Pete Whitstone

Gary, I have no speedo cable. I tried the VSS-in-the-cable approach early on, in fact, you sent me one. I could never get that system to read accurately and evenly. The system I have now is entirely electronic, there is a sensor at the TC output housing, and that is wired to the Quick 2 trans controller, so it sees vehicle speed. From there the speedo output on the Quick 2 feeds the electronic speedo. This is all described in this old thread. This setup has served me really well, it's been problem free until this minor glitch.

Good info, sounds like I'm not the only one with this problem. In Gary's post, he recommends a sealant between the weatherstripping and the cowl. This makes sense but is not something I had thought of. So now I am wondering if the water is leaking past there, rather than going between the seal and the hood as I had assumed. I will start experimenting and report back with what I find works.

Hello all, I was driving the truck yesterday and suddenly the transmission starts grabbing and slipping, allowing the engine to rev way up, and bucking the truck around. I am thinking "oh oh, transmission is going", but then I see the speedo is not reading (speedo is fed signal from the trans computer). So I limped it back home, found the computer was giving an "OSS missing or bad" type of error, with OSS being Output Speed Sensor. So it's apparently not getting signal from the VSS. I go to the TC output housing and pull the connector off the VSS, and water starts running out from the plastic clamshell corrugate tubing. Lots of water... what the heck. So I find the other end of it, which is up by the steering column on the firewall, just under the cowl/hood junction. It was pointed directly upwards, where water could run into it if it made it past the seal there. Then I recalled that after rain, I often saw water on the top of the air cleaner or intake manifold. So it's pretty obvious the seal is not doing its job, despite being only a few years old. It is from LMC, so I'm sure it's not the best one out there or anything, but it looks intact and is installed correctly as far as I know. Here's a picture of it. So I guess my question is, what should I be looking at to fix this problem? The gap between the cowl and hood is pretty tight, but water is still getting past. Do I need a new seal, do I have this one installed upside down, is it the wrong seal... somebody tell me what I'm doing wrong. Thanks! P.S. One of the two wires going to the VSS did not have continuity, which I think was probably related to the water. However, I did not find any obvious breaks or corrosion. I replaced the wire and the error went away and the transmission behaves now. I wouldn't have thought losing VSS would jack with the transmission that badly, but it's all better now.

Yes, it is hard plastic. And there is a rough edge indicating the part broke and is not complete.

Thanks Gary! This is odd, because my truck is very "base model" (Ranger maybe)? As far as I know, it was never equipped with cruise control. It does have that big threaded thing that the vacuum line plugs into, but it appears gutted, just a hollow threaded tube as far as I can tell. I wondered what that thing was for. Curious that those things would be on a truck with no cruise control.

I was replacing the turn signal switch on the 81 yesterday, and was trying to unplug it where it connects to the main harness. This is down the steering column by the brake pedal. It's a tight fit and I am on my back, contorted into the footwell. While grappling with a connecter that was just about fused after 44 years, this thing falls on my face. I have no clue what it is or where it came from, or even if it's a part of the truck. Anybody have any clues? Thanks!

I had the same surprise when I bought my 81. Unclear when the cutover was, but clearly it was before our trucks were manufactured.

I assume you are talking about idle pressures. The engine has a hydraulic roller cam in it that is in the 220s, I think 224 intake and and 229 exhaust at .050. It is kinda rumpity so I run the idle higher than stock, I have it set at 825. What is stock idle, 625 or 650, something like that? So adding a couple hundred rpm at idle still had me at about 10 psi on the gauge (VDO instrumentation and sender). This was with the 5w20 synthetic. If I idled it down to stock, I wonder if the light would begin to flicker. I think the OP light senders are set for about 7psi. I don't recall what pump I used, but it was not high pressure or high volume, just a good brand name pump. Maybe a Melling? I'd have to go back through my Summit purchases to know for sure. I have wondered if running thicker oil to bring the pressures up is kind of an artificial crutch, or maybe is just for my psychological comfort. Maybe the engine is perfectly happy with 10psi at idle with the thinner stuff. But since I don't believe the 10w30 is going to do any harm to it, I am happy with 20 psi at idle.

