Gary Lewis

Well done! I'll bet it stops much better once you get it bled.

No, I don't have. In fact, I didn't know something like that existed. Sounds quite helpful. But as John and I talked about this yesterday, I'm getting a bit concerned with all I have to do before the show, and then we are leaving for Ouray on the Monday after. So I need to farm some things out, and the A/C system is one such.

Yes, thanks for the heads-up. Please let us know what you find.

Angelo - Maybe it really is a spark issue? No or little spark and drizzling injectors could certainly wet the plugs. Good luck! Shaun - Looking good! I like seeing those rotors, even if they are rusted.

Good idea. I have plenty of those, so will put one in.

What logo is showing on the tab in your browser? The Nabble "N" or the bullnose? If the "N" then that may be a red herring. We are soon to be moved from one server to another and I've had to take the "redirect" out so when you click on the link in the email you go directly to the Nabble server and not to the Bullnose bible website. And I think there's something strange with the Nabble server at the moment.

Jim - I like the idea of adding a 1/4" hex to 1/4" socket adapter. I have one of those and will put it in with the sockets and have added it to the Take To Ouray document. And since my 1/4" drive sockets go from 5/32 to 1/2" and 4mm to 13mm I think I'll have it covered. However, the Take To Ouray document is in many ways just detailing what tools are going to be permanently in Big Blue's toolbox. I've gone through my spares and come up with a pretty comprehensive set of tools that should suffice wherever and whatever. Sam - Yes, a spare PH2 is a good idea. I have plenty of those so will add one - or more. However, there are also both Phillips and cabinet screwdrivers in the toolbox, so these are just in addition. As for the tires, I'm glad to know you really like them. These were on the truck when I acquired it, but I have no regrets so far.

I have those sockets in the toolbox, as well as plenty of others, and they are easily gotten to. And I have a nut driver handle to use with them. Just no way to put them in this box. Robertson bits. So that's what the square bits are called! I've never used them, but since I have the room and they were in my assortment I put them in.

Ill give them a call. Im not in a rush just yet to send the headers out, I really want to bolt them up to the engine loosely after paint and see how they look in black and then I can use the photo and photoshop to try different colors offered to see what I think would look good. I dont mind paying $400 for ceramic coating for these headers. I got them uncoated cause the only coatings offered from Hedman was the tacky looking silver or the black. I got them painted so I could have them done in a color that I like. I think I paid $450 for Jet Hot coating my full L&L headers.

Yes, very nice! I'll bet it sells.

Nice!

Well, I pulled the blower motor and the resistor pack and can't see any signs of a leak. But I really can't get to the area where it would leak if it is the weld John mentioned. So tomorrow I'm going to call and see if I can get it in to be worked on.

John - I'll go take a look at that tool when I get back to Owasso. Jim - I'd LOVE to attend that sale. I've bought lots of Swiss Army knives, both Victorinox and Wengen, and from places all over Europe. Our son has a collection that I used to add to on each of my trips with ones you typically can't find here in the US. But I carry a Victorinox with a pen, knife, nail file, scissors, and 4GB thumb drive daily. As for what I did today to get ready for the Ouray trip, I finished up my Brownell's driver assortment. That's a piece of MDF drilled to take the 1/4" bits, painted with Rustoleum, and glued to the bottom of the case. And the bits are: T-6 through T-40 1/16" through 9/32 hex SQ1 through 3 PH0 through 3 Cabinet 4 through 12 Are there any more 1/4" drive bits I might be missing? As you can see, I have room for 10 more.

Yes, you can run one of the square coils with the DS-II - for a few miles. But from my understanding they have a lower impedance and will eventually kill the DS-II because it'll pull too much current. IIRC, the later systems had gone to TFI with that coil. So you need one of the standard round coils. But I don't have a good suggestion for where to put it. Sorry.

Sam - We are working on a logo, and the one above at the moment isn't it. Not sure what it'll be, but maybe tomorrow we will start a poll to pick it, so watch for it and make sure you vote. As for the Bullnose bible, we aren't saying it is gone. The URL will probably be bullnosebible.com and we'll probably use that tag in various places.

I'll take a look. It'll be far cheaper than what I paid for that Swiss Army tool set. It was so expensive they threw in a cruise down the Danube.

Nice! I'll have a look at it. But, is it better than this?

