81 F100 flare side custom with 300 six & T18

Out early from work and being I took the truck to work the transmission oil was good for draining so I could refill with Red Line MT-90 oil.
While the trans was draining I adjusted the rear brakes as the peddle feels low but it also will not pump up so I will need to look into it more.

I then looked into why the washer pump did not work as it tested good on the bench. Had power on the wire but with no help it was hard to test the ground side.
I cleaned up the 2 posts on the pump with sand paper and plugged the wire back in and it now works, yea me!

Next was the oil leak on the motor. It is not as bad but still leaking. It looks to be coming at the left front corner of the pan where it meets the timing cover.
I cant remember if I used any RTV in that area? The bolts are tight so if it gets worst I may have to drop the pan or pull the motor to do that?

I then refilled the transmission with RL MT-90 took almost a full gallon. 
I did not take the truck for a test but just moving it from garage to garage it seamed to go into gears easier.
The old oil looked to have really fine gold flakes hope the non-GL4 oil did not hurt the transmission to bad.
​​​​​​​Dave ----

Any one have a Love - Hate relationship with their truck?
Well maybe hate is to harsh lets call it Love - Dislike at times?

I am in the dislike part right now.
Over the last 2 weeks when I got to start it I get a clunk from the solenoid.
Just 1 clunk not a bunch of clicks like you might get with a poor battery connection.
I have no clue what truck this came from or if it is a Ford part or not?
Think this week end I will hit NAPA and pick up their top of the line solenoid.
And yes all the cables & connections are only a little over year old so dont think they are a cause.

The other dislike - the AC stopped working again!
It was in the low 80's yesterday, going to upper 80's later this week, when I got out of work and no AC.
I was so pissed when I got home i just parked the truck.

Well my son took a look at it and (I hope) found the high side fitting going into the condenser was hand tight and blew the charge & dye all over that area.
He said it still had some pressure so he tighten the fitting, put some charge in and checked with a bubble mix for leaks.
He ran out of 134 but is was blowing cool air but not cold so I gave him the credit card to get more 134 so will see how this goes.

I also have a gas leak at the rear filler hose when filling I need to track down & fix.
The oil leak is a lot less now that the oil pan is tight LOL
Dave ----

I think I understand the love/dislike thing.  I found yet another puddle under Big Blue today.  In fact, two of them - brake fluid and ATF from the power steering.  A day or two ago it was puddles of diff lube and of coolant.  This is getting old.  

So, from one tired guy to another, HANG IN THERE!

Someone asked which I like better, the two Fords I have or the Chevy, I said whichever one isn’t giving me any trouble!

It does get old sometimes.

I just asked that question in my project thread.  Do ya get tired of working on them.  Good to see I'm not only one.   I need to get mine to a garage to check AC - I know very little about AC.   I kow my panel vents are not working, but it blows out floor on AC settings, so I figure cab is small enough I can cool truck from floor vents or on defrost.  Other than that, mine is mostly small refinements.   But I'd just like to take it out and show it off at a cruise in or something.  It's kinda worthy.

Yesterday after the trash run I washed the truck and waxed it for the first time since paint in Oct of 2019.
I did the wash / wax for a show next weekend and will not have time during the week with work, it took 7+ hours to do.

Also the shift knob when my son drove he would pull if off.
It is has splines and pushes on (NP435) and a PO pulled it off and really messed it up.
It looked like someone filled it with something and pushed it back on but did not stay.

I looked for a thread on knob with the right pattern but they were all 1/2" threads and the shaft was 5/8" and no easy way to turn it down and the stick was not coming out to do so.
I was able to run a 9/16" NF die down the shaft and being the knob was kind of messed up I filled it with JB Weld and let it sit over night.

To hold the JBW from running out cracks I had to run masking tape around the area as a forum I was going to fill. I did this after it was running down the knob LOL and made a big mess.

