my rusty dirty bump

[hedz]

the shop finished wiring my alternator. got to hear the truck run. it sounds like a beast. you wouldn't know by looking at it how good of a condition the engine is in. the thermostat went bad even though it had less than 1 hour of run time on it so that was replaced. the adjustable rod for the clutch disapeared. just picked up another one. put the correct 72 door. i had the old one on the curb and advertised it on craigslist. some crackheads picked it up so no more free door to give away. sorry.

i found out i have a exhaust leak on the passenger side. so i'm doing header research on our forum. hoping to find what i'm looking for. i'm really hoping i can pick up a set that works for our 72 bumps at autozone. advanced, autozone, and oreillys seem to have a decent selection. the truck needs new exhaust anywho. the pipes are ultimate rust tirds.

[hedz]

the truck stops on a dime now. i have a vacume leak though. not sure if it's at the base of the carb or the intake. can't get the idle down. i had to do the intake 3 times to get it right. atleast what i thought was right. i sure hope i don't have to pull that booger off again. the problem could be the linkage but i doubt it. also theres some kind of bushing on the transmission that's bad and is causing the truck to shake.

things to fix: exhaust leak, vacume leak(or linkage problem)and the bushing on the transmission



damnit all this after my starter and flywheel on my 79 monte carlo ate eachother to pieces and fixed all that just to have the primary linkage on the quadrajet fubar the whole carb so i put a new quadrajet on there.

folks this nasty car hobby sure does eat some change

[hedz]

my pilot bushing? is bad in my transmission i think. drove the truck straight from one shop to the next. as soon as i got to the transmission shop a oil leak sprung at the oil filter mount. and i may be leaking oil at the pan. not sure. paying the shop to change that gasket and to find the vacume leak and to fix that bushing. i don't mess with transmissions after i bent a throttle bracket inside a turbo 350 and turned on my monte carlo only to have it stuck wide open on the throttle . that was a botched shift kit install.

i was thinking about this vacume leak and maybe what i think is a vacume leak is actually the linkage to the carb not being adequate. whatever the case i'll have answers from the mechanic on monday.

i'll tell you what though, it felt amazing driving the truck more than a mile. i got to ride in it 1 hour on the way to the transmission shop. it hasn't been driven like that in 10 years or so. i noticed that i installed my polyurethane ragjoint incorrectly. my steering works great. i can deffinitely tell the improvement from that polyurethane piece. i accidently did not straighten the wheel and align the coupler when i installed it so the steering wheel is cocked slightly to one side so it looks funny. i probably won't fix it for a long while

my truck has not been washed in many years so with a black door, faded paint lots of dents and a real noisy exhaust, my truck looks very ghetto. and on the way to the shop i pulled up next to a fully restored 72 on the road. it was hilarious pulling up next to him. the contrast between the rusty tird and the museum piece on the interstate had me rolling for a second

[hedz]

so i don't have a vachume leak in the top end anywhere. this is good news. i guess doing the intake swap 3 times paid off. unfortunately the oil leak i developed came from the back of the oil pan. also the gasket at the oil filter mount burst. so i'm paying the shop to put in a new oil pump, oil pan gasket, and filter mount gasket. i wish these problems had happened when the darn thing was parked next to my cherry picker and not at the friggin shop as soon as i roll in to get the transmission inspected

also another bit of good news. i don't think the pilot bushing is bad. and also can't get the exhaust manifold leak to come back...

so i should have my truck back by monday. and then i will immediatly take it to a wiring specialist and have them figure out wtf is going on with the brake lights and half my guages. by the gods i will eventually drive this beast on a regular basis!

[hedz]

just picked up my truck. it runs fairly well. there is still a flat spot in throttle response. i don't think i have a vachume leak at the intake or carb. and the linkage seems to be adequate. i'm thinking my problem may be within the carburetor. maybe it's improper jet size. i'm thinking of sending off my carburetor to a professional to do a thorough restoration of the carb and jet it for my application.

my brake pedal needs a spring to keep it retracted in order to keep the brake lights off. also realized i'm missing two bolts in the passenger manifold. . there's my exhaust leak. locating those bolts. also i think all of my gauges except for the speedometer work. so looking into that. going to get my spare rim some rubber. then going to pay someone to mount it. going to pay that same person to weld a plate beneath the battery tray. i'm going to buy headers soon.

