Gary Lewis

I hope you get him running again, easily and quickly. The sheet you found is a build sheet, and what little I know about this is on the page at Documentation/Specifications/Build Sheet Interpretation.

Oh, wait! The wheels on the truck aren't the wide ones. Which are you planning to use?

I think you'll be fine. I'm running 285/75R16's on Big Blue and even when it was on TTB's there was no problem. The biggest question is in the offset, and while I don't remember what my wheels have in offset I can find out. But the tires are in what looks to be the same position as those in your picture, meaning sticking out from under the truck a bit.

Got the rest of the document scanned and up on the site. That was 663 pages today and, IIRC, 354 the other day, so just over 1000 pages in toto. And one of the files is 278 pages long, which took my pretty decent shop computer 19 minutes to OCR. I moved the whole thing under Documentation/Emissions. So now we have a full document in one place, although in 26 separate files. I'm going to flesh out that Contents page and figure out a way to put it right up front to make it easier to find things. In other words, I think when you pull up the top page, meaning Documentation/Emissions/1986 Engine & Emissions Diagnosis you'll see two documents, the first of which will be the Contents page with hyperlinks, and the second will be the pages as they are now. Thoughts? Better ideas?

Looking good!

Yes, I'm wishing I'd gotten there earlier and been able to spend time in the museum. But just seeing Big Brutus is awe inspiring. Good looking 70's trucks, huh? Well, 20 years ago I might have said the same thing. Oh well, they are good looking trucks, nonetheless. But yours is much better looking than mine. As for the winch bumper, that gets a lot of attention. It isn't perfect, but it sure is prominent.

Yes, do it all at once so you don't have to go back in. On the mirrors, I understand. I will never forget being in a little village in England when we lived there and watching a guy drive down the street ever so slowly. His mirrors would touch those of the cars on either side and he'd fold them back and move on to the next one. As for the power steering leak, I'm fighting one of those myself. I do NOT like leaks!

Yes, wow! Is this one worthy of having the pictures preserved?

Here's a brief report on yesterday's trip, but you can read more about it in the thread entitled Trip Report: Big Iron Overland Rally. First, Big Blue performed quite well. The adjustments I made to the carb made a big difference, and while there is still a small flat spot just off idle the AFR doesn't go higher than 16:1, so the engine doesn't mind pulling from idle now. That's made it a lot easier to drive. As for MPG, I don't know for sure yet. However, I put 228 miles on the rear tank and it is supposed to hold 19 gallons. My math says that is 12 MPG, although I've not filled up yet so don't know for sure. However, that was done with a slight tail wind both ways and was done w/o the speed control at 65 - 70 MPH. The AFR read 14 - 15:1 while at speed on the highway, so it isn't going to get much better than that with a carb, although the EFI should help some as there were times at lower speeds when the mix was too rich. Concerning the leaks, the paper towels around the power steering return/cooler lines are dry, so I apparently fixed that particular leak. However, there were a few drops from somewhere else in the P/S system, so I'll need to track those. And the bit of paper towel around the brake line at the rear is wet again, although it absorbed the whole of the fluid that leaked, so the leak is pretty small. Given that, I did what I didn't think could be done and tightened the fitting one more time. We shall see.

Scott/kramttocs and I met up at the Big Iron Overland Rally yesterday. It was a bit over 100 miles each way for me, and it was a fun trip! If any of y'all are into overlanding then I highly recommend it the next time this event is held. I've emailed Chris, who hosts it, and asked that he let me know how I can be alerted to the timing for the next one, so I'll let y'all know when I know. Scott and I attended the four classes they held on Managing Trauma, Off-Road Recovery Gear, Overland Radio Communications, and Overland Navigation 101 - Gaia, They were very helpful. I'll let Scott speak for himself, but I know that I learned a whole lot. As one presenter said, it was like drinking from a fire hose, and I ended up wet - but happy. One class was particularly helpful. I have Gaia nav software on my phone but have found it very, VERY complex and the learning curve is steep. But this teacher talked us through the basics such that I now think I can use it. And, I won a year's subscription to Gaia Premium! However, the classes were held in a common pavilion on picnic tables with lots of other people around making noise such that it was very hard to hear the teacher. So I emailed Chris at 10:08 last night about the issue, suggesting that he might want to move things around in the pavilion to make hearing easier. To my surprise he emailed back at 1:30 this morning to say that he'd heard similar things from others and they are moving the classes into the museum today. Wow! It is astounding that he was so quick to get back with me, much less to have an even better solution than I suggested. There were lots of vendors there and I talked with most, if not all, of them and found them very helpful. The manufacturer of Go Treads was there, as were people selling many other products for overlanding, like batteries, solar systems, awnings and tents, maps and mapping software, etc. But I spoke extensively with one that makes "load bars", which are the cross bars on which you'd mount a tent or other such load. This was Theo Ferreira of Rugged Bound, and he showed me their new load bars that are much stronger than the light-duty ones from other vendors. More about this will be posted in Big Blue's Transformation thread, but suffice to say that he went out to the parking lot with me to look at Big Blue's bed rails and explained that the feet on his uprights will work perfectly with those tracks. Anyway, here's a shot of Scott and I with our trucks in the parking lot - just before it started to rain: And here's a shot of some dork with a foot-long corn dog, and Big Brutus in the background:

I suspect there is more to the story than we know. Like using "Ford" in a way they didn't like. Anyway, we will have to be careful.

