Hello, my name is Mike and I am new to the truck community. I'm a 3rd generation Ford guy, and just purchased my first Ford truck. It's a 71 F-250 with a 360 and a C6 tranny.

My short term plans for the truck are just simple clean up things, finish the interior, paint the engine, and get it real sharp looking for now. Long term I would like to rebuild the engine, and plan to sand the whole truck down to bare metal and get it repainted.

I've just got one hopefully simple tech question for right now. As far as technical background, most of my experience is on the modern Ford modular engines. I've got a 96 Mustang Cobra that I have swapped a tranny in, put a new convertible top on, and replaced upper engine gaskets, among other things. As far as the pushrod side of things are concerned I've done a little work on my Dad's 68 302 Mustang, and put an oil pump and new set of timing gears on my buddies 460 F-250. I'm not afraid to dive into a project and teach myself how to do something right.
My question:
Was driving tonight and all of a sudden the headlights decided to just start flickering on and off for seemingly no reason. What could be happening here?

Thanks for the help, I will post pics of the truck up in the future...

 

Ah, The ol go dark syndrome in the middle of traffic. Some guys replace the light switch, you can also lift & clean under the dimmer switch, or do what I did
Whiter Whites, Brighter Brights .: Articles

I don't use my truck much at night but I haven't had a issue in a while.





John

 

John, thank you for that article. I won't be able to dive into the problem for a couple weeks, but I'd like to start getting an idea on it for now.

 

What using the relays does is supply more current to the bulbs, and has less draw on the older system.





John

 

Already got another question lol. I spent most of the afternoon driving it today and discovered a new problem. When I start the truck after I've been driving it, it wants to die when left at an idle. Once I get it running for a bit the problem goes away, and the problem also doesn't happen when the truck is cold.

I did an online search and came up with the Idle Air Control Valve on an 03 F-150... do these engines even have something like this? Could this maybe be a timing issue?

Thanks for any help!