Gary Lewis

This morning's overnight traffic on the forum was minimal, so while I drank the second cup, French, I had time to cogitate. Ponder. And the first thing I did was to track the storage unit - tomorrow! So that set me to thinking about how I'll use it beyond holding the inverter. Sitting in the window sill of the porch is the desktop charger for the handheld radios, which is plugged in via a wall wart, and almost under my coffee cup was the 12v charger cord. So I connected the two - in my mind - the storage unit and charging the handhelds. I can't see taking the desktop charger as it requires the radios to sit upright, making the whole thing big. But the 12v charging cord just plugs into the side of the radio, so I could lay the radio on a shelf in the storage unit, plug it in, and let it charge. But, plug it into what? Where does the power come from? When is it hot? And what else will I want to charge when on the road?

Rob - Thanks! It does seem to be coming together. In fact, Janey and I were talking about that last night. I'm hoping that I'll have the majority of the interior done next week and be able to take a day trip. Dane - That is a good idea! I'd been planning on having a switch in the radio bezel to turn the inverter on. But, if I just used the switch to bring the factory aux battery relay in it would accomplish the same thing. Maybe have switch on the dash bring in power to behind the seat even if the engine isn't running, but normally have it brought on in Accy or Run. And if I don't want the inverter on for some reason I could reach behind the seat and turn it off.

Note that I didn't say "flush" it. I do worry that doing so might dislodge things, but don't know that it will. However, if you just drain the transmission and the converter you aren't going to dislodge much. And changing the filter is a must as well. Personally, I've vowed to NEVER pull the pan on one of these transmissions w/o installing a drain plug. I've made a huge mess in pulling the pans over the years, so I want to be able to drain it before pulling the pan. And for ~$14 delivered, this B&M one from Amazon looks good.

Sounds like a good plan. And, by the way, you are now on the map, which shows that you and Jim aren't far apart. If the '81 has lots of options, like the fog lights, you have a rare one. Let's see some pics! But you may want to read up on how to do that as it isn't the easiest thing on this site: Bullnose Forum/Forum FAQ's in the menu. And, there's info in there on how to create a signature, which would help us as we try to answer questions.

Just doing some musing, thinking, dreaming. The behind-the-seat storage unit comes in tomorrow, and I'm thinking about how I'm going to use it. One thing I hope to do with it is to have a place to store things like the GMRS handhelds, flashlights, etc. But that also means I need to be able to charge them. The two flashlights I have charge via USB, so I'll need USB ports back there. But the handhelds will probably be charged via 12v as I don't see a need to carry the desktop charger. And if I get a Garmin inReach it will be charged via USB. So I'm thinking that I'll want to put several 12v "cigarette lighter" ports back there. Powerwerx has some mounting plates that might be useful as well as the ports themselves that fit the plates. And there are all kinds of plug-in USB chargers available, although I could put a dedicated USB charger in one of the holes in the mounting plate. That then raises the question of how to power them. The 3kw inverter is to sit behind the seat as well and it'll have LOTS of power to it, so I could come off that power through a suitable fuse to a power panel. However, I'd planned to run the power to the inverter off the original aux battery relay, which is only powered in Accy or Run. But it might be good to have the power to the charging ports hot all the time. So I'm rethinking when the power to the inverter will be hot. On the other hand, if I want to leave the flashlights, radios, etc plugged in 24x7 then I don't want them charging all the time - just when the truck is running. And, I'll have always-on power in the ash tray, so maybe I make the power behind the seat hot in Accy or Run and just use the ash tray port(s) for 24x7 charging as whatever is there will be much more visible - meaning I won't forget it is being charged. Thoughts?

Welcome, Nick! You have an addiction! But you've come to the right place - we understand and can commiserate, but don't see a need to "fix" you. And why not have your son join as well? We intend to be family oriented/safe. It looks like you have the makings of a good truck. I assume you are going to use the 300 in the '80? Is it a 4wd already? One tip - the early 1980 trucks had slightly different wiring in some cases. For instance, the instrument clusters are different as the lights in the "eyebrow" are in a different order. So watch out for that. And, if the '81 was a "stripper", meaning as cheap as possible, it might have idiot lights instead of gauges. Or the '80 might. Note that the dash wiring is different between the two as there are more wires to the gauge cluster than to the idiot light cluster, and different connectors. Last, we have a map - Bullnose Forum/Member's Map in the menu. We could add you with a zip or city.

