Gary Lewis

Thanks, Scott! Man, finding the switches is a PAIN! Amazon has some. Digikey has some. Mouser has some. But their descriptions vary from each other's and from Carling's. And decoding the part numbers is worse than Ford's.

Thanks, Dane!

Haha, Gary, it would be more like a Premier...that's the Canadian version of a State Governor. You'll always be the Prime Minister. Well, I could give it a try. I usually avoid having any responsibilities with forums...lol, but let me read through some of the documentation and see if I can figure something out in my head. I enjoy Bullnose minutia, BUT...my experience, knowledge and interest ends at 5 lugs...lol. Ok, you are now the Premier Of Bullnose Minutia. Or is that Minutia Premier - Bullnose? Or??? Yours to name, and yours to do. THANKS!

Thanks, guys! Here are the plans from back on this post: And right now I'm working through this page to figure out what switches I want to order:

Just remembered, and I’ve mentioned this about my President Bill CB, it has a USB charge port. Interesting, you made me think, and that kinda hurt! Yeah, I understand that "that kinda hurts" bit. Got a bit done today. But before I get into that, I looked my wiring harnii over today and do not have the pieces needed to add the power windows circuit. Scott, if you are willing to part with your spares please text me with what you want for those pieces. As for what I did, the first that was to use the chassis punch on Big Blue's ash tray. Turned out nicely, but I've included the take-out piece to show how much offset I gave it in order to center the hole up/down and side/side. I also noticed a difference between the ash tray I punched out yesterday and Big Blue's. In the pic below BB's is on the top and the other on the bottom. Notice that BB's door is against the face of the charger and the other has a bit of a gap. BB's door doesn't want to close easily as it catches on the charger. I can file that edge of the door down, but will wait to see how the new charger fits before doing that. With that done I turned to the switch "cage" and the medium-duty truck radio bezel. I laid out the lines, cut w/the Dremel, and filed, and filed, and filed. And all of a sudden it slipped in. Then I popped the OX switch in and installed it in the truck. Mission Control is taking shape! I'm quite pleased that the bezel is solid when you push the switch. So now I need more switches.

Cory - Would you be willing to take on the Minutia Czar role? Or, would that be Prime Minister? I'd really LOVE it if we could start dividing up things, like John took on the truck of the month thing. We could give you special powers to move things around or even be an editor on the website.

Haha, I guess I didn't explain myself fully Gary, did I?...lol. I see funny discussions on the Bullnose Facebook groups all the time, and while I can't be bothered to correct them every time, I do try once in a while. Funny one the other day was "The 302 was the only V8 offered in the Bullnose trucks in 1980-1981, because the 351w didn't come out until 1982". Somebody chimed in and said that their truck has a 350M/400 in it, and then somebody else said they also had a 351M/400. (Of course there was also the little known 255 V8, but it's rare enough these days it's hardly worth bringing up, except in a debate...lol). I'm no expert on the 351M/400 engines, but I have been hearing this since I was a little kid. But...isn't a 351M one engine, and a 400 is another? We had a 1978 F150 4x4 with a 400...at least that is what my old man called it...just a 400. I've heard people say that their truck has a 351M in it, but at the same time, I've heard just as many people say that they have a "351 modified 400". Anyway, good reading on the topic here: https://www.moderndriveline.com/the-confusion-of-the-351m-400-ford-engines/ Another one that has popped up several times recently is the Clark transmission. Isn't that another mistake? A lot of people seem to think that they have a Clark transmission in their Bullnose. Another topic that I see debated on a fairly regular basis is the first year for EFI. Some will say that it was 1985, others will say that it was 1986. Others will say that EFI was simply an option, like the color of the truck, and you chose carbureted or EFI when you ordered it. I know some topics are kinda weird with these trucks due to the common mid-year changes and whatnot, but I think a lot of them are fairly indisputable facts. I suspect the source of the confusion on the 351M/400 is that the emissions sticker says "351M/400". But it is the family rather than one engine. See if this page helps: Documentation/Engines/351M & 400. I think we have many of the bits and pieces you are talking about, but just scattered all over the website/forum. Check out Documentation/Bullnose FAQ's. And Documentation/Year-to-year Differences. So, how do we pull all of that together? Is there someone that would step up to be the Bullnose Trivia King?

How detailed are you thinking, Cory? Would the bit about the wiring dots/hash marks going to stripes fit? The slide lock to pin lock conversion? Or, what did you have in mind?

Note: Ulric has been banned forever. I'll leave this post up for a while to dissuade others from doing the same and then will put it in Quarantine.

That makes sense, Jim. Glad to know they aren't counterfeit.

A young man escaping a troubled home life and a con man escaping the law meet on an open road in the middle of nowhere. As their friendship develops, they learn from each other.

Welcome, David. It does take some time, but it isn't too much. And I'm learning as I go, so it is an experience. Mostly good, but sometimes stressful as new problems arise and I don't immediately have a good solution. But we are going to get "there". I have faith. And "there" is a forum with software that is running on servers for which we've contracted. In other words, captains of our own destiny!

