Gary Lewis

Chris - If you have a tilt column, as I think you do, then I can't answer your question as Big Blue has a non-tilt column and that's what I've just been into. But on my column the upper bearing doesn't have anything to do with the grounding of the column. The bearing has plastic races and is encased in rubber, so there's no chance it'll conduct. If I were you I'd pull it apart to see what the issue is. The instructions are on our page at Documentation/Interior/Steering Columns & Steering Wheels.

Chris - I'll check out Google Forms. Thanks. And Kickstarter says "Kickstarter’s all-or-nothing funding model ensures that if you reach or surpass your goal, you’ll receive your funds, minus our 5% fee." So they'd take $90 out of the $1800, which isn't bad. It sounds like that may be a good way to go, but I'll keep looking a bit. Gsmblue - I forgot to respond on the badge thing. InVision has the ability to do that, but what I don't want to do is to put any pressure on people. We have some very dedicated people who are struggling to fix their own trucks so may not have any money to contribute. But their daily contribution of time and knowledge is a major contributor to the success of this forum so I don't want to miss that. But the InVision forum has all kinds of badges that can be applied, so perhaps we can come up with a combination that rewards those that give money as well as those that give time.

I've not done a GoFundMe but will check into it, both for the migration and the annual costs. But, as I think about it, we need to figure out how to gauge how much we can raise - before we raise it. In other words, lets say that we only raise $500 for the migration vs the $1800 cost. I don't want people to have put their money into an account and then find out we can't get there. So is there a way to way to discretely get an idea from each of you how much you'd be willing to do for the migration? Would that be best done via email to me? Not a commitment at all, but a "here's what I think I would like to donate". Thoughts? Better ways? I'm all eyes. But if you want to email me do so at janeyandgary@gmail.com. Again, I'm not looking for a commitment but a guestimate. And I'm not ready for the money. We just need to know how much we can raise.

WE ARE MOVING, IF WE CAN FUND IT! Guys - we have a winner on our hunt for a new forum platform to use - InVision. It provides all of the features we've been wanting/needing, and then some. You can see a test implementation of it here, thanks to Chris: InVision Test Forum. However, there's a cost of $1800 to take our 7 years of history with us, and we really need to do that. So I'm asking y'all how we can fund this one-time expense. (There will be an ongoing expense of less than $100/mo which we will work out later.) I am not wanting you to commit on this thread to support it with X$. Instead I'm asking how we can set up a fund, like GoFundMe or somesuch, in order to raise the money. What is the best approach? Who has done it? Once we are within reach of that goal I can sign a contract with InVision and they'll write the code and migrate our history over. That will probably take a few attempts, but once they get it right we'll need to take a backup, lock the Nabble forum, and then have them migrate us. It is supposed to come over with everything but your password, so you'll just have to reset your p/w on the first login. (I know it won't be that clean, but we can hope.)

As for 9C899, that is the ground pin, as you can see from this snippet of the illustration:

Chris - Using the verbiage from my post in the Steering Column Ground thread, I think you have all the pins "with the one circled in red being the ground, the one in yellow being power, and the one in blue going to the speed control". Those match my pic in that post.

Progress! That's a win, for sure! As for the clicking, that's going to be hard to find if it won't click. I'm guessing it was something that was turning off as the battery voltage got too low, but when it turned off the battery came back up just enough to turn it on. But no idea what that would be. Good luck!

Glad to see the back is getting better. I've had a few of those and they are not fun. I don't understand how the steering shaft is supposed to be grounded. The factory bearings top and bottom have plastic races and the top one is then set in rubber. So it can't ground through the bearings. Perhaps it is supposed to ground through the rag joint to the steering box? But I'm not convinced the steering box's bearings are a good conductor of electricity. In any event, we had a discussion about this in the thread entitled Steering Column Ground, and you might want to at least read this post. In that post there's a pic with three brushes and a description of the purpose for each. Check to see if the ground one on your column is actually grounded. Does it change if you move things?

Boy! The only thing remaining is the dash itself! Well, there's a whole lot of wire in that dash. LOTS! I'd sure hate to have to take it out.

I don't know that I would say it looks good. The bracket the eyelet is going down against is painted, so you may not have a ground. And if it really is connected to the bracket is the bracket connected to the firewall? And is the firewall connected to the engine? Ford was very lax with grounds up through '86. In '87 and later they started adding a lot of grounds. So our trucks aren't grounded well and there's no redundancy. If one of those grounds isn't working then lots of problems arise. As for the back, that sounds painful! Hope you get some relief.

The only grounding point that really matters to the speed control is where it is grounded. And according to the schematic that is G703, which is said to be "attached to brace under steering column". It is depicted on Page 139 in illustration #2. So I'd check out that ground and do my test from the steering column's flange where your ground clip goes in to G703. There shouldn't be any bobbles when you move the wheel, pull on it, turn it, etc. But, G703 should also have a good connection to the body, so check that out as well. One spot I frequently use is the bracket for the dash just above the emergency brake. But you may have a grounding problem to the cab. There's supposed to be a ground from the engine to the firewall near the windshield wiper motor.

