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Just because I had a 1958 F100 I put king pins in, a 1993 GMC 3500 HD I have done two sets in and had two other Ford trucks with king pins a Packard and a couple of Mercedes-Benz 111 body cars with king pins.

Ok what year is the Chrysler in the dirt track picture? We had a 1953 Custom Imperial when I was growing up, 331 Hemi and "Tip toe" shift semi-automatic transmission.

1959 Dodge, neighbor's 15 year old son has a blue and white one with the 326 ci Poly head V8.

Usually somewhere on the frame there would be a VIN stamped for US and Canada sales and possibly for overseas sales From your pictures you have the forged axles. If it is like my 1986 F350, the king pins have screw in end caps. If you have them and you can get one of the top ones off you should be able to measure the king pin diameter (bottom might work too). It looks from Rock Auto's catalog that it is most likely the same as the F350, a 1.054 inch diameter pin almost 7 inches long.

On Darth, the original fan clutch would be on at a cold start then drop out, AC on in summer would bring it on, heavy traffic, slow moving in the summer with AC on and hauling a 30 ft 5th wheel. Leaving a stoplight would give me a roar like one of NASA Langley's wind tunnels up to around 40-45 mph, at which point it would start tapering off.

Which transmission do you have?

Go here for some information: https://www.garysgaragemahal.com/1985-evtm.html I believe from your description the connector is C121, but the EVTM does not show which wires are in which holes. I would suspect they may be the starter wires going to the transmission switch.

Welcome, please, if you haven't read them yet read our guidelines and let us know you have. The joining process isn't completely working right at this time.

Chad, you hit it quite well, on pickup trucks the frame does not have the longitudinal stiffness of most car frames against twisting, this coupled with heavy duty rear springs will actually cause the cab and bed to visibly move in relation to each other. Having had what was described as a "brand new clapped out race car for the street" (a 1966 Shelby GT350 that I stiffened up the front and added a rear sway bar to) I actually have pictures of that car at an autocross course I was setting up at the Norfolk Ford Assembly plant parking lot, one going in to a 360° right hand loop where the right rear wheel is off the ground and one coming out of the loop where the right front wheel is off the ground. I also had a 1978 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale Diesel, that was supposed to be ordered with the F41 handling package. It did have G78/15 radials instead of the F78s that were standard, but only the small front and no rear sway bar. 30 mins in the parts department and the required parts were ordered. Once installed, I also put 4 Koni shocks on. Car would go around an on or off ramp at double the posted "safe" speed with no problems. Other than the Diesel engine, it was essentially and unmarked police car. Scared more than a few people with it due to it having the GM B body "cop car" stance.

They've come way down in price. The Baumann units were around $1500 12 years ago. That was when I bought a Bronco EEC-IV box for 5.0L/E4OD. It was after trying to get some sort of idea what I would need to get my shift points where I wanted them (no need to buzz a 460 up like a 302) that Core Tuning contacted me on EEC-Tuning.org (no longer around) and offered me a great package using an EEC-V box so I could run an MAF/SEFI system.

That would make your F350 built in the Norfolk VA assembly plant. I visited it 3 times from the early 1950s until it closed. We used to run autocross events in the parking lot on Sundays (being president of the local Mustang club helped).

A couple of notes, on the Ford in-tank pumps, there are two variants, 1985.5-1989 use a low pressure in-tank pump or pumps, a frame mounted reservoir and on dual tanks selector valves. 1990-96/7 the in-tank pump(s) are high pressure (up to 60 psi on 6cyl models) and the selector valves for the fuel supply and return are part of the FDMs (Fuel Delivery Modules) and due to a cross fueling issue there is a TSB that involves adding an external check valve in the fuel supply line to prevent cross fueling. FWIW, the tank vent lines on the older trucks (Bullnose) are 3/16" tube and on dual tanks are simply teed together, later (1990 up) are larger, but still teed together, however, even the 460s with the hot fuel handling package had a 6 port fuel tank selector valve on the frame next to the front tank that controls the source and return routing of the fuel to the engine. Second note, does the Edelbrock Pro Flo have any provision to either control or interface with a controller for a 4R70/75W or E4OD transmission. Both of these are computer controlled and will not work without a computer, not only do they go into limp mode, but to prevent damage do so at max pressure. I am playing devil's advocate here, and asking the questions I had in doing the EFI conversion on Darth nearly 12 years ago. At that time bolt on TBI systems were what you could get as a bolt on, not a port injection and you needed a second computer to run the transmission. My cost at that point was over $3000 to go aftermarket after buying the $845 parts truck to get the mechanical parts needed to go to EFI and an E4OD. I actually did run Darth as a bank fired speed density (MAP sensor) system for a while until I had everything in hand to go to MAF/SEFI.

