The search continues for a dent! I live near Chicago, and today we took a trip down near Peoria (about 150 miles south) to take a look at a '78 F250. It was suprisingly solid in terms of body, and it was the powertrain I wanted (351m, NP435, NP205, Dana 44/60 combo).

We were only able to stay for like 45 minutes because the owner had to go to work, and then we were back on the road. And my camera was broken, so I don't have any pictures sorry! In the 45 minutes we were there though, a couple things came up that I have questions about.

1. It stalled out when we came to stop signs, which seems to be a vacuum leak from these threads:
   https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/8...-is-bad-2.html
   https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/8...n-braking.html
   Since the truck is 150 miles (almost 3 hours away) and I would like to eventually drive it home, I was wondering if the vacuum lines were a consistent size. If you have any advice on what size to bring next time/what else to look out for, thatd be spectacular
2. One of the times it stalled out I tried to turn the wheel. It felt like the whole shaft was moving but not the wheels (like the shaft disconnected). I got out looked under the hood while my dad turned the wheel, and it was going up and down. With some searching, we found that the bracket or whatever was missing where the column passes through the firewall. There were 4 bolt holes there, and the rubber piece was there too. In DC the part number is D7TZ-3513 and its only 8 bucks leading me to believe its just a piece of rubber. Is it one of these from LMC? 45-0230 or 45-0231? Or am I going to have to search a junkyard for that bracket?
3. The power steering pump was leaking, and from what I've read here it could be the pump going, or I could just throw some silicone in there and it'd be okay. Will that make it 150 miles?
4. Finally, when I get it home does anyone wanna trade grilles? It has a '78 with the silver middle insert and circle headlights. I'm looking for a '76 or '77 grille

Thanks
Dan

 

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