Gary Lewis

I think there is a seal for that, but I used a good exterior caulk years ago and it worked fine. I put the caulk in with the screws in but loose, and then tightened up the screws just enough to ensure the light was lined up where it was supposed to be. Then I let it sit overnight and snugged the screws up the next morning.

And if you want to refinish them, here's how I did it: http://www.garysgaragemahal.com/aluminum-wheel-refinishing.html

Bill - Thanks for those votes of confidence. I appreciate them. I've taken a look at allpar.com, and it like FORDification sites, as well as some others, I found it confusing. But, since many others do things differently, maybe I'm the odd duck? Roughly 50% of the traffic is to the forum itself, as shown by the statistics below, which are for the last 90 days. (The forum is on the home page, so it shows as "/" in the listing." Given that, I like having the home page of the site being the forum. Anyway, I'm trying to think through what would be better than what we have, and I keep coming back to what we have works well, but maybe we can improve it some?

Well, there's probably the problem - you can't pump for long from a sealed container. And by plugging the return you have a sealed container. The pump pulls some fuel out, which creates a vacuum, and no more fuel comes out. Pull the gas cap and try running it with the cap off. If that fixes it then you've found the problem.

Something's amiss - assuming "dial" and "needle" mean the same thing. It could be the gauge is bad. Or the regulator is bad. Or the fuel pump is bad. But something's wrong. And when you are chasing problems anything like this raises red flags.

You're right, I am wondering that. I do care how much leakage I have, although I'm not particularly worried about it at this stage - as you said, the engine runs well. I had it in my mind that leakdown testers were more expensive than that which is why I've never done one. I'll probably buy that one, but not until after I'm back from OK...I'm already getting side-eye from the wife every time a new package shows up, and that's without her inspecting the credit card statements since I started working on the truck in June. Oh, and thanks for the excellent explanation of what's (probably) going on. I see rope in my immediate future. I don't seem to have the manual for my compressor, so no idea on the SCFM - but it's surely quite small, this is a very basic compressor that was given to me as either a birthday or Christmas gift (I don't remember which). And no, I haven't done the oil thing...the goal of this effort is to get less oil in the cylinders, so I'll save that test for later. I think you are on the right path, Matthew. Don't worry about the leakage as the engine runs well. As for the leak-down tester, you might shop around a bit. That one has some reviews that aren't flattering. But you want one with two gauges if possible so you can set your air compressor far away and still know what the inlet pressure is and be able to adjust the regulator to something consistent from cylinder to cylinder, like 100 psi.

I'm lost. You observe the pressure on the dial at 6 but the pressure is zero? Are you saying at some times it is at 6 and runs fine and other times it is at 0 and runs fine? On the ignition, the tach is driven by the signal in the primary circuit of the coil. But if the secondary circuit goes bad then the plugs won't fire correctly but the tach will read smoothly. And I've seen coils that fail in the secondary when they get warm.

The suggestion for change came from someone from the outside that is more knowledgeable on websites than I. And the main impetus for the change was to get the very big picture off the page for two reasons - real estate and bits downloaded. On the real estate front, I almost always come to the site via a link from an email I've gotten from "the system" that tells me there's a new post. And that link takes me to the post and I skip right over seeing the "big picture". And if I hit Refresh while on the main page of the forum it has the Bullnose Enthusiasts label at the top of the page - and I don't see the picture nor the prayer. So, bottom line: I never see the picture unless I scroll up. Do y'all? On the bits downloaded, even though I normally don't see the picture, it surely gets downloaded. And it is a large file as it is on the "website" and not the "forum", and I can put big pics on the website. So perhaps a compromise would be to put a picture with less bits in it on there? As for the folder(s) for the stickies, I'll see what I can come up with. It does make some sense to put things dedicated to the forum on the forum itself instead of in the menu of the website. But, do y'all understand the difference? Am I the only one that thinks about that?

Makes sense .... Check! But I'd still dial the fuel pressure down to 5 or less. From what I've read anything over 6 can be a problem, although usually at idle rather than elsewhere.