What you are seeing is what I have been seeing from a number of different sources. Cams and lifters failing at very low hours, many never getting through the break-in run. If you still have the boxes the lifters came in, see if the country of origin is on there. If so, I will be willing to bet it says "China". One of the issues is most likely cost related, older lifters frequently had a cap on the bottom that was most likely an alloy steel that could be hardened and the cams were frequently nitrided for wear resistance. Much of the newer stuff that is failing, including roller lifters are showing metal flaking off which to me, from 30 years of working with this type of failure in a laboratory, says "case hardened" which is great, until something damages the very thin hardened layer. Underneath that layer, is very soft metal. Until recently, the only cam failures I used to see were Chevrolet V8s where one or more lobes would wipe out with no rhyme or reason.

Looks good!

I did essentially what you are talking about on Darth, but I had a damaged bearing tube on the left side that I had to replace the seal every year before inspection due to the damaged area. I also wanted a limited slip 3.55 to replace my open 3.55 gear. I had purchased a 1990 F250 parts truck, 460, E4OD and 3.55 traction loc, unfortunately, since Darth is a DRW truck, the axles are different. I bought a DRW axle with an open 4.10 gear and found it had some water damage to the gears which wasn't a problem. I transferred the innards of the SRW 1990 axle into the DRW housing and in doing so discovered Ford had increased the width of the rear brakes from 2.5" on the 1986 F350 to 3" on the 1990 F250 and to 3.5" on the 1993 F350 DRW axle. I kept the 1993 3.5" wide brakes for Darth.

Ok, here is Darth's original label on the back of the driver's door. You can see the opening for the lock cylinder and its retaining clip and two of the latch attaching screws. This should help in locating where it should go.

Rene', several items, first, when you look at the cam lobes through the lifter bores, none of them should be centered in the bores, they should be offset toward one side. This, along with the shape of the cam lobe "nose" is what makes the lifters rotate. Second, all 16 lifters should be able to spin freely in their bores so that the cam lobes acting against them will spin them and their push rods. Third, the tips of the lobes are not perfectly parallel to the center line of the cam, they are slightly angled, again, to make the lifters rotate in their bores. If any of these are not correct, one or more lifters and cam lobes will rapidly destroy themselves. You can put the lifters in the correct bores and with the plugs out so the engine will turn freely, first observe the lifters without the push rods and rockers installed to see if the cam is rotating them (a mark on the top of the lifter will allow you to check all 16 easily. If any one is not rotating you have a problem with that cam lobe. If that test is satisfactory, then reinstall push rods and rockers and repeat. Again all 16 lifters need to rotate with their push rods.

This is going to sound strange, but, look for fluid that conforms to Mopar ATF+4 it is a synthetic with friction modifiers and Chrysler has recommended it's use clear back to the 1953 Powerflite which originally took type A.

Mat, there is a real problem currently with cams and lifters failing during break in, even roller cams and factory engines. Google cam failures on YouTube, or go to YouTube and look for Ford Boss Me.

Usually that kind of wear is caused by one wheel spinning while the other is stationary. It could be worse, son had the differential in his 1986 Plymouth Turismo 2.2 spin and then spit the gear shaft out through the side of the transaxle case.

My 1985 that a Mercedes ML320 tried mating with was a Mark Cross with the 2.6L Mitsubishi engine, When it developed cracks in 3 of the 4 combustion chambers. I put the junkyard score 2.2L Turbo in it. Engine turned out to be a 1988 Turbo II service engine complete with forged crank. Needless to say I saved the powertrain from it.

Gary, I did much the same on a 1965 Corvair Matt fell in love with at age 15. It was "auctioned" for towing and cost of storage by the gentleman whose GMC wrecker is sitting in my yard. Since there were no other bidders, it became mine.

I would try to find an older set of lifters still in the box as the problem seems to be fairly recent.

It is a mirror image, I had pulled the whole thing except for the axle brackets off the 1990 parts truck. I can try sometime, Darth isn't on the road currently as I have coolant showing up in one or more right bank cylinders. At best it will be a bad intake gasket, at worst a cracked head.

I don't know if it will help, but, I put a set from a 1990 F250 2WD on Darth. The sway bars were an option for him. Front bar: It made a noticeable difference in cornering as the front doesn't roll as much as it did without them. End brackets for links were purchased from Green Sales, the rest came off the 1990 F250 parts truck. Rear bar: Keep in mind two items, first Darth is an F350 crew cab dual rear wheel truck, second wheelbase is 168 inches. As a result, I do get some frame flexing despite the 7 inch tall sides.