Gary Lewis

Right on all counts. But, we could get this "sealing wax" perfect! Forget that no one uses it - it would be exactly "right"!

You are very close to Jim/ArdWrknTrk. Cool!

Good point, Jim. Oh, I forgot - Jonathan said that the face of the headlight/wiper switch area is actually below the level of the rest of the instrument bezel. To do that the backer, as shown here, would have to have a lip to hit the backside of the instrument bezel. But, we could make the backer into a collar, meaning it would have a hole in the middle that would allow it to fit around the fog lamp bezel. That is basically the same design that Ron and I used for the dash patch - lips hiding the cut and a collar to hold it in. It could look very much like the bead and face of the instrument bezel.

This is what I thought of, with the black being the instrument bezel, red being the fog lamp bezel, and green a plate to hold it in from the rear. The bead overlaps the cut so it can't be seen and doesn't have to be precise. And the face of the fog lamp bezel is even with that of the instrument bezel. And the rubber piece, not shown, would be captured between the red fog lamp bezel and the green retaining plate.

Ron - That's a significant improvement! Well done! But, how do you do that?

Brandon - Why use a procedure other than that from the official Ford shop manual? Ford doesn't say to soak it in oil. But they do say to put RTV on it, which isn't going to work at all with oil there. In fact, they say "Do not allow oil to get on the sealer area." I would not use that process, but would follow the Ford one, right out of the official publication, to the letter.

Alfie - Welcome to the Bullnose Forum! We are glad you are here. What kind of engineer? EE? ME? CE? I've been accused of being one, but actually have degrees in math and physics. And, where's home? Perhaps one of us is near you?

The TSB is now shown in TSB/Fuel Cross-Flow, and the parts are available from Amazon. But there's one part number for 1990 & 91, and another for 1992 & 93. Will need to do some research as to how available the pumps are, but apparently things changed as of 1994, so I wonder if I should go with the later style pumps and bypass the TSB?

Jonathan - I said earlier that this exercise reminded me of the phrase "Perfecting sealing wax." And no one seemed to pick up on it. So, here's a link. I'm not sure if anyone is really going to want to cut their instrument bezel, very precisely I might add since the lines would be visible, and push the fog lamp bezel through from the back. (If you really wanted it to match you'd have to push the fog lamp bezel through from the front, with the bead covering the cut, and the face of the bezel recessed below the instrument bezel.) I think I'll be happy with one that centers over the switch hole. And I'll be even happier with one that pretty well matches the size and shape of the headlight/wiper bezel. Yes, it'll still look like what it is - stuck on. But, that is what Ford did, so it will be "period correct".

Ok, my technical advisor says using an Arduino to do this will be easy. And then I'll need to figure out what to do with all the other I/O pins and all the unused cycles. Seriously, this is looking good. A one-time effort that can be used by other Bullnose owners to solve a problem in a clean way. And the wiring is much more simple. And, Bill, I see the check valves. So, what do they solve? And where do I get them?

Bill - I have both tanks from Huck, and one good pump/sending unit. And I have the fuel lines. But, there are no external check valves on them, so tell me more about those check valves. But, the sending units won't work at all with the Bullnose gauges. As Ray pointed out, the resistance range is backwards. No go. Ray - I do believe I can put the Bullnose sender on the later pump. But that will be fiddly and not something I expect any of my offspring to be able to do. And, we all know that sending units and pumps are notoriously faulty these days. I really don't want anything fiddly to maintain. So, I'm thinking about four options: Valves: If I had 4 electrically-operated on/off valves, or two 2-way valves they could be driven by the tank selector switch and I could run the 85.5/86 in-tank and high-pressure pumps. Later fuel gauge in a Bullnose cluster. Bullnose is 10 ohms full and 73 ohms empty, while the '96 temp gauge, and therefore probably the '87+ fuel gauges, are 74 ohms full and 9.7 ohms empty. Essentially backwards. Could maybe Rocketman modify the gauge? Arduino: This is the one that I think has possibilities. I've asked my nephew if he could program an Arduino to run pulse-width modulation to effectively reverse things. I could pretty easily map the voltage that the Bullnose gauge "sees" at various points from Full to Empty and then a table could be created that, when averaged, gives those voltages. That way I can use the later pumps and sending units. Thoughts?

While I think we are in agreement that the cleanest approach would be to build it as an 85.5/86 302, that doesn't look like it is a good solution from the parts availability point of view. As shown below, the part number for the reservoir/switching valve is F1TZ 9B263-B, and according to our friends on FTE, as of about a year and a half ago there weren't any available. However, with a bit of searching there seems to be one or two here or there. But that doesn't seem like a good approach for longevity. I'm bummed. And, open to suggestions.

