Gary Lewis

Drilling the hole in the back of the cab roof was torment enough. I can't drill in the middle. Cutting board? Are you just using it when you are stopped? The Midland NMO mag mount is wide-band, meaning it is recommended for everything from CB up through GMRS. Which is probably why it uses RG-58 instead of the little bitty coax. And the feedback I've seen says that it holds the 32" GMRS 6dB whip in place w/o movement, even when meeting semis on the highway at 70. The little mag mount antenna I have didn't move either, but it is tiny. So if the bigger mount is that solid then I'll go with it if I decide to upgrade. Now, if Ryan from Midland will get back with me I'll get the stuff on order. Right now Big Blue has string going in the back of the cab and dangling out of the headliner.

I'm confused. I can't imagine why the valve cover bolts would cause the engine to diesel. Do you mean intake manifold bolts? If it is the valve cover bolts, did you use cork gaskets? They do tend to change thickness after you install them. But in any case, I'd pull each bolt, clean it and clean the threads in the head, put blue Loctite on it, and put it back to the right torque spec. Go through all the bolts one at a time and they shouldn't loosen again.

Nice truck! Well worth the money. But, it says "auction" and yet it is Craigslist? And what's with the last pic of something else?

Does the gauge work properly and show the right pressure for the time the sender works? If so, then you aren't pulling too much current as the gauge is in series with the sender - the same current goes through each. And, the same resistance wire serves the oil pressure, water temp, and fuel level, so if the latter are working correctly then the resistance wire is probably in the circuit. Are you buying the same brand sender from the same place? Maybe they got a batch of bad ones?

Yep, that sounds exactly like what I'm doing. Use the factory's upgrades to make a better vehicle.

Good idea! I wouldn't have thought of using EMT to hold the radiator support.

Yes, we know the ratio. Go to Documentation/Driveline/Calculators and you'll see all of the tranny and transfer case ratios.

She does look happy! Well done! On the vacuum, Mat is right. Check with it running and hook the advance to the one that doesn't have vacuum at idle.

You've had waaaaaay too many accidents. Glad I'm not paying your insurance bills.

That makes more sense. I was wondering why a K-car had that much sophistication. But a later Imperial would be expected to.

Cool! When do you think you'll get to fire it up?

Have you tested the senders after then quit? You can put air pressure to them and see if they are open at some point. And I agree with you on grounds. I paint or powder coat everything, and that messes up the factory grounds in a big way. But the factory grounds weren't really enough, so I added my own. Serious overkill.

It is, I like the charge door as well but I probably would put the charge port where the OE filler door was just to make it look more OE. That's exactly what I was thinking. The new Powerboost is said to have the battery under the bed, so why not put it there on one of these and then put the connector in the filler door?

I guess I got lucky. Dumb luck. Anyway, unless someone can see a good reason to put the LMC #'s on our site, I'll pass. As you said, Shaun, their descriptions are pretty clear, so I don't see much advantage of adding them.

Yep, you clearly have EGR. So yes, you'd need the earlier base and an earlier carb to match. And you have the air pump, so you have a cat? If so, what are your plans there? Yes, I've had two 82's with a computer under the seat. They were both 351W's and I can't say that the 300's also had them in 82. But yes, there were differences between US and Canadian-made trucks. You didn't have the same emissions laws we did or, to say it another way, yours kicked in later in time. And since the emissions systems added cost, Ford didn't add them if they didn't have to. I'll let those more familiar with the 300's jump in.

That's a really sweet installation.

Jonathan - Thanks. It was getting excessive. However, if we could just train ourselves to use the Topics View there would be far fewer pinned things to get in the way - as shown below.

Thanks, Dane. The more I think about it the more I like the connector in the back of the cab. It gives me lots of flexibility and yet it is the cheapest and easiest way forward from where I am. In fact, when Ryan from Digi-Key gets back with me I'm going to order the weatherproof SO connector and the PL/BNC adapter. And I mention Ryan because of the excellent customer service I got today. I called Digi-Key and drew him. He asked for my customer # and we were having a good chat when the line dropped. I thought I'd see if he would call me back, and sure enough he did. He took all of the info and vowed to get me the info, and I'm sure he will. As for mounting the antenna elsewhere, I think mid-roof is the best as it uses the roof as a ground plane and, being centered, provides an even radiation pattern. If it was mounted on the drip rail, fender, or similar it wouldn't be centered and the radiation wouldn't be even. And I don't want to drill the roof - at all. Given everything I've read about Midland's magnetic NMO mount it apparently sticks extremely well so I don't see a need to drill the roof. However, I had the little mag-mount antenna up there for the whole trip to CO and it didn't move a bit.

