85lebaront2

I agree with you on that, I don't go digging into every thread unless the title looks either something I can help with or am interested in. If it wasn't Gary doing the writeup on the RSK install, I probably would have just skipped it. I do not own a 4WD nor do I have a burning desire to (I like being able to turn around in Darth without having to back up most times). I do find some things quite interesting and try to contribute when I can.

After dealing with broken exhaust manifold bolts on a 460 in the truck, I broke down and found a good deal on a Dewalt 18V cordless angle drill. I had borrowed one the last time because between the spring towers and AC casing the right side is a royal PITA to do anything with. I usually pull the inner fender for better access.

Thank you all! It took a bit of work to get it where I wanted it, only thing I am not real pleased with is the hazard switch, I wanted a push on push off that I could illuminate or a good way to at least have a light for the panel but neither was feasible due to the way it is held together. This was behind the layout, so the dash light control, with courtesy light switch is nearest the driver followed by the hazard switch, then rear window defroster and finally the power point. The hazard system on the 1990 donor wiring harness is strange due to the dashboard design Chrysler introduced in 1990. The turn signal switch was moved to a binnacle on top of the dash with the headlight switch, wiper switch was on the opposite side and instruments were in the resulting pod. The steering column has a turn signal cancel switch that connects to a solenoid in the turn signal switch and a hazard flasher switch. Since the switches in the pod are small push on push off single pole single throw essentially and are circuit board style, they can't handle the current required for the 2 low and 4 high beam headlights so there is a large relay panel for nearly everything on the car. The hazard switch has to ground 2 sets (4 total) of relays and change the connection for the combination flasher (which handles LED signal lights nicely). It ends up needing a 4 pole single throw switch to change from turn signal to hazard mode.

Damn, a Sunday delivery? We're lucky to get any packages on a Saturday, although our carrier surprised us yesterday. He had some prescription meds for me that needed a signature so rather then have it stuck until Monday he drove the van to the house and brought all our mail to us. I am sure that a number of us will be waiting with bated (or should it be baited) breath to here the end results. BTW, have you considered the possibility the vacuum and vent valves might be sticking?

How about swapping the input bearing housing with another better one?

And that has really helped me understand speedometers. Many thanks to you and Frank. Now all you need to do is pick a speedometer and send it to one of the rebuilders and have it overhauled and calibrated.

I have used AutoZone Duralast pumps on Darth since not long after I bought him. It was after Matt brought me a nice one over from Precision Certi-Pro and we found the hub was installed backwards and I needed one then, not a week later. We went to AutoZone and I bought one of their new lifetime warranty pumps, which lasted 11 or 12 years then the shaft broke. I did find out in researching things that Ford increased the shaft and bearing size in 1993 and then made another change in 1994 that ran through 1997. Apparently the polygroove belts put a greater bearing load on the pump than the V-belts do. Thankfully AutoZone's computer system has the records so I was able to get a replacement here and not have to go to Newport News.

Gary, I did a quick search this morning and came up with these: https://www.google.com/search?q=mechanical+speedometer+repair&oq=Mechanical+Spee&aqs=chrome.2.0i457j0l2j69i57j0l4.10648j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 I remember now what the last speedometer I had to deal with the magnet on was, it was the one for Matt's 1965 Corvair Corsa. Either the worm for the odometer drive or the bearing in the casting was bad (FWIW the rpm to mph on those is completely different due to being driven by one front wheel) I obtained an NOS one from one of the two big Corvair parts sources and found out it was not magnetized. The shop in Newport News solved that for me.

Aluminum is repelled by magnetism and the spinning magnet in the bar generates a small current in the aluminum cup, the faster the magnet bar spins, the greater the force exerted on the cup. One of the common problems with older vehicles, the magnet looses strength and causes the readings to be low. Speedometer rebuilders either install a new magnet or re-magnetize the old one. I do not remember, other than a few Mercedes-Benz ones I sent off where they went. There used to be a couple of places in the Tidewater VA area that could do them locally.

Overthink, perish the thought. At least your initials aren't CES, as my department manager's were. He could overthink things so badly that we would listen to him, wait till he left and do what we planned on. He would come back and say "see it worked". Happy New Year!

When I was redoing some transmission cooler lines on a friends G30 van, I bought a bottle of Permatex hydraulic sealer. It starts as a white goo about the consistency of toothpaste and hardens fairly well. Before you go to that, check that the top of the carburetor doesn't have a hairline crack at the bottom of the threaded hole.

