That's one thing I noticed. The way mine were when I took my stock exhaust off was STUPID. This van, in the last 40 miles has had the tires fail, brakes fail, started smoking blue badly on startup, which was a bad exhaust valve stem seal dumping oil in to the exhaust manifold. Now it only smokes once it warms up, and it smokes like a freight train. Looks to be mostly because the intake gaskets failed. I found oil trails where gaskets were seeping in a couple cylinders and the gaskets were all wavy, warped and junk. I also found a little bit of coolant in the oil when I drained it. I tell ya, this van is hardly worth anything because of the body and we're stuck with fixing it because we can't afford to replace it. I've spent about 30 hours of my life over this summer fixing this POS! it's been well maintained and this crap still fails. Although the engines gaskets are 30 years old with 75K on them that's to be expected, but still. The brake stuff isn't that old. Engine runs like a top, but smokes horribly. Last thing we did was come home from camping with a tent trailer and that was the easiest tow of it's life towing that thing.

As far as a ring ridge, we'll find out. There wasn't one when the engine work was done 75K ago. The short block has 125K and the top end 75K.

Got the heads off, the head gaskets look so good they could almost be reused if it was an absolute necessity. They were Felpro Permatorque's. Came off in 1 piece and look awesome. Ironically they are the same gaskets I had selected for replacement. Part number on the gaskets are still the same 30 years later.

I noticed a bit of oil in every intake port on the heads. Like it's coming from the PCV and being thrown in the intake manifold, better check that. Cylinders barely have a ring ridge and all look very good. It all had to come apart anyways even if it was a PCV valve.


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Like I said, they are extremely tough engines.

This engine in the 90's used to have pinging problems before it had a real exhaust system put on it. Doesn't look like it ever hurt anything.

Those heads are HEAVY. Where is the iron at in those things? they aren't that big. They feel heavier than FE heads.

Put the rest of the Pick and Pull stuff on today. The air inlet duct I had on was an E8TE-9C675-BA and the one on now is an F3TE-9A675-BB, major differences, the 88 part has a bracket to hold it to the radiator support and a flexible section, the 93 part has neither and is smoother inside.

Air seal on top of the radiator was installed Saturday in the parking lot.

The cruise controls, box is probably the same, but the upper one is from a 1995 F-250 with a 460 and cable fits perfectly.

The correct upper radiator hose has F5TA-88274-VC or F5TA-8B274-VC on it and no longer goes up and over like the one all the parts stores want to sell you (the one that had to be used with the dual air pumps).

I also replaced the brake light switch as I noticed the cruise control wouldn't cancel until the brake controller turned on the brake lights.

So in the last few months I've lost three tires. I put a spare on the front, but now I had to put the back of the truck on jackstands to keep the weight of the truck off of the wheels since I don't have an extra set of wheels and tires for the truck.

All of these tires were in okay shape when they came off of my Ranger (they were the original ones from 2003). But the beads were pretty tough when the tires were installed on the wheels, so I think that's where my problem is.

I really would love to find a set of Classic II's and get rid of these 5-spokes.

Drove the truck about 50 miles today on the freeway. Turned out to be a wasted trip. Truck ran and drove great in the hilly stop and go traffic of I-405. Fuel gauge barely moved at all compared to 50 miles of city driving. According to the fuel gauge, I didn't quite use 1/4 of a tank. So, it seems to get better MPG on the highway vs strictly city. At least I got a chance to burn the impurities out of the oil with the freeway heat.

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Shakedown Cruise completed. 3 days 900 trouble free miles. Out of abundance of caution, replaced a fuel hose mid trip (it was softer than I though that it should be), had to tighten negative battery cable. Other than that - Old Trucks rock!

Yes, James has a nice sniffer. The condenser must be leaking about where the manifold line connected to it. I coudnt get it to go off in he vents inside the truck. Hopefully it isn't the evaporator core. I think it is the condenser though. They are like $60 at Rock Auto. I added an intercooler on Whitey years ago. This is going to make the condenser change a big pain in the rear.All of the charge air cooler components as well as the cooler itself is shoe horned in there. Probably going to take all day. :-X21

paint this week!
Could not find a 84 -86 Flareside 4x4...so I built one from spare parts....

Well yesterday I did some things that have been on the backburner. New battery cables, replaced alternator belt, and put in a new passenger side seat belt clip. I was planning on tackling my wheel bearings today but I woke up to snow so we'll see how the day plays out!

Today I replaced the thermal fuse in my blower resistor.
$0.69 closeout at Radioshack seemed a lot better than $28 and not in stock at my LAP.

The socket is really brittle so I suppose I need to change that too. :/

I picked up an under-the-hood Ford tool box. Oh wait. My truck has a battery there... But I like the box and I was contemplating relocating the second battery anyway.


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I also grabbed a locking hood release along with the door lock cylinders and glove box lock.


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And the REAL score of the day... a fully functioning manual transmission tilt cruise steering column. Score. Does anyone know what that horn bar is from? I'm thinking a '78-'79 truck perhaps... I have the correct rosewood horn bar for my truck, just curious what this is. Not bad shape, maybe I can find somebody who needs it if I can find out what it's from.


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Wow, great score, Ford F834! You have a knack of finding choice pieces! :-X22

Good things come to those that wait!!!

About 5 years ago, I posted that I was searching for a 4000 RPM factory tachometer. A few months ago, Ford F834 contacted me saying that he had one. He was very prompt to send it to me, but other things got in the way [on my end]. Last week I tested the tach against the 6000 RPM one which was original to me truck and it checked spot on. Friday, after work, I pulled the instrument cluster and swapped the tachs. Wow, what a difference. The engine [4.9L six] "appears" to rev more quickly. Of course that due to the increased sweep of the needle. I love it!

Also, while the cluster was out, I popped out the blue filters and replaced with Wagner 194B bulbs. By the way, the almost 30 year old filters were cloudy. I expected miracles, but have to report that the result is about the same as before with the cloudy filters and the original clear bulbs. Oh, well!

Soon, I will visit the OK FTE Chapter and will ask that someone post a photo of the tachometer. By the way, it came from a 1981/1982? F700 with the 370 V8.

Thanks, Ford F834! :)