Gary Lewis

Well, I didn't do as I said I would do. Instead I drilled the tracks that are 13 7/8" between seat mounting holes, adding a new rear hole that is 12 1/2" back from the front hole and 1 3/8" forward of the rear hole. Bolted up nicely, but there is only 4" of travel instead of 6", and the lost 2" are at the back - right where I needed them. I'm sure what is happening is the roller inside the track is hitting the bolt head. I moved the bolt forward that 1 3/8" and then there's the width of the bolt head itself, so ~2". What I think I'll do is use a piece of 1" square tubing to make a spacer, similar to the wedges but with no taper. With it bolted to the seats and the tracks I've not messed up bolted to the base I can set the seat/spacer combo on the tracks & in the fully rear position, slide the seat to the rear as far as it'll go w/o hitting the window or the organizer, and then mark and drill it. That will not only give me the full range of that pair of tracks, biased to the rear where I need it, but also raise me up an inch. And I can tell that removing the wedges did drop me that inch. Sorta feels like I'm in a hole now.

In the illustrations below you can see that the driver's seat uses a pair of "stands" that bolt to the floor - of a Bronco or Supercab. But the Regular cabs don't have the inside set of holes, nor is the shape of the floor such that you can use the inside stands. Which is why I have the later "base" on which the seats mount. The base fits the Regular cab's floor and has the holes through which to mount the seat slider tracks. But when I installed the captain's chairs I used the wedges you can see intended for the passenger's side on the driver's side also. However that tilts the seat back and causes the seatback to hit the window. Plus, I think it prevents the seat from going all the way back. So today's thought was to take the wedges out, and maybe put the buckets in that I got from Chad to see how I like them. But, it won't work w/o modification. And I don't really understand why. Here are some measurements, which shows that not only are the seats different, the two sets of tracks that I have are different. This thoroughly confuses me, so if any of y'all see what I'm missing please chime in. Captain's Buckets Seat bolt holes: 12 1/2 13" Track/seat bolt holes: 13" 13 7/8" Now, there's another difference in the tracks as the adjustment arm on one set of tracks is 1 1/2" longer. But even then it isn't long enough to prevent it from hitting the foam at the front of the captain's chairs. So here's the plan. Since Chad assured me that the buckets aren't comfortable for long periods of time, and we do plan to put miles on Big Blue, I'm going to stay with the captain's chairs. So I'll re-drill the tracks that I've been using with those seats to allow them to bolt to the seat rather than the wedges. (I still can't figure out why neither set of brackets bolt to the seats since it seems so clear that they should in the illustration.) And I'll cut the release arm and weld a piece it to make it long enough to clear the foam. By my measurements this will lower the front of the seat by 1 1/4" and the back of the seat by 1/4". And it will also move the seat to the rear 1". We shall see.

Chad - I'll set that up later this evening. (Right now I'm "playing" with some bucket seats that found there way here. Turns out they mount different from the captain's chairs I have. )

Good idea, Bob. I'll do that - when I get the seats back in. Right now I have the seats out trying to figure out how the driver's bucket is supposed to be installed. I used the wedges that are used on the passenger's side, but Ford didn't use them on the driver's side. So that explains why the seat is tilted back and the headrest hits the rear window, keeping the seat from going all the way back. I'd like to get the seat where it should be, and I may even install the buckets from Chad/Little Beefy to see what I think of them.