This. As shown, that means there are six possible printed circuits, depending on year, gauge/idiot lights, and tach/no tach. I've never seen anything else, unless you want to start talking medium duty. Those trucks have a different printed circuit unique to them. Fun fact though, my 1986 gauge cluster backing is for a medium duty truck. I found no evidence of it ever being replaced, so Ford was using the medium duty gauge cluster backs in the light duty trucks by 1986. As to Gary's points on the non-tach trucks having tach printed circuits, my 1986 parts truck did NOT have a tach, and did NOT have the printed circuit for a tach. That truck was built in April of 1986, so it was towards the end of production. I've seen plenty of clusters w/o tachs but with a circuit that had the provisions for a tach. In fact, early on I didn't know there were circuits that didn't provide for a tach. I bought several tachs and stuck them right in. I guess I was just lucky. Anyway, do we really need to map the LMC numbers to the Ford #'s? We have both the Ford part #'s and the ID #'s that are on the circuit in the table on the page, and below. Is it helpful to help our members/readers to buy from LMC by mapping the Ford #'s to LMC #'s? I'm not against it, but worry that LMC will change their numbers and we'll have the wrong info.

Does your engine have a computer? I doubt it does as the Canadian vehicles didn't get the same emissions stuff the US vehicles did, but we need to make sure we know what we are talking about. On an '82 the computer will be under the driver's seat, or it has been on all the 82's I've seen. And you are sure you have EGR into that spacer? I ask because, again, the Canadian vehicles didn't get it for some time after we did.

Beautiful truck!

I find the Bullnose gauges work quite well when everything is operating as it should. My temp and oil pressure gauges would show fairly small fluctuations. People often say that they're just "dumb" gauges and not very accurate, but my opinion and experience is the opposite. I don't think it hurts to go a bit overboard...even a bit OCD, when it comes to proper grounding in these trucks. Oh, I forgot to comment on the grounds. And I agree - there's no such thing as too many grounds. And Ford apparently figured out during the 80's that they didn't have enough of them, so the Bricknose and later trucks have progressively more and more grounds. Did you see the diagram of the grounds I installed on Big Blue?

I find the Bullnose gauges work quite well when everything is operating as it should. My temp and oil pressure gauges would show fairly small fluctuations. People often say that they're just "dumb" gauges and not very accurate, but my opinion and experience is the opposite. I don't think it hurts to go a bit overboard...even a bit OCD, when it comes to proper grounding in these trucks. I agree - when everything is "right" the gauges work well. And in my experience a replacement ICVR helps that a bunch. My gauges never glitch, and you can map them very well to the aftermarket gauges - although the factory gauges are slow to react since they are really just thermometers with heaters in them. So it takes a while to warm up or cool off.

Gary, they're really not problems at all when the engine is on a stand and you're on a chair in front of it, with all the time and patience in the world...lol. However, it happens all the time, and I feel bad for the guys trying to change a $27 water pump and snap a couple of those bolts off when the engine IN the truck. UGH. If there's one thing you can bet on with a small block, it's at least one of those bolts snapping off...lol. The bolts don't seize in the block...they bind up with corrosion in the aluminum timing cover. I ended up destroying the cover...I didn't care because I wasn't using it anyway, but with the bolts relieved from the cover, they turned out of the block no problem. That one that's rusted and broken off in the head though, that's a different story lol. Oh well, time is on my side;). Been there, done that. A friend brought his '91 F150 over a few years ago to change the water pump. We broke a bolt and had to drill it out. But when we put it back together we slathered them in anti-seize, not just on the threads but also on the body where it might corrode with the timing cover. Glad you have plenty of time. You do such good work I'm sure you'll make this a very special project. I'm pulling up a chair and a cup of coffee to follow along.

I'd forgotten that. So glad you are about to get your truck back, especially after so very long.