Ford F834

Jim, you are exactly right. The trailer brakes do almost nothing. And not only are the F150 brakes not enough, the traction on the truck wheels limits it further. This arrangement is TEMPORARY. Jeff, swamp coolers work quite well out here in the Mojave desert for most of the year. The humidity is LOW… 8-12% a lot of the time. They do use a lot of water though… 50-75 gallons per day for each cooler and have at least 4 running on our property most of the time. That’s a lot of water.

Yes, we have some monsoon patterns… no rain for us today the mountains are getting some. Also a lightning strike and a fire not long after I took that photo. I had pegged the gross weight of the full tank and trailer at around 11,000 lbs, but I don’t have an accurate dry weight on the Big Tex. It might be more like 12,000 as you suggested. I'm way over the rating on everything! I also didn’t go any higher than second gear (20-25mph). Next time I might just leave it in 4 Lo as 4th in low range might be fast enough. Switching from low to high range on the fly isn’t real nice to do to the transfer case. I won’t be driving very fast with the FSD either, but it will be faster and safer than this line up. In the summer we can go through 500 gallons a day or more. Winter is less than half of that. The main difference is the swamp coolers.

This is not really an update on the water truck, but I do not know exactly where else to put this… Today I finished the work on the trailer, 1,050 gallon tank, and transfer pump. I pressure washed, bleached and purged the tank and hauled my first load of water for the house. This configuration is HEAVY. It is better than spending hours driving in circles with the little basket tank, but it is clearly the wrong equipment for the job. I will continue to use it… carefully… but now I REALLY want the F-Superduty. I am reconsidering the transmission. I think I may want to drill the bellhousing on the wide ratio ZF for the IDI. I am using the transfer case low range on the ‘81 to get it rolling, and I don’t want to mess around when it comes to the permanent water hauler. I need stout gears 💪

Thank you gentlemen, I had heard that the ring gear could be removed by heating the flywheel in an oven. I don’t have an oven that I want car parts / fumes in. And I’m not quite sure that heating the whole thing would work to separate the ring gear? I do have some oxy acetylene equipment that I got from my dad, but the hoses are north of 50 years old. I would need to replace those at a minimum. Or I might get a MAPP gas torch at harbor freight and do it the tedious way. That might still be faster than the tangent of reviving the old oxy acetylene kit to do this job. 🤷

Here is a little update on my *lack of progress ha ha… My decision to be frugal with the clutch parts bit me in the butt. The Sachs friction disc will NOT work with the 6 bolt 6.9 solid flywheel and pressure plate. It is too big. If there is a disc out there that does work, I am not inclined to find it by trial and error. The Sachs will fit a 7.3 N/A balanced SMF. I have two of them, one has a badly worn surface and the other has a ruined ring gear. So the transmission is still sitting on the ground. So much for saving money by using the parts I already have. I put the front trim and lights back together. This only affirmed by distaste for the Aeronose build quality and fastener engineering. It looks okay from 20’ away, but the new headlights that I bought are not flush with the rest of the lights and trim. They are sunken by almost ½” in places. They are aftermarket (Eagle Eyes brand). Perhaps the fitment is just that awful, or else I need to adjust them. I thought I remembered reading that the mounting screws should only need adjusted to aim the light beam, and I don’t really want to fuss with the factory alignment that much. I will see how they work once I get a battery installed. It is a work truck after all and trim aesthetics isn’t that high on the priority list. While I am not giving up on this truck, I did make the decision to step away and refocus on another way to bring more water. The FSD is going to take time to get everything right… meanwhile I am chasing my tail hauling one IBC tote at a time. I put the large haul tank on my 14’ Big Tex trailer and bought a water transfer pump to get it into the cistern. I reluctantly pulled more shrubs from the front of our property to be able to pull through with the trailer. I am not crazy about this solution because this exceeds the weight rating of, well, everything… but I will be driving very slowly. I still have to clean out the tank and plumb the outlet to the pump but I may be hauling with it as soon as this weekend. I anticipate that I may have to put the NP435 in the ’81 in place of the close ratio T19 for the low 1st gear. I hate going “backwards” like this, but I am tired of the spiral. I can’t fix the water hauler because I am too busy hauling water!

Hey Jon. The blank plugs may also be there on the IDI and 460 trucks...I'm not sure. I'm only familiar with the 300 and 302 trucks really, and the plugs were definitely present on them from 83 or 84 up to 86 (with regular carbs and DSII ignitions). The topic pops up every now and then as the plugs seem to be a bit hard to find for the guys doing swaps and removing that main ECM harness from the engine bay. 1986 IDI has the plug…

I would support the idea of attendee voting for crowd favorite 🙂. How well has entrant voting worked in the past? It seems like having the same number of votes and contestants would be statistically problematic (lots of ties?). I wish I could be there to vote and perhaps establish an “ugliest truck” class… but unfortunately both me and the ‘81 have too many obligations 😔

Interesting… I did not know this plug was a desirable item. I will have to double check when I get home but I think my crew cab has this. Perhaps junkyard 6.9 IDI’s might be a source for these… Non-catalyst 460 and 351 HO also???

