Rembrant

Yes, peeled it completely off. If I recall correctly, mine was already at least 50% loose, and I just peeled off the last of it, but it did come off complete. I scraped all of the old paint and crap off the back of it, and when I had the plate all painted again, I put the rubber back on. I can't remember exactly how I adhered it back to the plate...maybe with some 3M spray adhesive, but I do remember using some black RTV around the center part. Clamp it together with some clothespins or something similar and let it sit. I have some finished pics, but no pics in progress unfortunately other than when it was sand blasted.

After several years of ownership, my old Bullnose finally holds windshield washer fluid, ANNNND sprays it on to the windshield as well!! I scavenged this tank out of the 1985 4x4 that I scrapped and it was black inside and out! Took it apart to clean it and spent HOURS removing the old rusted out washer fluid pump. The problem is that the pumps rust and swell up in the plastic basically locking them in place. My truck had an incorrect tank in it, and somebody had cut the wires off it some time ago. New pump, wiring pigtail, new washer fluid nozzle and hose.

I should have pics of this. I disassembled my 3-on-the-tree column down to every last piece, and removed that firewall part with the rubber seal to sand blast and paint it. I also had to weld new tabs on where it connects to the steel column in the cab. As far as I know, the three on the tree column and the auto column would be almost identical at the bottom end where the lever(s) are. Let me dig out some pics...hang on Ok, so I'm not much help. I went looking for pics and I don't have any that are of any use in this discussion, sorry. I did pull the part though and blasted it and repaired it, etc. If I recall correctly....and this was on a NON-tilt column mind you...but I had to remove the shift collar on the inside, and the bushing and spring washer under it, and then from the bottom end remove the black plastic housing, and the whole shift tube will slide right out.

I should have pics of this. I disassembled my 3-on-the-tree column down to every last piece, and removed that firewall part with the rubber seal to sand blast and paint it. I also had to weld new tabs on where it connects to the steel column in the cab. As far as I know, the three on the tree column and the auto column would be almost identical at the bottom end where the lever(s) are. Let me dig out some pics...hang on

Those distributor pages (both 1 & 2) have always been available via Google search haven't they?. I've been on them several times over the past few years. I believe Ron sent his distributor to them for his 351w and has been happy with it. I may send them might once the snow/salt hits and my truck is off the road.

I'd add to this by saying that the reason people are seeking comfort is the incorrect belief that they are entitled to it. I listen to the Joe Rogan podcast quite often. I get a little tired of the comedians after a while but I always tune in if he has somebody interesting on. One of my favorite quotes from his Podcast, and I can't remember who the guest was, is this: "A man has two lives to live. The second one starts the moment he realizes he only has one." But back to you point, yes, we do need a purpose. It goes a long way in explaining the amount of people that lose interest in a project once it's finished...lol. Or when the destination of a trip is less memorable than traveling to get there. I'm sure there are enough retired guys on here that can confirm how important it is to have something to fill your day after you're done working. I have a couple relatives that are currently going through this...they are both guys who were dedicated to their work...so much so it was part of their identity. All of a sudden, they're finished work and they're lost. I think it's the same thing for the younger ones when the factory leaves a small town, or when your life is simply made too easy for you. Ray, if you're a Podcast guy, check out Econtalk with Russ Roberts. His most recent one (Yesterday) is about manufacturing in the US...a little different take on the topic from the usual narrative. I haven't listened to it yet because I have about 400 miles to do tomorrow and I'm saving it;).

I come across these things for sale in Canada every now and then. Just wondering if anybody ever sees them around anywhere? I knew two different guys that had these back in the 80's, and while they were slow as a snail, they did get pretty good mpg. The ad below is in Quebec...so it's in French, but there's no info there other than it's an '83 diesel. https://www.kijiji.ca/v-voiture-collection/ville-de-montreal/rare-ford-ranger-diesel/1454835305

It was reposted... https://columbia.craigslist.org/cto/d/saint-matthews-1985-f150/7003950217.html

I have one I removed from a 1991 F250 but haven't installed it in my 1984 yet. My truck is a Non-AC, and there seemed to be lots of room back there, but then again I didn't try to fit it back there yet either...lol. Gary has a page on the upgrade in the Wiper section.