Brandon - No, they aren't. I am. I'm the one that chose those three tires to compare. And the reason I'm doing it is because there are no specifications on what an all-terrain tire is or a mud-terrain tire. Each manufacturer determines what they want to call their tires. So I can't rely on their ratings. Take Matthew's Geolander G015, on the left, vs the K02 on the right. The G015 is clearly closer to a street tire than the K02, but both are rated by their manufacturers as A/T tires. And if you go to the s/s above you'll see that the G015 is better on the street than the K02, although I'd be willing to bet that the K02 is better off-road. Similarly there are differences between M/T tires. So I'm trying to figure out how much "street" I want and how much "dirt" I want. Matthew - Thanks, but although we have 5 pages to go before getting "there", I suspect I'll make a decision before Sept. Janey and I want to take some trips with the truck prior to that and I want new tires on it for at least one of those trips - Red Rock Canyon. That's 360 miles round trip with essentially all of it on the super slab, so I don't want to be listening to these Coopers and worrying that they'll come apart. So I just called the local tire shop, Tate Boys, and got a quote: K02's are $1434 out the door, mounted and balanced, and Wildpeak A/T3W's are a whole $2 more. Like John/Machspeed was relating about his experience with Michelins and his tire shop, I'm sure that they'll work with me if there are problems down the road. And they'll check the alignment for me for free as they did it in the first place.

You are now on the map.

I'm in the process of planning the overlanding trip to New Mexico in October, and I'll start a thread about it in a bit. But part of that is getting Big Blue ready, and one of the things he needs is a mount for the Garmin Montana 750i. I think I want to mount it as shown below, which will let both the driver and the passenger see it but keep it out of the way of the shift leverl Toward that end I ordered the two items shown below. The cradle on the left is from Garmin and has connections for power and audio out. I think I'll tie power into always-on power, and the audio will be connected to the aux in on the Sony stereo. Hopefully this will give us turn-by-turn guidance, keep the device charged, and allow easily removing it for close inspection or changing the route. Thoughts?

Brandon and I had a conversation via text that I want to include here, but first I want to state my belief: Basically there are two sets of information regarding anything, and especially tires - personal experience and results from "laboratory tests". Personal experiences are real, but they almost always derive from uncontrolled environments. Laboratory tests hopefully will be conducted in reasonably-controlled environments.Personal experiences with tires are easily influenced by other factors, such as the alignment of the vehicle, the other noises created by the vehicle, the inflation pressure of the tires, the width of the wheels, and the conditions in which it was used - to name just a few. I remember getting Rusty and not realizing how noisy the tires were due to the noise created by the exhaust system - until I replaced the flatulent Flowmaster with a larger Magnaflow and then the tires were awful. And as said previously, our Citation was all over the road until I found the right tire pressure - which was NOT the pressure GM recommended, in spite of the car being brand new with their tires and wheels on it.Which brings me to what Brandon said about Jason's Falkens having a balance problem. In our text messages he said "Jason said before he got his leveling kit put on he had a set of Wildpeaks that wore great and he put over 70K on them. After the leveling kit and bigger tire not so much. The uneven wear was causing a lot of balance issues." So I asked if Jason had an alignment problem and Brandon said "He does with the leveling kit." And right there the "uncontrolled environment" raised its ugly head. Did the alignment problem cause the balance issues? I don't know, but I suspect that it did by causing flat-spotting or cupping on the tires.So while I'm trying to hear/see as many personal experiences as possible, I know that each of them happened in an un-controlled environment. And that explains why I put more stock in "lab tests". Hopefully Tire Rack is doing their best to keep things common across the tires they test. However, I can see that some variables have been introduced as they used three different vehicles in their tests - a 2019 F150, then a 2020 F150, then a 2021 F150. Yes, I understand that it would be difficult to maintain the same vehicle for a decade in order to keep the vehicle constant, so that change is reasonable. But still, there are differences in even their tests. In fact, they explain that while they always use the same route that the temps, barometric pressures and winds change. In addition, I suspect that the road itself changes over time.I say all of that to say that I'm still investigating so please keep those cards and letters coming in. But when I make my decision it is inevitably going to fly in the face of some of the input I've gotten and I hope it doesn't cause someone a problem.

Actually, I already had the Firestone in the s/s, as shown below. And according to Tire Rack it got a 4.13 in Noise, with the K02's getting a 7.05 and the Falken's a 6.75. In addition, the Firestone trailed the other two in several other categories. HOWEVER, Tire Rack's ratings are for on-road only. In fact, they state "While we're not able to test loose surface capabilities, our team embarked to find out which Off-Road Maximum Traction tires from a group of well-respected, off-road competitors can satisfy on the road." So the #'s in the s/s are on-road only, and from the consumer ratings we know the Firestone excels at off-roading.

