Gary Lewis

Congrat's!!! What tracer tool do you use? I've seen several and have often wondered which ones work best.

That’s a shame! So sorry to see that.

Scott - Well explained. Thanks! I think I could do that. That sure looks like it’ll be clean and solid. When you get this done maybe we can use these pics and write up to create a page on it in the Documentation section.

Cool! Really glad the double-DIN works, although I’m not sure it’ll be compatible with my F600 faceplate. I really want to see all it took. Don’t know the terminal #, but may be able to look later. Hopefully someone else knows. And, I didn’t realize that your head unit has internet access. Great!

Oh man you weren't kiddin' eh? I figured I'd follow-up on this thread in case anybody else was ever curious. I went and checked on the proper garage exhaust hose, and it was way too expensive for what I wanted. I talked to my brother in law and he had about 20' of this 3" industrial flex hose and he guaranteed me that it would be perfectly fine for exhaust use. Well I finally got to test it today, and it worked great! I don't have any specs on the stuff at the moment, but I'm going to check on it Monday. Oh...and I used rubber pipe couplings to seal the hose to my two tail pipes, and they worked great too. I brought an CO2 sensor out into the garage while I was working out there, and I didn't set it off, so I guess all was OK. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I used 2x4's under my garage door as spacers rather than cutting holes in my door. I wouldn't use them enough to warrant drilling dedicated holes. Glad that worked. And I’d like to know what the hose specs are as that would certainly one in handy. I have several pieces of 3” drain hose for yard or gutter drains, but doubt that would work very long before it melted.

Polished concrete is smooooooth, like what you see in Walmart, and Sams, and other places. Doesn't have the texture of regular concrete, and might not stain with oil, gas, brake fluid, etc the way regular concrete does. Plus, it'll clean up easier with a broom or a mop.

Yesterday I was contacted via email regarding the lack of info on the website for the splash shields on the bed. So today I had a few moments to add that info to the Documentation/Exterior/Beds page. But, in doing so I embellished things a bit. On the illustration for the single rear wheel trucks, which looks like a Styleside but there's no illustration for a Flareside and they take the same parts anyway, I put info on the fasteners used since we don't have those fasteners in the Fastener info. However, on the DRW illustration I got even fancier and not only added info on fasteners we don't have, but added links to the one fastener we do have. Which then meant I had to embed a pdf rather than a picture so the blue box would work. And, when I created the pdf it made it very small for some reason, which meant that when you first looked at the page you needed to click the zoom feature at the bottom. So I figured out how to make pdf's larger so there's no need for zooming when you pull up the page. (I printed the page and made it larger in the print dialog.) In fact, let's see what it looks like here:

Your suggesting buying a new fuel tank with a sender unit and in-tank fuel pump, rather than just weld in a bung at the bottom for the external fuel pump (that comes with the FI kit) and bung on the top for the fuel return? I suppose if I needed a new fuel tank, that would have been a good way to go. Is the tank mounting/positioning and straps the same for the 19-gallon mid-ship (with carb engine) and the EFI setup? with the only difference being the size of the opening for the sender/pump unit? Anyways, I went the re-using existing tank route. No problem with that - I'm just having a problem getting the sending unit float arm bent to the correct angle. I'm not Jim, but I think I know the answer. From 1985 on the tanks had the larger opening that allowed the fuel pump to go in. I'm going to use a 38 gallon Bronco tank with the later fuel delivery module and it appears to fit just fine - although I will have to lengthen the pickup and the float arm. And the tanks up well into the 90's mount the same way, using the same strap arrangement.

Mind telling everyone what MPG you are getting, Paul?

Ok, that was all very easy. The 1100 RPM idle was due to the choke plate linkage being hung up on the carb spacer, because I had it positioned wrong. Once that was fixed, idle dropped to 600 RPM. I've played around with it for a bit, and got the AFR at 14.5 at an idle of 750 RPM. Best vacuum I can get in this scenario is 17.5". Question though... The idle mix screws. I assume they need to be adjusted equally left and right? Each has to be the same number of turns? I'll have to play with it some more. The 14.5 AFR was with the right hand idle mix screw at 3/4 turn out, and the left hand screw at 1.0 full turn out. Once I evened them both up to 1.0 turns, the AFR dropped to 13.2-ish. I'm on the right path at least. It's idling nice and smooth. Can't drive it until the roads clear up though, bugger. Where is your O2 sensor located? Anyway, it isn’t necessary to adjust the idle screws the same. Adjust for best idle and don’t sweat the AFR.

Yep, do the wiring and plumbing first. Then the drywall, then the floor. Are you going to polish the concrete? My shop floor is painted, but if I were to do it again I’d polish it.

Yep. Big Blue is sporting brown vinyl ones from Huck, the 1990 half-truck. I’ll paint/dye them blue some day, but they are already night and day better than the droopy ones that were on there when I got him.

Yes, capacitance is a interesting approach! As for the Arduino, it is explained in this thread: http://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/Bricknose-Sender-to-Bullnose-Gauge-Interface-td7174.html. And I plan to implement it as part of the EFI system for Big Blue as I’m going to use the later fuel delivery module that Jim described. Their beauty is in the fact that there’s no external pump or fuel tank selector valve as all of that is integrated with the FDM. The downside is that their level senders work on a different resistance range than ours, hence the need for the Arduino to translate. But once the output, or Bullnose, side of the Arduino is figured out we can adapt the input side to about anything we want.

Ok, so I stuck the distributor back in. Once the gas flowed back up to the carb it fired right up. Up to temp now, here are the readings: Base timing is at 10 degrees BTDC. RPM is 1100. Engine vacuum is 18.5" AFR is approx 11.2 So what do I start adjusting first? Idle speed, idle mix, or timing? Bring the idle down first. Then adjust the idle mix and readjust the RPM.

Yep, once used they are a must to have. 👍

My Arduino plans could easily be altered to be used on a Bullnose sender as well as a later sender. And with the algorithm it would be easy to adjust it to make any situation work. Guess I need to make it happen sooner rather than later.

That will work. However, you need a fairly high-wattage resistor as the current approaches one amp. I used 2 watt resistors in my calibration work and they got pretty warm. So a 5 ohm resistor would need to be a 5 watt unit as at Full the equation is: Watts = Current x Current x Resistance. So 1 x 1 x 5 = 5. Anyway, stick a resistor in and see what you think. Won’t hurt anything.

Dave / The ratios and the ability to change things are in the calculator here: http://www.garysgaragemahal.com/calculators.html.

Happy Solstice! It is a time for change. And I hope yours is a good one and that the holiday season is a happy one for you.

Maybe it is time to invoke the new Bullnose Bible URL?

The brake lights are operated by a switch on the brake pedal, so them not coming on is a different issue. But if you meant the brake warning light, it should come on for a few seconds when the key is first turned to On, so if it doesn’t come on then the bulb may be out. And the proportioning valve turns that light on if it is stuck to one end, so it may be stuck to the rear and that could explain the lack of brakes. So I’d check the bulb and the valve first. And, by the way, the rear brakes are served by one line, so if it is crimped neither brake in the rear works.

Our forum, Jim.

That’s a really nice truck for the price.

It’s a tough life. 😉

Sounds like a good idea! 👍