kramttocs

Welcome! Glad you joined and looking forward to hearing and seeing more about your truck. It's an 88, correct? Could you take a minute to edit your second paragraph and remove those two references? We strive for family friendly content and hold all members to that standard. I get the point you are making though and you are right - we are always looking for ways to refurbish parts, find alternative solutions, and create things from scratch that we can share with others. I feel like there is a story with the gas pumps and just exactly what is being done with the gas

I don't know if Kevin is selling them but I know I'd be game for a Garagemahal one.

Replaced my polyurethane ones with the S&B rubber ones last week and wanted to give it a little time/mileage before providing my thoughts. My personal opinion is that they are great quality, well thought out design-wise, and well presented but priced a bit more than is necessary. These are worth looking at when replacing worn out factory ones with something similar and long lasting but in my case with already having the poly ones I can't say they are worth the cost. Since I had already removed the factory pressed together bushings I didn't use their two removal sleeves so can't comment on those beyond saying it's nice they included them. Removal of the old and installation of the new was straightforward. The core support hardware changes in that it's no longer a bolt from the bottom and a separate nut from the top. Instead it's like the other mounts where the bolt goes down from the top (maybe this is how later years were from the factory?). None of these have a built-in nut on the bottom to put a socket on but I didn't have any issues torqueing them down from the top/cab by myself. Once torqued down they are quite a bit shorter than the poly ones and a little shorter than factory. With poly I had to shim my bed up 1/4". I removed those shims after installing the S&B and thought it lined up well. After getting it outside and driving it a big though it looks like I need to shim the rear mounts up a bit - they provide plenty of shims to address this. This is why I am saying they are shorter than factory. For me this means removing half the rear seat again to access the bolts so haven't felt like doing that yet. As far as ride goes I am not a good judge for feeling stuff like this unless it is to an extreme but it does feel a little smoother than with the poly. Unfortunately for me it didn't have any impact on my creaking noise when the truck is twisting so admittedly that's a big part in why I can't say it was a worthwhile use of time and money despite knowing there was a chance it wouldn't fix it. In then end, if you want the best out there I'd say these are them. If you want to save your money and get rubber or poly replacements, I don't think you'd ever miss not having these. As a side note - for anyone going to rubber or poly and not wanting to make your own factory bushing separators, I am happy to lend these out.

The detail on your truck looks great! Edit: removed for licensing reasons

Agreed. A helpful post

Both tanks do this or just one? My understanding is that the later years have a better vent ratio. Both tanks on my 86 fill at full speed- I hit the lock and leave it unattended. My 80 though is a flat bed hack that requires 1/4 speed. Just mentioning that to say that the factory setup does work if working correctly. I have seen a lot of the vent tubes shoved down or twisted to where the venting is severely restricted. A pain to remove the hose from the tank but I'd start there with an inspection of the inner vent tube.

I will share in Gary's applause and that is gorgeous. The color of the wood/stain with the blue is perfect.

Welcome aboard!

Definitely need more detail on the decals - those look great (as does it all) and interested as well.

Jim's nailed it - that's the 4wd wire. Great work on the wiring We have trailer junction boxes on the rear cross members of our flatbed trucks since the wiring always ends up hacked up on those. If you ever wire in a 7way, you have just made life a lot easier for you.

Welcome!

That looks really good!

I haven't tried their step bits (mine are HF) but I do really like their hex drive Shockwave Titanium drill bits. Sorry, keep forgetting to mention it but ran back to the jy and pulled the other big truck dash bezel. Interestingly, it doesn't appear to have the same pointed steering column opening as others but I didn't do a direct comparison to our LD trucks. They also aren't 'Check Engine' but rather just 'Engine'. Red backing. Not sure if that will work for you or not. Can take a photo if you'd like.

A guy at work just got a 2021 Bronco Sport, 50 years newer than my Bronco! We were comparing and contrasting and realized that right now his Bronco is a lot more reliable than mine. But 50 years from now we both thought mine had a much better chance of driving than his does! (if there's still any gas) Bolting just to one flat in the corrugation concentrates the load more, so I think it would be more likely to deform the bed floor if the tool box tried very hard to lift up. I don't think the tool box will try very hard to lift up, but if Ford is suggesting plywood they might know something I don't know. (edit: maybe if you hot a harsh bump the tool box could try to fly up hard enough to deform something???) Wood has the advantage over metal of "giving" more at stress risers. So a wooden plate would be less likely to crease the sheet metal at the edges of the plate than a metal plate would. That said, while I see some logic behind using wood, I think either of your solutions would work OK too give the tool box isn't lighter than air. I wonder how long Advantech would last in that location?

You're right Bill. Thinking back now I can't recall if I used the puller/installer for these or if was just the power steering pulley.

Yep. I would have to check online but I think 2/3 were the wiper motor and the tps. If the truck didn't have the spacer and a fuse then they had a big circuit breaker. Makes me curious how far in advance vehicle manufacturers plan out future applications. Or do they just make use of what is unused?

Late but I second (third?) Jim's idea. Either make the bolts part of the bed or remove them during the application of the bedliner. The former sounds like the solution for you. I was at a couple lumber yards today and looked at the composite deck posts. Nothing really fit the measurements, even if ripped down, and making something work from multiple layers of PVC gets cost prohibitive. I'd say your 4x4 and 2x4 is a good solution. My bed also has decent sized drains in the front near the corners. Checked a few beds at the PicknPull and the gaps varied widely. Some would easily get sealed up with bedliner.

Mine arrived yesterday. A lot closer in feel to the factory ones than the polyurethane.

I like it as well. I enjoy seeing trucks that had a previous life and the faded remnants to show for it.

You can rent a puller from your local auto parts store. Usually it's put money down, then get it all back on return.

Referring back to this ^ post. Turns out Ford did make an adapter for Fuse slots 2/3....and they aren't uncommon. Was wondering a pick and pull while waiting for my flywheel to be resurfaced and rung gear swapped. They only had one picked over bullnose but had a number of later years. Found these while looking them over. Stamped: F5TB-14417-AA So Jim, you are saying that eventually after some more time and money, I will be back to working like it was stock before I started spending time and money

It's interesting that they are aware of that consideration but haven't addressed it. I get that most of their customers are switching from the old style to the new so would have the fmr but still seems like it eliminates some potential buyers. I can't recall if you've mentioned it before but did they say why? That's a clever idea on taping under the holes Why the colored bedliner, Jim? Not that I disagree - I was really close to going with a color but backed out into the end. For BB, personally I could see the dark blue looking real good. The upgraded black is really nice as well and seems to be well worth the upcharge. I would get one of the heavy rubber mats as well.

I don't believe it does. Pretty sure it only has C/F and then laser dot on/off. Meant to reply last night but ended up pulling the od, transmission, clutch, and flywheel off the 80 and it got too late. I was about to order the Holley throttle stop but really didn't want to. Despite the assurances by the support tech that the bracket would fit and not interfere with the kickdown bracket, I can't say I believe them. Nor do I really like having to tap the throttle before it take effect. Came across a post that mentioned using a solenoid to switch between ported and manifold vacuum for this vac adv. Had to rearranged some lines but now the two ports on the front base of the carb go into this unit and the single out goes to the vac adv. Will end up mounting it to the carb heat shield but seems like it will work. Here is the switch Can't complain about the price (esp compared to the Holley throttle stop) and the quality is what you'd expect. Looks a little cheap but if it works...

So better yet, just grab ALL your tools

Gotta love that you have to think about if you are working on drivetrain or body before you grab the right tool