Glory Days

[68 Ford Stepside]

All old codgers remember thier glory days as sung once by Bruce Springsteen. Young,sharp as a tack, ready to tackle any job, any where, any time. Well, those days are long gone for me as my health and memory are failing too fast. I once was considered by many to be the guy who could fix it when no one else could. I never thought of it like that, I just thought I was lucky. I do have memories of some troubleshooting jobs where I surprised even myself. At some point, on a good day I will return to this post & try to pass along some mechanicing stories that may help some of you during your life when trying to troubleshoot weird problems.Have A Great Ford Day! W.Ott

[Montana71-F100]

I'm right behind you. I'll look forward to your stories.

[68 Ford Stepside]

This thread doesn't belong exclusively to me. It belongs to any and all old codgers who would like to post a good story about repairing the impossible back when they were sharp as a tack. Have A Great Ford Day! W.Ott

[68 Ford Stepside]

I'm not up to posting a good detailed repair today, but I will post one where I didn't even have to pick up a wrench. You might not believe this story, but my wife & my mother-in-law were witness to it. I was sitting at home relaxing when my mother-in -law pulled into the driveway, left her car running, and came inside. She said her car was knocking bad & would I come out & check it. My wife, my mother-in-law and I walked outside & I heard what sounded like maybe a stuck lifter tapping. As a joke I walked up to the front of the car & laid my hand on the hood. In about ten seconds the sound quieted about fifty percent. In ten more seconds the tapping when completely away. I never raised the hood. I went back in the house and hit the old easy chair again. As long as she owned the car it never made that noise again. My mother-in-law talked about that for years. Have A Great Ford Day!

[68 Ford Stepside]

It would seem that the readers on this site don't care for old codgers stories of the past, but I will print one more before giving up on the youth of today! No comments are needed, just read & learn if you will.

I had to work on a 1971 Lincoln once that would stall everytime you turned to the right from a stop sign. Never would it stall if you turned left at a stop sign. The car had a 460 cu.in. engine & a Ford four barrel carb. I don't remember the model of the carb. The carb had already been rebuilt several times to no avail. When I got the car I removed the top from the carb. There were two emulsion tubes with holes around them sticking down about 2 1/4" from the top. I held the top in my hands & shook it & heard a tinkling noise inside one of the emulsion tubes. Holding the carb top steady I used two fingers to move the pressed in emulsion tube back & forth until it came out. When it came out there was a tube jet inside of it. The tube jet had fallen out & was sitting inside the emulsion tube.

Using red loctite I reinstalled the tube jet into the carb top & gently tapped it back into place. Also using red loctite I reinstalled the emulsion tube & gently tapped it back into place. I let the loctite cure for about an hour & reinstalled the carb top back on the carb body. I then cranked her up, set the air fuel metering screws & drove down the road turning right & left many times with no stalling. I never knew the car to stall again.

The only explanation I have is when the car turned right the gas sloshed to the left side on the carb bowl & there wasn't a tube jet there to draw any gas into. This is a true story from an old codger who has pride in his past endeavors.

[cole71]

Great stories keep em' coming! I'm young guy myself, but I love to hear stories like this!

[68 Ford Stepside]

Hello Cole: The major point to my posting these jobs is that many of the repairs I made had been to multiple other shops before ending up in mine. In the case of this Lincoln, it had even been back to a Lincoln/Mercury dealer who said the carb needed to be replaced. If you take your time & use common sense the culprit will usually expose itself.Have A Great Ford Day!

[68 Ford Stepside]

I've already posted this repair story in the engine section, but it's related to these post, so I'll post it again here. A hundred years ago I had a gentleman bring an old Ford truck to me that was stalling while riding down the road & in a few minutes he could start it & drive on for an hour or a day without any problem until it stalled again. He had already taken it to two other shops & they had replaced the coil, points, condenser & starter solinoid & the truck continued to shut off anywhere for no good reason

I took a different route & started checking the fuel system. I removed the suction side hose from the fuel pump & found a small green sliver of material at that point.I then drained the gas tank & removed it from the truck. After removing the gas gauge sending unit from the tank, I shined a light down into the tank. What I saw was about a hand full of green slivers in the bottom of the tank. It took awhile, but I finally cleaned out all the slivers from the tank. Reinstalled the tank & put fresh clean gas back into it. As far as I know the truck never shut off again.

Over some years some one had been siphoning gas from the truck for use in a lawn mower with a piece of green water hose & the sharp edge of the fill neck had been cutting slivers of the hose & those slivers kept falling to the bottom of the tank. The suction of the fuel pump is quite strong & the slivers were blocking the gas flow from the tank suction tube.When the truck shut off because of lack of fuel, the fuel pump wasn't sucking, so the slivers would move away for awhile until they sloshed around & closed the suction tube again.

I forgot to mention in my other post that there were three fuel pumps in the bed of the truck & all of them looked new. I would assume that the owner or someone probably changed them out thinking that the fuel pump was failing.

Have A Great Ford Day!

