My 1972 F-250 390 V8 Camper special, came with a stock Ford overflow bottle.

Seen quite a few in the junk yards too around here for the 1970's trucks. The lids (sort of like a mason or the old type mayonaise jar lids) were all rusted out on the wrecker ones I've seen.

I think it was offered in one of the optional cooling packages.

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As for the wandering guages, Oil, Temp, Fuel guages peg. Smacking the top of the dash usually clears up this problem for a time. But this is annoying for me. "Smack-punch-smack" the dash isn't always comforting to your passengers.

The cause of this is usually the instrument cluster Voltage regulator on the cluster, (Hooks to the cluster printed circut with 9V battery type connectors.)

The cluster voltage regulator looses ground, and the guages peg. Smacking the dash can cause the intermittent ground fault to correct for a time.

For a more viable solution, and no more violence. , you can get a piece of automotive electrical wire, "Perferably Color Black, Ford's Circut #57 Ground wire color" and two eyelit connectors.

1: Cut about two feet or less of wire and crimp the eyelit connectors on each end of the wire.

2: Where the cluster voltage regulator is bolted to the plastic "little bolt headed screw" unscrew the screw and hook one end of the wire you made to that screw and screw the voltage regulator back down to the cluster making sure the eyelit of the wire you made is between the regulator, and the screw head, and not the regulator and the Printed circut.

3: Attach the other end of the wire you made to a good grounding point. Say the metal on the dash.

This should eliminate the guage wandering problem, and give you more accurate guages, and even brighter dash lights too.

Hope this helps.

 

81-F150- Quote:
The cause of this is usually the instrument cluster Voltage regulator on the cluster, (Hooks to the cluster printed circut with 9V battery type connectors.)


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It looks like this:



You can see the mounting screw on the bracket.

Sometimes "Just Cleaning up the PC board" with electrical cleaner makes it like it should again

 

MY worry would be the fact that it still runs when he shuts it off, which is a sign of running hot. As i posted earlier.

 

Having a "Rich mixture" can cause run-on as well ........so does having the wrong heat range plugs installed.

 

I'm happy to report that my problem is fixed. The intermittent heating up I was experiencing was caused by belt slippage on the fan and water pump. I normally don't drive it far or fast and couldn't hear it over the engine and tire noise but I gunned it in my garage a few days ago and heard the tell-tale squeal. I had checked and rechecked the tension on the belt and never suspected that to be the problem. So I just replaced all my belts with new ones and it's running normal now.

 

I'm afraid it can be anything or nothin at all. Mine was a real intermitent problem that would pop up when i tryed to baby it down the highway. It was a vacuum port leak at the carb. A lean mixture will cause u 2 run hot also.

 

Well, I thought I had it fixed. I can't get the darn belt to stop slipping. I installed new belts and adjusted it at the power steering pump until I thought it was right--it slipped. Then I adjusted it tighter. Problem solved? Nope, it slipped. I've taken almost all of the adjustment out of it and it's tighter than it should have to be and I even sprayed some belt conditioner on it to see if that would help.

When I had the belts off I turned the water pump by hand. It didn't seem too hard to turn. Is it possible that I need a new fan pulley? I didn't have this problem before changing the water pump but that doesn't seem to be the problem.

I'm assuming that the belt slipping is causing a flow problem that is causing it to run hotter than it should.

Any ideas?

 

Your water pump should have spun freely like it did in the box. Over tightening the belt can cause the components to seize at the shaft and damages the components. It's possible to tighten the bolts on the water pump improperly causing the shaft and bearing to be our of alignment and keeping it from spinning freely. The hotter it gets, the more it will seize.