like this



according to rock auto, the last year that cap was used was 1976. so two questions.

1) should i just order a cap and rotor for a 76 F250 with a 460, to get me going on my way?

2) how the heck did that style of cap and rotor end up in my 85 F250?

 

Where'd you source those LEDs for the plate illumination? Those have yellowed so much on my ranch hand rear bumper that they don't even really illuminate the plate (a potential problem when I'm driving in the Texas country). I wanted to replace the lights and the fixture as a whole with a nice, LED setup.

 

Using Rock Auto the 1976 distributor and the 1985 distributor both use the same ignition control module. Maybe someone put in the older style distributor.

 

1) You would need to order a cap & rotor for a points style distributor.
Shoot for '73 or something.
2) Because 'someone' cares more about the cap looking big and ugly than about arcing and misfires when the leads are that close together.

If it were me, I would get the adapter and plug wires for a DSII distributor.
There is another thread where the poster is saying his adapter is loose.
There are pictures of the clips that hold it on.
Don't forget the indexing tab, because it will wobble if you try to force the clips with it fitted the wrong way around.

 

its a factory style replacement fixture, with the factory style plug and an ebay 194 press in LED bulb.

 

So, you are saying, someone swapped in a on older distributor, and your suggestion would be to swap back to thew correct style distributor ( the 85 style, with the larger, multi-piece cap)

I was planning on doing wires soon anyway, so it may be a good deal to take care of everything at once.

 

I don't think he is saying that at all.
Get the cap & rotor for your year truck, I think you have them already, and buy the adaptor that goes between the dist. and your cap.

The reason for the larger dia. cap was when they lean out the air/fuel mixture it is harder to light it off so they went with a wider spark plug gap.
Because of the wider gap the older weaker spark could not jump it so they gave it more power.
With electricity like water it is always trying to find the easiest path. For electricity it is to ground and it does this inside the dist. cap.
When this happens you have a miss fire and a cly that did not fire with a lost of power and more pollution.

The fix was to move the cap plug wires away from each other and to do this they had to make the cap bigger.
Ford kept the stock small dist. body and went with an adaptor to fit the larger cap on it. GM (HEI) made a bigger dist. base to fit the larger cap on.

So in short get the adaptor and use the larger cap & rotor.
Dave ----