Gary Lewis

Well, USPS says my t-case seal will be delivered by 9 PM. So I doubt there's going to be a test drive today. Given that, I decided that I'd see about relocating the coolant/windshield washer reservoir. So I dragged out a badly broken one and it looked like it would fit. Given that I pulled the vacuum reservoir and re-plumbed to the one on the HVAC plenum. Then I pulled the jack & mount as well as the jack handle, and then ensured I have a bottle jack in the tool box - yep. And here 'tis. Just have to make a bracket for it, move/extend the wiring to the washer pump, re-route the washer hose, and come up with a new, longer hose for the coolant. Then I can move the reservoir and have that space freed up.

Morning, Scott. Just assign it to me.

Not bad at all, although I'm not a fan of the satin black paint.

That sounds like you have a flakey connection somewhere that quit when the truck was moved.

I'm reading the mail here, so if it is determined there are actually three different floor pans then make sure I see that and I'll change that page.

Glad it worked, Ty. On your truck that wire should go back to a ground to the firewall ahead of the radio. You might check that it is in place. And then check that there is a ground wire from the back of the engine to the firewall close to if not on the windshield wiper motor.

Sorry to hear of your troubles, Dan. But glad you are now seemingly able to work on it, and hope you can get it back on the road soon. It is great to see an original owner with one of these trucks. We don't have many of those.

Thanks, Bruce! I've had the first COVID shot but am a week away from the 2nd, and they say to give it two more weeks before you have the full effect. So I'm being very careful. Hope you have a good weekend as well.

Bill - The relay near the aux battery is the isolator, and the one on the firewall is what I'm calling the accessory relay as it feeds power to the inverter. As by you placing the feed on the fender-mounted relay you then had enough wire to go to the PDB. But I put mine on the other PDB, and lost several inches right there. And that's why I need to keep the battery isolator close to the front. As for the trailer relays, I have one of those banks of relays. But I'd rather put them inside the PDB, so I'll see if I can. On the reservoir, I think the standard Bullnose one is going to fit perfectly over on the other side. Unfortunately the later model one I got off Huck won't fit as it is too big. But I'll keep your offer in mind. Thanks!

John - It isn't quite as bad as it looks. Or maybe I should say "it won't be as bad as it looks". That's 'cause I get to strip out quite a few of the wires in those harnii. That PDB is "the" source of power for the later trucks, but Big Blue gets his power the Bullnose way via wiring on the passenger's side - although that flows through fuses in the PDB rather than through fuse links. So I get to pull out most of the wires going to the big body connector circled in red. Then there are the wires going to the ECU, which go through the connector circled in green. (Don't worry, Bill, I know this isn't the EEC-V harness.) I won't need all of the wires in that so will thin them out as well, and already have a spreadsheet showing which ones I'm going to need and which I won't. I'll want to do most, if not all, of that work before I install the PDB as it will make it much easier to work with fewer wires. So I'll need to clear off the work table and lay the harnii out again and then figure it all out. That's tedious, but isn't too complicated. I already have a good start on how the PDB is wired as it is pretty much the same as the one on the passenger's side.

I measured the rear spring u-bolts today. To document, using the info from UBoltsDirect, below, I got: A: .624", which is 16mm, so they are slightly bigger than the .616" I measured on a 5/8" bolt. But 5/8" would probably be fine. B: 3.5" C: The current ones are 10", so I want 12" replacements Hope to test it tomorrow and, if I like the suspension, will order the bolts - probably from Ruf-Stuff. Oops, I just looked on their site and can't find 3 1/2 x 5/8 x 12. So maybe UBoltsDirect? They have them here and it looks like they are $14.50/ea + $4.80 for nuts and washers.

Good pics! Great progress!

You've done, or had done, a whole lot of work! Well done! Can't wait to see the pics.

