Gary Lewis

Today I made notable progress, and tomorrow I start the wiring. The progress was in getting the ECU's bracket installed, which wasn't quite as easy as I'd hoped. The issue was that the top end of the dash support rod attaches to the same spot as the ECU bracket does. And that won't work as the rod is quite thick. In the pic below, which is taken looking directly up under the dash, it looks to me like the plan was to have a shorter support rod that would attach to the ECU bracket where the round spot is in the side of the bracket. But there's no such thing in the MPC, just the one that all the trucks use. I thought about shortening the rod and attaching it there, but the ECU bracket isn't nearly as strong as the rod, so I came up with another plan. In the red circle you can see a SHCS that goes through the ECU's bracket, through the flange of the cab where the support rod normally attaches, and then has two nuts on the back side which act as spacers to get the rod out past the edge of the flange. A washer and a nyloc nut on top of that plus a slight tweak of the rod made things line up quite nicely. But it is really fiddly to get all of that done up under the dash. And with that done I installed the ECU. It is in such that when the connector is pulled Pin 1 is in the upper left corner, making it easier to ID the pins. And since I'm going to test every circuit before I fire this thing up, I want it to be easy to find the right pin. With that done I put the PDB in place, attached the connector to the ECU, and did some measuring. Turns out the wires from the ECU were cut right at the firewall, which made measuring easier as all of it was then done under the hood. And it looks like it is 24" from the ends of the wires to the hole, so I'm going to make the extensions 36". Given that I put everything on the bench with 36" between the ends of the shortest wires and I'm ready to start wiring!

Looks good. And I do hope it works. Keep us updated.

Wow! 5C = 41F. Nice day, especially that far north. It is 63F = 17C here. The Blue Top looks great. Gotta do that for Big Blue some day. But to remove the Pitman arm did you try banging the side of the arm with the puller on it? And I agree, the cooler lives in a harsh environment and yours looks like it has seen better days. Replacing it looks like a good plan.

Swapping the power valve requires the removal of the carb, but once it is off you just turn it upside down and pull the cover to the PV. So there's not much to go wrong save for not getting the gasket on the PV correctly or the gasket on the lid not being on right. Here's a really poor pic of the two different types of power valve covers. The top one should be the one you have with internal passages, and the bottom one has an external hose that goes to the intake manifold for vacuum.

Thanks! I should have said there isn't a big hurry. I'm in the middle of the EFI installation, but I'm also wanting to work the bucket seat mounting in parallel. And since I suspect there will be lots of to and fro on this to make sure we are saying the same thing then I thought I'd get it started. And if you have better ways to measure then PLEASE let me know.

Folks, I'm struggling to figure out exactly where the bucket seats or captain's chairs should go in Big Blue. The way I had them in wasn't right, so I need help from those of you who have that kind of seating from the factory. I need the measurements from the base of the driver's seat, probably the mounting bolts for the seat itself (green circles in the illustration below) to some standard reference point. Can we use the bottom of the steering wheel? (If you have a tilt column then put it straight out.) Here are the measurements I think I need: Distance back of the steering wheel to the bolts. Not a line-of-sight diagonal measurement, but straight down from the wheel and then back. And that could be with the seat all the way forward, or all the way backward, or both. Distance below the steering wheel. How far the front bolts are below the bottom of the wheel. Maybe put a level on the bottom of the seat and measure up? Angle of the seat bottom. If you have an angle gauge put it on the bottom of the seat bottom and tell me if that angles up or down with reference to "level" - assuming the truck is level. If no angle gauge then maybe use a level? And if you have better ideas, please let me know. I'm making this up as I go, but it is kind of complex since your floor is different than mine so we can't use that as the reference.

I didn't notice that, David. Functional, but not elegant.

Thanks for doing this, Thomas.

That's a really nice truck. Well worth the money.

Can't answer the question about removal, but there's a chance the fans are the same. From our page on Documentation/Cooling Systems/COOLING FAN #'S & ILLUSTRATIONS I see that the '83 probably has an E3TZ-G and that was also used on an '83/86 302 w/o A/C.