[sargentrs]

In 1978, I had a '72 Plymouth Satellite and was driving 50 miles, one way, to work every day. One afternoon, I leave work, get in and turn the ignition. All it does is sit there and spin the crank. Now, I knew a little bit and had done basic tune ups and such but didn't know much else. I pulled the distributor cap and realized the rotor button wasn't spinning and thought "This ain't good". Pulled the distributor and started looking it over. The distributor has the distributor gear at the cam(?) and just a tab on the end of the distributor that sits in a slot in the top of the gear....way down inside the block and the little tab was still stuck in the gear, broken off from the distributor. I walked to the parts store, bought a new distributor, a 2 ft long flat head screwdriver and a bottle of epoxy glue. Put a dab of the glue on the end of the screwdriver, eased it down on top of the tab and layed across the engine compartment while I held it in place for 15 minutes. Then I said a prayer and eased the screwdriver out with the tab stuck to the end. Dropped in the new distributor, set TDC and #1 plug wire, fired her up and drove home I was really proud of myself

[68 Ford Stepside]

Good job Randy. Thanks for posting. Have A Great Ford Day!

[71Prerunner]

Right out of high school I moved to California to work. I was staying with my sister and her neighbor had just inherited 1977 Gran fury station wagon from his Mom. She was having issues and had taken it to several shops to no avail so she bought a new car. When you would drive it around town, no problems, but if you tried accelerating hard for any reason it would just lay down. As soon as you let off it was back to normal. He messed with that car for weeks, changed many parts and still the same. One day he called me over after work and said "$100 bucks and she is yours!! I have had it." At that time I had a 69 2wd swb bump with a 428SCJ, big input toploader and 4.30 gear and was in love with it. I had NO use for a station wagon. I asked what motor and it was a 440. I remember a high school friend that raced a Duster so I bought the car thinking I could scrap the car and make money on the motor/tranny. After driving the car a few days and seeing how nice it was (only 32,000 mi) I figured to keep it. I opened the hood for the first time and saw the air cleaner top installed upside down and nothing else out of place. I took the air cleaner off and gave it a good hard LOOK. My 18 yo eyes found nothing. I replaced the lid the right way and went in the house. The next day I drove the car and it RAN GREAT!! Flip the lid over, runs bad, lid right, runs good. WTF!! I finally realized the 1/2 inch piece of felt that was glued on the under side of the hood was loose and would get sucked into the open air cleaner under WOT. Didn't feel right about keeping the car and sold the car back for the same $100.

[68 Ford Stepside]

Good job 71Prerunner: Thanks for posting. Have A Great Ford Day!

[1971Blue390]

I do like hearing the older generation tell their stories. I'm a younger guy, but I'm always willing to learn, considering you all have a lot of years on me which means a lot of experience.

Anyway I suppose I have a little repair story or 2 of my own:

When I first got my 71 it had a rusty fuel tank. the rust would come loose from the tank, flow into the pump filter bowl (I'm using the 4x4 pump), and clog the fuel supply. If I pulled over and waited a bit, the fuel would trickle into the cup and the truck would run again, and then stall intermittently, could be anywhere from 1 mile to 20. I got real good at recognizing an oncoming stall and pulling over real quick and dumping out that fuel cup. If NASCAR needed fuel pump cup replacements then I'd be their man. So eventually I got tired of my right arm smelling like gas, and I decided it was time to fix this situation.

I bought a POR15 tank repair kit, and with some help from my dad, we cleaned and coated the old tank. Fixed the problem, at least for about a year. Suddenly I recognize the same old symptoms my rusty tank was giving me and I had no idea why. Pulling off the fuel pump cup revealed the epoxy coating pulling off of the tank walls and clogging my filter. Turns out that POR15 wasn't compatible with the ethanol levels int eh fuel we have out here. I ended up with a brand new tank and the problem never happened again.

It was a cold fall might and I was driving my truck home around 12 pm when suddenly the engine stops cold. No warning, no shudder, simply stops. I crank the key and it starts right up like nothing's wrong. I shake my head and drive a few miles and it happens again. This was driving me crazy over the next few days. I could not understand why it was quitting, I had an entirely new coil, distributor, alternator, battery, voltage regulator, and good grounds. I popped the hood to check those grounds, and brushed the distributor connector clip (MSD system) and the truck stopped running. AHA! The little plastic clip that transferred the signal from the MSD box to the distributor had let the pins get loose! I cut the clips off and soldered the wires together, totally solving the problem.

My last problem was another electrical gremlin. Whenever I would use my turn signal, while the truck was moving, the fuse would burn out. When the truck was sitting in the garage everything was fine. Drive down the street and the system would short. This all happened not long after I had a new dual exhaust and a new turn signal switch put in (I did the turn signal and had the shop do the exhaust). I first suspected the shop had messed with the wiring, they claimed they hadn't. I called the parts supplier and asked about their switches and any known failures, they said no. So I pulled my turn signal wiring and lights apart searching for a bad ground or short. I climbed all around and under the truck searching when it finally hit me. The old trailer wiring, which I had thought I had safely removed and tucked away, was grounding out on the new exhaust system whenever the truck hit a bump. A little ziptying and electrical tape solved that last problem and since then the truck has stayed on the road.

Well that's all my fun repair stories, all the other ones are long and boring, and generally involve replacing things the previous owner should have maintained or replaced. What about you guys?

[Ranchero50]

I know that you don't need a working clutch pedal to drive 100 or so miles home but it makes rush hour traffic truly miserable...

I know that electrical tape and a bunch of 1/4" drive extensions is a great replacement for a busted cable slap shifter on a '69 Mustang...

I know that rubber worms will seal a big hole on the bottom of my aluminum boat after nailing a rock...

[68 Ford Stepside]

Good Job 71Blue390: Thanks for posting. Have A Great Ford Day!