Today with it hard I drilled a small hole down through the center and screwed in a screw with the head ground off so I could chuck it up in the drill press.
A poor man's lath spin the knob and I used different grit sand paper to get it back in to shape.
Drilled it out and taped it 9/16" NF and threads on the stick.

A little paint, used RTV black to glue the pattern back in, it was loose and rattled, and its good as new and I can un-screw it when needed.
Dave ----

I spent almost that much time washing, compounding, and waxing Big Blue recently, and was sore for days!  Hope you are in better shape than I am and it won't hurt for you.

On the shift knob, looks like you got it worked out.  Not sure I would have thought to use the drill press.  Well done!  

I was off last week, DMV put my lic. on hold because of my medical card, so 1 day I cut the grass (3 hr).

Next day pressure washed the house (I was sore after that holding my arms above my head).

3rd day I edged the long walk to the front door from drive way, the long drive way with the large parking area by the house and the rear patio. I took 2 trailer loads, Garden tractor & trailer, to the back 40 so that was a lot of edging and loading into the trailer. Yes was sore again.

So after the wash & wax I was sore and DONE!
Son wanted my to hang as he was going to work on his car. Told him sorry going in house to die LOL
Almost happy to go back to work as I dont work that hard
Dave ----

Ouch!  That sounds like a whole lot of HURT!  

But glad you are back to work.  

Went to my first judged show today.
Stock class with 3 trucks, a Lighting and a 92 extn cab.

Not bad for a driver, the others don't get driven much.
Dave. ----

Congratulations for sure!  

Congrat's, Dave!!  

Awesome! Congrats!

Thanks guys.
I went into the show just to show it off and if I  got anything great.
I almost felt bad as all I did was wipe the truck down from dust in the garage and drove to the show.
Guys were wiping and shining the whole time up to judging time even under the cars.
Waxing was to much work for me and no way I am doing any more than that!

I have a sheet I printed up I tuck under the wiper of what I have done to the truck and I built it to drive and use for weekly trash runs. People could not believe after all that work that's what I do with it and not just pull it out for shows.

There was a 68 Ranger PU behind me, really nice truck and great body work & black paint.
He wipes it down before shows, drives it to the show & back home parked in the garage till next show.
He has had it done a few years now and only has about 1500 miles on the truck and other than shows dose not enjoy the truck.
I have had mine done a little over a year and a half now and have over 5000 miles and enjoy it most of the time even in the rain!

Guys enjoy your truck!
Dave ----

As we all know over time our trucks need a little help with little things that pop up and we keep putting off till that "one day" comes, that was yesterday.

The choke needed a little "tweaking" when it was 90* out it would not come on (I think as I never looked) or up the idle speed and if it did as soon as I hit the throttle the idle would drop. Even when colder out the fast idle would kick down but I could drive the truck with out any worming up.
So being lazy all I did was turn the black cap, after marking so I know where I started at, and will see what that gets me.

The right side mirror would move with closing the door so took up on the 3 screws on the bottom, they were a little lose, so will see if that fixes it.

Added a little oil to the motor as it was down 1 qt.

The dome light for the right door stopped working a few weeks back so dug into that.
When I removed the switch it did not have a wire on it? That's why it did not work!
My son came out and helped as 1 person had to fish the wire from inside to get close to the hole for the switch and the other to grab the wire / plug and pull it out the hole.
He worked the plug & switch so it would not come apart again (I hope).

At that point he asked what else needed to be done?
I did not want to get into this but I had some of the dash lights stop working and did not think it was the bulbs as they were replaced with LED's
I know some would flicker or like the right turn light would work for a bit then stop then start / stop over time till it just stopped.

He said he would do the work if I guided him how it had to come apart so on we went!
He had issues with the light & wiper knobs but got them off.
When he got the bezel off a bolt fell out? I had one do that months back and could not find where it came from. He was able to find where they both came from and installed them back.

