Gary Lewis

Welcome! Glad you joined. Man, 2.47 and OD is really a high-geared outfit. I've heard others with a combo like that say they couldn't shift into OD if there was a hill in that zip code. But it should be good for cruising, that's for sure. Show us some pics? You may want to look at how to post pics in the FAQ's at Bullnose Forum/Forum FAQ's in the menu. And speaking of the menu, you can see our map at Bullnose Forum/Member's Map. We can add you with a city/state or zip - with or without a hill.

The MPC says your differential is "E3TZ 4026-A". And according to the 1980/1989 Ford/Lincoln Mercury Cars MPC that differential wasn't used in any car. Sorry.

OK, I might have found one. I do present this with some trepidation, because Hell's Revenge is a scary trail and you'll see that in . But I think this video also does a pretty good job of showing how difficult the trail isn't. They have a Grand Cherokee (with traction control, but no flex and no ground clearance), a crew cab Tacoma with open diffs and a Wrangler. Two of those vehicles would have a lot more trouble with this trail than Big Blue, and they both make it pretty easily. Yes, they do have a great spotter, but I have no doubt that we can get Big Blue over this with no trouble. Skip over from 13:07 to 25:13. That's Hell's Gate, which is an optional obstacle. You can watch it if you want to be entertained, but don't worry about it. You won't be doing that! From 34:00 to 35:52 is Dragon's Tail, possibly the scariest section of the trail. His verbal description is probably a bit of hyperbole, but you might feel a lot like what he says! But as scary as it is, as you watch this from the safety of your living room, keep an eye on how easy it really is. Coming off the top is spooky because you can't see the trail. But I didn't have any real trouble (although I did have some nerves!) doing this the first time we were there. And Pluto's hood is a billboard! Even without your camera you wouldn't have it much, if any harder than I did and with your camera it will be easy to know you're on the right line. Because all you need to do here is stay in your lane. And with the black tire marks it's really easy to see where that is. It's like that two-lane highway metaphor I keep coming back to. If you get out of your lane you could be in real trouble. So no problem, you just stay in your lane! So take a look at this. And probably watch it a few times. Hopefully it will give you a better understanding of what the trail is. We'll still wait until after doing Sevenmile Rim and Top of the World to decide if you think you can have fun on Hell's Revenge. That experience will be helpful in making this call too, but I want you to have a picture of Hell's Revenge as well. Ok, I'll watch the video, but a little later this morn as Janey will be beside me in a couple of minutes and I don't think I'm ready to show her. At least not until I've seen it

Good point, Jim. The springs will settle and the caster will change.

That makes a huge difference! Care to check something for me? Search in the Illustration or B section for "Section 400" and then scroll down to Page 5 of that section. Does it look like the one below? (I'd have you search for P-15520 but apparently the angle caused that not to be OCR'd.) I have two copies of the MPC from two different vendors and both have the same problem on that page, and others as well. Obviously both of mine came from the same source. How 'bout yours?

Yep, you don't have enough caster. Here's what the shop manual says:

Our son lives there and I've done quite a bit of work on his house. Whomever wired it originally had no clue. Then there's all the destruction that was done to Big Blue when he lived there. Good luck!

Is the pdf searchable? My copy came as a pdf but it was just pictures of the pages. I ran my optical character recognition program on it and now can search for part numbers, words, etc.

Just thinking about the contact being behind the king pin makes it easy to see how positive caster causes the wheel to return to center.

If the box isn't too tight then it sounds like you may not have enough caster. My limited understanding is that caster causes the tires to return to straight-ahead.

I would agree the PN you found fits a bunch of different trucks. That’s because the radiators and fans also fit several different trucks. Where did you find the MPC with a Ford watermark in it?

Good catch!!

I'm certainly not going to tell you (or him for that matter) what safety precautions to take. And the general rule is to never 'wheel alone, but I almost always violate that rule. But I wouldn't feel this is remote enough to be a concern. Top of the World is WAY more remote than this, as far as that goes. And he talked about seeing tour vehicles, so it seems likely that someone would show up if you needed them to. I wouldn't COMPLETELY rule it out for day 5 of this trip. But I think we're going to leave this for another year. As far as what you might do, I'm just offering info for your consideration. Obviously you do what the two of you will enjoy! I've heard it said that if you need recovery boards to get unstuck that you weren't actually stuck. Personally I've never had a need for them. And I don't see anything there that would really qualify as "deep sand." The year I 'wheeled in Sand Hollow I saw what that was, and Moab doesn't seem to have any. Aired down wide all-terrains should be plenty. But again, I'm not telling you to do this on your own. I'm confident you could do it, but you'll have to see where your confidence is by that time to know if it will be fun or just too stressful. If I recall correctly, my interpretation of that was that he wasn't sure which way the trail went and what might be old tracks that went off trail. I think the trail was a little less well defined right there. But my interpretation could be wrong. And whatever reason he stopped, he didn't seem to have any concerns about getting going again, so that's good. I think sometimes the tour drivers try to scare passengers! And I'm sure there are lions and snakes around there. But there's been a bear in my suburban neighborhood, and mountain lion sightings outside of towns not far from my house. I'm not going to stress over hearing about it there. Maybe try to be a little careful about where you walk (regarding snakes), but lots of tourists go there all the time and I don't here much about lions or snakes, so I think the encounters are pretty rare. Like I said, don't go alone is always good advice, but it's often not followed. And as remote as this seems, remember that it is in the busiest National Park in the country! There are a lot of people not that far away! The different names for the road could get a bit confusing. But it doesn't seem like there are all that many intersections, so I don't think it'll be hard to know where you're going. I’ve been stuck where “recovery boards” would have been helpful. But that was in 1965 in a 47 Chevy 2wd. We were going fast when hit the beach and got 100 yards out before bogging down to the axles. We found old boards in a drift pile and got it out 6’ at a time. Dig, place the boards, drive 6’ & sink, dig, rinse, repeat. It was a loooong day. So if I were doing that loop by myself I might use it as an excuse to buy recovery boards. But two vehicles could use each other to winch out - even with the weight difference between Pluto & Big Blue. But Janey and I will keep it in mind. As for the pause at the top of the ridge, my thought was that he needed to see where the trail went. My brother and I had the same problem in Ouray, many times. Which was one reason I got the cameras. On the trail names, I may throw another in the mix. I have the Garmin Montana and need to see what trails it shows and what it calls them. Plus I have Gaia, All Trails, & onX Offroad. So even if Garmin doesn’t have a trail I can download it from one of the others and import it. But I haven’t started that yet should do, soon.