Here is a picture of the completed center stack switch panel. Rare hide from a wild nauga for the panel covering. Some #6 or #8 black oval head sheet metal screws with cone shaped washers to secure the faux wood front to the center stack. It ends up just in front of the shifter when installed.

Jim, and others, FWIW, our 1990 Town Car (the one that first gave me the idea of putting them on the 300, 302 and 351W) had a regular Bosch relay for the PMGR starter. Chrysler also uses a very similar starter and later models use the same Bosch relay to connect to it. They use a 14ga wire to the starter from the relay.

When you do the chain, spend a bit extra for double row roller chain. If Ford did the Windsor blocks like they did the 460s the later engines (1994 up) may well have them as factory in which case just order the later model set. I have been to your truck's birthplace, everything I have seen said that plant had Ford's best quality world wide. When Mercedes-Benz was looking for a location to build trucks in the US, they settled on Hampton VA as the location had rail and sea shipping and the area's reputation for quality, one of the people involved in establishing it told me that NNS and Ford quality reputations were an important factor in locating the plant in the Tidewater VA area.

Very nice truck! Mine was built 08/86 in Canada. As near as I have been able to find, all crew cabs of that era were built in Oakville Ontario. Darth was originally an F350 XL, had tilt wheel, intermittent wipers, but manual windows and locks and an open rear (non-limited slip). Funny that some people never know things about their vehicles. I bought a 1990 F250 as a parts truck for mine to change to EFI and E4OD. Owner said the wiper switch was bad and to be careful turning it off as the stop was broken. I got in, turned the key on and the wiper switch counterclockwise and they wipers proceeded to wipe, pause, wipe, pause. His reaction, "damn, you mean I owned that truck for 5 years and never knew it had intermittent wipers!".

Gee, that's a lot simpler than most of the engineers I worked with would do, it would need at least 3 feedback loops to be complete.

Part of the problem with the motorhome is the V10, they are designed to rev and the other issue is harder to fix. The TC clutch unlock/lock points are in the computer programming, I have mine in Darth set to take 80% throttle to unlock. Loaded, towing a heavy trailer also loaded, when I hit the upslopes in the CBBT tunnels it would slow down, downshift to 3rd, rev to about 2700 (which is where the C6 ran under those conditions) then lock in and run at 2200 rpm and maintain 54 mph uphill. What it will do with the new engine and more compression should be interesting. I thought of something else last night, on our two Flexes, a 2009 and 2011, there is no separate speed control system as both these vehicles are "drive by wire" with no mechanical throttle system. I suspect your 2015 E450 may well be the same way. On these systems the throttle has a big stepper motor, three (at least) feedback potentiometers and the accelerator pedal has a set of usually three potentiometers at it's pivot. The reason for the multiple is the same logic NASA uses, redundant sensors for safety and accuracy. A lot of auto manufacturers have gone this route as it simplifies design, easily allows for adjustable pedal assemblies and eliminates the old frayed throttle cable issue where it would stick in either direction. What I have noticed on the Flexes, if you are a little below the desired speed when you resume, it pretty well eases the throttle with no downshift, if I am well below, say after slowing way down maybe 20 mph and resume, it will downshift maybe 2 gears (6F50 transaxle) and open the throttle pretty far. My son has an Excursion, V10 3.73 gears and 4R100 trans (updated E4OD) he was delivering his 1986 F150 4X4 down this way (Chesapeake VA) and going over the Eastern Continental divide on US 17, he was down into 2nd, no where near what I was hauling with Darth.

The newer one on Darth is pretty smooth, resume from a lower speed isn't bad and a tap on the set button is about a 1 mph increase. The reason the cancel hydraulic switch is directly to the battery is because it is wired in parallel with the brake switch on the pedal so if the brake switch doesn't have power, the speed control clutch won't engage. I would imagine it is a safety item. FWIW, why don't you (a) quit trying to make a kluge work and finish up the EFI (b) see if maybe there is an issue with the throttle linkage at the AFB end, like make the lever length/angle match a Ford instead of a Chevy.

Ok, Rusty, I did some research. The DS-II module has a total of 6 wires, three to the distributor for pickup signal and ground, one to the coil negative all of which are in one connector, C323 with 4 pins. The other connector C321, is a two pin and the red and white wires for ignition power and start signal are in it. On the DS-III there are only 5 wires, and one goes to the EEC, one to coil negative and one to ground, these are in C105. The power and start are the same in C321. Here is a picture of the Excel spreadsheet:

Rusty, my AllData does not tell me that, maybe looking at Rock Auto's pictures of aftermarket modules might help, or someone on here who has done an EEC-III removal. Gary may even have something as the cab he is using on "Dad's truck" was from an EEC-III model.