When the gauge cluster was pulled out the speedo cable popped off, more on this later.
So we pulled all the bulbs, cleaned the strip and the bulb holders all shinny again and used dielectric grease, hope that will keep the lights on.

Tested and all worked as should but he said the "brake" light did not? He check if the 2 wires at the valve had power and they did not. I dont ever remember the light coming on as a test like the seat belt light dose? I told him to forget about it as I did not need a light to tell me the brake peddle went to the floor!

So on to the speedo cable. He could not get the cable to clip onto the cluster and when looking the inner cable was pushed out and would not let the cable clip on. Told him to remove it from the transmission for now. This fixed the gauge end and he got everything back together inside but .....
Now at the trans end the inner cable was sticking out so the gear would not fit on so you could get it's clip on the gear and the end of the cable.
The only fix I could see was to cut the inner cable to fit so the gear could go on and the clip installed so that's what my son did.

During the dash light work a storm came thru and of course we were out side the garage with fan blowing and the fur kids were outside. So I got the fan & cords in the garage and then the fur kids to the house, son the truck into the garage and it came down.
So much so son had to close up the garage as the wind was blowing everything around and flooding it.
It was late and still raining on & off so did not do a road test.
Dave ----

Forgot I also painted the Over Drive knob so it shows up its over drive and not a 4x4 lever that some thought it was.

I hate when you fix something and you wind up breaking something else 
When the son & I fixed the LED dash lights he found the 4 ways did not work? and everything had worked up to that point.
To me it was not a big deal they did not work but it was to my son so late yesterday  he dragged me out to dig into this.

Before I got out there he found the stop lights did not work and that is a big deal to me.
He found the fuse blown, replaced it but as soon as the brake lights came on it blew again 
He was thinking it was the turn signal switch but I could not really see that as the turn signals worked.

So I told him to unplug the stop switch and we would jump it to see if the fuse, we installed a CB that resets, would blow and that would tell us if it was the switch or something else.
A while back he removed the plug end but left the wire ends on the stop light switch to tie into the trailer brake controller as not to cut any wires.
So he took the "tie in" out of the picture and the stop lights worked and did not trip the CB. Add the "tie in" and it tripped the CB?
He then unplugged the wires at the back of the brake controller to rule it out and it tripped the CB, so the short was the wires from the "tie in" to the controller.

Looking deeper he found wires were pinched between the column and the dash frame.
Now you ask how could this happen when it all worked before?
Well when removing the dash bezel a bolt fell out and months before 1 fell out and I put it in the ash tray.
Son found where they went and installed them but did not see the wires for the trailer brake controller that run over the top of the column.

He pulled the wiring out and it was smashed pretty good so he cut that part out solidered it back together and srink wrapped it and fished it back over the top and plugged back in and all is good again.
​​​​​​​Dave ----

Good job getting it fixed!

Thanks but I got to say it was my son that found the issue and fixed it I was just there for support LOL
Dave ----

That’s even better!

I am beginning to not like my truck so much 

Lately sometimes when I go to start the truck the solenoid will clunk but no starter action!
I can do this a few times and then the starter will kick in and motor will crank normal speed and start.
When it does it I dont have the time to go digging into it to find out why.
Also you may hit the key 1 time and clunk and the next it may turn over or you hit the key 5 or 6 times before it turns over.
Because of this & time it happens its going to be hard to track it down.

BUT what really bugs me is the AC!
On the way to work at 1;30 am the AC stopped working then started again?
Well whole different story when I got out at 3pm and it is hot as you know what! No AC.
Everything looks good under the hood, no wet / oily areas like a loose fitting (again) or bad hose.
I shook the wires thinking bad connection but no go.

I cant throw gauges on it as I lent them out but will check for power to the PSI switch and if I dont have any power there I will need to dig deeper.
So the truck will be parked other than the trash run on Saturday till its fixed again.
​​​​​​​Dave ----