Gary Lewis

The timing is set @ 12 BTDC and there's no vacuum at idle. But I don't know what the spark looks like. Obviously the one ignition box was bad. It was new, so did it fail due to the coil or was it bad initially? I don't know.

Thanks, Rob. But how long did it take Eddy to clear up and settle down? And you are right about the fuel pressure. Not sure what is going on there.

Since you say the air flow shifts when you swap ground & power, I'd say it is working correctly.

I don't think I've ever seen one of those. And I didn't find 35540 in the MPC.

Excellent! Well done!

IT'S ALIVE! But, it runs about the way the monster looks. But let me tell the story. However, I won't embed all the videos but will just give you links, which will keep this shorter. Having said that, there are questions at the bottom I need help with. Here's what the truck looks like after seeing the light of day the first time in over a year: After installing the seat, albeit temporarily as I couldn't find the right bolts, we started it up. . And it ran POORLY! However, I ran it for 25 minutes to break in the cam, during which I realized the tach was doing wonky things, which implied that there was an ignition problem. So after the 25 minute break-in I shut it off and swapped ignition boxes. That made a huge difference, and you can tell that it runs pretty well. However, it still isn't running perfectly smoothly, as you can tell in . And, the fuel pressure is bouncing all over the map, as you can see , but I don't think that has anything to do with the missing. So, several questions: 1. Is the missing possibly due to the engine not being broken in? 2. If not, where do I start troubleshooting? 3. Or, do I drive it to find out?

Yep, they are. But what gears are you turning? If you go with 35's you'll need fairly low gears. With 3.55's you'll be turning about 1600 R's at 65 MPH. And I'd think that's about as low as you want to go. (But what do I know 'bout 300's?)

Janey has agreed to be my videographer, so we should have something to watch later today. As for the length of time, it really does seem like a long, long time. But when I go back and look at what's been done I'm gobsmacked. Wow! There's sure been a lot, and some of that has been two steps forward and one step back. Like the plan for the engine - change out the intake & heads - but the engine was totally worn out. Or the D60, which came back from the shop with two different axle bearings in it. And now the FDM problem. Bob - I'll put Poughkeepsie Gulch in the plans as well. My hope is that Bret and his family will fly into Denver and I'll pick him up while his wife and daughter visit friends since they used to live there. That will give us a few days and we can stay in a hotel in Ouray and run a number of the trails. Anyway, I'm outta here! See y'all later........

Matthew - I'm not sure how you can help, but the fact that you understood the requirements list tells me that you may be able to. Thanks! So, do you know your way around the AWS console? I don't, but will have to learn and you might be able to help me. Jim - I have confidence that our problems will be resolved. We may get some new ones along the way, but the response time and too-busy ones should go away with this change. The gentleman that is helping, Pedro, logged on yesterday afternoon and started setting up the server to support Nabble. In fact, he then came back via email and said that AWS is telling him that what he wants to do isn't in the "free" section and asked if he should proceed. I quickly said "Yes, PLEASE" as I'd already found that the cost is reasonable. He said that he's going to work on it quite a bit over this holiday, so I'm hoping that he has it up and running for two of Greg's forums by Monday. Who is Greg, you might ask. (Jim, I know you know, but the others don't.) He's my mentor on Nabble and runs a few small forums for things like the church he attends and a sail boat that was made in that area of the UK at one point in time. A couple of those forums are the test cases for this migration since their backups are quite small. Pedro got them up on a server a friend of his was renting and that proved the concept. So I'm sure they are what he's loading up on AWS at the moment. And when we get this up and running Greg's forums and ours will be the only ones on this server. So we should have excellent response time and no overloads!

Yes, Dad's truck has been a loooooong time coming. But there is still a lot to do on Big Blue. I've invited my son to go to Colorado with me next year and drive the trails around Ouray, and specifically Black Bear. And to do that we'll need more gas than the one tank, and really should have EFI instead of a carb for the large changes in altitude. So depending on what the 3rd FDM does, I may have to move on to EFI sooner rather than later. And we'll need the on-board air, which means we need the inverter. Plus I have the front driveshaft to build and the electro-mechanical mechanism for the Ox locker to install. And a place to house the switches for those things, and more. In addition, I want to remove some leaves out of the rear spring pack and add air bags, that way gaining usable articulation and a better ride. But I'm hoping to do those things as bite-sized projects, meaning not having to take BB down for more than a few days at a time, although the EFI will obviously take longer than that. Anyway, there's lots more to come.

Got my lights today. They came charged, although there's no way to tell how much of a charge they have. They put out a lot of light and look to be very useful. However they came at the end of the day so I didn't get to use them and don't yet have a "review" of them. But they look like they'll be very handy - especially at the price.

Thanks, Jonathan! I plan to video the startup.

