Gary Lewis

As for what I did today, I packed Huck's bags and loaded him up. The first problem I encountered was that I had the lift under Huck and couldn't set it down on the trailer. So I put a couple of eye-bolts in the frame at the rear, ran chain to them, and secured the chain to the rear arms of the lift. In the front I ran chain from the arms and under a high spot in the frame that wouldn't hit the trailer when I set it down. Then I pushed the trailer in with Big Blue in 4Lo. Note the magnetic angle finder on the corner. That's just high enough I can see it from the cab, which let's me know where that corner is. And I stopped 6" shy of Dad's truck. I had 5" to spare on either side between the trailer and the lift, but that was easily done since I could see what I was doing. I'm sold on the front hitch. And, here's Huck all tied up and awaiting his run to the scrap yard in the morning.

Wow! Free!!!!! Can't beat that.

So I just stuck the rubber floor back in the truck...dry fit so to speak. It still fits, and I think it will be OK at least in the short term, but there is a little tent effect on the left side of the tunnel. A bit of a bubble by the gas pedal. Not serious or anything, and maybe it will flatten out a bit with time and heat. The floor is 34 years old, and it's cold...lol. Maybe a little heat gun work to soften it up will help it settle in place more?...I dunno. As it is, everything fits where it was previously. I'm guessing the floor mat was also able to fit trucks with the floor shift tunnel covers, and there was a little slack in mine? The rubber floor is surprisingly stiff...I can barely even feel where the shifter hole is in the tunnel cover. I have to cut that out to fit the shifter base next. Great! Glad it appears to work.

Well, I hope everything works out so you can come - assuming that is the best for you. But keep it in mind.

That's going to be a really nice shop!

Ok, I'll bite - how did Trixie train Mary, and to do what?

Yes, my lift is my best tool. I'm using it right now to get Huck high enough to go on the trailer and thence to the scrap yard. Dunno how to do that with a 4-poster though.

828 miles and 12 1/2 hours. Jonathan has 1049 miles and 15 1/2 hours.

Don't use mine a whole bunch, but when I do it is essential. Couldn't get a bolt out of Huck yesterday as the 300 ft-lb Ridgid battery-powered impact wouldn't budge it. Could have fired up the compressor and the HF Earthquake 1100 ft-lbs impact would have made short work of either it or the Torx bit. But, I decided I didn't need that bolt and seatbelt retractor so left it. Used the compressor the other day to air up the portable air tank to take on my outing. Good thing I did as one tire on the Malibu was way down. The tank started at 115 psi and that drew it down to 80. Tomorrow will be a week and it is still sitting at 80. And when I media-blast it is obviously essential. Brandon's been over several times of late. And I cleaned up the 460 EFI plenums before I put them away. Plus, I'm blasting Bill's to-be lower plenum in a few days. So, an air compressor is a requirement in my shop.

Yeah, that pesky WORK gets in the way. It would be good to have your mother close. Good for her, good for you, and for the boys.

Wow! Good overview, Ray. How long did it take to get it where it is? What are the long-term plans for it? As for Chevys, I do have one. And our boat has a Chevy 6.2L engine - it is stout and has a growl at idle.

Matthew! That is a wonderful story, and is even better this time around. (Matthew and I've "known" each other for several years on a different forum.) I'm glad your grandmother is doing so well, and that you and your son are keeping the truck in the family. Why not bring it back to its old stomping grounds in September for the show?

No sir, there was no tunnel cover before, just steel floor. There was an impression stamped in the floor for the cover to fit, and the 9 screw holes, etc, but no cover. The M5OD cover is a couple inches higher for sure. I'll see if I can test fit the mat again tonight. I guess worst case scenario is that I have to buy a later model rubber floor mat, which would be kind of a sin really considering my existing one is in great condition. I did throw it in the truck the other night, but I only looked at the driver's side...it may have been too short on the passenger side....I didn't check that. I can live with a little bit of tent effect, as long as the mat reaches the door trim mouldings on the left and the right. Another option would be to get the earlier cover. They should be easy to come by, assuming you have the taller one. I think I have both, so can measure and you can find out what you have.

Ray - Your father would be proud, and I'm proud to be mentioned in the same sentence as him. This is an excellent place to document the building of your shop, and you might get some suggestions along the way.

