Gary Lewis

Thanks. I think the "general numbers" thing is sufficient.

Yes, you're figuring it out, Matt. Welcome! I know Nashville fairly well as our kids used to live there. In fact, our SiL is there now on business. So, do you want to be on our map? (Bullnose Forum/Member's Map in the menu.) That's a good story - you bought the truck new and still drive it.

Looks good! Did you save the dimensions? I didn't use the cab bolts as I wanted to be able to pull mine out w/o messing with the cab bolts. So I put nutserts into the step at the back of the cab and screw the organizer down to that. And that plan worked well as I had it in and out like a yoyo while I was installing the inverter and wiring. But the cab bolt would work nicely if you were going in with it one time.

Yipes! The pump works, but is pulling way too much current? That sounds like a serious problem. Have you checked to make sure that no one has bypassed the resistance in the pump circuit? I don't think that, by itself, would account for the hot wire. But it wouldn't help. (Sure seems strange that the Bronco has the resistor but the F-Series doesn't. Wonder why?)

Hey, many of my trucks have been to the pick & pull, and they’ve come home loaded. Good idea!

Yippee!! Well done!

If an F250 TTB was a bolt-in and cheap the bad ride might be acceptable. But it is far from bolt-in and not cheap. So, to me, that is three strikes against it. Sorry to rain on your parade. But far better to know up front.

Growing up in Kansas it was almost like learning English was optional. Man, the way some people butcher it just grates on my nerves! I had Latin in high school. Like that was going to help me tour Europe! Some of the kids took French, but not I. Who needs another language?!?! When we lived in the UK I was amazed at how much French and German the Brits knew. Yep, in spite of them calling the French "Frogs", and almost being invaded by Germans, many have learned the language in order to travel there. So I'm embarrassed at how little I know of other languages. As for "dog language", we watched the new movie Finch last night. The robot, Jeff, was trying to learn "Dog" and driving Finch bananas barking at Goodyear. Finally Finch explained "Dogs don't have a language!" But obviously they learn certain sounds, like their names and "here". I just never thought about a dog understanding only French, or German, or English. I guess I can relate - I'm just like a dog!

Oh, and I should have said I really do NOT like the leaf-sprung F250 4wd suspension. Big Blue, which had new springs up front, rode really poorly. REALLY poorly. As in, you made sure your mouth was closed before hitting bumps for fear your teeth would chip hitting each other. The issue is that the swinging TTB's are trying to twist the springs as well as compress them. It just doesn't work well at all. Coil-sprung TTB's work really well, and leaf-sprung solid axles work well. But not so leaf-sprung TTB's. As a comparison, Big Blue's original front suspension had about 2" of travel from full droop to full compression. But with the D50, RSK, SD spring combo it now has 7 1/2" of travel. And that makes a HUGE difference in the ride. I'm not trying to talk you out of the 4wd conversion, but I do think you should know what you are going to get with all the cost and effort.

Thanks, Shaun. There's more info on the options discussed in the New Member New Build, Looking For Directions thread. And in Converting 87-96 Trucks To Bullnoses. And Am I Asking For Trouble Attempting A 4wd Swap On A 2wd F250? Those threads should help you understand what the problems and options are. Let us know what you decide, please.

Looks good, Frank. You are lucky that it didn't destroy the booster. Usually when they leak out the back they leak into the booster, and before long the booster is eaten up from the inside and starts leaking.

That info on the wire connections is correct. And I don't understand why the '80 EVTM shows only two. But the '80 EVTM is strange, so just add that as one more item to prove its strangeness.

I think of and talk about Big Blue as "he". As you said, he's a "big boy" and there's nothing feminine about him. As for your English, it is far, FAR better than my French. In fact, I really don't know any French, in spite of having vacationed in France several times. So I am in awe of people who can type or speak another language, and will never make fun of them.