Right Jim....lol! "I think we're parked man".....lol! I gotta see this, Gary. Think you can stuff a washer and dryer in there too....lol! Good idea! A washer and dryer would be wonderful when overlanding. Seriously though, I need to get the air cleaner box and the PDB in so I can later move on to EFI. And yes, it gets crowded. Just ask Bill, although he doesn't have the aux battery to add to the crowded mess. Hopefully it will be worth it. But, it is all going to fit, and I actually wasn't sure it would.

Would you care to elaborate? I’m having difficulty reading between the lines.

Ok, I did some measuring and dreaming and scheming and I think I have a plan. But I'd like y'all to tell me what you think of the plan. First, here's the driver's fender area showing where the EFI air box is supposed to sit. The red lines should be the front and back edges of it, and you can see that both the coolant recovery/windshield washer reservoir and the battery isolator have to move. I think the coolant recovery/windshield washer reservoir will go to the opposite side, as shown below. But that means I'll have to move the vacuum reservoir and the jack. The reservoir is a piece of cake as the new HVAC housing has one built in, as shown by the yellow oval. And the jack will just be removed as I carry a hydraulic bottle jack in the toolbox that has more lift and capacity. That leads me to the new location of the battery isolator. In the pic below of the wiring harness I've pointed to the connection point on the PDB for the cable coming from the passenger's side. The harness is laid out basically the way it is supposed to go in, with the arrow pointing toward the firewall. That means that the power wire from the other side has to come to the back side of the PDB, and for whatever reason there isn't that much slack. I think that's because of where I tied it in on the passenger's side, which is into the megafuse on the PDB instead of wherever Ford had it on the donor vehicle. In any event, it isn't long enough. So I'm thinking of placing the battery isolator below the air intake box. It looks like there is just enough room, and it would allow the wire that is already there from the other side to connect up w/o a problem. However, there are two problems. First, if someone drops a tool onto the fender liner and it slides down there it could easily cause a spark or two, so I'd probably want to protect the connections. But it also means that to get to the battery isolator the air box has to come out. However, that's not all that difficult as taking off the inlet hose and pulling 3 screws would have it off easily. So, what are your thoughts?

I can't read the sticker on the bottom of that seat base, but you can check it out up close. The prefix will probably tell us from whence they came. But they look like the standard captain's chairs. Your sig doesn't tell if you have a regular cab or an extended or crewcab. But I urge you to read what we have on the page at Documentation/Interior/Seat Interchangeability. If you have a regular cab then what you should do is to get the right seat base, as described there. And I strongly recommend that you do not drill holes and shim up to install those seats. It isn't safe, and is highly likely to crack your floor. At the very least you should reinforce the floor if you are going to drill new holes so you don't crack the floor.

That's funny! Our O'Reilly's has a high turnover rate. Different people each time I go in it seems. So normally now I go to the place run by two guys that have been in the business forever. But for things like speedo cable lube I thought O'Reilly's would be the better choice as they tend to have a wider selection of those kinds of things. I was wrong.

True, so some truck had the MCU. Gotta be CA.

That's expensive as well! But it is interesting. I didn't know that in '81 the 4.9L, 5.0L, & 5.8L had an MCU. Dad's '81 w/a 5.8L 351M sure didn't. I guess that was in California? And/or in cars?

Yeah, my son is going to want Big Blue, he just doesn't know it yet. But his sister could drive it as it is a manual and he never learned that. Anyway, good work! But more pics, please! And, make them bigger?

Yikes! That's 'spensive! But, I will say that back when I was doing the bucket seats for Dad's truck I probably would have paid $375 for one of those with the tracks on it. Sure is a pain to put bucket seat tracks on one of those bases that wasn't designed for them. I've actually seriously considered bucket seats for Big Blue, and that would be the ticket. However, I'm not sure how bucket seats would work with the storage unit, so I'm not ready to do that - yet. I've considered bolting the base and seats I have for Dad's truck in and seeing what I think. But there are so many other things to do!

Sounds like a whole lot of WORK! And you need to capture it in pics as you go so you can show your kids how important this truck is to you.

That was a good buy!