How quickly do you need this part? I can look around and ask a few people if they have one.

Nor is new always correct! I was cleaning up my work bench, and as I often do I was putting my old spark plugs in the boxes the new ones came in (I usually save them for a while, just in case) and I noticed one of the boxes was an Autolite 103 (I purchased 104's). The 103 is visually identical to the 104, but it's one heat range cooler (3, instead of 4). Anyway, I pulled it back out of the engine and will return it tomorrow on the way home from work. May not have made much difference, but I certainly wasn't leaving it like that.

Lookin' good. That's a nice cement pad you've got to work on there too. I wish I had something like that outside. I don't even have level ground outside let alone a smooth surface to work on.

Oh yes I knew it was supposed to be oiled, I was just wondering if I uncovered a problem as it might have been sticking before.

Ok, I'll get to work on this...likely through the week. I just checked and my idle mix screws are 3/4 turn out. According to my handy dandy Holley book they should end up somewhere between 1/2 and 1 1/2 turns out. Oh, and my new AFR gauge should be here in a couple days as well, so I should be able to get the old thing dialed in pretty good. So what do you normally do with the air cleaner being in the way? Make an adjustment, then stick the air cleaner back on, and repeat? Don't know if I can reach the idle mix screws with the air cleaner in place and I surely can't reach the idle stop screw...

Gary, Vacuum advance is currently disconnected. Right, so I'll play around with the idle speed and adjustments to see if I can get it to stop bouncing. I wonder if the centrifugal advance is now moving too easily since I oiled it? Any time I played with it previously it wasn't advancing until a much higher RPM. Maybe it was sticking before and now that it's lubed up it's swinging out to full advance at too low an RPM?

Make sure your spark plug wires are routed correctly. As strange as that sounds, it makes a difference. If certain wires are too close to each other, they can crossfire and cause an engine miss. There are two different firing orders for a 5.0/302: there is the standard firing order and the 5.0 H.O./351 firing order. The spark plug wires are routed slightly different between the two. Rick, Wires are all routed OK and firing order is checked and correct. All good there. I replaced all the plugs, wires, cap and button this morning and it was running a little better for sure. I then bumped the base timing up to 16btdc, and it works better here too. The problem I'm having now though is that the idle is not as smooth as it was. Before, my tach needle was rock solid. Now it's bouncing a little bit. I put the timing light back on, and you can see that the timing it bouncing way advanced. It reads on the 16, but bounces way ahead. I should note here also that I put some oil in the upper advance shaft in the distributor (below the little felt that's in there). Vacuum is reading 16" at idle. That was with no air cleaner on it. When I put the 5.0 dual snorkel intake back on it, the idle goes from 800 up over 900. So my base ignition jumping way ahead...is that my centrifugal advance? When I've checked it previously, when set at 12btdc, it was always pretty steady.

Thanks for the replies here guys. I am going to adjust the timing and get it dialed in better than it is, but I'm starting to realize here that (I think) I am chasing several issues at the same time. My timing, whether it is set at an optimal point or not has still been pretty consistent. The truck definitely has a miss, and I need to take a step back and give things the KISS treatment...keep it simple stupid... Up until this point I have been totally ignoring the plugs, wires, cap, and button because they're all fairly new and don't have many miles on them (3500 miles maybe?). I'm going to replace a bunch of this stuff before going any further. Something I'm curious about however...along the same topic of this thread, is the upper advance shaft in the distributor? How much play/wiggle is OK here? I pulled the rotor button off last night and noticed it has some wiggle.

That is a nice little truck. Short wheelbase, 300/6, manual trans and factory AC. Nice color too. It has a newer model bed on it for some reason. If it came from AZ, it's not because it rusted out like all do up here.

Thanks for the replies gentlemen, I will be back with more questions later, but first I have a quick question slightly off the topic of this thread, but still related... What is the max spark plug gap my stock DSII ignition can handle?