No, there's no user's guide. I wish there was. A pinned item is one that looks like it has a red push-pin through it so it doesn't float down the page based on when the last post was made. Saying it another way, in the normal view of the main page you'll currently see 10 folders with red pins through them and 3 threads with red pins. So those things will always remain at the top of the page. But the other threads, aka topics, will vary depending on which one has had the latest post. Embed is what some of us do to put special things in our posts. But I don't use the "Embed" button up above. Instead I tick the "Message is in HTML Format" box and use HTML to put the special things in with. For instance, the other day I had the pdf of the Ford announcement of the Eluminator electric motor. So I embedded it in my post so you could read the pdf. You can see that on this post, and if you want to see how I did it click Reply to that post and then click Quote. It'll put the code there on your screen, and then you can tick the HTML box and hit Preview Message and see how it copies the document in. As for a permalink, that is short for "permanent link". It is an address, but on the forum it is different than the URL you see in the web browser. I don't fully understand how Nabble generates the permalinks, but if you want to give someone a link to a post, as I did above on the Eluminator post, you need to click More and then Permalink and copy what it shows you. Don't use the URL in the browser's window as it usually won't get you where you want to go. Please don't worry about asking questions. It is how we learn, and others will read your questions and learn as well.

Gary, is there a real performance benefit about a twin snorkel, or is it just a cool looking gadget? For a 460 I think there is a performance benefit as Ford put a second opening on the 460's air cleaner that opened under low vacuum, so they must have realized the single snorkle is restrictive. But that 2nd opening is at the hottest part of the engine compartment, right back by the firewall, so the engine ingests hot air when it opens. However if you use a dual-snorkle air cleaner and plumb both to "cold" air ahead of the radiator support there'd have to be a benefit. Smaller engines might not have the same amount of benefit as a 460 since they won't pull as much air. But there would have to be some benefit, although less and less as you go down on engine size. But, they look cool!

We REALLY had fun. And Big Blue did everything we tackled, with aplomb. It made the many, many months of working on it worth it.

There's something wrong with your VIN. As shown on the page at Documentation/Specifications/Certification Label a 1980 should have an 11-digit VIN, and an '81 or later should have a 17-digit VIN. But you show 12 digits - assuming the "!" isn't meant to be part of the VIN. So something is wrong. But if we drop the leading "1" it works, and a 1980 VIN isn't supposed to start with 1: F25: F250 2wd pickup G: 351 2bbl, which in 1980 would have been a 351M, and from the outside you can't tell it from a 400 P: Twin Cities manufacturing plant GD1059: Order of assembly. The 1059th truck off the line from Twin Cities, I think.

Right! Nice truck and nice price. If I were closer.....

Bruce - We actually have a fulfillment center in Tulsa, about 20 miles as the crow flies from our house. So I'm sure that plays into us being able to get things quickly. Dane - I'm sure that you've noticed by now that I like pictures. I like to document what I'm doing for a number of reasons, including the ability to go back and find out what I did as well as to realize I've done a lot to this truck. So I'm sure to document the antenna installation.

It'll be great! Just take it slow and check everything. Don't want to have a radiator hose come off during break in.

Yes, LMC is carrying them. See this post. As for installing a factory tach into a cluster not designed for it, the gauge circuit w/o tach doesn't have the circuits for the tach. But the 4 screw holes are in the plastic of the cluster. And the connections are on the 4 studs of the tach that hold it in. So you can use ring-tongue connectors on the end of wires to provide power, circuit ground, ignition input, and a ground tell it that you have an 8 cylinder engine.

You can see the specifications on our page at Documentation/Engines/351M & 400, and then the Specifications tab, then the 400 tab. But, the HP peaks at 3200 RPM, and with a 2bbl carb, retarded cam, and low compression it isn't going to rev very high. So you might set it at 4000 'cause I suspect you are gonna want to shift before then.

And, having found that, I added this statement to our page at Documentation/Electrical/Gauges and then the Printed Circuit Pinout tab:

You have the cluster with the circuit that obviously supports the tach. So use it. But you will want to read this: HOWTO: 81-86 gauge cluster in 80 model (gauge models ONLY!)

Well, this will be interesting. There were three flex circuits for 1980 and three for '81-86, as shown below: idiot lights; gauges w/o tach; gauges with tach. Shaun/Salans7 and I just had a discussion about this. He's not seen a vehicle w/o a tach have a flex circuit that supports a tach. In my case, I've added tachs to several trucks that didn't have them, and the flex circuits supported them. So it will be interesting to see what you find.