Gary Lewis

As Jim says, progress is good. How much travel of the pedal before you start to move the piston in the master? I ask because there is an adjustment, and if it gets changed you can either have lots of slop in the linkage or the brakes won't release fully.

Wow! He is proud of that one. And it has manual spot lights on both A-pillars. And a tach. And electric windows. And a horn pad from a van. I wish him luck. But Dad used to say "Wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one gets full first." I think I know in this case.

I have an '87 EVTM if y'all need pages from it.

It would be nice if I could by late spring or early summer before it gets too hot. Other wise it will be after summer when it cools down. I have the 2 rear fenders, 1 needs a 2nd fuel door, and the hood to do body work on yet. Then sand, sand and more sanding to prep for painting. Dave ---- Dave - I put up a new tab for Fuel Filler Doors on the Exterior/Beds, Tailgates, & Components page. Could you take a look at it? It seems to show that the Flareside door is the same as the Styleside door. Do you know if that is the case?

That's why we have a For Sale, Trade, Or Free To A Good Home section. Feel free to advertise.

It won't be long! Paint is coming soon!

Glad you got it fixed. What usually happens is that a hose ahead of the fuel pump will leak out while the truck is sitting, but it leaks in when it is running. And what goes in is air, and the air kills the vacuum that the pump is creating to move fuel. At some point in the power range there's only enough fuel to keep the engine running at that load, and you can't accelerate any further. But I'd have another filter in the line. Either ahead of or after the pump. Or, both of the tank isn't known to be clean.

I found this really informative web page (that even the author had forgotten ) which showed installation illustrations and part numbers for speed controls. However, it didn't include the speedometer cable part numbers, although now it does. It is at Underhood/Speed Control, as if that makes sense. But, looking at the speedo cables, it turns out that the change appears to have been made in '86. The 1986 cables are one-piece and are from 73 3/8" to 90" long, while the 1980 - 85 cables are two-piece with an upper cable of 24 3/8" for all applications and a lower of from 44" to 63" long depending on the application.

They were standard on all Bullnose trucks, but were frequently thrown away when the battery was changed out. You can see it as 10A691 in the bottom left of the illustration here: Electrical/Battery Trays.

I missed that distinction.

Chris! Where ya been? Yes, the Arduinos are neat. I built an 8085-based microcontroller years ago that is far less capable than an Arduino. FAR And I had to write the OS and do all the wiring. As for the shield, that was just an example, and a bad one as it is for a Nano and I'm using an Uno. But there are plenty more - with very little shipping. On the sending unit, you'll need to read the EFI For Big Blue thread to get the whole idea, but I'll summarize. However, first I'm looking for a solution that will be easily maintained by my offspring in the years to come. And that rules out options like piecing things together with a sending unit from here and a pump from there. I want a bolt-in solution. And the options I found were: 1985 460: Most would think the "correct" sender would be for an '85 460, which is what Big Blue is. But, I'm going EFI and need higher pressure than the 460's pumps give 1985.5-6: Next up would be the system for a 1985.5-6 5.0L as they have the right sender an a high pressure pump. But, a thread on FTE a few years ago that you and Bill were involved in it determined that the required frame-mounted switching valve is NLA - and they were very problematic so replacement is a given. Unfortunately, my recent investigation shows that there might be one available today. 1990+: But the 1990 and later system uses Fuel Delivery Modules that have the high-pressure pumps in the tank with a shuttle valve arrangement for the return in there as well. So the external plumbing is simply a wye in both the supply and return. Simple. And readily available. So, I'm going with the 1990+ FDM's, which have the sending units that have a range that is backwards to that of the Bullnose as well as wider. Enter the Arduino that can easily translate and calculate the width of pulse required to simulate the Bullnose senders. But the current is a bit much so an add-on shield is needed.

Exactly where your EVTM shows it to be.

Look at Page 138 here: Electrical/EVTM/1986 EVTM/Speed Control.

Dana made a kit that mounted a switch on the turn signal, and I think they were dealer-added for Ford.

Idiots don't ask questions. Glad you did.

No, but I have Eastwood's similar paints and don't find them as durable as powder coating. I do use some paint on things that can't be PC'd.