No issues with starting currently. The truck might as well be EFI in that department...just a touch of the key hot or cold and it starts instantly. Three levels of gas here...87, 89, and 91 for premium. There may be higher octanes further west, I'm pretty sure I've seen 93 when traveling, but for the most part it's 87-91 where I live. I've been running nothing but 87 in the truck, pretty much since I put the engine in there last year. I'm not sure on the ethanol content...could be zero or 10%, I'm not really sure. (I drive a diesel VW most of the time, so I haven't really been paying close attention to gasoline.) I did run 91 for a few tanks after I put the engine in, but tried 87 to see if it would be OK and I didn't notice any difference between the two, so I left it at 87. The Dyno work was really more like a nice addition. My reason at the time was to just have the engine broken in and to have the basic set-up done. I'm working in a single attached garage, so installing the engine was enough work on it's own, and I just wanted to drop it in and hit the key and go. Also, it was just like a small bit of warranty for me that the builder test the engine and make sure it didn't leak or have any problems before I hauled it home to install it. My main issue now is to get it working better in the lower RPM's. The Peak HP/performance was irrelevant at the dyno time and it's pretty much irrelevant now;).

I wanted to pick the brains of the experts and BTDT crowd with regards to SBF ignition timing. After I had my little 302 built, we broke it in on the dyno and then tuned it. The guy that built my engine was really good, but I'll admit that their shop spends most of their time building much bigger (higher compression) performance engines. A lot of BBC's. Anyway, he set my timing at 12/20, for a total of 32 without vacuum advance. He said that he didn't want to go over 32 for fear of causing problems. He did bump it up to 34 for a pull or two and when it didn't make any difference he put it back at 32 degrees. So I got the engine home and installed it in the truck, and when I checked the timing it was not at 12/20, at least not according to my timing light. I have to apologize, as I don't remember where it was exactly, but I adjusted it a little bit to put it back to 12/20 (again, according to my timing light). I have been doing some reading, and the article below caught my attention as it says that SBF's work best between 38-42 total timing. https://www.fordmuscle.com/archives/2000/03/timing/ My engine is not what one would consider high compression. On the upper end it might be 9:1, but it's probably more like 8.9:1 and even with full vacuum advance I haven't heard the engine ping at all. Anyway, I guess I'm just curious what you guys with similar engines are running for base timing and centrifugal timing? I know I need to work on getting my ignition curve smoothed out, but that's a separate issue from where the actual start and finish numbers need to be.

