Ford went through lots of attempts to make a good fuel system in the Bullnose era, and all of them were flawed. Fatally flawed. And at this point in time the new parts to fix them are drying up, and in many cases have dried up.
One of the especially troublesome components of the fuel systems was the switching valve, and the latest version of that is no longer available. So, if you are going to run two tanks with the ~'85/86 system you have to find a way around that, and it isn't
easy. Or, you could go back to the earlier system as long as you have a carb, but for the fuel-injected systems you are stuck.
In my case I intend to go to the later "fuel delivery module" which has all of the switching done electrically and in the tank. In other words, outside the tank the supply has a Y and the return has a Y, and that's all. However, the sending units have a totally
different resistance range than ours, so much so that our gauge would read backward and not go to either Full nor Empty. I intend to fix that issue with an Arduino computer - and then make that easily available to everyone.
But, if you want to stay with Bullnose senders you can either graft one of them onto the fuel delivery module, which shouldn't be too hard, or go with one tank, say the 38 gallon one, and do away with the need for the switching valve.
And to do that you can use the Bronco's 33 gallon pump/sending unit combo and lower the pickup as well as the float. Or, just use the Bronco's 33 gallon tank and pump/sending unit and give up only 5 gallons.
As for the spare tire, the one on Big Blue is so big and heavy that it couldn't go under the rear anyway. So currently it rides in the middle of the bed. But, I've designed a very heavy duty spare tire carrier/bumper that, when built, will resolve the problem
and put the tire just behind the tailgate. Here are a couple of "artists renderings" of that:
Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/soon-to-be ZF5/3.55's & EEC-V MAF/SEFI
Locked
