Gary Lewis

Well, where is the egg-on-face emoticon? Maybe this one will do: I took Jim's advice and sanded the thermostat housing down. But instead of 120 grit I initially used 46 grit and ended up with 150 - cause that's what I had. And, it took me a whole 10 minutes. Then I installed it with some RTV and let it sit for a while as I worked on other things, and then I tested it. And it leaked in the same spot. But, I then realized that it wasn't the thermostat housing that was leaking! Instead, it was the aftermarket temp gauge sender, shown below. And it dawned on me that I hadn't installed the fitting into which the sender is to go. So, I pulled the sender, added the fitting, and put the sender back in. And then tested the cooling system. No leaks! It is sitting there at 10 psi with no air to it. And, while I was waiting for the RTV to set up I did some testing of the voltage drop to the blower motor. (Looks like I installed the relay on the least-bad side of the circuit.) And in doing so I discovered that if I moved the connectors to the motor just right the connection failed. So I pulled it apart and was reminded that the connectors didn't really want to go together. Thinking the connectors might be different I pulled out Big Blue's original motor and compared the connectors. They are exactly the same, except that the Bricknose motor connector had the gasket shown below in it, which the Bullnose connector doesn't. So I pulled that out and the connectors went together as they should and the intermittent connection was no more.

I've spent time in your country, Jochen. And enjoyed every minute of it. In fact, I hope to get back. But I know nothing about beer. Was winding you up, knowing that there are so many different kinds that everyone probably has a different opinion.

So, what is the "right" beer? Or, do you just mean a German beer?

What no "rags to riches" I don't know where mine would fit in as it is not stock but does look the part. How bout best hidden mods or what the factory should have done? Dave ---- edit I added the factory part before I seen yours Gary You don't have to decide. You just enter and the voters decide. For you, maybe we should have had a Closest To What Stock Should Have Been class? But, you'd have competition as most of us have "improved" our trucks. Ford didn't offer a 400 with almost 400 HP.

Let's see if this helps. Here's Gary's version of the wiring with relative positions shown. My ground relay replaces the orange wire. But a better approach would to be to replace all of the red wires with a relay, and there's where the 2.03 volt drop was measured. But the best approach would be to do both. I don't know where Scott put his relay. Maybe he will tell us.

That is with a ground relay. Not power relay. As for ground near the blower motor, no. The wire goes back to the switch in the dash, and that switch has: No connection to let the power go through all of the resistors in series and then to ground, which gives Low A connection to go through two resistors and then to ground for M1 A connection to go through one resistor and then to ground for M2 A connection straight to ground for High. But that wire comes all the way back to the switch from the motor, so I put a relay in it to go to ground by the motor, but controlled by the speed switch's High position.

Well, with the engine off (it ain't running yet) the battery voltage was 12.83 volts, and the drop from the battery to the positive side of the blower motor on High was 2.03 volts. That's a 16% loss.

I don't know what the amount of loss is with snorkels, but there is a loss. I think a factory air cleaner is needed with a carb, but not as much with EFI. The issue with a carb is that the air/fuel ratio with a carb varies by the temp of the air coming into the carb. So if your AFR is right at 72 degrees then it is wrong everywhere else. But an EFI system measures both the inlet air temp as well as the effective AFR, and adjusts for that, so having a constant inlet air temp is not a requirement for EFI like it is for a carb. However, there's another issue - the amount of oxygen in each cubic foot of air coming in. That's the limiting factor in how much power you can make since that determines the amount of fuel you can have to get the right AFR. And hot air has far fewer oxygen molecules in it than cold air does. So for EFI you still want the coldest air you can get, and an open air filter is the absolutely worst thing you can do if you want cold air. Given that, I'd say the best solution is a dual snorkel air cleaner plumbed to the radiator support to get the coldest air you can. Or, a cold air system that is plumbed to a source of cold air.

Not to hijack a thread, but I can’t wrap my head around this. High speed is going to ground. Why does this help? The EVTM shows the diesel only part, but the grounds page show it going to ground through G701. The diesel has a connector for some reason. Path of least resistance and all. Dane - You have an excellent question! The wiring for the blower motor follows this path in High: Battery to ignition switch Ignition switch to Fuse 9 Fuse 9 to A/C Function Switch A/C Function Switch to motor Motor to Blower Speed Switch Blower Speed Switch to ground So, to summarize, the power flows from under the hood into the cab, back under the hood, and then back into the cab and to ground. What I did was to skip the run from the motor to the blower speed switch and take it directly to ground in my PDB via a relay. And, I'm sure that helped. But, what if for High we used a DP relay and fed the motor power from the PDB and grounded it then and there? We'd take out a whole bunch of wiring, connections, etc. I can probably easily do a voltage drop test to see how much drop there is 'tween the battery and the positive side of the motor in High. Then we'd know what kind of difference that would make. I'll do that in a few.....

If this is the correct part [has an extra A at the end], then you could buy 5 Dormans. https://www.ebay.com/itm/FORD-OEM-E-350-Econoline-Club-Wagon-Engine-Coolant-Thermostat-Housing-F5TZ8592AA/392798289199 Yikes!!! I'll stick with the Dorman - even if I have to flatten it.

