Me three weeks ago: just gonna crawl under the truck and see why the starter is grinding


Me last night: high performance rebuild with body-matching valve covers....that oughtta do it!


Install starts tonight. This truck has always been very leaky and unreliable. Hopefully this helps fix those problems.

 

Currently building a winch bumper for my 88 f250 stay tuned for the build thread on it

 

Put HIDs in it today.

 

Got her a bit muddy!

 

I finally removed the broken off stub from the end of the catalytic convertor what was left after the muffler broke off. I'm still going to see if I can get it welded back to the muffler and reattach the rest of the exhaust system. I prepped at the attaching points as well. I had to grind off the stud from the tailpipe hanger so I'll be able to put a new rubber hanger there. Someone sure had a "great" idea coming up with something like that What a chore! I also bled the clutch system as it wasn't engaging gears without clashing. I hope the slave isn't going out. Who the heck decided it was a good idea to put the clutch slave inside the bell housing? I'd have to drop the transmission to get at it if I needed to.
I'm thinking about selling it eventually as I'm really disappointed in some of the redundancies in this truck and the liberal use of rivets and attachments that need to be be ground off instead of using nuts and bolts. I'd love to have another slick side again as those were truly no nonsense trucks. Too bad 4X4's of that vintage are so hard to find.

 

Where did you get that roof rack? What do u use it for? Looks good

 

Thanks! It's a highlander rain gutter rack. I use it for my kayaks and paddleboard. It was about $125 or so.

 

That exhaust looks great!

 

You have a web link to the rack?

 

Backed into my neighbors truck and tweaked my bumper.

 

Today I removed the rear flippy bench seat, fixed the release levers on the sides of my front bench. Armor-all'd the inside, vacuumed, washed and waxed the outside and put some protectant on the black trim to darken it up. Also sanded up the headlights to get some of the age off.

Gotta say, today was a good day

 

Got the engine installed and the cam broken in. Finishing up body work this week....

 

yesterday a new water pump, today adjusted the e brake and mounted the winch (the winch is really here only for the picture)

 

It died in the driveway Sunday evening. After several hours of diagnostics, I've been able to determine that the PIP sensor failed without much warning. I've got a new distributor waiting to be put in tomorrow after work.

 

For 2 weeks i have been battling taking the bottom right bolt off of the Thermostat housing! it has caused me alot of headache and i am still a novice tinkerer, learning from mostly reading, videos, manuals, and of course older fellers. Finally fed up with first stripping the bolt then rounding it off and couldnt even get a 6" pipe wrench to grab it (hate ford for the location of this bolt by the way). So anyways i said screw it, took a dremel and cut about 1/3 of the way into the Thermostat housing right above this bolt and then smacked the top of the housing with a rubber mallet.... Popped right off at the seam i cut! then easily used 6" pipe wrench to take bolt out. WD40 the threads on block and put new thermostat, new housing, and new bolts in! now the hard part, i took off the fan protector, fan, belt, water pump and whatever is to the right of the pump! so needless to say i will be tracking where i take bolts off from now on. took an hour just to figure out where they all go! but only thing left today is putting fan on and filling truck with coolant! any suggestions or 'what not to do's'?

Thanks,