New member - Washington

Hi, I'm John.  

I picked up an '86 back in July, but life has been busy and I've had slow progress.  It's the 6.9l, dually with the Sterling rear and apparently a stampede axle front (not fond of this).  2WD T19, aftermarket turbo, crew cab.  It could use some paint, but I'm not worried about that yet.  The interior is super nice for the year compared to what I've seen out there.  I'll try to make a list of what I've done so far.  I've had many trucks, but this is my first diesel so there were some things I had to pick up alond the way.

1.  Injectors and glow plugs.

2. Fluid changes, all new filters.

3. The radiator has been a real problem.  First, it had a lot of rust and gook in it.  I used thermocure on it with distilled water for flushes.  I went through a LOT of rounds of driving and flushing.  Then, I saw there was still thick chunks of lime deposit that didn't get broken down and I went through a bunch of rounds of vinegar and distilled water, driving, flushing, using baking soda to neutralize, flushing again.  And again.  This was a long process.

4.  Picked up some gauges and a gauge pod.  So far I have EGT, Boost and Fuel pressure.  Having some problems with boost reading and fuel pressure but I'll get to that in another thread.

5. There was a lot of wiring problems, so that has taken a while to sort out most of those.

6. Added new radio, speakers, CB, separate fuse box, new lights interior and exterior.

7.  Steering wheel was a pain.  New turn signal switch, ignition switch, tumbler, grant steering wheel.  I can't stand the Grant, it's crap.  At a certain point I found that they had replaced the original shaft with an automatic shaft (I have T19).  It's missing a few parts from the diagram, I need to source the correct setup and they are expensive.  They put this "DikJak" system in so I'm assuming someone tried to steal the truck at some point because the tumbler was not original either.  Idk what happened there.

There's probably a whole lot I'm forgetting that I've done.  My current issue besides the whole steering column/shaft setup is going to be weatherizing it.  I have the problem I've seen in some of these threads here where water is getting in somewhere from the engine bay or from the weather stripping job the guy did on the doors, but water is getting in on the driver and passenger side on the floor and soaking the carpet.  I have it under shelter right now which should slow that down.  After that, I want to source a D60 for the front, and that's why I've been lurking here a lot because I'm trying to figure out how it bolts from a stamped axle to the D60 and it sounds like a difficult job with alignment and everything.  After that, I'll source another 6.9 engine to rebuild in the shop and would love to convert to the ZF5 at that time.  I would also love the 4WD conversion, but apparently I have the wrong frame?  I wouldn't worry about it, but it's still a farm truck and I'm not always on pavement.  I rambled long enough.  Thanks.

Welcome, John!  Glad you joined.  

Wow!  It does seem that you've done a lot, but then that's not unusual with these old trucks, so welcome to the club.

However, I'm confused.  You said you want to go with a D60 and you'd like to do a 4wd conversion.  But the only way to truly use a D60 is to have 4wd.  What am I missing?

But if I remember correctly Sky Offroad has a setup to let you convert a 2wd frame to 4wd.  I'm not sure that's the case, but I think I remember reading it.  If so that's what I'd do.

Last, you said "Washington", which I assume means the state.  If so, I can add you to the map, which you can see at Bullnose Forum/Member's Map in the menu, if you give me a city.

Hi Gary,

Yes, I believe that Sky Offroad is what I was looking at originally.  I don't think you are missing anything, it's probably me.  If I can't do the conversion, I don't think it's the end of the world because I have another F350 with 4x4 but my wife stole it for her horses once I got the Bullnose, lol.  

Yeah, so I'm in Washington state in the Graham area, Pierce County, South of Tacoma and Puyallup.

Welcome!

John - You are now on the map.

And I do think Sky can help you.

Welcome.
 I'm still combing through the wealth of information here.

Welcome Count from the Pacific Northwet.    

If the floors in front are wet the first place to check are the rubber cowl vents up behind each front wheel.
When these get plugged with leaves and pine needles it turns to mud, and rusts out the vents and cover plate in each kick panel.

Shaun (salans7) mentioned not long ago that Sky had in production a 2-4 wd kit for the leaf spring trucks.