Dave, That was a great read, thanks for posting. I'm really fascinated with these beds.I'll be rebuilding the bed for this 1980 Flareside project, but that won't be until the spring (at the earliest!). I'm planning to actually rebuild the bed sides. Bit of a long story, but the bed sides that came loose with this truck are homemade parts. I didn't fully realize until I got them home and examined them further, but it is what it is. Who ever made them actually did a pretty good job on the tops of the sides, and they re-used the fender humps from an old set of bed sides. I'm planning on brand new sides...almost complete, and I'll just graft the tops on them. I even bought a new set of fender humps used. They're not identical to the originals, but fairly close. Most would never notice the difference imho. I'm also thinking about going with the wood composite...or fake plastic wood. I saw an old truck with it last week and I thought it looked great. Anyway, time will tell. That stuff is still a ways away. I'm back to working on the frame this weekend. I still have several weeks to go on it, but as soon as I'm done welding it's getting painted asap and the cab will be dropped back on pronto. Once the cab is back on it, it will start to feel like a truck again...I hope...lol. Cory - When you get to looking at materials for the bed you might think about the weight. My brother built a bench for our mother and used Trex. When he got done it took two people to pick it up.

That's my design, and there's no cost known for it. A friend that runs a fab shop was going to make it for me, but he's got cancer and has more serious things to worry about. The price I mentioned was for the Blue Lake bumper.

Which one are you talking about, George? Mine, as shown in the 3D drawing, or those from Blue Lake Offroad? Not that it matters, I'm just curious.

I hadn't heard/read about that. But I can see that it could happen. Glad you are finding parts. They are getting hard to find. But some places sell a tank with the pump in it, so if you could find that it might save on shipping.

Jim - You should have what I suspect is a workable FDM in a few days awa a rag joint. As for what I got done today: Amsoil ATF added to the transfer case Royal Purple Synchro Max added to the ZF5 Royal Purple Synchro Max added to the power steering/hydroboost system All tie rod ends, ball joints, panhard rods, and u-joints lubed Toe-in set to neutral per Steve/FoxFord33 Power steering/air conditioning belt removed A deflector added to the passenger's side exhaust to prevent it from melting the right rear shock boot. Muffler bearings checked and red herrings discarded - as you can see below At this point I'm D.O.N.E. Tomorrow morning I'm going to check every hose clamp, plug, plug wire, etc. Then, when I can't think of anything else to check I'll roll it out, install the seat, and fire it up! :nabble_anim_jump::nabble_anim_jump::nabble_anim_jump::nabble_anim_jump::nabble_anim_jump::nabble_anim_jump::nabble_anim_jump::nabble_anim_jump::nabble_anim_jump::nabble_anim_jump::nabble_anim_jump::nabble_anim_jump::nabble_anim_jump::nabble_anim_jump::nabble_anim_jump::nabble_anim_jump:

Matthew - I sent you an email, but signed it "Gary guy" instead of "Gary fellow" so you probably think it wasn't me. Anyway, take a look.

Thanks, Matthew. That's reassuring to know. We are going with the Operating system (Linux), Quantity (1), Storage for each EC2 instance (General Purpose SSD (gp2)), Storage amount (20 GB), Instance type (t3a.small). And that's a really small instance. But there are plenty beyond that, so there's basically no limit to how much computing we could have if we need it. And effectively this will be "our" server. There are a few other really small forums that will be using it, but they are much smaller and have very little traffic - and none in some cases.

Christian - You need both the pump and the sending unit. You can get them together or separate if I remember correctly. My go-to place is Rock Auto for things like this. See if this link doesn't take you to a 1984 F250 w/a 460's fuel and air section. That will show you several options. To me the best is Motorcraft, but they are typically 3 times or more the cost of an Airtex or Spectra. I chose Spectra for Big Blue - and may have gotten two bad units in a row, although we aren't sure yet.

No, they have adapter plates that attached to the main engine crossmember/cradle. Info and pics on Documentation/Exterior/Frame/Engine Perches. And here's one of the pics for a 300, thanks to Dave:

As I'm sure you are aware, the service we've gotten on the Nabble server hasn't been all that good of late. And, I've told you about plans to fix that problem. Here's the latest... Some time ago a programmer got the open-source software that we use for the forum, called Nabble, to run on his own server. So the next step has been to secure a commercial server on which to host that software. With some research we settled on Amazon Web Hosting, and as of this morning we've contracted with AWS for a server that should give us excellent response time and a lot of room to grow. It will take some time to load up the software, load up one of our forum backups, and check everything out. I'm sure problems will arise along the way, but I feel pretty confident that this is going to work, and work very well. Ultimately we will have to cut over to the new server and take down the old one. And while that may take a few hours, the expectation is that all of our history will be preserved and everyone can log back in as if nothing has happened. I'll let you know when I know more, but hang in there, relief is on its way.

TWA Flight 800 sure had problems, and that was just jet fuel: Dunno what kind of current the FQIS carried, but the Bullnose fuel level system is powered by a system capable of providing around 3 amps. So "crazy readings" on a Bullnose fuel gauge worry me. I've not heard or read of any truck catching fire from it, but it worries me.

The thermal guages only average out the fluctuations due to turning corners or starting/stopping. But when they hit a dead spot in the trace they go to Empty pretty quickly. It is a poor design, for sure. And I'm amazed that we don't blow trucks up since there's up to 1/2 amp of current flowing and it is in the tank.

Christian - I think your conclusions are reasonable. I think you said that they plumbed around the valve, right? So can you blow through the ports? In other words, does the valve seem to be working? I ask because it is a critical piece in the whole system, and if it isn't working you'll either have to replace it or do something different. As for the fuel senders, the one in the front tank is typical - it works at different points but not everywhere.