@tdmoparguy

This is awesome, thanks! I think the T-5 is a nice choice (I've never driven a mustang) but based off what a mustang is, I would think that it's definitely a bit stronger than the MOD5R2 - the ZF has a granny first gear which I have no use for, the truck is more of a toy / utility truck where I can load things into, but I doubt I'll be hauling anything much.

The plan is to improve on the 6 cyl to get between 200 - 300 HP so it feels a little bit more energetic to drive. Not looking to break any speeding records, but looking to have fun and be able to run the AC and go up hills without struggling.

I wish I was working on it actively, but the garage is taking precedence as there is no sheetrock up and no lights. With that said, the exterior lights were finally wired in and hung yesterday, and insulation was placed in the wall on the front of the garage. Things are actually being put back instead of destroyed! It feels good.

It's a 23x26 garage, or roughly that. I think I'm going to have a sheetrock delivery... that alone is going to hurt the wallet. My buddy who has been helping me with the garage asked me how much it would cost to pay someone to do that - I guessed about $2000; I know doing it myself will save money for sure, and at this point I've done enough sheetrocking to be pretty good at it. Get a level, a sharp blade, and good with spackle/mud whatever you call it. Use a 12" blade when possible. Tape your joints. Purchase corner molding to make very nice clean corners... etc etc. lol.

It'll be nice when it's done, it'll be bright, temperature controlled, and organized and easy to work on a vehicle.

 

I certainly like your build thread, I had the same year (1981) but mine was a black panel.



The seats I found on Ebay were part of a "tear out" from a then brand new Freightliner truck. I used two panels of flat steel for an adapter plate and that was that, those Freightliner seats were great for long distances, never got saddle sore.


That transmission of yours was know as a RUG/RAB that Ford used for only a couple of years in the Econoline vans. I had mine rebuilt but I later learned that the shift linkage was screwed up as well. Hurst Super Shifter to the rescue. The trouble with that fix was the stick was a little short. Luckily the threads were 3/8X20 as I recall and I threaded on a tap handle of my favorite bier at the time and it matched right up.



When I first picked up this van the PO had used foam rubber underneath a downright fugly green deep **** carpet, that was first to go using standard carpet pad and the gray carpet seen in these photos. It was already partially converted too with wood paneling on the wall and ceiling that I left in place.





That metal frame is to the metal framed futon I used when we went camping. At 6' I'm too tall for conventional van furniture and this futon when folded out filled out wall to wall and fore and aft, just like it was made for it.







I also fitted out with dual batteries, this may have been overkill, but with two 100+ watt amps driving the 8 speakers, a Uniden Pro 538 XLW with a 250 watt Brick, a Uniden BCD996P2 50 State programmable Police and NOAA band scanner. It seemed prudent to do so. I hope you can find this stuff useful when you fit out your van.





Hopefully this'll give you some ideas.

 

Sorry for my late responses and I understand you may have already thaken care of these elements but here goes, just in case.[QUOTE=
One thing I noticed when driving was that the temp gauge only BARELY hit the normal range. I'm assuming the previous owner put in the wrong thermostat for this engine?
I noticed this same thing on my '81 E150 I replaced the thermostat twice and ultimately I had a sheet metal shop build a radiator shield that covered part of the radiator that brought the motor up to operating temperature.[/QUOTE]
Also, if you find the motor pinging the Ford distirbutor in these years was part of the first Ford Electronic Ignition ~ EEC-1 to time the distributor one doesn't loosen the distributor and turn it, there a set screw near the awkward back of the distributor to adjust the timing.
Does anyone know about the switch for the wipers? I bought a dash piece that has intermittent wipers, I'm assuming that is controlled by the switch and not the motor, There's a control box that is part of the intermittent wiper circuit. I got lucky when I lived down in Coos Bay as the wrecking yard I visited kept older rigs in their lot so when I pulled the switch I took the entire end of that harness that included the controller box.
Also, unless the market has changed it will be very difficult to find an aftermarket header that will fit into the confines of the E 150 w the venerable 300, at least when I was looking into it.

 

Is this a dead thread?

 

Thread isn't dead, I think because you fit so much into what you wrote, people aren't sure what you're asking for help with. It almost seems like you're answering your own questions.

 

It wasn't for my own sake Mike, as the tag line said; "I hope you can find this stuff useful when you fit out your van." Just in case he wanted some ideas

 

OK, I guess this thread is dead, I still have the '81, but I bought an '89 with an interior that isn't a shorty with a 302 in it, and I've pivoted on a bunch of things. Right now the front suspension is completely removed from the '89 and I'm working on rebuilding it. Winter and major surgery didn't help with these things. At this point it looks like the '81 is going to be a parts truck and really the major thing I'll be stealing from it is the clutch pedal assembly. I've decided to go with a T56 6 speed transmission and a 351W engine down the line with a modern fuel injection and coil packs vs a distributor. It should be a lot of fun, but getting the front buttoned up then tackling the rot on the body is my plan, so far.

