Phil, my first Project (1984 F150 2WD Short Bed)

Hey all,

Joined the forum almost exactly one year ago when I got my first ever project truck, which I have named Phil. I bought the truck completely new to wrenching, but it's something that I'd always wanted to learn and do. So, I bought Phil, a mostly put together Bullnose that somebody else clearly had put a decent amount of work into. Really, he was the perfect truck for me - runs well, drives well, and does "trucky" things, but still enough to do on it to get my feet wet in the world of wrenching.

Like most projects, I intended to do a lot more with it than I have so far, but life gets in the way. My daily ended up needing quite a bit of work, so Phil ended up coming in handy while my daily was parked and being worked on. Funny how that works out - buy a project to learn on, but ultimately end up cutting my teeth on my daily.

However, now, I've moved into a new house, and built out my dream garage and work space. I have some extra funds and extra time to get back to the truck and start learning more and tackling more. In some ways, it's nice that I spent the year driving it because now I have a much better idea of how well (or not well) everything works.

Here's some photos from last year when I brought the truck home:




In the last year, I've only done some minor things:

 I replaced the door strikers. Super simple.

 

I fixed a fuel leak at the in-line fuel filter. Also easy, but I just replaced the crappy plastic filter with a metal one and threw new rubber hoses on it. I'd like to find a better solution than the in-line filter.

Replaced valve cover gaskets to fix a lean and painted the valve covers while I was at it (I hear it adds 10 hp).

Oil change (duh)

Spark plugs and plug wires

Removed spray on bedliner from the top of the tailgate and brought the underlying paint back to life. Some people like the bedliner for its durability when opening and closing the tailgate a lot. I just don't use my truck like that.

It may not seem like much so far, and it's really not, but I've enjoyed learning as I go and also working on my daily too. It's so satisfying to do something right and fix something all by myself. I've got a lot more confidence now to do more and more difficult project.

Next on my list of immediate to-dos is address the rat's nest of a wiring job that somebody did with installing an after-market MSD ignition. I need to be careful here since everything works as is and wiring can be difficult, but it's a total mess and the presence of capped wires and dangling wires freaks me out. While I'm at it, I think I'm going to relocate the ignition coil, which I think could help clean up some of the mess.

I'll post more pictures tomorrow of the engine bay so y'all can see what I mean about the rat's nest.

That sounds like the best kind of a project - one you can use while working on it.  

And you've made excellent progress.  But I know what you mean by the wiring freaking you out.  I'm sure you/we can figure out how to clean that up.  

Welcome back Nick!

Glad to see that Phil has been reliable and valuable through your move.
Certainly don't see any three on the tree vehicles any more (I had a 64 Dart in highschool)

Please do show pictures of any wiring 'mess' going on.
Do you intend to keep the MSD ignition?
Go back to stock DSII?
Really 'clean it up' and use an all-in- one HEI to do away with an exposed ignition coil all together?

I wasn't super precise in my wording. The old Duraspark still exists in the truck. The MSD is an ignition control module that's wired in with the distributor and the Duraspark. To a novice like myself, it's a little confusing.

As promised, pictures.

These go from passenger side to driver's side from the front of the truck.







I've done some digging, and found the manual for this ignition system here. I haven't done a thorough wire trace yet, but just by looking at the photos and the manual, I believe whoever installed the MSD tried to follow this diagram:



Somehow, they've made 8 wires look like 30, but at least it works. Just needs some cleaning up. The loose wires not connected to anything, as well as those capped off, just look bad and always worry me with the potential to get snagged on something or caught on something.

In regards to an HEI system, I actually just had a buddy suggest that to me, and I think that is the route I'm leaning towards now. I'm not sure how to make that work with my current setup though, and what all I'll need to make that conversion happen. It's my research project this weekend.

The condenser you have in your hand where the old coil was is a good thing, but that wiring is a mess!
Orange wire nuts and poorly crimped connections that shouldn't be used on a lawnmower that never gets used in rain or snow don't belong on a road driven vehicle.  
And that mess behind the battery looks like someone vomited tri-colore spaghetti on the inner fender.

I would have suggested going back to DS-II, but the last few times I've tried to get simple tune-up parts like a quality cap and rotor none of my local auto parts stores could get them inside a week or they offered a ridiculously priced MSD cap that I could buy for less than 1/2 the cost delivered to my door tomorrow.

Over by the original DS-II box on the driver's side the 'extra' harness plug is for EEC-IV trucks.
Ford made the harness so it could be used for both electronic engine control or Duraspark styles, and save them a lot of time on the line.

My personal opinion today would be to install an HEI kit (with *pigtail*) and maybe buy a spare so I'm never 'stuck' finding or waiting on parts, but can be on the road in an hour and track them down later.

Gary has write-ups under Documentation/Electrical/Ignition/Ignition Simplification.
https://www.garysgaragemahal.com/ignition.html
To properly do an HEI you need a relay and a heavy wire to provide more current than the stock Ford harness would.
If you go this route we can help you, but I'm not going to advise you to buy some high buck brand.

I noticed that the last owner didn't cut the end of the fuel line off and the flare nut is still there. Since you're running the stock Motorcraft carburetor, if you get the original fuel filter, you could realign the steel tubing and have no fear of leakage.

The correct setup looks like this.