Brandon - We now have a new page: Engines/Engine Building Basics. And at present it has one tab: Rear Main Seals. Check it out.

Welcome, Paul! Glad you found us. And, glad you have the '80 on the road again. To those that don't know Paul, he was probably the first guy to come to any of my GTG's. And, at that first one he provided his capabilities by telling my why my tach read incorrectly - I didn't have the "8 cyl" ground on it. Bingo! And at a more recent one when Eli said he couldn't hook up the vacuum advance w/o the engine dying, Paul said it must be a broken wire on the pickup. Sure enough, it was. He's good!

Jonathan - Excellent idea! I've created a new gallery in the Picture Gallery entitled Monthly Pictures. It is pinned to the top and locked. As for nominating someone's picture, have at it. We will want to get his/her approval before using it, but that shouldn't stop you from nominating it.

This is a gallery of the pictures chosen on a monthly basis to represent the Bullnose Forum. First up is Jonathan/Ford F834's shot of sunset in Death Valley:

Yes, we are due for a change. However, I've been asleep at the wheel, so thanks for reminding me/us. My excuse is that I absolutely LOVE that pic. So, please y'all, send the pics in. After we've had a few I'll put up a poll and we can choose.

I found it here: https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/27/mit-csail-transforming-robot-origami-exoskeleton/ Very interesting! (And obviously not dumb. )

Chris - Thanks for sharing that. I hadn't seen one of those. But, I'm with Bill - I don't like an oiled filter ahead of my MAF. I've not had problems with them as I've not run one, but have known people who have and they did have to clean the MAF. Having said that, if I didn't have the factory setup I'd be very interested in an aftermarket air intake - even w/o the "cold" air intake that Bill mentioned. But I do have the rare factory unit, including the "cold air" intake, and will use it to get the coolest air I can in summer when the underhood temps soar with that 460 under there. Bill - I'm not a big NFL fan, but we lived just out of Philly for 10 years and the opportunity to cheer on the Eagles can't be missed given their lack of good luck in the past. (Just like we did with the Cubbies after living in Chicago.) Let me get this drawn up and see what I need to change in the way of wiring. Right now I'm not thinking there will be all that much.

I'll scan the instructions from the shop manual after church and post them - assuming someone else doesn't beat me to it.

Jim - I can't get the shape-shifting video to work. It just says "An error has occurred." But I'll take your word for it. However, those "robots" are amazing. Wow! As for what we are carrying in our pockets, the implications are scary. Janey has gone to Walmart and looked at various things, and when she came home one of the ads on Facebook was of that. And it has happened more than once. So it doesn't surprise me that the cameras are watching for faces of known shop-lifters. Yes, it isn't "data" anymore. It is a fairly precise picture of what we like, where we go, what we shop for, etc. And, since it wouldn't be too hard to hack our phones and turn the mike on 24x7, what we say when we think no one is listening isn't secure either.

That's one of the things I hate about eBay - you can't post a comment for everyone to see. On Amazon you can, and no one is going to buy one of the pitiful 1996 EVTM's after my comment. And on Facebook you can, and people understand that a 400 flywheel isn't the same as a 351M flywheel after my comment. But there's no way to tell people that bezel is a ripoff.

Jonathan - Chris' is much worse. Apparently the studs on the original fog lamp bezel are smaller than ours and his was moved to the right in the hole before the studs were melted. Yipes! Jim - While I agree that in a blown-up pic where the letters can be studied closely that the "L" has a longer foot on ours than the NOS one. And, the space between the "G" and the "L" is less, and, and, and. But, to answer your question, when you look at it with nothing else with which to compare it looks great. I'm happy with the letters and think we did a good job with matching the font, sizing the letters, etc. And, thanks for your comment about it matching the rest of the dash. I agree. Now, if we could just get a few folks to measure the bead on theirs so we could ensure this next one will be the right height.....

That will make it easier since there's no electrical connection to the valve. And, I'll bet I can even figure out how to use the existing tank selection switch and wiring, and just add a drop for the high-pressure pump. I'll trying drawing all of this up, perhaps during the game tomorrow, and see what it looks like.

Don't worry, doing an Overdrive bezel will be easy. I've learned that I don't need to actually add the lettering, bead, or studs to the base bezel. It all gets printed the same way anyway. And, that means that it is easy to change the lettering. So, when I re-draw the bezel using whatever dimensions, corner radii, etc that we agree on then I'll leave the letters as a separate part. That way we can change them to whatever we want. And, since we will have the printing sorted, the first pass should be a good one. And, by the way, look at the length of the phrases: FOG LAMPS OVERDRIVE