Welcome! Glad you joined. Nice truck. Doesn't look to have any rust, and compounding might bring that paint back to life. What kind of changes are you thinking about? And, where are you in SC? I ask because we have a map (Bullnose Forum/Member's Map in the menu) and can add you with just a city.

Thanks for the input, Brandon. Given what you said I've gone back to Tire Rack and compared the Falken A/T3W, the BFG K02's, & the Firestone Destination M/T2. The "consumer ratings" are shown below, but I'll reiterate - these are from people like us and are just opinions as they aren't backed up with hard data like in an actual head-to-head test with instrumentation. But, the Firestone is clearly thought to be the better tire off-road. However, it doesn't get as high of marks for noise, and remember that in these #'s higher is better/less noise. So what I really want to do is to compare actual test data. And Tire Rack has done a test on the Firestone, so I need to put it in my spreadsheet so we can see their results compared to the others I'm thinking of. I'll do that and post it here again. But one thing that they said in their overview about the Firestone is "What We'd Improve: It could use a significant noise reduction."

Probably not a '96 as I think those 351's were EEC-V and, therefore, would have had a MAF sensor at the air cleaner box. Not sure why he told us his grandfather was immaculate.

Yes, I need to focus. No, Focus! Ok, I got it, I got it, ....

I agree, that's too much force to ever get it apart w/o damage. And I agree that you should be able to take enough off with sandpaper to let you get it together easily. But it is a shame you are having to do that with brand new parts. But the weld nuts sound cool. Did you drill them on the lathe? That would be my first choice.

Excellent!

Bill - John/Machspeed was telling me just yesterday about what he's doing to his Escort, and he's taking his lead from his brother and SiL. Then he mentioned their company - FWD Something. So when you posted this morning I thought "It has to be" and texted John. Sure enough, small world.

Congrat's!!! That is such a good feeling when they come to life that way.

Yep, the K02's and A/T3W's both have the snowpeak. Talked to FoxFord33 this morning at church. He used to work at the local tire shop, which is an area chain called Tate Boys, and he said he doesn't recall any problems with either of those two tires. He thinks they are comparable. Then I talked to a guy with a Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro with K02's. He used to live in Africa as well as Colorado and has done a lot of offroad driving. Says he uses K02's or K02's. And, he's had no trouble with them at all. And, after we'd talked about what I'm doing a bit, he recommended that I check out his friend Andrew St Pierre White's Youtube channel: 4XOverland. So I came home and started watching some of his videos. He has one regarding the work he was doing on his Land Cruiser and the episode is called Lithium VS AGM Batteries. Lo and behold he mounted Falken WildPeak A/T3W's. And, he mounted 285/75R16, the same tire I'm looking at. I've commented on his channel telling him about his friend's referral to his channel and asked him what he thinks of the WildPeak's 2 1/2 years on. We shall see.

I'm confused. Shaun's link was for a YH-380 but you ordered a YH-360? Was that just a typo and it was really a 380? The YH-380 is for 1983 and later trucks with integral, meaning factory, A/C, as shown below.

Looking good, Angelo!

That sounds like excellent progress, Bill. So now you don't have to ream the bushings. And you will have the ability to use different turbos. But did you get the drain plug fixed?

Ohhhh! I missed that!

Nice! That 5.8L has the EEC-V EFI system so should perform really nicely. Coupled with the E4OD tranny it should provide reasonable economy, although I see it shows 12/16 on the window sticker.

I'd say either dirt and debris in the flare, or the flare itself is somehow buggered up. Probably need a new line, but pull it out and inspect, and clean the hole in the steering box with a Q-tip and inspect in there, make sure there's nothing in the way preventing it from sealing. Shouldn't need anything to seal the threads, the fitting is not meant to seal on the threads. /\ /\ /\ What he said.