Dane - If you don't know how old the fluid is I'd have it changed and see what happens. My SiL had a Jeep Cherokee that wouldn't back out of the driveway w/o lots of throttle and slippage. We put a bottle of one of the name brand transmission fix/seal sweller stuff in and drove it a bit. The next morning it backed right out of the driveway. I told him it was a temp fix as the chemicals in the fluid were worn out and he needed to have the fluid changed. Sure enough, in a month or so it started slipping again. So he took it to a shop and they said if you change that fluid you'll ruin the tranny. I said try another shop. The next one said the same. The third one changed it and he drove it for several years with no problems, but had to sell it when they moved to Nicaragua. So I'd have your fluid changed. Lots less expensive and lots easier than a rebuild. And not expensive enough that if it doesn't work you've lost a lot of money.

If it is a seal then a temp fix might be a can of "seal sweller". Many of the additive companies sell chemicals that are supposed to soften and swell the seals. I've had some experience with them and they work - for a while. But typically they are making up for worn out chemicals in the ATF. Which is why I asked how new it is.

I've not experienced exactly that. In my case the tranny hadn't been used in a couple of years and it wouldn't go forward in D, but would in 1st. And it was fine in R. After usage it got better, but I put a bottle of Sea Foam in it and after a few miles it was fine. I'm not sure if the Sea Foam did it or if just more usage did it. How old is your fluid?

I'm not sure what diagrams you mean, but Ford's diagrams only have the generic part number on them. Not the complete part number. You have to go to the Text section of the MPC to get the complete part number. In other words, a diagram for a tilt column will show 11A599, as will a diagram for a fixed column. To explain, the generic part number of 11A599 is good for every Rod (Ignition Switch Actuating) used on every Ford vehicle of any kind produced any where in the world. But if you stick the prefix of E0TZ in front of it you know it was first used in 1980 on a light duty truck. And add -A behind E0TZ 11A599 and you know it fits all 1980 - 86 F-Series trucks and Broncos with fixed wheels.

If you mean "replaced by", none of the parts show to have been replaced by anything else And the -A version is for fixed columns and -B for tilt/adjustable columns.

Thanks, Dane! And yes, I'm still going to drill holes for the speaker. I think I'll use Scott's suggestion and drill the same pattern Coverlay used on the dash cover, although a much smaller pattern. And, speaking of the dash cover, I thought of another reason to leave it black - the radio and instrument bezels will be black. So there's an overall theme going on with the bezels, headliner, and dash cover being black. If I had it to do over again I might have left the door panels black and painted all the other trim to match.

I tried "site:garysgaragemahal.com LRC" in the Weebly search and the results I got were strange. Twenty results, none of which should have LRC. So I think the answer is NO!

We didn't have 11A599 shown in the parts #'s on the page at Documentation/Interior/Steering Columns, but we do now:

Thanks, Jim. I got the screws, shown below, ordered as well as some #8 fender washers. I'll have to make spacers and drill the holes for the sound and then I can button it up until the screws & washers come in. I'm going to put foam in around the "sound hole" to channel the sound out. I'm thinking a couple of pieces of my .14" Noico foam between the radio and the bracket will work, and probably three pieces between the bracket and the plastic piece will be needed. Hopefully that will get the sound out cleanly.

Got quite a bit done on the GMRS radio installation. In fact, all but drilling the holes for the sound and ordering the right screws & washers. But, it wasn't that easy, by a long shot. First I cut out the opening for the radio in the face of the L-shaped piece. I did that by c-clamping the aluminum trial piece onto the face, cutting as much as I dared out with the Dremel, and finishing up with files. Lots and lots of filing. When the radio fit through the face I started trying to figure out how to determine where to mount the radio to the top. And that turned out to be a problem I couldn't solve. There was just no easy way to measure where it should go. So I went back to Plan A and mounted it to the L-shaped bracket. And even then it turned out to be easier said than done. The first thing I did was to use a 1 1/2" hole saw on the bracket. That turned out quite well, and you can see here that the hole pretty well clears the active speaker holes: And the bracket is still quite strong, so I decided to use one screw on each side. But by then I'd realized that the screws that go into the rubber nuts are 8-32, so that's what I wanted to use to hold the bracket. But the slot wasn't large enough so I milled it out. Then I found the right place for the screws and drilled the holes in the L-bracket. With a bit of measuring I found that the bracket needs to be 11/32" above the L-shaped piece to go into the opening properly. And it turned out that a fender washer and two nuts comes close to that, so that's what I put in. But then I discovered that it is going to be very difficult to get nuts on those screws, as you can see below. So I'm going to make a spacer that's the right length and tack nuts to the bracket so I can slip the screws in after the radio and bracket are put in place. But, I did get it together for taking pics. But, as you'll see, the screws I have aren't the right ones, but I'll order some replacements for both the bracket as well as holding the whole thing in place. In the interim I can still put it all together since the screws are easily gotten to by just pulling the L-shaped piece off.