[hedz]

truck is driving around. my water pump just went bad. still driving even though the bearing is bad. i've changed everything on the motor except the rocker assembly and the rotating assembly and cam. EVERYthing else has been replaced . my spring on my carb seems to be bad. i'm going to chop the bracket the spring attaches to and put a hole in a lower location and switch to a spring with less tension. i have an assortment of springs i just picked up. flipped the lid on the air cleaner to try to get some better air flow. also changed to a pcv for a 351w.

the truck drives great fellas!!

i made my next list of things that need to be done:

tri y headers and 2.5' exhaust with a crossover
window crank handle for passenger door
order some of the aluminum replacement parts on our forum
replace water pump
fix lock on tool box
fix spring on carburetor
braided power steering lines
fiberglass my truck bed and roll in the bedliner i've had sitting around for a while
stick on rear view mirror

also i want to get some round chrome headlight visors and some headlight tri bar covers
and some smoothie hub caps

[hedz]

drilled out my tool box. replaced all the hardware for the handles. had new keys made for the lock. reinstalled everything and greased everything. basically fixed my fubar ol school aluminum diamond plate pattern tool box.

lengthened my throttle linkage and put a much lighter spring on my carb. it idles much better and has much better response

did a few burnouts

i deffinitely don't like my carburetor now though. i'm noticing vachume issues since i have my pcv and power brake plumbed into the same vachume line on the carb. it only has 1 large vachume port. i'm going to go to a quadrajet soon and i'm going to be sure to get one that has many devotional vachume ports for all my needs. from what i understand a quadrajet combined with an aluminum intake will be the best mpg approach with carburation. doing research to determine the right one.

[hedz]

I made my first haul with the truck yesterday. I pulled a open trailer about 230 miles to hotlanta. The cargo consisted of mostly furniture. I want to say that the cargo including trailer was close to 2500 pounds. I burned a tank and a half on the way here! I wonder if all my cylinders are firing. I already checked all my plug wires and spark plugs(which look great!) and pulled my valve covers to make sure nothing was amiss. Also i checked my exhaust i seem to have the right tone and there is no sucking back in. The passenger exhaust which is a true dual sounds like it has a missfire or a slight miss but i think its fine. I believe this is a fuel delivery issue. Fully tuned with over fueling results in the same sound. I'm fairly certain it is just the note produced by the manifold. It's shape routing direction of exhaust is highly unconventional. And on top of that the cylinder that I think isn't getting enough fuel would be the number 8 on the drivers side. My added spring is not stretched horizontally towards the nose of the truck but at a upward and diaganol angle towards driver headlight. I'm hoping with a carb tune and repositioning cutting and drilling my return throttle spring bracket to accept the horizontal approach that I'll get the better mpgs and get all the cylinders firing. Then I'll play with the timing again.

I have been looking into transmission options. I love the style of the 3.03 rat rod 3 speed column shifter. I have looked into the 5 and 6 speed column shifters available overseas and the parts don't seem to be readily available. I bet if I resided in china or Japan and hit up a junkyard I would be able to find everything I want. Since its not looking possible I'm now considering the nv4500 with a gear input. I'm still doing research but from what I understand there are some older nv4500 that Have the ability to work with our oem speedometers. My motor spins at too high of an rpm in 3rd. I don't see any way around this. I'm fairly certain a gear vendors cannot be retrofitted to a manual transmission. The nv4500 would provide 4 gears with a 5th gear overdrive and the overdrive operates at almost half the rpms of 3rd gear in the 3.03

I don't like the pedal setup on the truck. The gas pedal clutch and brake sit far too high in my opinion. I wish everything was three inches closer to the floor pan and more sensitive. After a moderate drive my feet hurt from the awkward pointing up of my feet. I'm betting for the brake pedal and vehicle to respond the way I'd like I would need to modify the brake pedal and install hydro boost. And for the gas pedal modify it as well. And the clutch. Chopping them all and changing their position further back and lower. This thought is way out my league of expertise. Perhaps if I get a more comfortable bench seat that has a slight recline and a seat position a few inches taller it would alleviate some of the discomfort I'm experiencing pedaling. I'm a tall guy doesn't help anything

Another thought to increase mugs would be to some how increase the spark so that I could use some NGO iridium tips gapped to 70. I think that the manufacturers of the DUI hei fe distributor make something for the ignition to run with the DUI to achieve even bigger spark with larger gap