What does the underdash portion of your 87 truck look like, specifically the cable end conections? I have been trying to find pictures of the cable ends where they mount like a vacuum motor would mount. I am guessing they have some brackets that screw down and you could interchange vacuum motor for this setup... If it isn't too much troube see if you can grab a few of those images please, I would imagine snapping a picture of the outside air blend door actuator would be pretty easy to get a picture of under the hood. It would be much appreciated. Also, after going through Steve83's supermotors site I found an interesting diagram. I am definitely adding these parts to the must be included in final incarnation of my bronco/truck project. I would be willing to swap the whole dash out to bricknose if required to gain this set of controls, but perhaps they can be mounted into the bullnose dash. Research continues. I did get a response back from Bill/Numberdummy this morning. After a misunderstanding as to what the question was, I posted: To which he said: So, I don't know what's going on. But I'm interested and following along. Also, it looks like "100%" worked nicely.

Wow! You'd have been sick to pass that one up. Glad you got it. Beautiful truck in such good shape.

LOL! Proper subjecting? What's that? Truthfully though, there's no "right" on how to use threads. My philosophy has been to keep almost everything about Big Blue's transformation in that thread so I can search just that thread to find what I'm looking for. But that has problems as many people have grown tired of such a long thread that they no longer even read the posts. So on one-off items that may be more general in nature I may start another thread briefly, but tie it back to the main thread. For instance, fuel delivery modules. I wanted a larger audience to see that one, so started a new thread. But when I'd gotten to a point I jumped back to the main thread. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, you may be resolving problems introduced while they tried to fix problems induced by the fuel system grunge and air leak. As for the doughnut, as long as it comes from a little shop on a weird corner with almost no parking I'm in!

As you've started a new thread, which is fine, I don't have the history to easily review. So, can you remind us if this is 10 seconds from initial start of the day, or any start? And, haven't the symptoms gotten worse? Didn't the truck run for several minutes initially? Help us understand how things have gone from that to now. Now to the question at hand, perhaps you have too much choke. If the choke is set too rich the engine could easily start after setting a few minutes and then stall because it is too rich. Let it sit for several minutes and it would do it again. So pull the air cleaner and start it. Does the choke stay closed or does it pull off a bit as the engine stalls?

It sounds like it is computer-controlled as I'm assuming you aren't moving the throttle during that time. Given that the fast idle shouldn't be coming off and dropping the idle as it isn't supposed to come off until you open the throttle slightly. But I'm not up on what all the computer does with its vacuum valves. Perhaps the diagnostic procedure will tell, but if not can you put your hands on some of the vacuum valves and tell if any open at just the right time to cause that?

That's cool! I'm not au fait with Tuff-Trek, but I see they are UK based. Which model did you get? You've mounted it lower than I'm expecting to mount mine. But where you mounted yours would reduce the drag as opposed to my plan of placing it at the level of the cab roof. And, yours will be a lot easier to get into.

The more you know about what happened at the factories the more you realize never to say "they never came with that". Glad it worked out for both of you. Those are heart-stopping moments.

I used the condenser from Huck, the 1990 half-truck, and the only mod I had to make was to move the support arm for the inlet on the passenger's side up just 1/4". Other than that it fit perfectly. And the angle on the bottom was "factory" as the brackets fit very nicely.

I don't see any reason to remove it. It obviously isn't going to fall off and it isn't hurting anything.

Doubt I'd get it done in 5 minutes. Anyway, this approach is gonna work.

I agree that it has been over tightened. And I toyed with milling it down or filling it down, but at $30 delivered with a new gasket and the assurance that it will be flat I opted for a new one. I'll use the extra time to work on the fuel system.

Yes, that has happened to a whole lot of us. Pull the blower motor and reach in and clean out the housing. And, if you want, pull the resistor pack as it is then easier to clean.

And, as I was running the A/C clutch wires I discovered that both wires had a butt crimp in them. So I removed the crimps and extended the wires a bit as they'd been shortened for some reason. Then, at the absolute and of the day I though I'd test the cooling system. Here's the setup, with the test regulator I put together recently and the hose going to the port on the radiator's neck. But what you can't tell from the pic is that at just 4 psi I had a serious leak! With a hose to my ear I started checking and discovered that the air was coming out at the back of the thermostat housing. Here's a pic of the gasket after I pulled the housing off. Note that the area at the back and at the front has more black RTV showing than at the bolt areas. And here's the bottom of the housing. What you can't really see w/o holding the thing just right is that the bolt areas are higher than the front and back. Looks like I need to replace this thing, and it is marked F0TE 8594-BA. Boy, I sure am glad I tested the cooling system!!!! Turns out that the proper part number for a '95 F350 w/a 460 is F5TZ 8592-A. But that has been discontinued and I couldn't find one. But Dorman 902-1044 is the spitting image of the one I have, so I ordered one of those from Amazon. It is supposed to be here Saturday.

That's a pretty significant statement! Wow. A Harbor Freight works better than a Lincoln.

It put up a good fight, but in the end I managed to yank it out (in pieces) Thanks for your documentation Gary! Exploded diagrams help a LOT. I'm having a bit of a time now, because I don't have a vise, any large sockets, or seal drivers. But at least the *parts coming out* part is over and clean parts can start going in! 👍 Congrat's! Glad you got them out. And, glad the documentation is working for you.