Rembrant

Vacuum advance is currently disconnected and plugged, but it was on the passenger side of the metering block on the carb. There is a barb there that Holley says to use for vac advance. I'll play with that some more once I have everything else dialed in. I've checked it before, and it is zero vacuum at idle, but the moment you touch the throttle it jumps up to 20" pretty quickly. The O2 sensor gauge kit is an AEM 30-4110. I'll try the test with covering the choke horn. Thanks. At this point and time, I don't think it's working properly. Thanks for all the tips Rick. Appreciated. Truck is manual trans though, so I don't have Park. I pretty much tried all of your suggestions, but I can't get the idle below 750 RPM. The throttle closes and the idle speed screw will start to back out. Also, I can't get the vacuum to go below 17". Right now, I have the mixture screws out 1 turn, idle is set around 850 and vacuum was 17". If I put just a tiny bit of pressure on the throttle the vacuum shoots down to 20" almost instantly. That is confusing me a little bit because I thought it would be higher with the throttle 100% closed, but anyway. There are some notes in the Holley book about this situation (because of the bigger cam I believe) where they suggest drilling small holes in the throttle plates to increase the vacuum. Right now it's not running bad. I was out driving around for a while. The engine pulls hard, and it idles fine other than being a little high right now. Maybe the cam and the carb are too big. It feels to me like it should run a little better than it does at the lower RPM's, but it's possible I'm chasing a ghost here and there's nothing to improve...lol.

Ha! Well Ron, my truck and every other one I see has the bumper dents in the tailgate...lol. They stick out like a sore thumb to us Flaresiders.

Ok, I've playing with the carb settings this morning. I tried the idle mix screws out 1.5 turns first, and then just now turned them out 2.0 full turns. I have the idle speed screw adjusted out all the way and the engine is idling at 750 RPM. I can't get it any lower than this. Vacuum is still only 16-17". My AFR gauge is still reading full pegged lean. According to the Holley book, I should have a rich mixture right now. Not sure, but maybe there's something up with the gauge? It goes through a little start-up procedure, then sits at 14.5 for a couple seconds, and then rapidly ramps up until it hits 18:1 and then pegs all the way. I took the truck for a quick drive, and it stayed pegged lean. Maybe the sensor/gauge kit is not working properly. So either I'm stupid lean or the gauge isn't working properly. Bugger. The base timing is still set at 16btdc, and is sitting pretty steady there at idle. Weird thing I see now is if I start to increase the RPM's, the timing starts to retard...sometimes smoothly, sometimes jumping a little bit, but still retarding. I'll try some more idle mix adjustments and see what happens. Any comments welcome.

Out of curiosity, why don't you worry about AFR at idle? Oh, and another question... Is there a reason the gauge was showing me an AFR reading while the engine was warming up and then would not once it warmed up? Does that sound more like a sensor issue or did the AFR actually change between cold start and warmed up? I have the choke adjusted so that it doesn't work, so I was using only the throttle to keep it running until it warmed up. I'm just curious why that changed?

Out of curiosity, why don't you worry about AFR at idle?

Do you mean the large oval shaped hole? If yes, where did you get the grommets for it? Just curious. I have a spare one I yanked out of an '86 at the junkyard, and I finally used it last night to run the harness into the cab for my O2 sensor. I cut the spare one so that I didn't have to damage the original...not that it matters really.

Hey Grumpin! Well, I've been playing around with this for a couple weeks and searching for vacuum leaks is one of the things I've been doing. I might as well run this by you guys in case I'm missing something. My Holley has 4 vacuum barbs. There are two 3/8" barbs...one in front which I have piped to PCV, one in the rear which is piped to the brake booster. Then there are two 1/8" barbs, one that is full vacuum up front that I previously had capped but now (normally) have it connected to the air cleaner assembly, but currently it is piped to my vacuum gauge. The other 1/8" barb is the ported vacuum source that I have piped to my vacuum advance, which is also currently plugged. All tubing is new. I even disconnected the PCV last night and plugged it for a test. The brake booster seems to be OK and I pulled the fitting out of it a couple days ago and it was still holding a vacuum after the truck had not been started in 3 days. Currently running an aluminum 1" spacer under the carb with new gaskets. Everything is still brand new really, but I checked the intake and the base of the carb for flatness, and they both appear to be fine and look like new. So, for the time being I've kinda given up on looking for any further vacuum leak unless you guys point out something that I'm missing.

Understood Gary thank you. One more thing... The idle mix screws. Do they have internal stops when turning them out? I assume yes...wouldn’t want one falling out..

Ok,..all understood gentlemen, thank you. I'm a 4bbl carb tuning rookie here (as if it wasn't obvious...lol). I haven't touched the carb since the engine came off the dyno. It worked fine. The Holley book I was reading said to start at 2 turns out, and adjust in from there, ideally ending up at 1 turn, but OK between 0.5 and 1.5 turns out. I have another Holley book here that says to start at 1.5 turns out. In any case, the carb as found was at 0.75 turns out. I'm done with it for tonight, but I'll be back at it again tomorrow. I'll set them at 1.5 turns and stick the air cleaner back on and go for a drive. Could be the gauge too I suppose. It was reading while the engine was warming up, but then once warm it went max lean. That was at .75 turns out (I think) so I'll try it again at 1.5 and see what the gauge says. Thanks for your help guys.

Gentlemen, I finally got my AEM AFR sensor & gauge installed this evening and set out to check and set my idle mixture, etc. So I started the engine up (without choke) and just held the pedal while it warmed up. Idle AFR while cold was more or less bouncing between 15.5 and 16.5 sometimes bouncing to 17.0 or so. If I revved it a bit while cold, it would go to 13.5:1, right where it was set on the dyno day. After a few minutes when it started to warm up, the AFR maxed out lean, so it's above 17 or 18:1. Then I reset the idle mix screws, and decreased the idle stop screw as much as I could, and started adjusting the screws in. I could not get the idle screw adjustments to make any difference until I get in to where they're getting close to being closed and the engine wants to stall. AFR still pegged lean, and vacuum doesn't go any lower than about 16". If I rev the engine a bit, the vacuum shoots to 20" no problem. I had the idle stop adjustment down as far as it would go without stalling, so I don't know if I'm too far into the transition slot or not... Holley book says to try a few different things... Put toothpicks in the idle air bleeds to see if that richens it up. Maybe the carb needs a different idle jet?...If it's even changeable...I don't know. I need to go do some more reading, but thought I'd ask the experts for advice. Thanks gents.

Looks like a good repair Gary. Handy having machining gear huh?

Don't let Reamer see that tailgate laying on the bumper...lol. There's something up with those tailgate chains...looks like they were relocated lower for some reason. And, the molding/trim on the cab...did Ford do that on the Flareside trucks back then? Because they didn't in the Bullnose era.

Do you mean the one at the very bottom end of the column? It's still available from Ford for about $8 bucks, or at least it was a couple years ago when I bought one.

Will do.

Yeah, I think it would be nice as my plan eventually is to do a little traveling with the truck, and it would be nice to have the bed covered over. They have a couple videos on Youtube showing how the kits assemble and attach to the bed, etc. Currently I'm a little hesitant to drill any holes in my brand new bed, but I'll likely get over that after some time when I have some more nicks and scratches in my paint.

No worries whatsoever. I'm going to try and grab the bracket on Sunday so once I have it in my hand I'll message you through the forum for a shipping address. Don't worry about the cash at the moment. The postage shouldn't be bad. I used to deal with a company in Australia called Woolich Racing, and delivery times and prices were always reasonable. I know at the time, the CDN/AUS exchange was almost on par, but I haven't checked it recently. Looks like you're 14 hrs ahead of me. Have a good weekend and I'll get back to you on Sunday. Cheers.

Yes sir, looking good! Sorry for the delay in getting back I haven't had much time online the past couple days. I'm going to do my best to get the PS bracket for you this weekend and then I can chuck 'em in the mail next week. Are you in need of anything else new or used that could go with some rusty parts?...lol. I have an extra set of tailgate chain cover sleeves if you happen to need a set. What city are you in? Just curious about the time change...If you're in the east, I guess it's probably 12 hrs. As the old joke used to go, "The world can't end today, it's already tomorrow in Australia!". TGIF!!

I would think so, yes.

I just saw one of these toppers on a Bullnose on Craigslist the other day. I was thinking about getting one of the Craftec ones for my Flareside at some point. I still have some other stuff that needs to be done first, so accessories like this are still a ways down on the priority list. http://www.crafteccovers.com/1980-87-Ford-Flareside_p_125.html?fbclid=IwAR3j9ZIYJ8qTN_muxHb6IyLUmPqT_23CTDT2LLw1dBXbq9-O1TEORqUyTv4

It doesn't sound good... Can you tell us more about the rebuild and what work was done? And what oil you used? On a new cold engine with cold oil (By cold, ambient temps) you should have had oil pressure that pushed the gauge past the middle, up between 50-60 psi, maybe even a bit higher. Just past the "L" on the gauge wouldn't be enough pressure to do a 2000RPM break-in.

Posting this picture for no reason in particular other than I came across it while looking for other stuff. Picture was taken 25 years ago. It was my daily driver at the time, and the one vehicle I always missed (which is why I'm here today). I'm sure it is long long gone now, probably crushed 20 years ago. If it still exists, I wish I knew where it was. I've seen people on Facebook trying to track down vehicles that were sold many years prior, and surprisingly some of them do turn up. Of course they're usually somewhat collectible vehicles that people would take care of anyway. Old trucks rarely got that treatment around here unfortunately. They were used and abused.

Very nice! 1984 is the best year too, everybody knows this.

I've spent quite a bit of time with EFI self-tuners on motorcycles, and they are outstanding in how well they tune. I understand where Rick is coming from...you're probably on your own with it, but at least you can see what it's doing. In my area, I don't think it would be very easy to find somebody to work on anything pre-OBDII. I've been lusting after one of these EFI systems, but they aren't cheap. I do like the Atomic kit though as it tied into the distributor and even has a fake vacuum advance function. I'm subscribing to see how this goes. Welcome aboard new guy!

Oz, LMC sells aftermarket throttle cables, and they list the same part number for 302, 351, 400, and 460. I just went out and checked mine (5.0/302) and it looks about 23"-ish.... There's 6"/150mm in front of the bracket where the spring is, and then approx 12"/30cm to the firewall, and then a very little bit inside the cab...only 1-2"/25-50mm. I have a throttle cable bracket that came off of a 1984 302 with cruise control. The cruise control extension is removable. It needs sand blast and paint, but it's all yours if you want it. PS: I reached out to a local guy here and he thinks he has a 351/5.8 bracket for the PS pump. If you haven't found one yet I'll get a picture of this one and confirm what it is.

Lookin’ good Dave!!