It looks to me like the wires match very well. I suspect you are looking at the wrong diagram. Look at Page 104 here: Electrical/EVTM/1986 EVTM/Electric Fuel Pump Control. Or, look here: Fuel Systems/Fuel Systems Wiring and look at the 5.0L tab. Same page from the EVTM, but the latter shows the 5-pin vs 6-pin switch and gives you part numbers. But confirm that you don't have a switching valve on the frame rail. You shouldn't, but just to make sure....

Dave - We will take the pics when you can get them. I didn't post any yesterday, either. But, you are making good progress. As for what I did: Played with an Arduino simulator and got the "sketch" (program) for the sender/gauge interface worked out. Started looking for a display to replace the clock and provide a way for the Arduino to communicate. Perhaps use it to replace the aftermarket oil pressure, water temp, and volt meter? Maybe to display info from the EEC, like AFR? The sky's the limit as the Arduino has lots of capability left after the interface, and temp, pressure, or voltage would be so easy to do. Powdercoated parts for Dad's truck.

Paul - Your cover is just blasted? We didn't powder coat it? Or did we? As for Dad's truck, I got the axle shafts PC'd today with the Silver Lining powder, which is smooth. Here's a shot of the parts hanging in the oven and you can see the pieces of tubing that I used to mask the u-joint bores as well as the tape on the splines and races: And here are the parts with the masking removed:

I don't usually leave a flasher in. As shown in the drawing, I'll replace it with one of the regulated supplies like shown here: Electrical/ICVR. That way all the gauges will have a stable supply. But, the Arduino will run off of the vehicle battery voltage and create its own power - as well as the 5v reference I'll feed to the tank senders. As for a level shift, I can do that with the "b" value in the equation. But if that equation doesn't do it for another application I could go quadratic if needed to give a curve. Lots and lots of flexibility.

Ok folks, the Arduino approach works. I've documented everything in my Bricknose Sender To Bullnose Gauge Interface project. To test it I downloaded an Arduino simulator and tried the concept - and it worked well. However, along the way I did find a bust in my spreadsheet, which caused me to recalculate the "m" and "b" values in the equation to y=.27x+.02. And, I found a minor omission in the sketch/program - both of which I've changed in the previous posts to ensure posterity doesn't try to replicate this with dodgy data. You can see from the screenshots of the simulator that the results are extremely close to what we need, and can easily be dialed in via the m and b parameters. In fact, they could be dialed in for every combo of senders and gauges, so it would be easy to use Bullnose senders and Bricknose gauges. Now to figure out other things to have the Arduino do in its spare time - and it will have a lot of it.

I'm going to document my research here regarding an interface between Bricknose fuel sending units and the Bullnose fuel gauge. And the overall plan is to use an Arduino Uno to do the work. Here's a block diagram, with the things in red being the added parts for the interface: Next, here's the logic in doing it: The next step is to write a "sketch" as it is called in Arduino. And here's the basic sketch, although later I'll probably add an I/O routine to allow fine tuning the M and B parameters on the fly: Then the sketch above needs to be turned into machine code via compiling. I downloaded the Arduino developer app and added it to the compiler, which quickly found a minor error - a missing ";". Once that was fixed I downloaded an Arduino simulator and tested it. It worked! Here's a screenshot of the simulator showing the input voltage of .49v, which is as close as I could get to .46v with the little slider on the lower right, and a duty cycle of 15%: And here's a screenshot of the simulator showing 1.97v and a 55% duty cycle. It works!

Good description. Do you now have an "electronic" one in your possession?

Yipes! That is EXPENSIVE! But, it is a bargain for me as the shipping is only $52 vs $66 for you. Obviously it isn't "correct" for the 1985 and 1986 trucks, regardless of what he says. But, it is pretty.

Got the front axle shafts ready for powder coating today, but didn't actually get them coated. Tomorrow. And I did have to bake them in the oven at 400 for an hour to get rid of the grease. And scrub the grease out of the splines. And polish some bearing races. And then mask off the splines and bearing races to prevent them from getting coated. And last, mask the u-joint cup bores. Man, that was the hard one. I first tried to put tape inside them, but that didn't work at all. Finally I found some aluminum tubing that slips in the bores nicely, and that looks like it'll solve the problem. So now they are hanging in the booth waiting to be coated. And I hope all of the grease is out of the cracks and recesses.