1986 Fuel Sender/Pickup Impossible to Find

Hi,

Can anyone offer some advice on where I can find a fuel sender for a 1986 F250 with a 351w?
When replacing fuel tanks, I scrapped the sender from the 19 gallon side (midship) tank thinking I could get a replacement and it was pretty crusty from sitting in a barn for 25 years.

Turns out the 1980-84 sender is readily available, but only has a pickup and no return, and is also a 2" flange.

Anything that I can find for an 86ish year has an electric fuel pump. The 351W was the only carbed engine in the 85-86 range, and everything after that has an in-tank electric pump and fuel injection.

I can either hunt junk yards for a 85-86 truck with the 5.8l and a midship tank that is not too far gone, or maybe ebay. But does anyone have an idea on a way to retrofit/swap maybe the electric pickup version without the in-tank pump? Or maybe I run an electric pump in the midship tank and use it to fill the rear tank? I would need to splice some lines and a one-way valve for that, but I could probably use the tank selector switch to turn on the pump relay.

Also, if anyone wants a 1980-84 19 gallon midship sender for cheap, let me know. I think I am past returning it.

Thanks

TheBadTimingClub wrote

.....Anything that I can find for an 86ish year has an electric fuel pump. The 351W was the only carbed engine in the 85-86 range, and everything after that has an in-tank electric pump and fuel injection.

Nope.
The 460 had a carb & mechanical fuel pump through 1987.  
I bought one for my truck from LMC two years back.

Let me see if I can find the part number ...

So you need a rear sender, large bung, two pin, no pump, with inlet and outlet and 10 -->75 Ohm range for a 1986 351 H.O.

I don't think LMC considered the H.O. But I can tell you that on pg. 78 of the current online catalog, you need p/n 43-4044

Hope this helps.

Doh!  

Side tank.

Pg.77, 'C' #43-4048, $69.95

I started to sweat when I read this since I'm in the same boat but then remembered the sender in the LMC catalog.

Now if only they sold them in 156--->16 Ohm.
THAT'S impossible to find!

The joys of owning a one year wonder!    

Thanks. Ordered and hopefully it is the right part. Never shopped with LMC before but they seem to have everything. Maybe I am the youngest guy on here, but it would be cool of they had an internet-searchable online store instead of a catalog.

Here is a picture of the rig. Need to mount the trim, add the blue tape stripe, install an axle drop bracket to fix the camber (came with a huge lift), rebuild the steering gear and it should be ready to drive.

Yeah, we're old farts, but we're contemporaneous to these trucks.
(I've owned mine 32 years)

So, many of the members have a good handle on what to look for, and have btdt.

The most valuable guy at the auto parts store is the one who knows the paper catalog inside out.

Whose drop pivots are you going with?
How much lift is really under there?

Let us know, I couldn’t find one. Skeptical anyone has one.

Dane, all I can say is they've been working (halfway & backwards in my '87) truck since Sept 2016

Go back to FTE posts showing the work while I had my truck apart for paint.

ArdWrknTrk wrote

Dane, all I can say is they've been working (halfway & backwards in my '87) truck since Sept 2016

Go back to FTE posts showing the work while I had my truck apart for paint.

Ok.

AFAIK there is only one set of senders for mechanical fuel pumps in the '85 & on 'big hole' tanks.

^^^^^ those are the numbers for the senders.

Tuff Country 4" drop. From what I can tell there is about 4" of lift. Probably should do a dropped pitman arm to help with the bump steer but I'm also trying to cut back on pouring money into this thing now.

That's great. I usually dont hold onto a car for more than a year or two, but hopefully we will be able to keep this one around for a while. Or at least until they are worth as much as the 70's trucks are now...

A 350 arm is a little deeper than a 250's.  *(I think)

Gary has been looking at drop arms for his SAS, RSK in Big Blue.
Maybe he'd compare the two?

And maybe he'd even part with the 350 arm, since it will no longer work for him.  😉

I thought I replied to this, but I see I didn’t.

Anyway, I hope to take pics when I get home, maybe tomorrow. Should be able to do 150, 250, & 350 arms. But, the 350 is what I plan to use on Big Blue.

Well, if either of you 'need' a drop pitman, it's him with 6" of suspension lift.

I can't imagine the steering geometry changes going over bumps or whoops!

To me, I doubt I'd feel safe to drive.
But then, I haven't tried it