To answer your questions...

1. Engine temp - I'd let your engine get to operating temp and throw a thermometer in the overflow and see what you're getting. There are two things at play here:
A: The gauge in the cabin
B: The thermostat in the truck
You could also see where the thermostat runs to and throw some boiling water on it and see what the gauge reads. That's not a horrible idea either.
To answer your question, you probably put the wrong thermostat in the engine. You want to fix this as engines like to be hot and running at a good temperature. Overheating is bad, but overcooling is bad too.
Reading your post if you had a sheet metal shop cover part of the radiator to bring it to temp, then it's most definitely the thermostat. The radiator is a giant heatsink and if you blocked off some of the fins from getting hit with air, the engine is going to "overheat", or in your case, cool less efficiently. The thermostat is fully open and by blocking airflow you're artificially increasing the temperature. I recall back in the early 90s or late 80s my father had a piece of cardboard over his radiator in the winter. Same idea. The real fix is to get a thermostat that opens up at a higher temperature though; your radiator sounds robust and capable of maintaining the temp.

No idea about FI on the early 80s, mine came with a trusty old carb. My 89 is fuel injected and I didn't hear pinging. Timing is pretty important so adjusting your timing is probably a good idea. Not sure who that comment was directed to, but I'd rip out the early FI and throw in a real FI system or go to a carb - those early FI systems are junk and basically just squirt fuel - it's a tiny bit better than a carb as a carb is a controlled fuel leak but FI without adjusting for environmental factors can suck; adjusting a carb on a sunny day where its 70 then starting the truck in 20 degree weather... the truck is gonna run like crap. Just my 2c on those fuel systems. I'm going with a real FI system where I can monitor the air as well as the engine position with a cam position sensor and there won't be a distributor or a coil anymore, I'll be using coil packs and let the computer do the work. It'll be expensive (probably) but I'm not keen on adjusting a ****ty system multiple times over and over to compensate for lack of data. There's a solution - modern vehicles use it.

The switch for the wipers. I replaced the stock one in the '81 with one that had intermittent in the speed, as the factory '81 did not. It is indeed controlled by the switch. You can find the switch with the intermittent speed, I purchased one on eBay if I recall. In fact, it may not be the switch, but an inline adapter that goes to the switch and then power goes into the adapter. Either way, it works and will fit in an '81 with the stock wiring. If you think about it, an intermittent switch is just a pulse of electric to the motor every few seconds to get the wipers to move.

For the 300ci there is a good header available to improve the airflow and get rid of the ****ty OEM header that cracks and leaks and fills the cabin with poison - it's the fuel injection header. The only issue with the FI header is that you may need to do some minor modifications on the bolt holes (the FI has more holes) and the FI header doesn't heat up - I've seen some people plumb a radiator line to the header to get some fluid flowing so in the cold weather the truck doesn't have issues, but that's the issue. They sell aftermarket headers that mimic the OEM design made for the FI engine, and those will work. It's just cast iron. If you're looking for shiny chrome and a specific look, you're basically looking for a fabrication shop, or digging out the MIG/TIG and doing the piping yourself. Either way, the OEM header is a huge plug on the engine - the engine needs to breathe and increasing the airflow is a big deal and a quick way to get some additional power.

I've made a few posts about other things on the forum and received... basically zero advice which is a shame. This thread I've received the most information and that's wonderful. The rest I've been doing my own research (I've done tons of research in college and for my master's degree, same thing except I don't get graded, I just have to live with the results of my modifications.... which is honestly, better/worse )

Maybe I'll throw together a ****ty free website where I can document my project. Either way, I'm more than likely getting into, "there's no ****in manual for this" territory with my upgrades. The idea to totally change the engine's air/fuel comes from a cool video I watched recently - I feel like ANYONE whose into cars / older cars should watch this - Ronald seems like a pretty cool guy, he has a nice voice and his recordings are good and he explains what he's doing quite well. For an amateur shade tree mechanic, it was really informative and from working on modern cars (friends) to working on old cars (as old as a 55 chevy, and air cooled VW engines, and air cooled VW radiators... man those things are tricky...) it really connected a lot of moving parts in my head on how we went from distributors and spark plug wires to coil packs directly on spark plugs.


