Gary Lewis

Glad it was that easy. Good thinking!

Yes, they add to the truck. Dress it up if you will.

Yes, congrat's!!!! Well deserved!

And, while you are pondering the questions set out above, here's my plan for the "power box":

Well, we took Big Blue on a true "shake down" cruise today. It was a total of 135 miles, but I'd say 90 of those were on dirt/gravel roads, 20 on narrow and rough 2-lane blacktop, and the rest on main highways. And nothing fell off nor rattled! In fact, all but one thing worked extremely well. The issue was the HVAC system. The fan didn't come on at all. So I'll have to check to see if I knocked the connector off the switch or caused a short some place. But it was in the 50's today with bright sunshine, and in the fishbowl of a cab it was warm enough that we opened both kick panel vents and that kept us cool enough. However, at times we did open the sliding rear window to get a bit more flow through, and that helped a lot. But opening the rear window also let us hear the tires and exhaust more. And then it dawned on me - I hadn't noticed any exhaust drone at 65 MPH, which is ~1800 RPM, when we were on major highways. In fact, I purposely drove at that speed and if I thought about it I could hear it - but only slightly. Now, having said that there's something else that I've not discussed - there's a vibration at ~3600 RPM. It isn't bad like "shut it down!" But it is there. I rarely get it up to that RPM so I'm not reminded of it very often. And I haven't played with it to see if it is at 3600 in all gears, but I think it is. Given that, might the "drone" I was hearing actually be a vibration? If so, maybe there's something else I should tell you. When I was rapping on the side of the bed the other day I heard quite a rattle and discovered that the long Explorer emblem on the rear of the bed was loose on the front half and rattled something fierce. So yesterday I taped it to the bed. Any chance that was the "drone"? Last, the MeterMatch seems to work nicely. However I'll need to adjust the Empty reading as we drove about 30 miles past when the gauge lined up squarely with the "E" and still didn't run out. So I want to drive it until it does run out and then re-program Empty.

Welcome! Glad you joined. And you are now on the map. Good looking truck. But as Jim said, it should be a 400. I really like that engine - mine puts out about 500 lb-ft and 400 HP. The front bumper looks like a Warn, which is what I have on Big Blue. Can you post a better/bigger pic? And, what winch do you have?

Welcome! I was driving my 250HD (more like a 350 now) on an outing today, so am late to welcome you. But, as Steve said, we have a map (Bullnose Forum/Member's Map in the menu) and we'd love to add you if we knew your zip code. Nice truck! I look forward to learning more about it.

That's cool, David! I hope my grands will have things like that of mine to remember me by. Maybe a truck or two?

And, for the record, I've said "welcome" twice before. But WELCOME!

That's the stuff! The little self-healing little tin tubes. What a surprise when one of those creases sprung a leak and got it on your hands, which then got it on whatever you were working on. But next time around that leak had sealed up.

That would be a whole lot less expensive than an Apple watch.

Yep, I'm sure you are right, Bill. That appears to be the way the slide locks were phased out and the pin locks phased in - by plant. But Big Blue's manufacture date of 5/85 is earlier than I expected the wire color change to be introduced. I would have thought that a date in August or September would have been more likely. So apparently the '85 trucks got a smattering of the wire color changes.

One slick trick if you have an iPhone and an Apple watch is to fire up the camera app on the watch, which let's you see whatever the phone's camera is looking at. And you can easily take a pic or video from the watch. I've used that several times to see what can't be seen.

Yep. Works every time. But I'm doubting your mother did that. However, I'd bet your grandmother did. Tell her hello for me.

If we are into mythical creatures like Naugas, that plyobond is aka gorilla snot.

So...it was 28 degrees this morning when I got up, perfect time to check this out. The verdict? Went into forward gear perfectly. In years past it could take anywhere from 1-3 minutes to start moving forward in sub-freezing temperatures, but today it got going with no difficulty. A C6 is a very sensitive transmission. I think they can sense a lot of things. I had one that wouldn't shift right so I pulled into O'Reilly's and bought a bottle of Sea Foam. Walked out, laid it in the seat, and started it up. The tranny never missed a beat after that. But I put the Sea Foam in anyway later that day.

On the trucks I've worked on the midship tank is pretty easy to see the top of by lowering it a bit using the long bolts that support it. There's usually plenty of room to sit up under the truck and get your head up above the tank just enough to see what is going on after lowering the tank.

Well done, Jacob!!!! While I can see differences between the pictures, I'm with you - the camera does NOT capture what we see with our eyes. I proved that to myself in my Instrument Lighting & Paint Testing thread where the camera said the incandescent bulbs with the blue filters essentially weren't visible but they certainly were. So, I'll rely on your statements, and the bit about the E-Codes bringing the lights into this century hit home with me. I'll be going E-Code headlights before the trip this summer, even though I do not plan to drive in the dark. And now for the voltage change. You saw roughly a 10% change in supply voltage with the harness. But that means MUCH more than 10% more light. The Lamptech website has the chart below, which shows that 10% more voltage gives almost 40% more lumens, which is the measure of light output. Well done!

Aaron - Welcome! Glad you found us. You did some reading to find the info on the map. Thanks for that, you are now on it. As Jim said, there's plenty of time to get old - like me. And these trucks are good to learn on as they are pretty simple. So we will be happy to help you with your project. Speaking of which, you'll want to start a thread in the main section regarding your truck, with pictures and all. (Not that you can't post pics in here as well.) But it sounds like you got a good one. On the stalling issue, your vacuum and fuel hoses are probably 40 years old. The vacuum lines may well have cracked, and the fuel hoses have a tendency to turn into mush - especially if the truck has had ethanol in it as the hoses weren't designed for that. The vacuum hoses can be replaced by buying bulk hose at the parts store. Just do a hose at a time and you won't go wrong. Ditto the fuel hose, and there's hose from the tank(s) to the hard line and from the hard line to the pump. But if you have dual tanks there's hose from the hard line to the valve on the frame below the driver and then from the valve to the next hard line.

I like the way you are preserving your grandpa's railing.

My concern yesterday was that I get the right wire. I didn't want to solder/heat shrink into the wrong wire and the colors aren't very distinct at the instrument cluster plug 'cause they've been unwrapped for 35ish years. The EVTM said I should be looking for a red with a yellow hash, but I wasn't finding one. I started to check the pinouts on the connector, but the EVTM doesn't give that info. (I should add it to our copy.) So I checked my '82 donor harness and sure enough there was a red w/a yellow hash mark. And it was in the same position as the red w/a yellow stripe on Big Blue. So now there is both a red/yellow stripe and a red/yellow hash wire at that position as I used a wire from the donor and grafted it in there.

Hmmmm, put Blue's seats in Big Blue?

Yep, that's much more like what I'd expect of a rebuilt C6. And you can probably beef it up for a bit more.

Janey recommended that I keep one bolt off Dad's truck that was original. So I have a valve cover bolt. Reminds me of the story about the family axe that was an heirloom. The handle had been replaced dozens of times and the head had been replaced several times, but it had always been in their family.

Yates Center in my home state? (Originally from Ark City.) Cool! I had a fraternity brother from there, but I can't remember his name. Anyway, you are now on the map.