Time for yet another update. Especially since I've been seeing slow response times and other issues from Nabble when I post on the forum. As background, we are running on Nabble software on Nabble servers - for free. But the powers that be have realized that they aren't covering their costs and are migrating more and more forums onto fewer servers in order to reduce their costs. And that has had its impact on response time - to the point that sometimes things time out and get dropped. But the software, called Nabble, was made open source, so a couple of us have been working with a system admin to bring it up on servers we control. He got really close with one outstanding problem, lack of email notification, when I realized that the service we'd selected, Amazon Web Services, was costing a whole bunch more than expected. After a call with AWS we turned that instance off and the sys admin has brought the Nabble software up on another Amazon service called Lightsail, which is far less expensive. At this point we are just about ready to upload one of the 3.6 gig backups of this forum to Lightsail and prove that we are back to where we were and ready to tackle the email problem. Once the email problem is solved, which will take some time as the sys admin has to find all of the instances in the code that send email and change them, we'll plan the migration - assuming no other problems are found twixt now and then. But there will be plenty of information shared as we get closer to that. Hopefully it won't require any changes on your end, but we will let you know. In the interim:

Ahhh! Ok, I understand.

I'm not sure what the problem was with the battery tender, but it wasn't a direct short as it didn't blow the 2 amp fuse in the leads going to the battery. It just pulled a few ma over a long enough period to really pull the battery down. Anyway, I just ordered this Anker USB C to Lightning Cable to make use of the to-be USB-C charger. Both are to be in tomorrow. I needed a new charging cord in the truck anyway. The one that was in there was falling to pieces. Apparently the UV had killed the insulation and it was falling off like a snake's skin. As for the isolator, the Cole Hersee is a big relay with smarts that pull it in. So there's essentially no voltage drop across it.

It wouldn't go w/o an Amazon order number, so used another one of ours. It finally took it and then popped up a message that said "Network is not stable, please contact support@aukey.com". So I sent them an email at that address. But I'm getting suspicious of Amazon. Janey was looking at a board game for the grandkids that normally runs ~$50 and found it on Amazon for $22. She asked me about it and I read several of the comments, many of which said they'd gotten counterfeit games, as confirmed by the manufacturer. Amazon said they were verified purchases, and yet hadn't responded to the claims. Am I paranoid? I got a response from "support" at Aukey, and they said that the device shown on the Amazon site is theirs. But that's in spite of them not showing it on their site.

Just as I thought, Ron. But I don't understand what you aren't going to trust when it is back on the road. That the keys won't scratch the newly-painted dash or....?

I agree - if the charger is working properly. But you mentioned the battery tender, which had 110v AC on one side and 12v DC on the other, and somehow it drained the battery. All I'm saying is that the USB charger could fault internally and drain the battery just like the battery tender did - without blowing any fuses by the way. Which, as I said, gives more support to using switched power for the USB charger.

Have you checked out the section from the factory shop manual here? Documentation/Driveline/Axles & Differentials. Then the Front Axles & Differentials tab and then the Instructions tab then the Dana 44 tab.

Nice looking truck. Not my favorite color scheme, but it still presents well.

On the mystery draw on the Xterra, I had a 2011 Nissan Murano that brand new had a mystery draw. It would randomly bring the headlights on and drain the battery. After some serious words with the dealership they finally put it in a dark corner of the shop and sure enough, days later it turned the lights on. There was a problem with the body control module, and they replaced it with the last available BCM in North America. Might you be having a similar problem, Dane? Yes, there are all sorts of things that the electronics can do on a whim that will drain the battery. Which is why I am seriously considering going to switched power for the charger. Jim is right that the electronics in the charger can decide to start charging on a whim, although it would have to have a device plugged into it for the charging to actually happen. But it could fail and short to ground. As for the SCR, yes it would have less draw than the coil circuit of a Bosch relay, but I think it would be rare that I'd ever use that feature and the extra current won't be noticed. It would only be in something like the scenario Scott outlined where you are going in some place and need to give a boost to a device while the key is off. But if I've been driving I doubt the phone would be that discharged, and I don't like to leave my phone in the vehicle while I go in to eat, or shop, or whatever. So I'm not sure I'll install that feature, but I was intrigued by the challenge of designing that setup. On the battery, you may be right that it was damaged by the battery tender. I think I need to keep a close eye on it. But as I think about it the idea of having electronics like a charger hot all the time concerns me as failures do happen. More support for switched power to the charger.

With the key off push the button and the switched power load will sink enough to pull the relay in. Let up on the button and the relay stays latched in. But turn the key on and now you have 12v to both sides of the coil and the relay drops out.

Ok, here's what I ordered: 36W Socket Dual USB Type C PD 3.0 (36W) + USB A QC4.0 (18W). The writeup says: Supposedly it won't do this tablet, but I might buy the charging cable to find out if it'll charge it slowly. Otherwise I'll use the AC charger.

Bill - Actually a latching relay setup sounds appropriate. Put a push button beside the charger to latch the relay, and when power comes on with the key the next time the relay drops out. I'm thinking use the switched circuit as the ground for the relay's coil and the push button supplies power to bring the relay in, at which point it supplies its own coil power. Push the button when the key is off and surely the switched wiring will sink enough current to bring the relay in. Turn the key on and you now have 12v on both sides of the coil so it drops out. Scott - I agree with you, so I bought it. Should be here on Friday. They also have a plug-in unit but it is only QC3.0 instead of QC4.0. But it is low profile should would probably fit nicely into a power port and still let the ash tray door close. I think I'll check the quiescent current on the device before I convert to switched power. If it is really low I might leave it hot and not have to worry about a latching relay.

Interesting! I've not tried lubricating the linkage nor the cable. May try that. Thanks.