Gary Lewis

I understand where you are coming from. I have a Craftsman toolbox that I ordered and when it got here a panel was bent. I explained and they send a new panel. Long story short, they were incapable of packaging it so it wouldn't be bent, so after the 3rd panel came in I gave up and kept it. Don't remember the discount, but it was steep. I've now used that toolbox for many years and have added a few dents of my own. It was a very good buy and has served well, and I'm sure yours will be everything you need, and at a very good price.

Cool! He's going to enjoy working with you on that truck.

That sounds like a lot of work, but I hope it goes quickly and well. On the deep, rolling noise you might check to see that the tires aren't cupped or worn unusually? But balance can do that as well. So hopefully he finds what is causing it. Squeaks and rattles drive me bananas, so I understand your desire to find and fix yours. Good luck on that as well. That center console sounds amazing, pun intended. Are you going to run the center speaker in as a center channel? Does your amp provide an output for that? The Blue Top box is on its way? Yippee! As said, that is a lot of work but I know the feeling of wanting to get it all done before vacation. Good luck!!!

That really does look good! What prep is needed for plastic?

Well done, René! It took a lot to overcome all of those obstacles, but you did it! Congratulations!!!!!

Yes, great minds think alike! That paint does a good job of covering that area of the bumper. And it covers nicely. Jeff - It ALWAYS takes me longer to do "it" than I estimate. Either I'm slow or my estimator is broken.

Ok, installation completed. Gary, you're right, it's a real mess... For the friends whose truck isn't setup this way ans who would try to fit their spare tire under the bed, here's what I did: First, I bought as much as possible new stuff (LMC). They had in stock the support blade, the plastic cone plus its bolt, and the nut clips: Since I couldn't find a "J" eyed bolt, went to my local salvage yard and was lucky enough to find a good shaped one. Wasn't easy to release its rusted nut, but with heat, WD-40 and a lot of patience, I had success. Here it is, with the stuff I spray on every steel part I want to lube and protect against rust. The straight bolt can't be found anywhere. So, since 1/2-13 threaded bolt fits in LMC's M14x2.0 nut clips, I bought a 10" bolt at my local hardware store. To enable the "ball joint" effect, I preferred to use a 3/4" Nylon Nut instead of a flat washer: At its upper end, I installed two blocking nuts. The upper one is "locked" in the clip's jaw, so the straight bolt cannot unscrew accidentally: The "J" eyed bolt end fitted as if new (with Archimede tube cut away): Putting the spare at its place was difficult... a lot. I used Big Brother's jack (which sits normally in its bag, behind the rear seat): Finally, the spare is installed at its place. Big Brother's bed is free for the first time since he's in the familly! And let's pray to not have a blowout. Well done, Jeff! That looks like a very solid solution. But I'll hope with you that you don't have to use the spare.

Yes, those seem to be the ones, although it doesn't show the bolt size for the eyelet. I'm using 1/2" bolts on BB as I had a noise with the 12mm ones that were in there. They were just slightly too small and there was movement and noise.

I can buy that. And I do know that I've had leaks from clamps I thought were tight. So I'll start using the constant-tension ones as I put Dad's truck together. (And, btw, there is actually miniscule progress on that as Steve/Foxford33 and I are working together to nail down the OD lockout switch. )

Interesting video. And I tend to agree with most of what he said. However, at 1:54 he said "And that's why manufacturers never use the worm-style clamps." How does that square with what Ralph said: "I can also vouch that Ford changed this clamp to a universal worm type clamp."

Rustoleum Hammered Silver #7213. And here's another before/after:

Yes, my old friend Archimedes! I saw him recently in the new Indiana Jones movie. He looked older than I remember, but then I probably do as well. As for leverage, or maybe I should say "fulcrum" since that's the word he famously used, I'm not sure how one would get that tire up there w/o it. Maybe use the jack, but I doubt it goes high enough given that you'd have to put it under the wheel and not the end where the tube is. But even with that added help I find it very difficult anymore. It never was easy, but it is getting increasingly more difficult. Good luck today, Jeff!

Glad you found it, John.

Yes, he is. I misspoke/typed. He is using the 4R70W, but will be using the same OD lockout switch I'm using.

Way to go, Oswald! Yes, pushing in front is soooo much easier to guide than pushing in back. So happy to have the front hitch. And that makes "work" so much easier.

That's a lot of work you have planned. But it is a lot of parts as well. Periwinkle should be in great shape when you are done. As for Tabco, that's cool that they are working with you on that. Great company. But I'm not a good one to answer the question about wheels, so will leave that for someone else.