Jochen - You are added. Haven't been to that part of Germany, but wasn't too far away in the Netherlands and it certainly is flat. Reminded me of my home in Kansas, although I grew up on the edge of the flat land - west was flaaaaat and east had hills. Ray - You are added as well. All - When adding Ray who, like me, uses his name instead of a "handle", I got to wondering if I'm doing this the wrong way 'round. I've been placing the member's first name followed by the "handle". For example Ray/NotEnoughTrucks. And I've been alphabetizing things with the first name. But, if you don't know "Ray" but know "NotEnoughTrucks" it isn't easy to look him up. Today we have 17 entries on the map, but we have well over 100 hundred members, and counting, so as the others ask to be added it'll get more and more difficult to find someone in the list. So, should I reverse the order and make it NotEnoughTrucks/Ray?

I'm not having a problem. But let's see if others are and then I can report it.

Jonathan - I'm thinking we might be able to do better than just a list of gearsets/ratios. For instance, I think we just learned that all 1983 T-19's had 5.11 first gears. (And all 420's and 460's in '83 were sold in CA.) If you compare that to the Manual Transmission Application page you can see that those must be the "T-19" transmissions and were used from 1983 through 1985 for 420's and 460's. But in 1984 a T-19A and a T-19C were introduced, and one or both of those probably had the 6.32 first gear. So we could document the fact that all 1983 T-19's had the 5.11 ratio and were sold behind the diesel and 460 in CA - and give our references for that statement. (And, if someone really wanted to work things out, the application chart gives the parts list for each transmission and you could compare the gearsets.) We could build this info up bit by bit as we figure it out.

You need the Permalink. At the top of a page there's a hot link that says Permalink. Click it and then copy the highlighted link by hitting Control C. And paste that into your post elsewhere. But that only takes you to the thread itself. If you want to take someone to a specific post click More on that post and then Permalink at the bottom of the list.

Could probably ship it cheaper. Think of the MPG it isn't going to get. Think of how small the tank must be.

UNF is Unified National Fine. So 1/2-20 is just the fine-pitched 1/2" thread. But the Edelbrock's 5/8-20 is an odd thread. It isn't SAE UNC nor UNF, and it isn't NPT. I think it was used by several carb manufacturers, but is an uncommon size outside of carbs.

I agree that the organizer snippets are the best way to go. They are hard to dispute. But it will probably take some words to summarize what they say. And, by the way, I just OCR'd the '83 page that has the XLS info. In other words, it has been created to a pdf with actual words instead of a picture of words. So, we'll use that one in some fashion as Google will find it and the XLS questors will be able to those details.

I didn't post all of the 2wd pages but I have scanned them. Want me to post them? As for the diesel, it is listed as an optional engine in the Powertrains section, but doesn't show in the 2wd section at all for any truck. However, it does in the 4wd section, but in a strange way. On one page there is a footnote that says "(1) Requires 7.5L (460 CID) 4V V-8 gasoline engine or 6.9L (420 CID) V-8 diesel engine." And the two places where footnote (1) is used is for the "F250 4x4 Reg. Cab Pickup & Chassis Cab Over 8500 GVWR" and the "F350 4x4 Pickup And Chassis Cab". But, get this: That footnote is only for California. There is absolutely no other mention of the 460 or the diesel in any other application. So, it appears that those engines were introduced in California in '83 but not the 49 states, and only on the trucks listed above. But wait! There's more! The low gear for those CA trucks is 5.11, but the 49-state trucks got the 6.32 low gear. It was a dark and stormy night, and the plot thickens. Seriously, I'm not sure I'm up to creating the chart of which we typed. That would be one complex chart from what I've just found - and that's for 1983 only. Yes, it would be marvelous to work through the organizer for each year and figure out what trannies were available for each engine/GVWR combo, but it appears to be very difficult to do. Maybe later as we get our heads around things?

Plus, the stock manual columns have the fiddly button that has to be pushed down in order to turn the key to Off.

Ok, will do.

Yeah, surely faster in a Bullnose. Jonathan's gonna find out in Sept. He's probably 2/3 of the way to you, so we'll extrapolate his elapsed time.