Gary Lewis

Looks nice, but the seller doesn't know if it works, so.....

Advertised correctly. But boy that is expensive!

For 80/83 F100 - - 2/W/D only according to the catalog.

Looks like it is advertised correctly.

Yup, 1981 - 86 right hand door lock.

it might not even be applied, but actual brushed metal..... I have a used one, and I believe it is a film like the woodgrain over the metal. That is just my impression from the wear and staining. It also seems to have visual brush texture but no physical texture that I can see. If I had sample pieces of the wrap I could photograph them next to the original. From what I see the stuff on the roll is not a match, but might be close enough if you were not mixing original pieces with wrapped ones. I'd bet we are never going to get a perfect match and the only way to do that is to have all of the parts covered with the same stuff. But that's just my guess.

Good job, Jim. Don - Have you embedded the file? I haven't seen it and want to document the instructions for others to follow - if they work.

You can meet some interesting people via ham radio, and not by the usual methods even. When I was trying to get my truck out of the Publix parking lot last week, I asked an older gentleman for a jump start (I didn't expect it to work, and it didn't...but it would have been foolish not to try). After the jump failed he moved his car back to the shady spot he had picked, and as he was then walking toward the grocery store he noticed my radio plate. So he stopped to chat - turns out he's had an amateur license since the '50s (I'd guess he was around 80 or so), and we talked a bit about ham radio back in the day. He also told me a funny story about trying to get a PR job at Eastern Air Lines back in the '60s. A pleasant interlude in what was otherwise a very irritating afternoon. I "met" a lot of nice people back then via amateur radio. Kinda like here?

Now I'm going to worry about that for a long time. I'll be in the back of beyond, in 1st, and it'll break off.

Yes, the things..... In high school I was an amateur radio operator - ham. I was given a 44' triangular tower made out of pipe and a reinforcing rod laced between the pipes. I dug and poured a base for it in the back yard and then rigged a rope/pulley arrangement from the tower to a tree. But the folks' '64 Sword wouldn't pull it up due to lack of traction, so I did it myself. I remember Dad saying "What have I wrought?" It is amazing what you can move if you get in the right position.

Jim - Sorry, it was a long time ago and I hardly remember yesterday. But you probably did suggest that approach way back then. And, as you say, softening/radiusing the steering box would help. Those things are terribly crisp on the edge and with the kind of forces being generated in the steering it is easy to see how the frame would finally crack. Grapes = hone? Ok, I can see that.

I agree with you, Jim. But does he really have all of those problems or just one major problem, like the ECM going bad? We need to somehow diagnose this a bit better before he starts throwing money at it - like a new fuel pump.

Are you saying that with the computer disconnected it runs much better? If so, then the major problem isn't a fuel pump. It is surely something electrical if you electrically disconnect the computer and most of the issues go away. So, how did you disconnect the computer? And, what's the other color on the broken brown wire? There will be another color that may be dots, hash marks, or a stripe. But without that I don't know what the wire is.

Many forums, like this one, don't have the smarts to read the metadata in the file and rotate the image. So you have to do that in an editing app before posting. Grapes run through it? What does that mean? On the crack, that's huge. I found a small one on Dad's truck, and how I dealt with that is shown in this thread on FTE. However, I'm not saying that's the way to do it. I've not even had Dad's truck on the road yet, so don't know that my fix will hold. However, my nephew, a mechanical engineer and a serious mechanic, tells me that the best way to prevent it from happening again after you grind out and weld up the cracks is to ream the bolt holes in the frame out, install heaving wall tubing that has an ID of the diameter of the bolts, and just long enough to prevent the box from touching the frame. In other words, the tube needs to be maybe 1/8" longer than the "width" of the frame. What causes the crack is a poor design wherein the hard edge of the box is directly against the frame, which focuses all of the energy in one spot - a "hot spot". So if you hold the box slightly off the frame you take away the hot spot. But it has to be heavy wall tubing, and it has to be a good fit with the bolts and welded properly to the frame. So it isn't a simple task. And I've not done it - yet.