Chris - I wouldn't be surprised that Ford knows about us. And it only makes sense that they would encourage sites like ours since they help enthusiasts keep their products running. So it isn't Ford that might call "foul". It would be someone who is selling the documents with a license from Ford. As for the whole document vs bits and pieces, since our intent is to provide people with a place to read the documentation online rather than to download it, it only makes sense to put it out in sizes that can be pulled up in short order. But the portion I've scanned in so far of the emissions document, which I'm guessing is about 1/3 of it, are 180 MB in size. So the whole document is likely to be over 500 MB in size if it were in one file, and people would give up before it loaded. And then finding what they want in the document would be difficult. Considering "fair use", the page at More Information on Fair Use is helpful. And reading that tells me that since we don't profit from the publication we have a leg up. And, not publishing the whole of the document is also helpful. So I'm feeling better and better about this. But do want to hear from the Electronic Freedom Foundation and, for reference, here's the note I sent to them:

Randy - I agree with Jim. I'd much rather ask for forgiveness than ask for dispensation and be told no. Bill - That's good to know. On the documents I've posted I've not taken any copyright info off. But looking at the new emissions document it appears that the only part that bears the copyright info is the first few pages. So to do that I'd need to add that in the footer of each page. Jim - As said, I agree. Which is one of the reasons I've not put major documents out in their entirety. If what others are selling, like the shop manual, is spread all over creation then it doesn't look like you are making available their livelyhood. But, speaking of "making available", this Wikipedia article has a lot to say on that subject. And to help you find what I think is meaningful in this situation you need to go down about 2/3 of the way to a section that starts with: In that section you'll find a summary of several court cases where the RIAA took on people who both posted copyrighted material on the internet and those who downloaded it. And from what I can tell the courts have determined that making the material available is not illegal. It is the downloading thereof that is illegal. I'd appreciate it if several of you would read that article and then post your understandings. Also, there's a mention of the Electronic Freedom Foundation. They apparently were founded because of issues like this. But I can't find an answer to our fundamental question on their site, so have sent them an email asking for clarification. Last, my son is a lawyer and I've asked him his opinion on this.

Chris - The like button was obtrusive so we gave it up some time ago. As for you having bits of this in Photobucket, I'm willing to bet those were pictures. These are pdf's that have been OCR'd. (Chris knows, probably better than I, but for the rest of you that means these documents can be searched for specific text. Or the text can be copied and pasted, as I just did for Andre on the front hub info.) Dane - I think Emissions is the right place. But I don't want the document to get lost there, so I'm liking Scott's idea about a master contents document. Scott - I have a sheet-feed scanner and scan in gray scale at 600 dpi. I scanned those 354 pages in just about two hours yesterday, but more of the time was spent OCR'ing rather than scanning. But that means I have to have individual sheets. I gave up trying to scan bound documents years ago as it was SLOW and gave poor results. (Having said that, I agreed yesterday to scan a bound '96 owners manual that Bill is sending.) Luckily this document is in a 3-ring binder so is easy to take apart. But I have cut up my '81 and '85 FSM's to scan the sections. Which gets me to the question of placing whole FSM's, or other documents, on the site. Frankly, I'm afraid of getting sued due to copyright issues. There are companies that have paid Ford to create several of the documents in CD form, and if we have a way for someone to download a document for free then they might sue. It has seemed safer to put sections of the FSM scattered across the site rather than to put the whole document in one place. (No, I'd not put one complete file on, but individual files for each section in the same fashion I've done for the '86 Engine & Emissions document.) Given that, I dunno. I'd like everyone's thoughts, please.

Andre - Welcome back! Did you get the house in Spain painted? The Bronco looks fantastic, although a bit sideways at times. On the hubs, I always use the instructions from the factory shop manual, Documentation/Driveline/4WD Front Hubs & Rotors, which says:

That's a really nice truck for $3700.

It isn't put on with adhesive. There are several fasteners and some studs to hold that trim on. You can see a bit of info on them on the page at Documentation/Exterior/Exterior Trim & Moulding. And the only places I'm aware of to get it are used and NOS. Find the part number from the page mentioned above and go looking for it on-line. But that can take quite some time and can be expensive.

Scott - That's an interesting idea. But it wouldn't have to be limited to the shop manual. On the other hand, that could get onerous to put together. We have FSM sections all over the site. And pages from the MPC. And..... But it would be nice to be able to see where things are. However, the FSM sections are frequently on tabs within a page and I don't think there's a way to provide a link to the specific tab.

I guess I ought to climb the Microfiche Tower and see what my other versions of the MPC say.

Bill - It worked on Big Blue, so I know it still works. Scott - I'm looking forward to seeing both of you. (I know her name but won't put it out there.)

Looks like it all fits correctly, Bill. You'll have this thing driving in no time!

Thanks, guys. Glad it works for you. I'll try to get the rest of it scanned in the next few days. But could still use some help on where to put it. However, I'm thinking of placing it in Documentation/Emissions. Thoughts?

Thanks, Jim, will do. I'm really looking forward to the trip. Scott talked me into going tomorrow instead of Saturday and I'm sure glad he did 'cause the weather looks wet for Saturday and most of the sessions are to be outdoors. Bill - I'm taking back his speed control tester as well as the one you sent, just so you know where it is.

Bummer! Ouch! Hope you heal up quickly. That sounds painful and quite limiting for your project time.

Dane/Grumpin purchased the 1986 Engine/Emissions Diagnosis book and sent it to me for scanning. I finally got started on it today and put up about 1/3 of it - 14 sections. But I need everyone's help in figuring out just where to put it. Currently it is last in the menu so it'll be easy for you to find and check out. Also, I'm planning to have each section on separate pages so the information will be found by search engines. But I'd also like your input on the best way to host this information. Jim - Please check and see if it works for you as there is info on the main page - and I suspect you can't get to it. Last, I plan to put hyperlinks on the Contents page, as shown below. Those two pages are part of the documentation on the main/top page, but they are kind of hidden. Where would be the best place to put them?