The coil is a power hog, I didnt mean to imply the module was a power hog, its just the module being inside the distributor has no way to be cooled by air and thus requires the thermal paste to transfer heat to the distributor housing to try and keep the module from overheating. The electrical load may not be high but it does build up when you introduce engine heat as well. I got like 15 GM modules at work for HEI that are new that I keep on hand for swaping into HEI no start conditions cause I see them fail so often. Its why when we do a HEI distributor in a GM car we toss the generic module that comes with it and install a brand new AC Delco module as they tend to be a bit more durable. In theory you could convert any distributor, I converted my points Holly LoadOMatic distributor to electronic with Petronix, its basically like Ford or GM HEI using magnetics to trigger the coil and they include a clear acrylic piece of plastic to set your air gap for proper operation. For me I will stick with my Ford HEI which is what DSII is it just doesnt integrate the coil and module into the distributor like GM did. Im really curious how ever if one could use the DSII ignition module and distributor and lock the advance out and use a tach drive to control the DSII module/coil. I never thought of that but if it could be done that would be the best of both worlds for me as I could simply splice into my new distributor wiring for the sniper to trigger my DSII module and I can retain OE module and Coil but use my sniper for controlling my timing. Would be better than going with the holley supplied distributor unit which I keep reading horror stories over introducing RFI into the system. Rusty, if you look at a DS-III module, it was the one the EEC-III systems used and the computer controls the timing, possibly that would work with your Sniper system. If I can figure out a way, I just looked up and saved the ignition system for the EEC-III the other day for a fellow in the Bullnose group on FB, he has a CA spec 1983 351 truck and wants to properly delete the EEC-III crap. The orange wire on the EEC-III module is connected to the computer, now we just need to find out if it uses a + or - signal to trigger. No signal = no advance, locked at static, but, these systems used a crank trigger.

Jim, I didn't know the Toronado had a retard in the distributor. I know the first round of CCC engines had a fixed advance distributor and the computer controlled the spark advance, I believe they were a 6 pin module though.

I'm going throw a monkey wrench into your theory mr. engineer. Vacuum, somewhere you mentioned the vacuum drop-off during cruise acceleration. 20 inches down to 10 inches. At 10 inches the cruise servo has only 1/2 the power it has at 20 inches, since the valve(s) are modulating and the speed is dropping off more than it expects, the "brain" is going to open the vacuum side further, truck builds some speed, cruise starts letting off the throttle, vacuum jumps up and cruise servo surges open more. For the purpose of testing, add a vacuum reserve tank (like older power brake systems used) with a check valve between the source and the tank. See if this smooths things out. I never had the issue with Darth, but when he had the vacuum cruise control he also had the C6 which due to the converter slippage would mask small changes. I don't recall having a problem with the E4OD, but I changed to the electronic one not long after that and sent the 1990 servo to Matt for his 1986 F150.

Whatever shipping costs, I have no vehicle with a vacuum speed control except the konvertible and it is operated by the ECM.

Rusty, FWIW, British cars, MG, Jaguar etc. used a Lucas Opus (Oscillating Pickup system) that the pickup was a small transformer with an incomplete frame, one of the sides was omitted. The transformer frame was completed when the ferrite rod in a plastic spool on the distributor shaft aligned with the pickup. It was, in the best tradition of Joe Lucas questionable at best. In 1980 while I was working at a Dodge, Jaguar, MG and Mercedes-Benz dealer, a replacement was released by Lucas called a "constant energy ignition" it used what looked like an old Chrysler electronic ignition pickup and reluctor 4 or 5 teeth as needed. The aluminum box with the Lucas label had two connectors 90° apart one set was connected to the pickup coil, the other went to the ignition coil + and -. Instructions were to remove the coil and remount it in place with the ballast resistor removed and the new ignition box under it, replace the existing distributor with the Opus module with a new distributor containing the pickup. Pickup air gap was set like a Chrysler at .006" with a non-magnetic feeler gauge. I opened one of the boxes, inside it was a GM 4 pin HEI module. Apparently it is the GM coil that is the power hog, not the module. I would imagine if you used a DS-II distributor and an E-core coil that a properly mounted to a heat sink 4 pin HEI module would work very happily and possibly a DS-II coil might also, but the module would need a 12V feed rather than the resistor feed. The DS-II coil might work without the resistance wire. This would allow a normal DS-II distributor and wires to be used and the module could be put in a failed DS-II case.