FuzzFace2

Been there replaced that Everything you are doing is what I did on my truck but I had the cab off the frame. Dave ----

Looking good and I know it feels good to have it move under its own power. Once the glass is in you going for a spin around the block Dave ----

It is just a small dia. metal line so should not be to hard to come up with something. I don't know the size but I would think you could find it in the copper / nickel roll that they make brake lines out of. There is a rubber hose at the tanks and the canisters to connect them together. BTW have you tried shop air to blow it out? If so then just replace it. I do know they like to rust out where it goes across the frame at the back of the cab. It sits on that cab frame cross member that also likes to rust out. Dave ----

Had a little hart pumping yesterday morning at 4am when I went to start the truck for work. When turning the key to start I did not go quite to start but must have bumped it as it started to crank and crank and...... Had to get the truck out of gear, release the hood, run around the front knocking stuff on the ground to pop the hood. I pulled the start wire off, key was turned to off, the solenoid and it still kept cranking. A little tap from my hand and it stopped cranking. Fingers crossed and gave it a try and this time truck fired up and starter released when the key was let go. Don't know what that was all about? It was ok when started to come home later that day and fine today at 1:30 am to work and back. I don't remember what truck that solenoid came from but think the parts truck with the rest of the wiring harness. Being I got home early yesterday I gave another try on finding the SROD trans pan cover as I think it will work for my next project, trans swap. Even if I have to cut it I rather cut it than the one in my truck so if I ever want to go back with the T18 I don't have to worry on finding one not cut up. I wish I knew how long the drive shaft would be so I can have a new one made so I have it in hand for the swap. Oh I found the pan in the bottom of the 2nd parts bin I looked in. I over looked it the first time as I did not think it would lay flat in the bin I cleaned off the factory gummy seal, what a job, and wire brushed the rust that was on it. Dave ----

You have to make sure the rear drums are adjusted right or you will not get a good pedal. I had my whole system drained as part of my cab off frame rebuild. I started with the used master and booster from my parts truck, it rolled on it's roof so they had to be good right ....... don't bet on it. Anyway I replaced the rear wheel cly. and all related parts for the drum brakes, front calipers with new pads, all 3 rubber hoses. After gravity bleeding and getting fluid at each wheel I then used a Snap-On tool vacuum bleeder that uses shop air to pull the vacuum. Pedal was piss poor at this point so had a helper bleed the 2 man way and they got a little better but still a low pedal. This is when I found the parts truck master & booster were bad so I got a new set and again pedal was low? I did look into and adjusted the rod but did not help. What did help a lot was using a pressure bleeder and push the air out. It works on 10 psi but that is all it took to get a working pedal. It is still a little low for my liking but the truck stops and that is what counts. Dave ----

Don't over look that "juice" can that is part of the HVAC system as vacuum leak. Mine had pin holes on the bottom & ends of the can. My fix was to remove the can from the truck, remove the bracket from the can and use fiberglass rosin to coat the areas with the pin holes. Once the rosin set up I painted it black put the bracket back on and back in the truck and it is good as new. I do need to replace the check valve / Tee as it does not "check" and when giving it throttle you loose vacuum to hold the doors where they are set to. I hope your HVAC control is not leaking as it sounds like as it can be a PITA to R&R. Also they make 3 different ones based on years and are hard to come be new. Good luck Dave ----

Thanks on the letters it is just what I wanted on the gate. We came down to NC with brother, sister and feral mom cat. Mom ran off 1 night shortly after we got down and never came back. The other 2 cats showed up on our door step as kittens at different times. No one claimed them and they fit in with the other fur kids, we had the dogs by this time, so we kept them. The dogs were foster failures. The black one (shepherd mix) is the first foster we had and I told the wife we were keeping him. The other (black & tan coon hound) got on so well with our dog making him run when we were fostering I told the wife if she came back after being adopted we were keeping her. 24 hours later she was back with us. It is just the wife and I and we have just under 4 acers wife does not work so she takes care of the fur kids and fosters when I am not home. Its a love not a job Dave ----

