Rembrant

Came across this interesting F350 4x4 for sale in Canada (West Coast). Super low miles, and if it has been in BC it's whole life, likely very little rust. 45,000 orig kms is about 28k miles. $6500 CDN doesn't seem too bad...thats about $4900 bucks USD. Must have been a fire truck or forestry / Natural Resources truck....interesting body though. https://www.kijiji.ca/v-cars-trucks/cowichan-valley-duncan/1986-ford-f350-4-x-4/1465541696?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true

Hi Gary, yes same fitting. You can even tell in the picture that the one on mine is smaller. Interesting. Oh well, I guess I'll see if I can get some smaller tubing that will fit over the nozzle, or I'll get a reducer barb to go between the two sizes if I have to.

Ok, I guess that's where I'm running into an issue Gary, the nipple on my reservoir is only 0.200". I cut my tubing back a half an inch to remove the flare and it appears to be 0.250-0.260" ID. I have a new washer fluid spray nozzle from LMC and it looks like it's made for 0.25" tubing. The funny part is, the nipple on the INCORRECT reservoir I removed is 0.300"! Bugger! So what in the heck do I have for a reservoir now? This one was removed from the 1985 Bullnose that I junked. At least I think that's where it came from. I have another one here that I'm pretty sure I removed from a 1983.

Steve, What Voltmeter did you swap in there? One from a Bricknose? Do you have a write-up on that somewhere?

National Parts Depot? Mustang Air Cleaner Parts I was able to scavenge some parts from a couple spare air cleaner assemblies I had kickin' around. I still had the original for my truck, plus another 1983-1984 Mustang 5.0 GT air cleaner that I was going to scrap. I tested the flapper air motor in my original truck intake, and it was no good, but the two in the old Mustang air cleaner worked fine. The part I was most concerned about was the ACTS. The one that was in my truck originally is relatively clean. I'm going to test it and see if it works any better than the one I have in my current dual snorkel intake. That's really the key part to making the intake work properly. I'll keep my eye open for a new one though, just in case.

Gents, My truck had a non-Bullnose washer fluid reservoir in it and I just installed a correct reservoir but found that the correct tubing to the nozzle is smaller. Can anybody tell me what size it is supposed to be? Do the autoparts shops carry this stuff? I'm pretty sure I've seen it in the LMC catalogs, but I'd like to grab it locally if possible since I wasn't planning to put an order in with LMC for a while.

Outstanding! Truck looks great. Love the colors.

I get it, and I've been through it a few times. Doesn't matter if it's a vehicle or a hobby, or whatever...you can lose interest and no matter what you do you just can't love it like you used to. It would be nice if you could sell the truck to somebody know you that will take care of it, and maybe give you first crack at it if it should ever end up for sale again? Maybe just make a personal vow to not sell it to just anybody. You'd probably have a heart attack if you saw it in a couple months being used by a couple guys sealing asphalt driveways or something...lol. I dunno Rick, I understand the conundrum here...it's a tough choice to make. I think some of us are just wired to move on, and some of us are not.

I dunno gents, this poor old truck has a face I think only a mother could love... https://bend.craigslist.org/cto/d/redmond-ford-pickup/6994670099.html Did this thing just happen to fade and rust like that on it's own, or has there been some help here?... I see them out on car night from time to time with the fake patina.

I just assembled mine this summer Ken, and that's what I did. I then assembled the box upside down. And then flipped it over and set it on the frame to do the wood. I went with plywood again in the 3 sections same as the original. I left mine plain, but had the strips painted body color. I'm not sure this is 100% my favorite, but I like it, and it will probably stay this way for a while. And after it was all fitted and drilled, I took it all back out and did three coats of marine varnish, sanding between coats. What year is the bed on your other truck? One thing to be aware of is that the bed strips on the trucks with the plywood floors are different than the earlier ones with the planks. They're not available anymore, and nobody makes replacements in the aftermarket.

Welcome aboard! Lots of Flareside guys on here so you're in good company;).

Gary, I was looking at that page. How do I identify the ACTS? Mine have some blue on the top...one has a red dot, and another one I have has a red circle on it.

