Gary Lewis

The breaker box is about 60' away, but the run goes through the insulated ceiling and down an outside, therefore insulated, wall. So I don't want to rewire when this has been working fine for 15 years. That little tank has had all the hot water I needed.

I'll have to check to see what size the breaker is, but that one says "plug current: 27-32A". So it would have to at least be on a 30A circuit and I don't think the wire is that big. Obviously something I'll have to check - after I drink this cup of Verona and a cup of French. Gotta get my motor running and head out on the sidewalk.

Yep, that's what I did as well, but on Big Blue with the hydroboost and F450 master there was a bit more stretching than relaxing as everything is longer. In fact, the large master touches the A/C line if you aren't careful and puts an odd noise from the compressor into the cab.

Yep, glad you got it fixed.

I only had a 2 gallon 110V water heater in there, and there's no room for anything larger. It is just for cleaning things that might need hot water to do a better job, so I'm going to do without it for a while and see how badly I need it.

Water isn't too hard. Have used this ~2 gallon tank-type water heater for 15 years but it finally gave up the ghost. Not sure I'll go electrical tankless as they sure look pricey. Will get along w/o hot water for a while as I figure it out.

Well, I didn't powder coat those, just used the self-etching primer and the satin black since they were handy. But plenty of parts on both trucks have been powder coated.

Yes, they are serious. But they'll do the same thing as stacking 8 washers and won't look nearly as dorky. Like maybe even something Ford would have done, although Ford wouldn't have painted them.

You are right. Ask Shaun about the pristine dash pad he bought, took it home and blocked it up evenly on the shelf, and later he came back and it was cracked. I wouldn't pay much at all for an old one. Big Blue is running a cover, but Dad's truck will probably get a new pad.

Wow! That's quite the project! I've not seen an engine like that, and I thought I've seen a lot of the small engines. I'm going to tag Bill as he's been around a lot of the small engines and even has several.

Checked the platform over and the paint looks good, so I put the legs back on it. Then I started looking for material with which to make the spacers for the rear of the legs. Found some tapered cast iron pieces I don't know what are and realized that after making them flat they'd be about right. So I put one in the mill and took the taper off of one side. Flipped it over and made the other side flat. Marked for 1 1/4" circles and drilled a 3/8" hole in two place. Cut the two pieces out, rounded their corners, chucked them in the lathe using a 3/8" bolt as the mandrel, turned them down to 1.25", pulled the bolt and chucked them back in the lathe on their OD, drilled them to .391" to fit the metric bolt for the floor, and painted them. A few pics of that process follow, but immediately after that I discovered a puddle of water on the floor of the shop, right next to the water heater. A little sleuthing determined it was from the 15 year old water heater. And, I discovered there was no shutoff valve! So I make a trip the hardware story and bought a ball valve, close, and cap. Back at the house turned the water off, drained the water heater, installed the ball valve/close/cap in its place, and turned the water back on. NO LEAKS! Now I'm looking at point of use/tankless water heaters.

We have a page at Documentation/Electrical/Gauges that might help. On the Troubleshooting tab is the suggestion to pull the wire off the sending unit and ground it - with the switch pointing to the tank of course. Turn the key on and the gauge should go to Full. On the Gauge Circuits & Spec's tab there's a schematic of the wiring and you can click it to make it bigger. But to easily see it go to Documentation/Electrical/EVTM/1985 EVTM and then scroll down to Fuel Tank Selector & Gauges (Diesel). There you'll see that the Y/W wire goes from the switch to the gauge, so if you were to ground it the gauge should peg as well.

I'll look, but last time I looked at that function it was Greek to me. I was just hoping to make it come up chronological first instead of whatever it uses and couldn't figure it out then. But maybe I'll get lucky this time.

You might consider the approach I'm using. Knowing that any documentation I do may have mistakes that I'll find later, I've created documents that I then embed in the first post of Big Blue's Transformation thread. By doing it that way when I find errors and/or make changes those changes are immediately shown in the first post. For instance, recently I discovered that the charging and power distribution schematic didn't include a bunch of stuff, but it did include all of the detail for the passenger's side power distribution box. And that detail kept me from adding other necessary details. So I moved the PS PDB detail off that schematic and made it stand alone. Ditto for the driver's side PDB. And that gave me room to detail out the whole charging system. And then I print the individual pages or documents and add them to the 3-ring binder that lives in Big Blue's console. So no matter where he goes the info is available to fix or troubleshoot him.