Well I did put in my post I did not know how the 302 cables were run as I had a 300 six. Also if someone does a search for cable run it now has the 300 six & the 302 cables. Dave ----

I don't know on a 302 setup but my 81 F100 with a 300 runs down the top of the frame rail. Cable on the left is the pos. to the starter and that loop holds the cable in place. The cable on the right is the ground and that is a tab on the cable to ground the frame the other end goes to 1 of the starter bolts to ground the starter / motor. Old & new ground cables. New cable has the frame ground tab Iput on it. Dave ----

Cory put me on to an Ebay vender and the price for the reflective was not bad so went for it. Then again I cant do anything like a normal person would ........ just look at the firewall for AC We started off fostering dogs, that is haw we got the 2 we have. My wife being 90 lb wet could only handle small dogs after the 2 we have. Then we had an issue with one we were fostering and 1 of ours that did not end well. At that point it was decided to foster cats / kittens and has worked out good. We are still helping needing animals. Our dogs just for you Gary Dave ----

Being a warm day and having the tail gate letters I washed it and then put the letters on. Wish they were a little smaller as they almost go over the edge of the raised letter but they are on. Used the truck and took the wife a few towns over for diner. Because we have to stay 6 feet away we ate in the truck. A local pizza joint was giving part of the coast to our animal foster / adopt program so we had to do our part to give money. We are fostering 2 kittens now for over a month and just today we took in a mom cat and here 6 kittens. Add our own 4 cats and 2 large dogs it is a ZOO! But we love it Dave ----

If it made the trip out & back on its own that is a good thing Now on the MPG issue. How fast were you going, do you know what gear ratios you have and what size tires? Do you know if the speedo is on the money? My 81 F100 4x2 with 300 / T18 (granny gear trans)with 2.75 rear gear is getting mid 14's but that is 30 miles high way at 65 MPH to work and 45 MPH with a few lights the 30 miles on streets. I have not done anything to get the MPG higher just yet and my speedo is on the money. Dave ----

On the pictures I will see what I can do when I have the time. Dave ----

I thought you could get the plastic inserts for the plates at the auto parts stores? I want to get a front plate that reads "Built not Bought" Dave ----

Ok on the pictures. I may have put them in a folder on my PC but after I had them sent to Walgreens to be printed I deleted the folder and since then did a clean up of my PC and the trash got emptied. Being 170 pictures for the album I could go thru my site and pull them out just don't know where I could put them other than my site, I can do that if wanted. When driving I was always thinking I should pull the vacuum line as a test just never did it (yet). I do have to get un-lazy and look into this. Maybe this weekend after I wash the truck and get the tailgate letters on it. Dave ----

Gary, on the pictures can I ask what brought this up, did I miss something somewhere? They are not sorted on my site just uploaded as I did the work or if someone needed a better picture of something I would get it and add it so may not be in order. I should have a link in my signature to the pictures on my site for others to check out if they want. Was it when I said I had pictures printed for a photo album I can display at car / truck shows when they start back up. Some like to display what their car / truck started out and when it is in person. In my case I can also show all the work "I did" and not a shop I paid to do the work. On the dist. it was what ever the motor came with. I don't know if it has a tag or not as I have not looked. I am pretty sure the motor did not come from the factory in that truck as it was gray and has a sender in the stat for a computer feed back of some sort. I have turned the vacuum advance set screw and at first it helped a lot but has gotten worst over time. I wonder if it is the gas, winter / summer blend? I do know the high test there is no knock at all and the motor seams to run better. The next tanks I will try middle grade gas and see how it runs on it but I really need to put a timing light to this motor so I know where it is at to start with I just been lazy. Dave ----