Ok, I'm watching the 43 minute Tower Arch Loop video and will comment as I go. But first for a summary of my thoughts. I think that would be a good excursion for two or more vehicles. Not that I saw anything that would be a challenge or dangerous, but the remoteness could be an issue if you did have trouble. My Garmin has inReach and my iPhone has an emergency capability, but it might take people quite a while to get to you. I think we'd be happy to consider that if you wanted to do so, but we'd also be happy to just come in via Willow Springs and poke around the park instead of exploring the backroads. You are right, he does talk a LOT. He seems to have very large tires but not a terribly-low gear ratio. Don't hear much from the engine in M1 and 4-Low. The comment about deep sand is interesting as I don't have recovery boards and, as he said, there's nothing to get hold of for self recovery. So if doing that by ourselves I think I'd want to have recovery boards along. At 10:00 he says "Going to get out here and see where this trail goes." Not sure if he was meaning that he's not sure as he crests the hill, which my camera should help with, or if he just wants to give us a good view. And it was an awesome view. At 13 - 15 minutes he goes down a rocky section, and at 14 minutes he said the "older couple" in the tour vehicle looked terrified. The passageway at 23 minutes sure looks narrow, but the arches look awesome! But a mountain lion? And rattlesnakes?? 26:34 Sign says "4WD Road" but FunTreks calls it Tower Arch & Trails OffRoad app calls it Eye Of The Whale. 31:00 "Don't come out here alone." 40:00 Intersection with Willow Springs, which they take. 42:22 they talk about having gotten into the park at 9:00 and it was 2:45 then and they weren't quite out of the park. So that was certainly an all-day excursion. But quite doable.

What you are describing is what I've experienced when tightening the adjustment on the steering box. With a worn box you either have slop & return to center, or no slop and no return. I always had to put the box back to where it originally was. If someone has previously adjusted your box and not marked where it was originally then you are going to have a hard time getting it back. But I'd mark where it is now and then loosen it about 1/16 turn. Does that allow it to return? Does it feel like it is still tight and needs a bit more? If backing it off lets it return but then introduces slop you have a worn steering box. And you'll have to decide if you can live with it or want better steering. If so replace the box with a Redhead or Blue Top.

75 days, but who's counting? I hadn't said, but I'd been thinking that down the Shafer Switchbacks is the way to do it. And all that means is that we'll have to remember that we have Potash Road to traverse at the end of the day, so will just have to know when to head back. And airing down is not a problem. (Which reminds me, I have enough hose and air to help you air up when the times come.) And as we've discussed elsewhere, I'd already sorta planned to take Willow Springs/Flats road. And I've just watched Cache Valley Road video, which looks easy. But only got started on the 2nd video and saw how long it is so will finish it up tomorrow. However, I'm not sure how remote we'll want to get by ourselves, so that may govern a bit of the planning. On the other hand, we'll have a lot more 'wheeling under our belts by then, so may be ready to do it. Anyway, more on that tomorrow. Thanks! Oh yes, I clicked on the map link and it opened the same map I already had open.

I think Jim is the one that recommended that thing to me, but it wasn't my idea. As for the relay draw, the one I have on the bench pulls 3.5A to engage. But I'm confused as to how you would be wiring this, and I know Jim is. Please enlighten us.

When my Cole Hersee smart battery isolator didn't have enough stud length for the wires I was using I bought one of these repair studs. It screwed right on and gave me more stud for the wires. Don't know if it'll work for you. But you could always put another junction block somewhere else, although then you'll need a jumper to it.

Yep, that was a factory option. And a sharp one at that.

That says it should be the Midnight Blue Metallic on top and bottom and Wimbledon White in the middle.

The order is supposed to be that the first color is the top and bottom of a two-color scheme and the second color the middle. So you should be looking for "3L9A" in the info above, and I don't see that as an option. So is the order on your certification label 3L and then 9A? The only 3L first has 1E/Wimbledon White as second.

We have most things we need on the site, but in some cases I'm the only one that knows where I put it. (And sometimes even I can't find it. ) However, when someone asks a question for which we don't have the info on the site, I like to scan it in so we can not only answer the question now but any time we need to in the future. Like the question earlier in the week about the torque value for an 8.8" Traction-Lok. We didn't even have that section of the factory shop manual in. We do now.

Isn’t that bulb holder also acting as ground conductive? If so, I doubt that epoxy will do the job. But maybe JB Weld is conductive? No, JB Weld isn't conductive. But I think that piece is just a shroud over the bulb. However, if it isn't just a shroud then a jumper will need to be soldered between the pieces.

Here's Page 165 from the 1985 owner's manual:

Thanks! That is an air/fuel ratio gauge. I used it in the set-up of the EFI system and then just left it on. Let's me see that the EFI system is doing its job.