The Webers I see in Clifford's kit are the 38/38 DGAS, and this Redline writeup says they are synchronous, which means both throttle plates open at the same time. It would be the 32/36 DGEV carb for progressive linkage. I don't know why Clifford is using those carbs, but they've probably done a lot of research and I haven't, so I'll bet it works. As for yours, I think joining the sections with pipe is a good idea as it will smooth out the pulses. Sorry, I missed that. I'm still thinking the progressive Holley/Weber 5200's have merit. Bill suggested them and the info I've found looks promising.

Shaun - I've used Dynamat and Peal & Seal, and both seemed to work about the same. But P&S has more odor to it, for sure. Not sure what I'm going to use, but will consider the Fat Mat. Thanks! fords4life - Those aren't very good leak-down test results. But they are less bad than mine, which ranged from 17% to 50%. And you shouldn't need to hold the crank at TDC. I never have until I got to Big Blue, and then I discovered that the damper is off a few degrees. So when I accounted for that and got it on TDC it no longer rotated when I put the pressure on it. As for the ECU, it should not be getting hot, much less that hot. You need to figure out what is causing it to heat. If you have a relay that's shorted a wire to a relay, that might do it. Jim - I'm not sure that qualifies for work. He would have taken the sawzall to it and THEN put the patch on. I think your approach is creative and functional. But what caused the crack? You don't have the bridge?

Wouldn't he have an engine-mounted mechanical pump? And if the sock went in place of the EFI pump, wouldn't it be too high? As for he sender, I wasn't going to worry 'bout the gauge - yet. Yes, it'll be upside down and backwards.

Yes, it is hard to diagnose over the internet. One person's terminology isn't the same as another's, and all of a sudden you have a misunderstanding. And a diagnosis based on misunderstandings is usually wrong. Anyway, we shall soon see if the carb fixes it.

The "proper carb" for a 3-carb setup is very similar to those for a 2-carb setup, only maybe smaller if that is possible. Carb sizing can be summarized by two limiting factors: the carb must be small enough that at off-idle conditions the throttle response is still good. Too big of a carb will cause a bog or a soft feeling just off idle. But, too small of a carb will limit performance at high RPM. That would seem to be a hard problem to solve, but fortunately we have progressive carbs, meaning ones that run on a smaller primary and then open up the secondaries when needed. Some Webers are that way. The Holley/Weber that Bill mentioned is. And most 4bbl carbs are, although it is very unlikely that you can find a small enough 4bbl to work properly with a 100 cubic inch engine, which is what you'll have with 3 carbs on a 300. And, speaking of that, if you cut up three manifolds as I think you are suggesting, you will have three separate engines connected by a crankshaft. And that's a slightly different problem to solve than the Clifford manifold that serves all six cylinders from two carbs. In the two cylinder case the carb will see only those two cylinders and the pulses will be strong and widely spaced. But with the Clifford manifold there will always be six pulses to the carbs, although each carb will see three moderate pulses and three weaker pulses. The issue is the start/stop that strong pulses try to invoke. Fuel has a significant mass to it when compared to air, and because of that it is harder to tune a carb that sees really strong pulses than it is a more even set of pulses.

I see what you mean. No, I've not seen that in a Bullnose. But, once Big Blue has his floors POR'd I'll be laying down some matting like that - all over the place.

Ok guys, you are telling me pretty much what I expected - the proposed home page is way too wordy. So let me try to think "out loud". The perceived need was to move the picture and the prayer off the forum to make it load faster and clear up some real estate. And the suggested solution was to create this new "home page" and move those things to it. But that really begs the question of how people find us. Will they ever find the new home page? And if they do find that page, once they've read the few words on it, is there a need to ever go back to it? Matthew wants a URL that brings one to the forum directly - and http://www.garysgaragemahal.com currently does that. But if we have a new home page that won't be the case as that URL will take you to the new home page. So anyone that has already bookmarked it will have to then click another link to go from the new home page to the forum. Shaun suggested that we have stickies to handle 'forum and/or site "how-to" and "where are?"' So, what if we just keep the forum as the home page and instead of hiding the "how-to" info in the menu under Bullnose Forum we put up more stickies? We could have a sticky folder for those kinds of things. But, what about the pic of the month/year/century? Do we have a sticky for that? I'm getting confused. Perhaps it is time for bed. What we have isn't badly broken and I fear that I'm trying to make too big of a change to solve what may be a simple problem.