Thanks, Bruce. But I ate at a Freddy's on South Glenstone yesterday on our way home from a 3 week visit-the-kids vaca and I'm not ready to drive that far in the near future. 3100 miles has me wanting to stay home and work on my truck. But thanks anyway.

Congrat's! Yes, a weak throw would do that. Bet that PMGR spins it nicely.

Chad - I assume you know that the D2 is steel and the E6 is plastic? Oddly enough, in checking the MPC for E6TZ 4859-A I found this: Deflector (driving pinion oil seal) “Before 9/87”—1983/88—not required. I also found this, but it doesn't look like it'll help:

E2TZ 12A182-B Switch assy, (distributor modulator valve) SW-1747 #E2TE 12A182-B1A.B2A But I don't know what it does.

Chad - Thanks a good idea. And the sliders I have do have the mount holes farther out than the seat mounting holes, so that's not a problem. In fact, I'm planning on running a piece of angle fore/aft for each slider to bolt to, so I can change the length of the angle to accommodate the length of the slider.

Good review, Chad. Thanks for providing that feedback - both on the EFI system itself as well as on Summit. We didn't have a place to review Summit on the page at Bullnose Enthusiasts Forum › Marketplace › Vendor Reviews & Ratings. So I added one here. Perhaps you could add a review?

What is there to say about Summit?

My first check would be for spark. I'd pull a plug wire off a plug, stick an old plug in the wire, and lay the plug on the engine. Have someone crank it over and watch for spark. If it has spark I'd then depress the schrader valve on the fuel rail soon after cranking it to see if fuel squirts out. Be prepared as there can be ~60 psi in the rail, so fuel could go everywhere. If it passes both of those tests I'd then put a timing light on the #1 plug and see if the timing is at about 10 degrees before TDC. If so, I'd put a fuel pressure gauge on the schrader valve to see what the pressure is.

Thanks. That's the kind of mounting I'm planning on creating for these factory seats. However, I'm planning to use the brackets from the bench seat I took out, and they can have their adjusters installed if the mounting positions allow. That would mean I can move the whole unit fore/aft as well as move the individual seats fore/aft, and it would let me move the console fore/aft as well. Not sure that will work, but that's what I'm thinking.

Yes, I think you can salvage that pretty easily, although you'll have to turn the engine over by using a breaker bar on the crank bolt. And then put the other starter on.

I am well and truly CONFUSED! And I'm not sure I'm smart enough to articulate what is confusing me. But before I get into that, I thank Chad/Littlebeefy for the bucket seats! Man, what a gift! I'm really going to like having them in Big Blue. However, I have a lot of figuring out to do with regard to how to mount them. Here are just a couple of the issues, most of which I've created myself: So I'd like to hear from some of y'all as to how your bucket seats or captain's chairs are mounted. I believe the factory way is for the driver's side to be mounted to fixed stands with adjusting tracks, and for the passenger's seat to be mounted to the "ejector" mount with wedges. Right? All of this makes me realize that I need to be a bit more scientific in the way I figure out where to mount the seats. And here's my cunning plan: Bolt the outboard fixed mount to the LH mounting point of the cab, bolt the slider to it, and bolt the driver's seat to the slider. Prop up the inside edge of the seat so the bottom of the seat is level with the floor, side to side. Measure where the mounting points of the seat are with respect to something fixed in the cab. This would include both the fore/aft position, height, and angle of the seat bottom. Design the new mounting arrangement to get the driver's seat back to that height, fore/aft position, and angle. Does this approach seem reasonable? As for the passenger's seat, I hope to use sliders on it as well since the passenger's seatback doesn't tilt like the driver's does. Instead it is held in place by a bolt, but can be tilted by pulling that bolt. However, the hope is that I won't need to do so in order to get to the things in the storage unit if it is on sliders. But, if you have a better idea I'd sure like to know what it is. Otherwise I'll try to put the passenger's seat in the same position as the driver's seat.