I am the builder in this case. I followed the Ford specifications, which are pretty darn tight. I don't have them in front of me but I recall the main bearing clearance range ran from .0008 to .0015. So it seems like the thinner 5w30 would still produce good pressures with those kind of clearances. And it does, until it comes up to temp. That stuff seems to thin out in a major way when hot. Not sure how much the synth vs conventional plays into that.

In my 81, which has a 94 351 in it (well, now it's 408), if I use the 94 spec 5w20 synth oil, this is what I see - barely enough pressure at idle to keep the big red light from coming on. This time around I put 10w30 in it, and the pressures are much less eyebrow-raising. I'm pretty sure that 10w30 was spec'd for these engines in the 80's, so I think it's fairly safe to run it. I don't know of any major architectural change in the engine that would necessitate the 5w20. I suspect it's a CAFE thing, trying to get better mileage, but I don't know. BTW Vivek, I have my drain chased down to a circuit that the PF4 and the Quick2 are associated with. There were 2 relays on those circuits that were no-name Amazon stuff. Replaced both with Bosch units, no change. So I might still hit you up for borrowing that meter. There are a few more things I need to check first. The truck is pretty much a toy to me at this point, not a DD, so no urgency.

I got in my 81 to move it the other day and the big red oil pressure light did not go off, nor did the gauge move. I shut it down after about 6-7 seconds. Checked the oil, it was a bit low. It was due for an oil change anyway, so I did that, then restarted. Same thing. Neither startup produced bad noises. So yesterday I pulled the dizzy and put the priming tool on it. I could feel the resistance but still no gauge reading. Suspected the sender at this point. It is a combo sensor that feeds both the light and the gauge. Pulled it out and found the transducer hole plugged with a bit of unidentifiable schmootz. Pulled it out and reassembled and all was fine. At first I thought it was some type of foam that had degraded sitting in the oil. I picked at it a bit and it kind of came apart in hairs. No clue what it is or how it got in my engine. But glad that was all it was.

Will follow up in a different thread, I don't want to hijack this one too much.

Correct, just outside of McKinney in New Hope. Let me figure out my oil pressure situation and then I might take you up on trying out the meter. Thank you for that offer. I figure if I've got an engine pull in my immediate future, then a voltage drain is not even a blip on my radar. Good thing I love my truck. 🙂

I also have a parasitic drain on my 81, which will kill the battery overnight. I got a different Ames clamp-on at HF, the one that costs $40 or so. Its resolution in DC amperage clamp-on measurement only goes down to 6 amps, and it does not pick up on anything. Battery is brand new. What is the resolution of that meter? What mode are you using it in? I can only see the drain on my meters in DC voltage mode, measuring battery voltage at timed intervals. Doing that I can see the drain, but that is not instantaneous the way a clamp-on amp reading would be. My truck has the strange behavior that if I drive it and park it, the battery will be dead the next morning. Dead dead, not just weak. Not even a click from the starter relay or a dome light or anything. 100% drained. However, if I unhook the battery after driving, then hook it up the next day (without starting/driving the truck), then the battery will be fine for weeks and all appears normal. My theory on that is that a relay somewhere is sticking on when it should be clicking off. If the battery is still connected, heat or current or whatever in the relay is making the contacts stick and the battery drains. However, if I disconnect the battery overnight, then everything cools down and the relay un-sticks and the drain goes away. I will mess with it more today. If I can figure out why I've suddenly got 0 oil pressure first. 🤔

Gary warned me of this when I set out to do the E4OD swap on my 81 RCSB. But I found that this was not the case, no bashing of the floor necessary. I'm not sure if there were some years or models (extended cabs maybe) where this would be necessary, but it wasn't for my truck. I do agree that the easiest path for the OP is to swap out the C6 for an E4OD and add a stand-alone controller.