Thats what I was thinking of doing as well. It would be easier and I could just simply thread some cheapie bolts in the exhaust side of the head just to keep paint out of the threads. I found a ceramic coater up in Oregon state few years back they had a whole line up of ceramic coating colors. I was looking for something that had more of a bare steel look to it either unpolished stainless or just plain steel. I was at the time looking at the Titanium they offered as shown below third from the left. But for me after paying for shipping to and from Oregon state and then the cost of the ceramic coating itself I was quite pricy for shorty tube headers like I have. I was quoted $250 - $275 price range for the shorty headers back in 2018 not including the cost to ship to and from Oregon state. But they ceramic coat the inside and outside of the headers which I found out from a more local ceramic coater you dont coat the inside of the headers just the outside. From the more local guy he is quoting $168 to $185 depending on if you go with black (cheapest) or a silver metallic (most expensive). Shipping would also be cheaper as its with in the state as well. Only thing is he only offers the silver which I dont like so is out of the question, black which I am unsure about, or the Zirconia which is a greenish grey color that many restoration people use for a OE look. Below is a pair of full length headers in the Zirconia coating. That may be the color I end up going with cause I just think black headers with black accessory brackets would just blend in too easily along with the dark Ford Corporate blue I will be painting everything. I could go the silver but Ive installed them at work, they discolor so easily from scratches from installation to simple handling and to me they just look like very cheap chrome plating. The local guy here in Texas that I found up in Borne told me that what I want is a stable thermal coating on the exterior and solid carbon build up on the interior of the header to work together at keeping the heat inside. He also informed me the colors he offers have different heat ratings. Silver is only good to 1,600 degrees, black is good to 2,000 degrees, and zirconia is good to 3,000 degrees. I did look at Jet Hot as well but its been 3 years now since I clicked "get a quote" and never got an email from them. I sent the quote in back in 2018 along with a quote to Finish Line Coatings in Oregon state and to Cradin Industries here in Texas. So far I am leaning towards Cradin Industries as he not only does automotive stuff but he does coatings for aerospace as well including some work for Pratt & Whitney and Lockheed Martin. That tells me he has to know what he is doing as a coater to be used by some big names like that. If Jet Hot would give me a price quote I would consider them cause they did come out in 1981 and my truck is an '82 so it would be fitting. It also appears they have many different color options that one can have applied to the Off Road 2000 coating which is the one I would be looking at for a truck application. It also is only coated on the outside which is what Cradin Industries informed me is the proper way to do ceramic coating. I talked with Roger at Jet Hot in OKC. Just called them up.

Nice list!

Yes, that is excellent work.

Makes sense.

Good points. And yes, I have the UV light and yellow glasses. John/Machspeed and I were texting a bit ago and he said his evaporator was cracked where the tube was welded in. That might well be the case for me. If I can see that’s where the issue is I’ll talk with the shop to see if they’d want me to swap out the evaporator and then bring it in. I know I’ll be losing the refrigerant that’s in it, but I’m losing that quickly anyway.

Im hopeful that they will catch up and ship it out sooner. But I can wait on the pushrods and continue assembly else where and even mask and paint the engine. I really dont need the intake manifold off to set preload its just something I would like to do just to make life a little easier. I actually bought one can of the Dupli-Color industrial stripper that should come in Monday-Tuesday. I looked online and none of the local autopart stores have it. It basically straight acetone with a thickening agent to make it a spray gel that wont run. States paint will bubble up and can be removed in 30 minutes or less. If it works as good as they say and how reviews state then I should cut my time drastically for stripping it down. Then I can either spray wd40 on the inside to stop rust till I get the oil put in or I could use some oil and just smear it into the metal on the inside of the pan. Outside I will spray with WD40 unless the pan is one of the last things to go on and I can actually start priming and paining. In that case I will just hose the engine off with some brake clean to wash away the WD40 on the block and then start my masking and painting. I havent decided how I want to mask the aluminum heads off around the exhaust ports. Part of me is tempted to just stuff some blue shop paper towels in the exhaust ports and spray everything then let the paint act as an extra layer to help seal the header to the head. Or I could tape up my painted headers and bolt them to the head and use it as a mask in of itself. Headers will be sent out for ceramic coating just dont know what color to do. I stuffed blue paper towels in the ports and painted everything, including the exhaust flanges. So far, not problems. On the color of the headers, I didn't have a lot of options with Jet Hot when I had mine coated. Once I worked through what the options were on the type of coating I was pretty limited in colors. But bear in mind that one of the reasons for coating is to hold the heat in. And since dark colors radiate heat the best you want to go with a light color.

I awoke at 4:15 this morning thinking about the A/C system. And then it dawned on me, well before dawn, that the leak must be in the evaporator since I haven't been able to find it. And, with a bit of Googling "does R134A have a smell" I found that while it doesn't have much of a smell, the oil does. So that might explain the "funky" smell we had in the cab. So this afternoon I'll pull the resistor pack and see if I can spot anything in there. Or maybe the motor? I'm thinking that's the best way to get a look inside the plenum. Any better ideas?