Any, @Turbogus 1 thanks for responding. Sorry it took so long to respond.

 

The intermittent control box, for anyone looking to do the swap looks like this;


It's tucked up under the dash.
Also, I looked into a header for my black 'Easy Bake' '81 van and short of expensive motor doghouse work a header wouldn't fit.

 

Ford put a split header on the EFI engines, the only thing worth a damn, the 300 cost more to build than the v8, parts for it are more than the v8, and you gain less per dollar than the v8, people must have too much money and want to burn it, I hate these engines and no shop would swap it with a v8, so I have another, and it is still broken down, 5 years mind you, took 5 years before a shop finally declared the engine needed replaced, and it still seems to need repairs! You like the 300, well throw money in a barrel and light it on fire, you'll get the same as you will spending it on one!

Turbogus, the wiper switches, ford used several, I got one, and its the wrong one, so many different sockets, my wiper only works on low, hi is off, stops the wiper where it is, could I have one of those boxes causing it?

 

Hi Maples, as I recall when I was looking for this in a boneyard in Coos Bay, I found an '83, '85 and an '81 they all looked the same externally the wiring was chewed up on the other two so I went with the one that matched my year. If you open the box you may find some burned components or disconnected wire. If you have the tools and the talent repairing one of these should be fairly easy, much more so than my '98. I learned on that one that one cannot trust component manufacturers anymore either Chinese counterfeits permeate right down to component level anymore. Now I only purchase from Digikey or Mouser.

 

I took all the trouble to remove the dash face, didn't see the box or even consider one was back there, maybe one day if this pile of **** will stay home long enough, I fix the wipers, right now its replace everything under the hood then boom, the spliced together lower radiator hose blew, or just decided the plastic splice doesn't want to seal, shop put an aluminum radiator in to a v8, lower hose is on the wrong side, so must be extended, replacement radiators for these nightmares are all plastic now, I refuse to put one in, if they had put in a v8 like I wanted, it would not be an issue, nope, put it back to factory, like I wanted another 300. Rat rods may get away with pieced together hoses, but don't do this on a daily driver, it will bite you in the end, or buy a new van and find this garbage is standard on them, my 99 5.4 kept blowing the 'new' heater line off the heater core, they couldn't get it to lock on correctly, so I sold that van rather than risk overheating it, 4 tows on the same issue is my limit, the money pit owns that crown!
More do's and don'ts, avoid OBD1 unless you plan to swap to a carburetor, or you are a rich sadist, scream hit me again daddy ford!
BTW while the rear air bag kit for the E250/350 van will fit the E150, on a shorty, its like riding a pogo stick, even when deflated, SOB has a tall bumper inside the bag, I believe you can actually feel the shocks top out before coming back down, at least entering in a wheelchair doesn't tip it to the right anymore, neither does 100 mile an hour winds!
Who ever remanufactures replacement coil springs for the E150, the 300 AKA 4.9, you'll have 1/2" space travel before the suspension, I-beam, hits the bump stop, in China thats close enough for government!
Dads ready to sell it, I say no way, the money invested passed insanity 3 years ago, I'm in for Never Give Up Never Surrender, this is my hell, keep this and I'll never die, the devil is too entertained with me trying to keep this thing on the road, hell is a toolbox, and a ford, you work for eternity trying to keep it going, if there was ever a better commercial for Chevy, this is it!
I need a priest to bless 6 qts of 10w30, 3 gallons of coolant, 18 qts of Type F transmission fluid and 15 gallons of gas, wait, a gallon of windshield fluid, don't want to miss anything!


This BS is a No No, as if it matters, if it wasn't the slice it would be the hose, its something every day it leaves the house!

 

I forgot to add, its got that car lot shine under the hood, like armor all has been applied, nothing like washing the oil, power steering fluid, and brake leak off with 3 gallons of Ethylene glycol, doing my part for the environment, the parking spot was starting to look bad, at least it was obvious what the fluid was this time, the smell, and green tint. Once this is solved, I'm looking for the heater core to blow next, its the only thing we've not replaced, and looks like it would be an absolute joy to replace, good thing the passenger seat base was replaced with a quick release, did that because the dog house was becoming a yo yo, if you pull your dog house several times a day, look for a 96 Econoline, the seats mid van have a quick release base, because removing one awkward item is for amateurs, real ford owners require 2!
When the men in white coats come to get me, if they are in a ford, I ain't fixing it!

 

Holy schneiglies, looks like you've had your hands full. Granted my '81 needed a trans. rebuild and the original 300 broke a piston skirt so I installed another 300 crate motor. Luckily the rest was well in hand. I guess you could call it an exercise in Zen.