Well, as some of you know I've returned from a 3 week trip to see my kids and grand kids. But along the way I was ordering and acquiring things for Big Blue's transformation so I'd be ready to hit the ground running when I got home. And here's a run down on them: Wire: I got in 500' of #16 wire with which to extend the ECU harness. Heat Shrink: I ordered both another kit of assorted sizes of black adhesive-lined heat shrink as well as a spool of black-on-white labeling heat shrink. I'll have to test the ability to print those labels, but as the roll is pretty short I already know I need to figure out how to prevent the printer from wasting ~3/4" of material between each label. Seats: Chad/Littlebeefy gave me a pair of Bronco bucket seats, and we drove through Atlanta to meet him and pick them up. There's a pic below of the seats, but I'm going to post more about them in the Bucket Seat or Captain's Chair Mounting Musings thread as I've discovered a couple of things that puzzle me. First, the fore/aft bolt hole spacing on the mounting points for these seats is 13" where it is 12 1/2" on the captain's chairs I have. That's not a problem as I think there's enough room to drill another hole in the sliders, but I wonder if this is normal. Second, I had the captain's chairs mounted improperly when I had them in Big Blue. In looking at the illustrations from the MPC (Documentation/Interior/Seats & Seat Tracks) it looks like the driver's side is the only one with adjustment tracks. And the passenger's side is the only one with the wedges that tilt the seat back a bit. Instead I had adjustment tracks and wedges on both seats. So I'm going to have to do some more thinking, measuring, and testing before I figure out how I want to mount these seats. But I am going to take them to the upholstery shop soon to have them completely redone, including new foam. ECU Bracket: David found an ECU bracket for $18, but it didn't have the necessary tab that holds the ECU to the bracket. But then Shaun pointed out that Mark was offering an ECU with a bracket that included the tab, so Mark sent that to me. I've trial-fitted the bracket up under the dash and will need to remove the instrument bezel in order to get it fully into position and bolted down, but it looks like it is going to work nicely. Here's a shot of both sides of the two brackets, and in the left pic you can see the tab on the lower right of the right one, which is the one from Mark. The left pic shows the front of the bracket and the right pic is the rear of the bracket. I think the arm that sticks up in the left pic bolts to the firewall where the dash brace bolts, and the tab that sticks up at the bottom of the right pic screws to the dash where the speed control bracket attaches.

What’s not to like? It has free shipping! Oh yes, it IS $698, but surely something that expensive is good. Right? On the other hand, you won’t get it if you don’t ask. And there’s a fool born every minute, so he might actually find that fool?

Yep, I think you’ll be fine then with the 1” slaves. And glad you got the right pedal. I suspect that it makes a huge difference in the “feel” of the brakes.

Chad - I agree with your calc's, but I'm not sure you have the right data. In fact, I'm not sure what the right data is! In the screen grab below, which is from a portion of the MPC that is on our page at Documentation/Driveline/Brakes and is for your Bronco, I've highlighted things that confuse me. But first, a word about nomenclature. When the MPC says "80/" it means from 1980 through the end of the coverage of the catalog, which was 1989. But "84" means for that single year. In the listing at the top for Cylinder Repair Kit it seems to say that a 15/16" wheel cylinder was used from 1980 through 1989, but in 1984 only there were 1" wheel cylinders used on vehicles built prior to 10/83. In the listing for the Piston it seems to say that there was a 15/16" piston used from 1980 through 1989, and a 1" piston used from 1984 through 1989. In the listing for the Shoe & Lining kit it seems to say the 15/16" piston was used for 1980 through 83, and a 1" piston was used for 1984 & 85, but there is no mention of 1986 and later. So, were I you, I'd measure my wheel cylinders. But my guess is that the 15/16" piston was used from 1980 - 10/83 and the 1" piston used from that point on. Also, did you use the hydroboost brake pedal in your conversion? It has a different "throw" than the stock pedal.