The people on this forum are so very illuminating!!! Bob - I think it was better than , and far far better than .David - Yes, they are! Well done!

Nabble. I edited the post. Thanks!

Ok guys, I've done some more work and have some results. I used the Nabble search function, the "site" function w/in a Google search, and a free Google search function I created, all to find "LRC": Nabble: 45 instances across 14 different threads. And if you click on the link you are taken to the post in which LRC was used. But, note that Weebly only searches the forum so it didn't find the instance in the 3G Conversion page that Google found. Google search via "site": 20 instances across 9 threads and the one page in documentation. And if you click on the link you are taken to the page within the thread where LRC was mentioned but not the post. Custom Google Search: 7 instances across 6 threads and the one page in documentation. And again, clicking the link takes you to the page in the thread, not the post. To me the results are pretty telling. The Google searches are far less complete and harder to use, so I don't see a reason to spend more time trying to implement a custom Google search. But am I missing something?

I think I just had a brilliant idea. I've been puzzling over how to tap into the dome/map light wiring but leaving it so it could be used in future as was originally planned. And it just dawned (Get it? Brilliant? Dawn?) that I can just put ring-tongue terminals on the wires and run a screw into the wire terminations. For those who haven't dealt with the dome light wiring, the wires end in a weird insulated terminal that snaps into a hole in the roof's inner liner. The dome/map light is mounted by three screws - one that goes into the always-on terminal, one into the switched terminal, and one into the cab itself for ground. And I need exactly those circuits: always on for the radio, switched power for the dome light, and ground for both the radio and the dome light. So just put ring-tongue terminals on the wires and run screws through them into the terminals/cab. Done. (That emoticon is named Beam.)

LED's and their much smaller draw seem to find all sorts of problems in these systems. At least you know what the problem is. Have fun fixing it.

Rob - I hope I like the black. But it isn't that hard to take it out to paint it, so I'll give it a try and see. Jim - I used a 1/8" mill and when I first took the part out it had nice radiused corners. But, then I discovered that the width was .020" too small and I used a safe file and took the ends out - which squared the corners up. But to make it fit the profile I'd have to come back something like 1/4" and bevel the corners. I could do that on the plastic as it wouldn't be that difficult. We shall see. On the bed, I have the large and loaded tool box in there as well as a liner and then the brackets for the 5th wheel hitch. So getting down to where it could be sprayed with bed liner would be a lot of work. But cleaning off the inside of the skirts wouldn't be hard at all and then I could stick some of the self-adhesive squares of Noico sound deadening on. Can't hurt and might help. And now's the time before the the tank for the compressor goes in under there.

Bill - That's probably a good idea. That way you can plug lots of things in, including a USB charger. I've looked a bit at what's available and haven't found what I'd like to find - a replacement for our cigar lighter sockets which don't always connect well to everything. So if you find something please let me know.

Three things. First, David/1986F150Six sent me an email today asking about installing resonators on Big Blue to quiet the drone I'm hearing @ 1800 RPM, which is 65 MPH. I did some research and then called the outfit that installed the exhaust system. They told me that they've had success with adding small mufflers to quiet a drone. But that a noise at a very specific RPM might be a vibration and that I might want to put it on the lift at that RPM and take a look. But that got me thinking about vibrations and I remembered that I recently rapped on the door and then the bed side. Wow! The bed rang! So I'm wondering about applying some of my sound deadener to the inside of the bed sides? Or, David asked about "some sort of "rust free" undercoating which could be sprayed in that area and would it change that characteristic?" Thoughts? Second, my glue job on the black Coverlay dash cover worked out nicely. And the cover fits so well that I'm tempted to leave it black and use some black paint to touch up a couple of spots that might be seen. That would make the dash match the headliner/Highliner - black. So I'm going to leave painting the cover until the last and see what Janey and I think when I lay it in there. And, the new Coverlay covers are a much better fit than the old ones. For instance, the skirts that go down into the defroster vents go in so far that I had to drill the cover to take a screw to hold the whole dash pad on, as you'll see below. But I'll use the flanged-head interior screws rather than the oval headed screws as those need to be countersunk and I don't think the think cover would hold up to that. Last, I realized that I can't get the L-shaped piece for the Highliner in the mill given its shape. So I decided to cut a piece of aluminum to use as a template so I can lay it on the piece and scribe against it. Here's the piece with the radio pushed through it and resting about where it is to go. I'm not thrilled with the fit because the corners of the radio are beveled and my cutout isn't. But you can easily see that in the picture because there's light back there and there won't be any light when the L-shaped piece is put in place. And, the color I painted the panel, flat black, is enough different than that of the radio that you can see which is which. However, the L-shaped piece is a black very similar to that of the radio, so I don't think it'll be easily seen. Thoughts?