[hedz]

the truck is running like a champ. installed a new bracket i made to be the spring return for the carburetor. it was off to the side and at a bad angle with a old spring that was not meant for a carburetor. it was just a temporary fix to hold me over. now with this bracket and a more reasonable spring the truck is idling much better and getting better mpgs and better throttle response. smoother pedal from start to bottom. installed a new oem horn. mine died. also installed a flowkooler water pump. put a radiator additive to prevent rust and drop the temps. the truck is running cooler than ever before. all my lights are functioning well now. sodered the backing plates on NPDs crappy turn signal orange lenses so they wouldn't rotate freely. they weren't going to replace them anyway. low quality crap. installed a new turn signal switch and emergency flasher switch.

also popped on some hubcaps i found at my grandpas house. they are aluminum with a brush finish and aren't in good shape. i spent a little time bumping out as many dents as i could to get them a little more presentable. i'm not sure if they were original to my grandpas truck as i found them in a shed and he couldn't remember where they came from. they so happen to fit the steel wheels on my truck so i popped them on after working them over. they compliment the truck nicely especially with my ford winter green painted wheels.

got the timing dialed in and the carb tuned. the truck barks the tires pretty good. next i'll be purchasing exhaust, tri y headers, and a quadrajet and run a stainless line from carb to fuel pump with a inline high quality filter. not immediatly. will save up and be ready very soon though.

[hedz]

heres a bunch of pics i took with a phone i just got.

just showing all the goods and work.

[basketcase0302]

Nice pics! You might want to look at your steering coupler a little closer? It looks to me that the entire column needs to be slid down to get the splined part of the coupler all the way onto the steering box shaft here:

If that comes loose at any speed the truck will have a mind of it's own in reference to where it wants to go!

[hedz]

Nice pics! You might want to look at your steering coupler a little closer? It looks to me that the entire column needs to be slid down to get the splined part of the coupler all the way onto the steering box shaft here:
[ Image ]
If that comes loose at any speed the truck will have a mind of it's own in reference to where it wants to go!

i can't get it to seat any lower. tried jamming it down further with a crow bar and lots of lubricant with every clamp and bolt keeping the steering column firm losened up and have not been able to get it to ride any lower. i think it will be fine. i've done several road trips now in the truck and it has not budged one bit. that's not to say that it won't though i know. i'll reassess that part of the car when i start looking at the nv4500 or go with a new steering wheel. both will give me an excuse to go back in.

i ordered my heater control valve from lmc, a window crank handle for the passenger door, and a cigarette lighter on ebay. can't wait to have them all installed. i went with the repro window crank handle from npd instead of the oem part. it was half the price. and i know from experience that usually means less quality. just hope it is a close resemblance to the original on my driver door. got a black repro knob for it

[basketcase0302]

i can't get it to seat any lower. tried jamming it down further with a crow bar and lots of lubricant with every clamp and bolt keeping the steering column firm loosened up and have not been able to get it to ride any lower. i think it will be fine.

I had the same issue with mine a few months ago when I put the tilt column in it. What i did was first unbolt the rag joint / spread the box shaft coupler with a small cold chisel / then forced it down onto the shaft while the chisel held it open / then loosen the column inside the cab / then slide the column and rag joint coupler half down onto the steering box half of the coupler. I bet the new heater valve will make a big difference in the cab temp.

[hedz]

so im going to need to do some more fixes before i can get to exhaust or quadrajet land. i noticed that i just developed a slight power steering leak. can't tell how bad it is. the system still has fluid to run. seems to be a slow drip. i knew this day would come. looking into a new power steering pump and some braided lines to replaced the original stuff. also i think i'm going to reroute my front brake lines that go from master cylinder to distribution block. attempt to keep high temps away from the lines. going to tackle this steering column issue as well at the same time.

latest necessity repair list

heater control valve.
window crank.
cigarette lighter.
adjust steering coupler.
reroute master cylinder brake lines.
power steering pump and braided hoses.

[hedz]

fixed the heater issue. put a new heater control valve in there from lmc. also had to ressurect all my heater cables which were rusted stiff. but the cab is much cooler now. amazing.

tried to install my window crank. i realized that the internals on the passenger door that i pulled from the junkyard (the door the window crank is going on) are completely shot. solid rust, everywhere. i have been hosing down every bolt and moving part inside the door with kano kroil spray. i will continue to spray everything every day for the next week. going to slather a blunch of grease all over the window tracks. then going to give the window crank another try. i have a spare door. since the vent window decided it didn't want to stay put anymore, i'm thinking i just need to gut my old door and swap everything.

here is a site i found that i will likely buy my power steering setup from

http://benchworksteering.com/Ford%20FE% ... %20Kit.htm

i'm going to replace the hardware in my steering coupler and adjust the steering column to a lower point in the next couple of days. i need to upgrade to longer bolts etc.