I do TV time with Janey, so I understand. But you need to tell me how much of this thread to move to the new one. I can move the whole thing or I can select a post to move, but any replies to that post get moved as well. And, since most of this thread is serial replies about everything will go. Then I can come back and kill these off-topic posts about moving. As for the file: - Open your Google Drive via a browser - Navigate to the file you want to embed - Double-click the file to open it in a browser tab - In the upper right click the 3 dots and then click Open In A New Window - In the upper right of the new window click the three dots and then click Embed Item - Copy the code you see that looks like "" - Paste that code into your post, but make sure you tick the Message is in HTML Format box - Click Preview Message. If, as I suspect, it ain't WYSIWYG, then we'll have to do some tuning. You can play with the width and height parameters and see if you can dial it in that way. But that doesn't work too well on Google and is one of the reasons I moved to OneDrive. Microsoft gives you more control.

Charlie seems to like it. Seriously though, you can't go wrong at that price - as long as you don't plan to put it back on the road. And if the engine and tranny are good you are miles ahead. Might the front axle be a D50? Bigger lockouts than the D44's?

While going to college I worked for the Scanty Pay Railway, aka AT&SF. And I've pushed rail cars by hand. If they are already moving it really isn't that bad, and if they are light like a caboose then they can be started rolling with steady pressure. But, I admit that I was just out of HS football and my legs were pretty stout back then. So putting my back to something and pushing with my legs generated quite a bit of force.

I prefer the smell of burning leaves, which I got on the '82 Explorer when I turned the heater on.

Should we do this? I guess this is going to turn into a project thread. Gary? Go ahead and move it? Don - I don't know where to move it. Have you started another thread? I can only move it to an existing thread. As for the file, to embed something it has to be on a server like Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive. Something that has an embedding option. I have most of my embedded files on OneDrive and can walk you through how to do that or Google Drive if you want. And, if I were to embed it then it'd be my file to edit. But you are the one that needs to edit it. So, do you have an account on one of those servers?

Fiber cuts. Been there, done that, got the . We called it "contractor fade".Anyway, your son is amazing! You have every right to be proud. :nabble_smiley_good:On the heads, it does look like they put the plugs in on both ends of both heads. But, just FYI, the plugs they appear to have used are the adapters that step that 5/8" size down to probably 3/8" for the bolts for the accessories. One end of the heads already had those plugs and the other end was open to take the injected air. But it looks like they added the adapters to both ends.The beauty of that is you can't get the heads on wrong - as some people have done. :nabble_smiley_wink:And $750 to rebuild the engine is a STEAL! Surely that doesn't include the parts, which can easily top $500. But still, it is a very nice price.As for the spreadsheet, would you be interested in embedding it instead of providing a link?

I've thought about adding some of these to one or both of my trucks, but have too many other things to sort out on both of them, so will have to pass. But good find.

LOL...good story, and you got to keep the girl. Too bad you didn't keep the '58 as well, those early Impalas were sweet. Yep, I loved that car. It would ROLL! When we bought it the seller told us that he went for a trip to Wyoming with his MiL. (Doesn't everyone travel with theirs?) They'd been driving for a while and he was sleepy so climbed into the back seat to take a nap and left her to drive. When he woke up the scenery was going by rather quickly, so he peered over her shoulder and saw the speedo setting above 100 MPH. No muss, no fuss, just roll.......

I'll see if I can sneak out to the shop for a bit tomorrow and check things out on Big Blue. (We are home from two weeks of vacating and playing catchup. But, the grandtwins come for one final visit tomorrow before going back to Nicaragua, so no promises.) But, it is good to see that LMC is now carrying those. I've been hoarding some for Dad's truck, but might have to spring for new ones.

It says "New genuine Ford E4TZ18552A heater control cable for 1984 F series & Bronco. 32" long. Should fit 85 & 86 as well." But I do not think it'll fit '85 and '86 as that takes a different part number - E4TZ 18552-B. However, I do not know what the difference is between the -A and -B part numbers, although that little change can sometimes make the part entirely different.

You know you're a gearhead when you can appreciate a picture of a clean set of SBF cylinder heads;)