Gary Lewis

Wow! She must have feelings, and likes the attention.

A little update. As some of you know, my grandtwins have been here for a week and I've had more important things to do than trucking. But today trucking and grandtwins coalesced in that I let both of them drive Big Blue. We went to the church building, where we have the show, and putt putted around the parking lot. My first plan was to have them start in the grass in 1st gear/2Hi and then idle up onto the blacktop of the parking lot. But that didn't work as well as I'd hoped since it took a delicate release of the clutch when in the grass to keep from stalling the engine, which was idling dutifully at 650 RPM. So we put it in 4Lo w/o the hubs locked in and started in 1st sometimes or 2nd other times on the pavement. In both cases you can just about side-step the clutch with no consequence. And the resulting speed doesn't register on the GPS, which kept reading 0. But at 94F outside and with the A/C on Max and the fan on High I did see the coolant temp creep up. After my grandson drove and the temp had gotten to 220+ I took it for a spin and brought the temp down to about 200 easily. But after my granddaughter drove the temp made it to 228F and the A/C wasn't all that cool. However, the 1.5 mile drive home brought the temp down to 198F quite easily and also made the A/C work much better. So an electric fan or fans might be a nice addition. They would keep things cool while in the mountains on Jeep trails where you aren't moving very fast. However, in that case you are also spinning the engine so the engine-driven fan would work, so maybe no change is needed?

Glad that was the only problem. I think the dashed lines are hoses that go to things that don't show on the diagram. For instance the fuel tank isn't on the diagram but a vent line comes from it to things that are on the diagram. As for the purge control valve, I don't know where it is on your truck, but you should be able to find it by following the hose from the vapor canister up.

Those kinds of problems are tough to catch since they can’t be seen. But I’m glad the other cables fixed it.

Several of the vacuum diagrams show a line from the purge control valve to the PCV valve, so you might look there. But most of the PCV valves I've seen have the upper port blanked out, so you might make sure it is open.Or you could do David's smoke test and see where the smoke comes out.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! Behold my C305A: That bit of broken plastic is exactly where it would have clipped on to the mystery bracket. I'm sure it's been broken for years and the truck runs fine, so I left the bracket off and finished bolting down the ignition switch. Testing showed that the windshield wipers, washer, fuel gauge and temperature gauge are all back to normal, so this one is mission accomplished. As an added bonus, the spring pressure returning the key to 'run' from 'start' is much better - previously it felt very weak, and in cold weather wouldn't always return the key to position without a little assistance. It's much more authoritative now. Took care of some other things today as well...one thing I noticed while working on the ignition switch was this: That's the roll pin holding the gear selector to the column, and apparently it's been backing out. This happened once before about 10 years ago, and I didn't notice until the selector fell into the floor while I was driving. I'll need to keep an eye on this. I also cleaned up my Duraspark modules - at one point I had three in there, although recently it's been down to two. But now it's just one shiny new Motorcraft replacement, and I added a few washers under it to hopefully provide a little better airflow underneath. Driving all day to Skiatook in the summer heat is what killed my original module, hopefully this one will fare better. And while I was working on that I discovered this: Those of you with good memories will recall this is the manifold bolt that was loose that caused the weird rattling noise from my A/C compressor to propagate through the exhaust system. I tightened it back down this evening, although now that I think about it that thick washer is probably the problem - the added thickness of the compressor bracket is probably reducing my thread engagement. I'll remove it if I get around to it, otherwise I'll just do a better job of keeping it tightened down. Finally, new windshield wiper blades went on. And with that, the to-do list looks like this: Air and fuel filter replacementOil changeWindshield wiper replacementBrake fluid check/possible replacementEngine coolant replacementHood realignmentRadio antenna repairIgnition switch replacementDuraspark module cleanupFix loose manifold boltFix gear selector roll pinCarb adjustment/tuneupTire check & rotationPCV valve/vacuum leakThat last item is new - stay tuned for the next post for details.Well, you win the chicken dinner and I updated the webpage to say C305A. Obviously the bracket isn't required, but it is good to know where it goes.As for the roll pin, I think I'd put it back with a drop of Loctite blue on one end. Ditto the bolt. That should keep them in place.On the ignition module, it wouldn't hurt to have one of those spares under the seat.Anyway, you are making good progress and the truck should be in fine fettle for the trip.

I hope the lye works for you. That would be a simple approach. Please record what strength you use.

Nice car, Matthew! Hard to beat the new features.

Shucks, y’all! You’ll make me . Seriously though, we are a community and help each other, a bunch. So I’m thrilled that it is working.

That's an excellent question. I can't figure it out, but my first thought was that those numbers meant something like Chassis & Cab, but that didn't work.

You can learn about TV things in several different guises: throttle valve and television. 😎

I found it in the Illustration section of the MPC, as shown below. The only problem is that when I looked 14A163 up in the Text section of the MPC to get a part number I realized that generic part number is a RETAINER (WIRE HARNESS), and there are dozens of wire harness retainers all over these trucks. And here's the only one that appears to be the right one. Note that the same part is used in two other applications on our trucks - as indicated by the "1" in the right column, which is titled "QTY" and shows how many are needed for each usage. And again, I've never seen one of those despite having worked on many of these trucks. So while the MPC says they where used from 1980 through the end of the catalog in '89, I doubt that or surely I'd have seen one, somewhere. I can see that mechanics may well have left them off when replacing an ignition switch, but I doubt all the trucks I've worked on had all their ignition switches replaced.

Thanks. I’ll update it once you report. By the way, I’ve never seen one of those and have taken lots of these trucks apart. I’m thinking that they were discontinued early on.

That IS confusing, especially since it says "This is offered for sale by the original owner."

Happy to help.

Please go see what you think on the Ignition Switch tab at Documentation/Electrical/Ignition.

Alas, no...that would have made the original search for its purpose easier. It's just a bare, stamped bit of metal. Ok, thanks. I’ll put something up and link to it here…

Geee, I think I would go assist to this symposium, guys, even just to learn what is a TV cable. I suspect it’s not in order to watch Maynard G. Krebs episodes while driving. Work! And you do know what the “G” stood for, right? Read to the bottom of this: https://dallaslibrary2.org/blogs/bookedSolid/2017/08/one-word-maynard-g-krebs/

Yes! You found it! Both of y'all. Thanks! Maybe I'm not as crazy as I thought. Matthew - Is there a number on it? I'd like to add info to the documentation this round, and can cross-ref the ID # that is on it to the part number.

I'm really striking out. I thought it was Shaun/Salans7 that ID'd the part, but I'm not finding it.

Jim is right. Someone else posted a pic of that thing recently and asked what it is. And someone said it is a support for a connector. I was thinking it is C305 but I'm not finding anything about it. I'll keep looking ...

All of the parts are universal save for the bracket. The servo was mounted in different positions depending on the engine. Go to Documentation/Electrical/Speed Control and then the Instructions tab to see the factory shop manual section that will probably answer your questions.

I think there's wiring taped to the hose, and both go through the grommet. So you should be able to push the grommet through the firewall and get everything in one go.

You also need the amplifier that is under the dash left of the ash tray as well as the wiring. And the wiring includes an add-on jumper that connects to the curved connectors on the steering column. Plus you need the horn relay that is on the bracket for the amplifier, the vacuum dump valve, the clutch switch, and the speed sensor. You can see most of that stuff in this page from the 1985 EVTM:

That's a nice looking truck. But it is hard for me to suggest a price as I don't know much about the condition. However, Hagerty's valuation for 1984 F150's with the 300 six is shown below. And the condition definitions they use are: