Rembrant

Thanks!

That's what I hear. The one weak spot in the old ones is the main circuit board. The electrical box/control panel on this thing is not sealed at all...it's almost like an indoor unit, but it's hanging under the coach on the side of the chassis where all the road grime gets at it. The circuit board was fried. It has a tradional old Ford style starter solenoid, so I got it to wind over and fogged the cylinders. Compression seems good...I had the plugs unthreaded, but still sitting in the holes, and even at starter speed it blew the plugs out like bullets...lol. I found a place in PA that manufactures replacement upgraded/heavy duty circuit boards, so I'm just waiting for it to arrive so I can fir the thing up.

Darn it, I rotated that pic and saved in it Paint too...

The interior is not all that easy to take good pics of, but here is one below. The original flooring was disgusting worn out blue carpet. We ripped it all up and laid down peel and stick stuff, and then I did all the edges in that pre-painted quarter round. We've been trying to do this thing on the cheap, so we did it as good as we could on a small back pocket budget. She painted the walls white, and the backsplash is more peel and stick stuff. I had a piece of stainless cut to make a back splash for the stove. There were a lot of little things we did...new registers for the heater vents, and she did all of the flower print upholstery and seats on marine vinyl. It doesn't look too bad for a 27 year old RV. Remember the inside of this thing was all brown wood colored paneling and ugly wall paper with blue carpet...ack! I don't have very many pictures unfortunately, but the thing is pretty big/spacious for what it is. Double bed in the vary ass end, and a small bathroom with shower and almost full size tub.

I'll try to post up some pics of the interior. It is basically finished inside now. I laid all new flooring, and she painted all of the walls. Installed new faucets, and reupholstered the seats/fold down couch. I had to reseal some spots on the roof, and I'm working on the cargo doors one by one...every lock and latch is/was seized. Good news is that the cab AC works great, although I think I might need a fan speed resistor pack soon. Just waiting on the generator currently so that we can run the coach AC while on the road. That, and I still need to install a grey water tank. I'll get there. As for where...current plans are just to travel around NS a little bit, and visit family and friends. We also plan to do a little "Boondocking" and stay on some remote/deserted beaches. I have a good friend in Cape Breton on the Ceilidth Trail that has 40 acres on the ocean, and lots of free space to boondock. We are also anxiously awaiting the border to reopen...but we currently can't even get TO the border. NB is closed off to non-essential travel, so we'd need a good excuse in order to pass through. My wife loves to get into Maine to do some power shopping...so if we can swing it this summer, we'll likely go at least that far, maybe stay in Freeport for a couple nights and work our way back.

The old pig RV has been sitting idle for a while. We've been wanting to start using it, but I'm waiting on a new circuit board for the Onan generator just so I can start the darn thing and see if it works. Finally got around to changing the oil today and installing (RE-installing) the factory air cleaner and intake ducting that I assembled from bits and pieces. It had a little oil filter on it, but I must say the old 460 oil filter sure is easy to access on this thing. I'd say it needed an oil change badly too. I also finally removed that old hob gobbled propane open element intake assembly. Amazing how much quieter it is with a full factory correct air cleaner and intake on it. Heck, it even seems like its running smoother, although I'm sure that is just the placebo effect. Anyway, a couple more things off the to do list...once I get the generator working, we'll be hitting the road on the weekends. And the old propane junk removed... Anyway...I can see that working on the engine in this thing is going to be hateful...ugh. I really need to change out the coolant temp sender soon, and I've been procrastinating on that...lol.

Nice find Chris. Doesn't take long looking at those pics to know that it isn't from around here;).

Gentlemen, I was pulling out some of my spare parts today and I have this MPH speedometer that I will never use. The only reason I have it is that I bought a complete US instrument panel to get the factory tach and printed circuit. Not that it matters, but when I bought it, it was advertised as being removed from a 1984 Bronco. Anyway, if anybody has a use for it as a spare it is free to a good home for the cost of shipping. For something this small, shipping *should* be $20 USD or under, but I'll have to check to confirm.

Ya, my brother in law and I were talking about that tailshaft bushing. It looks like it would be fairly easy to replace, and I know they are available as I've seen them. I think I might leave that for a winter project.

She's a Beaut!

Happy to know that it arrived safe and sound. The 1980 instrument cluster wiring is a bit foreign to me, but I know the connections are different between an instrument cluster with gauges and one with only warning lights. If by chance you wanted a 1981-1986 cluster, I do have a couple extras and would be happy to send you one...or just the empty shell for the instruments if it is any help. The part itself would be free, but you'd have to pay for shipping. I also have an extra 1981-1986 printed circuit for a factory tachometer, but one of the snap connectors is broken where the ICVR plugs in. It can probably be repaired if you're handy with that kind of stuff. In any case, if you want/need the stuff it is just collecting dust, so it's yours if you want it. By the way, I have seen pictures where guys have added factory tachometers and just ran wires directly to the tachometer's posts rather than find the correct printed circuit. So this is an option also. I have no personal experience with it, but have seen others do it.

A few nice old Fords from the Thursday night car gathering. I had my old Bullnose all shined up and somewhere along the way picked up some traffic paint, so tonight's project will be removing that...ugh. And the one GM product that caught my eye was this 70's Chevelle SS with a 454 and 4spd...supposedly all factory.

Obviously I'm running a non-Bullnose transmission...it being a manual that takes ATF...are the splines lubricated by the ATF, or am I supposed to put something on them during install?

Nice truck for a nice price. I'd pay $1500 for that in a heartbeat. Interesting though...351w and a 4spd in a 2wd F150...if that's original, I'd say that's a fairly rare combination in a 2wd F150.

Ok, so my newly balanced (and straightened) driveshaft is MUCH smoother! I had kind of gotten used to the driveline vibration and had chalked it up to the engine...it vibrates a little on it's own. So it's much smoother now...surprising really, but I fixed a problem I actually wasn't really trying to fix...lol. It's wonderful, and I'm super happy about it, but I was trying to fix a separate issue. Still have a little bit of a bounce there somewhere. I think I'm going to replace the 36 year old rotors anyway...there is a bit of a pulsation there at certain speeds. But Gary, you got my attention with the slip yoke fit. I did check it, and it does seem to have a little slop in it. I have no idea what is normal, but I can wiggle it side to side a little bit. Question: Are the female splines in the slip yoke what wears? Better question is, do the male and female splines both wear, or just the one side, or...? I might try the other slip yoke and see how it fits, and if it is also bad, I could always order a new yoke.

Ha! I try to do that kind of thing whenever possible as well, for the same reason. Fwiw, I asked RedHead what fluid to use when I bought this steering box and they said they use DextronIII all the time themselves, and recommend it, so that's what I used. I have a newish reman C2 pump from RA, and it runs smooth and quiet. I get a slight chirp out of the belt on start up once in a while, but the system is otherwise smooth and quiet so I've left it alone.

Well, I've been battling this one vibration at 50mph that has been a real thorn in my side. It seemed to come and go at other times too, but I'm not sure. The roads are rough here a lot of the time, and with the wide tires and short wheelbase...the truck is kind of rough anyway. I've had the wheels balanced three times...once on the inside only, then again on both sides, and then the third time a proper road force balance. Maybe it has been the driveshaft all along, but it sure seemed like it was wheel/tire related. In all honesty, it feels like a tire (or tires) with flat spots...which the Cooper Cobras are somewhat known for on vehicles that sit a lot of the time, which mine does. Also puzzling...under certain circumstances...I believe if I hit the brakes while coasting at 50mph, then I'd get a fairly serious vibration....like what you would think were warped rotors. However, it rarely happened, so I assumed it wasn't the rotors. Anyway...last week I adjusted the drum brakes, and it seemed to get worse. So, I marched out and bought and installed new drums. The truck did seem smoother, but there was still a shake. That's when I decided to have the driveshaft checked out, and now here I am. I'm going to install it shortly and take it for a test drive. It's Thursday again, and super nice out, so hopefully there will be a decent gathering for car night.

So, interesting...I just picked up my driveshaft from the shop and they said not only was it out of balance, but it was also bent...lol. They straightened it and did a fresh balance. They balanced it with the old slip yoke (with the damper ring) so he said that I might as well leave it on there. However, he said I could stick the other yoke on if I wanted to that it wouldn't make much (if any) difference in what I would feel in the truck. I was doing some Googling, and it looks like the damper ring was a problem on some later F150's...the rubber would fail and the rings would randomly fall off. Seems most people just cut them off and carried on without them. Makes me wonder how effective they actually were.

Gary, Factory trans in my truck was 3spd manual column shift. Reason I asked was I am trying to really fine tune things now, and get rid of every little vibration in the truck lol. I dropped my driveshaft off today to get balanced (or checked to see if original balance is still OK), and was trying to decide what slip yoke to re-install on it.

Gentlemen, This might be a stupid question but figured I'd ask anyway. Even though I've changed transmissions, I'm still running the original '84 slip yoke. I don't have a picture of it at the moment, but it is the same as the one in this pic below. The casting is round and it has an external ring mounted like a harmonic balancer. (The whole thing is probably 5 1/2" or 6" OD) I have another slip yoke here that I removed from a 1996 F150 with an M5OD trans. Pic below. It's hard to read the numbers in the casting, but it looks like E1TW CA34, but could be E1TW CA84? The purpose of the larger one with the rubber mounted external ring is just a vibration damper? Was it by any chance specific to my truck's original 3spd trans? I guess my question is...are these slip yokes interchangable? It looks like they likely existed at the same time, so why would one truck have one and another not. (For the record, I'm pretty sure I've seen the larger style with the damper ring on factory 5spd trucks). Is there a reason one was used over the other? What say the experts?

Is this thing listed for sale somewhere? I remember seeing a for sale add the other day for a Ford truck that had been converted to electric...but I can't remember where I saw it. Either CL or FB Marketplace. I seem to recall that it was blue, but I didn't pay much attention to it and kept scrolling.

The interior is lovely.

Did you receive your samples yet? Mine just arrived in the mail today, and I think the #7879 is the closest match of the bunch. Curious what your take was. I'll have to get Mrs. Rembrant to weigh in on the selection later as well.

Ahhh...this stuff kills me...lol. I'm looking for a 4x4 Flareside and would buy that in a heartbeat. I wish I was closer.

Is that a gun rack in the back window? If yes, cool! Congrats Ray. It is a cool truck.