Yes, exactly. We have the 3G and mega fuse holders, so some of the wires come off that. But I also have an aux battery on the driver's side and some wires come off there, including the winch and the inverter wires. I've included my schematic for that below. But if you want to see how the power distribution boxes are wired look in the first post here. As for the PMGR's relay, don't miss that I have a Powermaster and I think Jim is running one from DB Electric. Powermaster does their own thing and the pull-in current for theirs may be totally different from the standard approach that Motorcraft used, which is what the DB probably is. And I don't know that it was current draw or back EMF that caused the problem. But I do know that there was a significant problem and the massive fender-mounted relay fixed it.

Jim is way ahead of me on that, but I agree with what he said. Further since you are setting up relays for everything, I tried running the PMGR starter's relay using a 40A Bosch relay. It worked for a while but started causing the starter to disengage & re-engage during a start. Awful sound! I then called Powermaster, who made the starter, and they said NOT to do what I'd done, in no uncertain terms, but to use the fender mounted relay. So I went back to having the key trigger the big fender-mounted starter relay to then pull in the starter's own relay and it works nicely.

I'm running the multifunction valve in addition to a residual pressure valve and have no problems. On the push rod, the adjustment is sort of critical as too little and you'll have a bit of slack in the pedal, but too much and the brakes drag, which means they get hot and expand and drag more, which means... Welder Scott and I adjusted his to get the slack out. That night his son drove the truck a few miles and all of a sudden the brakes locked up. They'd been smelling something for a minute or two and pulled into a parking lot just before they locked. And they weren't going anywhere until they cooled down.

Bob - I'll be using, or hope to be, my Garmin Montana 750. It'll let me put in GPS coords, but I have not checked to see that it has Potash Road and Shafer Loops. As for which order to go in, my first thought was to do the park and then come out via Shafer/Potash. But as you've pointed out that might not be the best so I'm liking the other way 'round.

Ok, I think I understand. Going west we'll be going up the switchbacks? Sounds easier but, as you said, we'll want to get out and look 'cause the view will be behind us. Right?

Nice!

Wow! That's a lot to digest. But it is also a LOT of work! Glad you got the engine started. That can be a very stressful time, but you got it done. And noises and issues are frequently part of that. But what caused the engine to drink half a gallon of coolant? That sounds like a problem and I missed the solution. And yes, a PMGR starter has a very different sound than the earlier starters. Almost like the old Chrysler starters. And the engine spins faster as well, so everything sounds different. Your power distribution plan sounds a bit familiar. And good. Much better reliability, brighter headlights, etc. And much easier expansion. But your expansion ideas sound familiar as well. An air compressor? Switches on the dash? O2 meter? ECM? Yep, yep, yep, and yeppers! As for where to put the MSD box, I've not done that but why not right where Ford put the DS-II box? And please show us drawings and/or pics of the valve cover spacer. That's cool. Good luck!

I hadn't found Potash/Shafer in the book, but see it now. Thanks. And it is interesting what y'all are saying about the views. Especially the part about them getting better as you go up. But I'm a bit confused about the directions. Bob, I think you are saying to do as the book says, meaning go up 191 to 279, and onto Potash Road by the plant - first. That shows to be at about 4200', and then you climb to 5900' when you join the Island In The Sky road. And then turn left to go into the rest of the park that way. Is that what you mean?

That proves what I experienced was real, not just perceived. And each chat has a finite limit, so just when you are "getting there" you have to quit and start over. But while having it remember what it learns from chatting with me would help, that means it doesn't know what it has learned when you ask a question. So somehow it needs to be able to connect things. And that gets scary!

That looks good. The listing doesn’t show the residual pressure valve, which you need, but Larry said it came with his. And the lube looks good. But you will need a suction gun to pull the old lube out.

I hope they can get you in quickly.