That's what everybody knows. But every time I've seen actual torque curves they show that the 302 makes more torque at every engine speed than the 300. Yes the 302 makes it's peak torque at a higher speed than the 300 does. But the 302 still makes more torque at the 300s torque peak than the 300 does. And again, I'm not saying the 302 is a better truck engine in the real world. I believe everyone's "butt dynos" are accurately saying the 300 is better. But the torque curves I've seen don't explain why. I think you also need to look at the higher RPM of the 302 as more wear & tear on the motor and would need to be replaced sooner. I can tell you my 81 F100 - 300 / T18 / 2.74 working RPM is just over 1000, shifting at about 2000 RPM and other than when on the high way where it is over 2000 RPM I don't see the need to bring the RPM higher than 2000. When I get an over drive installed I will report on what I get but for now with the above setup I get about 14 MPG combo staying at 65 MPH max if I can on the high way and 45 on back roads. It will go faster with no issues but the MPG drop. Besides its nice to take it slow. My work truck (big rig) is slow so it is not a big deal for me to stay slow LOL. Dave ----

I took the best set I had between the 2 trucks and painted the doors & grille a darker silver as neither were chrome to start with. Now in that bright yellow truck the satin black would pop out but I think everyone would do the black & yellow and why I would not. Now the chrome may get lost in that bright yellow also so hard to say how I would go? Dave ----

I kind of like the 3rd Out of your 2 I like the clean look. Dave ----

Other than door panels and some of them are not that good, all other plastics you will have to find good used stuff. As been said if chalky you can sand them with 40 grit then 80 & 120 so you get to a good solid base. Wash them really good with soap & hot water to get the rest of the chalk off. Use SEM products, they make a prep you spray on first then the color. I would spray all the plastic panels so they all match but that's me. You can also use it on the dash frame & pad so they match the rest of the plastics. My door panels were pretty bad but wanted them to look some what good till I have money to by new ones and did the sand paper and a few coats of SEM. They are far from show but they don't look to bad for a driver. I also need to fix some of the other plastic and paint them yet. I painted the dash frame, pad and kick panels and am really happy the way they came out. Dave ----

The rubber was a used one, saving the new for a slider if I get one, that was on the glass, not a slider, that was almost not in my parts truck. When I went to pick the truck up the glass with rubber was half out from the roll over, I don't know how it did not break? I did pull the rubber off the glass so I could clean the rubber and glass before I installed it in my truck. So the chrome was never pulled, but if it was I would have put the chrome in the rubber then rubber on the glass. I also did the rear glass by myself and did not think it was that hard but I have done many VW bug glass with the string & soap so it was not new to me. Dave ----

Little buzzer up date on my truck .......... it did not buzz today. I will give it a try again tomorrow as I am off work for needle in eye again so after a little rest I will play. Dave ----

I did the vary same thing other than cracking the housing today on my truck and I changed the oil also. And all my parts came from NAPA too LOL I hope my oil sender (and temp) last more than a few months as the oil one was new when I got the motor running not long ago. Dave ----

Did I read right that you installed the window then the chrome strip? I would do the strip in the rubber off the glass then put the rubber on the glass and the glass assy. on to the truck. I did remove the rubber with the chrome from the glass for cleaning before I put the rubber back on the glass and then on the truck. Dave ----

Project finished No one told you they are never done I am enjoying the truck a lot and this is just "tweaking" Dave ---- Oh I know. It's like a house, there is always something... Last weekend I picked up the oil & temp senders as the oil gauge stopped working, it was a new sender, and the temp was reading low. I also picked up oil & filter as the oil was black and it was time for changing. I got out of work early so time to get working on the truck. Oil was low so I added a qt of ATF thru the dip stick tube to help clean it. Every time I would check the oil stick got dirty and covered with milk shake and was hard to read. I also wanted to run the ATF thru the motor to help clean it before the oil change. I changed out the oil psi sender and ran the motor to make sure the gauge worked and get the ATF mixed in. Now how to change out the temp sender and not lose coolant? The radiator petcock would not let it drain into a pan so next best thing, hose in the radiator and siphon it out and it worked. Changed out the old factory temp sender then swap out the new stat as I did not know if it was why the gauge was reading low or the sender. I tested the new stat in hot water before installing it. Refilled system with coolant and let it run up to temp. The temp & oil gauges are working again and the ATF doing its thing it was time for the oil change. Being the motor was up to temp the oil came out like black water! The truck is preserving its self. Oil leaks still persist and is coating everything on the bottom. Now that the gauges are working and oil changed I can look into that. Project is never done. Dave ----