Are you sure the lens is different? Light truck trip odometers have a metal lever too, which is actuated by a button that is part of the lens itself. I would expect medium duty to be the same. I have not run across a medium duty that had a trip odometer, so I’m not saying they aren’t different… just asking. On pickups the tach feature is usually accompanied by a trip speedometer unit, but on medium duty I have yet to see a trip odometer unit even when equipped with a tachometer.

I will keep an eye out… but man, you don’t see that early trim very often. I have seen it and hated to pass it up, but I have not needed it.

Yeah, I'm with yall. This winters project is to install the D60 and the factory Garret Turbo. Did I mention I picked up a turbo motor? Can't remember if I did or not. Hopefully you are not planning to use the flattened factory down pipe. That is the one component of the factory Ford branded 093 that hobbles an otherwise decent system. Do not separate the Y pipe from the up pipe if you can avoid it. They like to leak there and not a lot can be done to fix it. If they are tight together leave them that way! 🙂

Right now I cannot get my front brakes to lock up no matter how hard I hit the pedal. The rear will lock up. Yall got me leaning more towards that ball joint axle now....hmmmm..... I decided to not go with the Skysoffroad RSK. I just bought factory f350 from leaf springs. I know everyone swears by it, I just don't like the look of having to cut up the bumper, and all the extra work involved. Main goal is to basically have the extra towing capacity of a 1 ton, over my 3/4 ton TTB. If I was going to put serious miles on this truck, I'd have done the rsk. I'm hoping to basically make this a tow rig and occasional driver. I've decided to put the edison motors hybrid project money into my 72' International Loadstar. So just doing some basic load capability upgrades to the f250, and making it more road worthy, vs a Mud Terrain tired bouncy bounce truck. I am really surprised that a kingpin D60 would have single piston calipers. Mine has dual pistons, and I thought all 8 lug trucks 8600 GVWR and up had them 🤷. Kingpins have the last-forever reputation but are a lot more difficult to address when they do wear out.

I have not back-converted from hydraulic to mechanical linkage… but I have owned both types in bullnose trucks and experienced issues/failures on both. On the hydraulic system I had issues with failing / leaking cylinders. It did give me some warning signs and I was able to nurse it a while with adding fluid and repeated pumping. On the mechanical system the failures have come in the form of a sudden snapping off of the pivot pin on the engine block and on the 90* end of the push rod that goes through the floor. Loosing your clutch is never fun, but in my experience the mechanical linkage is LESS reliable… if I find hydraulic parts for my 81 I will convert it. These 40-something year old mechanical linkages with untold thousands upon thousands of stress cycles on them are ticking time bombs. I like the simplicity of a solid linkage but I believe that hydraulic is less likely to result in adventure 😬

A larger diameter bore provides more volume for larger slave cylinders and/or dual piston slave cylinders… BUT it will require more pedal effort than a smaller diameter master. Up sizing to a larger bore master will make for a firmer pedal and less travel. This is why the heavier F250 and 350’s had dual diaphragm boosters and the brake pedal pin was closer to the pivot to increase leverage. Hydroboost systems have the pedal pin even closer to the pivot than either of the vacuum brake systems and have the largest master cylinder bore. Also note that in addition to pedal pin locations, the different bore master cylinders do not all share the same mounting bolt span. They don’t directly swap. I personally prefer to keep the pedal, booster and MC matched per factory application. I put a F-Superduty hydroboost in my F150. The pedal has very little travel and extremely effective stopping power. This is a bolt on upgrade, but the parts are not easy to come by.

Thank you Gary! The set you bought is not currently available but I ordered one very similar. It was about 10$. I noticed the engineering number on the HVAC box started with “F4…” so maybe the smaller evaporator core came with the transition to 134 coolant? Anyway, all Aeronose might not be the same either… I don’t even know if the 89 donor AC system was working, I just wanted to leave it sealed and clean. Looks like I will need to replace at least one line, then vacuum it down and see what I’ve got. But I need it running first! I put in the radiator and shroud, re-mounted the AC compressor and put the hood on. The hood is a little banged up and not very straight… but it’s a work truck. I’m just happy to see it looking more like a truck than a shell. I am going to paint the grille and light surrounds before I mount everything back… inexpensive aerosol overhaul ha ha ha…