Don't you love quick & dirty solutions that run into significant problems later. Factory sound deadening below the seat? I don't think I've seen that. Any pics?

I'm sorry, but I can't make heads or tails of your post. I think I understand that you found "stuff" in the tank so you used another tank you had for a '95. But then the fuel pickup for the 300, which has a carb, would not work with the '95 tank - because the opening in the '95 tank was too large for the 85's sending unit? So you gutted the sending unit/pump combo that was for the '95, presumably by removing the pump. And about there I get lost. You say you "hooked the pickup to the straw". Do you mean you hooked the fuel hose going to the engine-mounted fuel pump to the tube sticking out of the 95's sending unit? And then the pump "keeps getting louder and the truck dies". Is that the engine-mounted pump? I hate to ask all of those questions, but what you typed does not make sense to me and I don't want to start problem solving until I understand what the problem really is.

Not quite sure what you are saying, Ron. Try that again? I'm kinda slow.

You are doing a leak-down test, sorta. The difference is that in a real leak-down tester there would be a very small orifice, usually .040" in diameter, between the gauge at the tank and another gauge right ahead of the spark plug adapter. So if you are truly on TDC on the compression stroke and you don't hear any air escaping through the exhaust, carb, or radiator neck, then it is all going into the sump - which you should hear in the dip stick tube, PVC port, and oil fill on the valve cover. And that means it is going past the rings, meaning they are worn. Not necessarily bad, but worn. If it was me I'd rotate the engine while watching the valves and make sure that when it is at what you think is TDC on the compression stroke that both valves are closed on #1 cylinder. If you find that you were already at that spot then you may need the rope trick to keep the valve up if the compressor can't keep up. But now you are wondering how worn your engine is. I'd buy a leak-down tester, maybe something like this tester from Amazon, and check. But you already know that the engine runs well, so perhaps you don't really care how much leakage you have. Just run it in that case.

From another Kansan, welcome to the forum! I'm originally from Ark City, although I live near Tulsa now. But, we used to live in Wichita, back when I worked for Boeing and then KG&E. Plus my wife lived in Newton for a while, and I worked for the AT&SF railroad there as well as well as in the north yards in Wichita when I was going to college. We have a member's map (Bullnose Forum/Member's Map in the menu) and I'd be happy to put you on there. As for your truck's issues, you should open a new thread in the main section about that. I say that because the main section gets more attention and, therefore, more help. Having said that, my guess is that your positive or negative battery cable has a bad connection. Or, that the cable itself is bad. Do you have a voltmeter? If so you should try the voltage drop test (Electrical/Voltage Drop Test). That will point out where the problem(s) are.

Folks - You may remember that a friend of mine, who isn't into trucks, looked the website over and suggested a number of changes. One of those was to create a new home page that would include static info that would help people understand how to use the website and the forum. I've taken a stab at that, and it is currently in Bullnose Forum/New Home Page in the menu. BUT I VERY MUCH WANT YOUR INPUT!!!! The theory here is that the forum page itself would lose the "pic of the month/year/decade" that currently shows Cory's truck, as that pic would move to the new home page, making the load of the forum pages that much faster. And, in order to make the forum's main page as skinny as possible, the prayer might move to the new home page as well - as I've shown. And, in an effort to help people understand what is on the website I created a sort of outline that you'll see on the potential home page. But, that created a whole host of problems:It is quite long as it is trying to mimic what you see in the menu, which has lots of entries. And, I used a lot of words. It raises lots of questions about why things are where they are. It raises the question of whether each item listed should be a hot link. To see what I'm on about look at Fasteners & Illustrations. I can do that on most things, but is it helpful? So I badly need help and feedback on this. Does it make sense? Is it too long? Is it helpful? What else should be on the home page? Is it a bad or good idea? HELP, PLEASE!

Here are some shots that I hope will help. If not, then I might be persuaded to take this one apart tomorrow. And, I'll admit that it was hard getting the camera to focus exactly on the parts in question, so these aren't perfectly crisp. Sorry. Here 'tis from the top: Bottom front from a distance: Bottom front closer: And lastly, bottom:

Nice truck!

Good job. On the horn, put a test light at the horn to see if it is getting power. If not, test at the output of the relay. Then the input of the relay.