Are you referring to the 3C511 bracket in the picture below? I believe it is different between the 351w and the 302. As far as I know, the cast aluminum 3A372 bracket is the same on all of them (and a zillion other Fords), but that steel bracket varies. Gary will correct me if I'm wrong. Here's a picture of my 302. You can see that the steel plate on mine wouldn't work on a 351w when the bolt hole in the head moves up by 1/2". (At least I don't think it would). Well, maybe the 302 and 351w brackets are the same?...This Ebay auction is showing as fitting both...not there are ever any mistakes on Ebay...lol. https://www.ebay.com/itm/1983-1984-1985-Ford-Bronco-F150-F250-Mercury-ORIG-302-351W-P-S-PUMP-BRACKET/162304682103?_trkparms=ispr%3D1&hash=item25ca1ce877:g:r5cAAOSw5cNYQMf4&enc=AQAEAAACMBPxNw%2BVj6nta7CKEs3N0qUGQ5CEr9S0Ewr9X7fX04pIF3wlNinFnzqHzMtToUSnLSoTFQQE25%2FDSKmzFdnJ2eHUDQaGTEjG7NhOv8wQN%2FtDbqOxsHFBzngdEw08SlQJZO6ZOBHkQloJTryPyOCXR%2B26mhSPWyp2GsPKJLMLLSxelaeStTuprAtRc07eHcNLLuvvh7%2BHlCfrLmfvQPfDSoBxNjyt%2BO5Yj54vaEQYOC%2F0wMhgg%2F3aYtB%2BJw%2FuFyWPcAIzLauB3FWqOHskEck5sRNwciIkzAipPRDJh%2B3AkWlB%2FqJoPjHwvaA5mQu%2BtgNbdhzOhEhniDVswG0JPvjLfr2vOluat5PZsciuBTi%2FSUCp7OnJPhVO1u3Mpne%2B8SJ3689UeibCJXxUtYr8lr%2B0t2hzan%2BETDKUArA302LOnfQHf7v9OoEBc0BKDsjjv0i53kdI%2FYuD97ooV3ZnWE1x9bwvkg5vjq90vf%2BtzmoyyyIZRhXZ8jesy9gPsfCYMu65FabhKgM2%2FgvGO9kvu%2FrQm6V%2BLEglQVmw4OFux2zl2zW6w2Cd99CMUXCfMjkA7uypT7dGWktpP3e816OPbWI2Ju7lN0YHu2RcSzRDsbq%2FhluE3v8yVAmTEYlDs1l38EOEf7ezptH2xBkWh%2BxW4P%2FyzuwZljszV2wZYCMz127fIH9WwXDfE8W5rgMC1t99gsMqkaE50%2Bi%2BxHBgKcbU9hjXBt3SKU0qRn0c28Aza0a5u42s&checksum=1623046821037935ccecdc3f48d49843849afd91bad2&enc=AQAEAAACMBPxNw%2BVj6nta7CKEs3N0qUGQ5CEr9S0Ewr9X7fX04pIF3wlNinFnzqHzMtToUSnLSoTFQQE25%2FDSKmzFdnJ2eHUDQaGTEjG7NhOv8wQN%2FtDbqOxsHFBzngdEw08SlQJZO6ZOBHkQloJTryPyOCXR%2B26mhSPWyp2GsPKJLMLLSxelaeStTuprAtRc07eHcNLLuvvh7%2BHlCfrLmfvQPfDSoBxNjyt%2BO5Yj54vaEQYOC%2F0wMhgg%2F3aYtB%2BJw%2FuFyWPcAIzLauB3FWqOHskEck5sRNwciIkzAipPRDJh%2B3AkWlB%2FqJoPjHwvaA5mQu%2BtgNbdhzOhEhniDVswG0JPvjLfr2vOluat5PZsciuBTi%2FSUCp7OnJPhVO1u3Mpne%2B8SJ3689UeibCJXxUtYr8lr%2B0t2hzan%2BETDKUArA302LOnfQHf7v9OoEBc0BKDsjjv0i53kdI%2FYuD97ooV3ZnWE1x9bwvkg5vjq90vf%2BtzmoyyyIZRhXZ8jesy9gPsfCYMu65FabhKgM2%2FgvGO9kvu%2FrQm6V%2BLEglQVmw4OFux2zl2zW6w2Cd99CMUXCfMjkA7uypT7dGWktpP3e816OPbWI2Ju7lN0YHu2RcSzRDsbq%2FhluE3v8yVAmTEYlDs1l38EOEf7ezptH2xBkWh%2BxW4P%2FyzuwZljszV2wZYCMz127fIH9WwXDfE8W5rgMC1t99gsMqkaE50%2Bi%2BxHBgKcbU9hjXBt3SKU0qRn0c28Aza0a5u42s&checksum=1623046821037935ccecdc3f48d49843849afd91bad2

Are you referring to the 3C511 bracket in the picture below? I believe it is different between the 351w and the 302. As far as I know, the cast aluminum 3A372 bracket is the same on all of them (and a zillion other Fords), but that steel bracket varies. Gary will correct me if I'm wrong. Here's a picture of my 302. You can see that the steel plate on mine wouldn't work on a 351w when the bolt hole in the head moves up by 1/2". (At least I don't think it would).

Thanks Gary, I think the reason they are so hard to come by in the used market is that it's quite a bit of work to remove them. Depending on how must rust there is and where the truck is sitting, getting the long mounting bolt out of the I-beam and coil spring, etc can be an UN-fun job.