I love those colors!!! On the bed bolts, John/Machspeed went with OEM bolts for a later Ranger, as explained here. No idea what he paid, but I'll tag him and see if he will tell us. As for me, when I had Big Blue's bed bed-lined I tack welded the bolts in. So if I need to remove the bed I can take the nuts off and raise the bed w/o having to remove the bolts. At least that's the theory.

I'm hoping to take Big Blue down to a family get together tomorrow so did some cleaning on him. And I was reminded that the center section of the rear bumper was looking rather tacky, as was the trailer hitch receiver. I touched the receiver up with black paint and then did some work on the center section:

OKC? Cool! I've added you to the map. As for being older, I'm 76 so... And the show is on Sept 16th. Hope you can make it!

Our page at Documentation/Electrical/Radios and then the Speakers tab shows the dash speaker to be 5 1/2 x 7 1/2". Don't know how easy it would be to stuff a 6 x 9" in there. Haven't tried.

Nice truck, Jim! Glad you joined. However, I'm curious why you entitled your intro "How Did You Find Us?" Not that doing so is a problem, it is just curious. But, then, how did you find us? Where's home? I ask because we have a map (Bullnose Forum/Member's Map in the menu) and we can add you with a city/state or zip.

As some of you know, I'm going use an E4OD in Dad's truck. But what some of you might not know is that Steve/Foxford33 is going to use an E4OD in his Feep. ("Ford-powered Jeep", as coined by Bill/85lebaront2.) And both of us plan to use the ~1990 dash-mounted OD lockout switch. Recently Steve asked me if I knew what bulb is used in the dash-illumination part of the lockout switch as he wants to go with an LED in it. I didn't, and still don't, but pulled out my switch to see if I could tell. Nope, it doesn't appear to have any numbers on it. In fact, it doesn't appear that the bulb itself is to be replaced as it is in a carrier, as shown below on the right. But the legs of the "pea" bulb just wrap around in the carrier, so we could install a 12V LED with ease. Towards that end I've ordered in 10 of these 12V white LEDs from Digikey. Also, I asked Bill/85lebaront2 for the schematic for how the switch is wired and he came up with the schematic shown farther down. I tested my switch with my DVM & bench power supply and updated the schematic with pinouts for the switch as well as the value of the resistor. And there are a couple of pics way down showing how the LED for the lockout and the current incandescent bulb for general illumination look. I'll update this post when I get the LEDs in and do more testing. The datasheet on them shows that they'll dim as the voltage goes down but it'll be interesting to see how they compare to the other dash lights. We may need to add a resistor in series to drop the output.

That humidity, or lack thereof, should help a lot. But please be careful. Pulling a long hill in 2nd shows it was a heavy load and a big hill as that 300 has plenty of torque. It'll move about anything if you give it long enough. As for the frame-mounted hitch, that's good but there are other factors. For instance, the rental outfit let me know the trailer for the man lift has a 2" ball. My heaviest 2" ball has a medium-sized shank, and that only fits in a fairly light duty draw bar. On top of that, their safety chains where too short to reach my frame-mounted hitch. So I had to rig up a short piece of chain to have a safety. And still no brakes. It wasn't a comfortable ride thinking of all that could go wrong.

I've been wanting to do AZ/NM in one fell swoop after falling in love with the desert in Utah during a 2 week trek last year. It's inspiring that you bring your Bullnose truck everywhere. That's my plan when the Bronco is roadworthy, though I'd be hesitant to bring on anything rougher than a dirt road. But that's why I'm not destined for a carb, elevation differences in California alone are too great. Where I want to use Big Blue is usually far away, so I built him to go there with ease. The ZF5's OD makes cruising at 70 reasonably quiet and easy. The speed control means that you can relax to some extent, although I do need to change out the steering box. Having the bucket seats and the console means you go in comfort. And having the A/C working well means you go in relative quiet. But the icing on the cake is EFI. My brother and I took BB to Ouray while he was still carb'd, and he did OK. But the EFI added so much torque to the lower RPM range that it would now be soooo much easier to pull the trails. And it now runs the same at 13,000' as it does at sea level, although power is down a bit. Plus it gets better MPG as well. I highly recommend it, especially for a vehicle that is used at varying altitudes.

If you already have a dipstick that you believe is reading correctly then changing to another one should be easy. Fill the engine so the level is at Full, change to the new dipstick, and mark on it the Full level.