Yes, that is normal. But if the ground isn't good you'll have lots of odd problems. Big Blue's horn worked with the key off but not on at one point. Turned out that the speed control was working as the ground for the circuit until it was powered up, but then it wasn't a good enough ground to pull in the relay. I don't remember what the problem was, but I know others have had problems where the steering column wasn't well grounded. And that's where I'd recommend you start. Measure from the column to ground and move the wheel around, as you've done. If it changes then you aren't well grounded.

Question for y'all. I've been redrawing the schematic for the passenger's side power distribution box to change to triggering the Engine On (was Key On) relay from key-on power to stator power. And in the course of that I've found that I've been powering the coil of the Blower Motor Ground relay with the output of the Key On relay. But now that it is really Engine On and the relay won't close until the alternator spins there'd be no ground for the blower fan until then. I think it would be better to power the Blower Motor Ground relay via the key on circuit so the fan will run when the key is turned on. Thoughts?

It seems like you have a grounding problem. Can you show us a pic of the way your steering wheel is wired?

And an update on that wiring. It dawned on me that I have a C208A connector on the work table so I checked the R/O wire - 16ga. And I also have a full wiring harness laying there so I measured from C610 out by where the regulator would have gone to C208A going into the cluster - 6'. Innovate says that the current draw of the MTX-L+ is 3 amps, and the Wirebarn calculator says that there will be a .1V drop across that 6' run. So I doubt I'll even be able to see the voltmeter flicker when the heater in the O2 sensor kicks on. Good idea, Jim!

Jeff - You asked: All of that tucks nicely into the dash, but requires a bit of patience to get there - without rattling. But the last round I was "there" so let's hope I can do it again. And all of this is so I can move the power wire to the AFR meter from Mission Control to C208A. Easy peasy - now that I'm in that far.

Not nearly as old as some. Our favourite carb/ignition specialist notched up another year two days ago.

I hope it is ok, but I put you on our map using your zip, which you can see at Bullnose Forum/Member's Map in the menu. If you don't want that I can easily remove you.

Welcome! Glad you joined. Are you looking for some to rebuild the engine, transmission, or the whole vehicle? And where are you located? Some of us might know of local guys in certain areas

I'll try to post one this afternoon. Janey has an appointment this morning, but we should be back in time before class tonight. In jest I outlined the order in which most of it goes back together. However, I had the dash cover going back on fairly early and I'm rethinking that. I wonder if it is possible to see the rear support for the radio down through there with the cover off? Once upon a time I was able to slide my hand up from the bottom and guide the rubber-tipped stud into the support, but that didn't work the other day, although maybe I didn't try hard enough. Anyway, the radio doesn't appear to be going back as far as it should so I fear the stud missed the hole in the mount. Man, there's so much stuff in this dash!

I would never want to have two trailers. I'm "ok" at backing one trailer. Not good, but I get by. However, two trailers looks like a jack knife waiting to happen. As for the laws, my very limited understanding is that most laws of this kind are a bandaid on a previous law to fix part of a problem. So someone may have wanted to pull an ATV on the 2nd trailer and lobbied for that to be allowed, but someone else said we have to limit it to that because this could get out of hand. So I think the motorhome to pull Pluto is the best approach, even though it comes with extra maintenance.

Jim's suggestions are good ones, but here are some observations just looking at the pics: The grille is black, which doesn't look to be right as the truck doesn't have the other black things to go with it. So it might be a nice replacement. Or, it could be a spray painted piece of junk. The mirrors are serious. You might not like them, but someone might. The engine has an HEI ignition system, and if done correctly that could be good. But few people understand the need to put a very large wire to the HEI, so I'm doubting it was done properly as the air cleaner yells "kid" to me. Over all the body doesn't look bad.

Looks like it is for the 81-89 F FT600/800,FT900 medium duty trucks. I say that because the ID# ends in "B" but has the extra "A" elsewhere, so that makes me think it is E1TF 10C956-BA, which fits with the ammeter, tach, and oil pressure gauges. However, I don't know what the LED's are for. At first I thought it was actually a picture of my cluster that has an Edelbrock AFR meter in that spot. But it isn't, and I don't know what those are.

I've seen trucks pulling travel trailers and vehicles. Not that I'd want to do it, but... Still, I agree that keeping that many vehicles up to snuff ain't fun. So I understand the pain. The boat was much like that. The clicking noise is obviously odd. To figure out what that is you might get lucky by pulling fuses one at a time. But that won't really help you find the drain. I have a fuse replacement/ammeter like this one from Amazon, and it works nicely to check the draw on each fuse. Mine actually came from Harbor Freight, but it looks a lot like that one from Amazon. Good luck!

You want a welding shop. They can easily make brackets to bolt to the frame, not weld, and then weld them to the bumper. I'd scope out a shop and tell them what you want to do. If you can agree on a price then order in the bumper and have them attach it.