I only ran them to the frame. My taillights were originally grounded through the bed...and good grief what an awful system that was...lol. However, it did indeed work, even on an old rusted out thing like mine. I don't think my bed would be a good ground now though, so I just went straight to the frame. My new taillights are working great btw...nice and bright!

Ok, cool. Good to know, thanks. I had been lusting after a chrome lid, but had kinda given up on them until coming across this one. I have one of the old chrome SVO lids that I paid way too much money for and can't really use, so I'm sorta interested in this one. We'll see I guess. With my truck out of commission I'm digging back into some old projects that I've been neglecting. I painted my best 5.0 air cleaner lid a while back and installed one of the correct sized decals. Today I was playing around with making the hot air intake functional. I was curious...are any of the parts of this system available anymore? The Bimetal valve inside the air cleaner, the green CWM on the outside edge, or the flapper valves/vacuum motors? I'm sure they're all long obsolete, but is anybody selling them aftermarket? I did Google around a bit and didn't find anything useful... I tested everything with a Mitivac, and the flapper valves open and close nicely. I hit the bimetal valve with the heat gun for a few seconds and it went into full bleed mode (I wasn't able to pull a vacuum on the system while it was warm). I guess the last thing I need to do is to stick the whole thing outside for a while and let it cool down and test it again.

Dave, My inner door panels are still not installed so I have access to the window frames. Mine is 1" wide and approx 31" long. 1984 F150.

Dave, Maybe they changed at some point along the way? I went back and looked at my pics, and I think my 1984 window frames would be the long ones?

Gary, the Summit carbs seem to get good reviews from what I've been reading. Below is a clip from a Mustang forum...I believe from about 10 years ago. "Well, it looks like I'm the Guinea Pig on this one. Since I have a wideband O2 setup and vacuum gage mounted in the car, I figure my mild 306 would be a good test platform for the “new” Summit MO8600VS 600 cfm carburetor. The package was originally set to be sent on 1/30/2009 but arrived at my door on 1/15/2009. Before the purchase, I made a couple of calls to satisfy my curiosity about this carb which, as many have pointed out, looks strangely like a Holley 4010. As we all know, the 4010 was born from the venerable and streetable Autolite 4100. According to the Summit rep I spoke to, Holley destroyed the original molds for the old 4010 carburetor. The “guy” who designed the 4010 also helped design the Summit version… making improvements on the shortcomings of the 4010, and Holley supposedly makes these carbs for Summit. The box says “Assembled in USA but I still can’t get a straight answer on how (or if) China is involved. Anyway, I took apart the carb, checked everything out and took some pics. Enjoy."

Dave, Just the engine heat, I guess? I'm fairly inexperienced with this stuff, so I can't give much of an explanation. I did do some reading on these spacers a while back and I thought the general consensus was that if you must run one (a plastic one) then you'll also have to replace them when they fail. Probably not a big deal on a track car that's being worked on all the time, but for a summer cruiser this is a pain. Funny how one's memory works isn't it?... I distinctly remember thinking that I had to replace this spacer, but forgot about it. In any case, I'm going to swap in an aluminum spacer and get this baby all sealed back up and then install my new O2 sensor/gauge kit and find out where everything is running. Problem is, I'm kinda running out of good weather....but anyway... The other thing I'm leaning towards is swapping out the Holley 4160 600 CFM for a 500 CFM carb like the Summit M2008. I've been reading that this Summit carb is actually a refresh of an discontinued Holley design (a 4110 or something?). Anyway, I have some reading to do on the topic...more on that later;).

Personally, I think I'd prefer a stick shift as long as I didn't have to drive in any stop and go traffic. I had been driving diesel Volkswagens with manual transmissions for quite a few years, but the newer Golf that I purchased this spring has a DSG automatic. Months later and thousands of miles later I am still pushing for the imaginary clutch pedal on occasion, and pushing the shifter into neutral...lol. I always preferred the manual trans for the improved MPG and just the sportier feel of it, and the ability to shift it when I wanted, etc. But sitting in stop and go traffic...for 45 minutes sometimes, moving a car length at a time...sometimes on an incline...it really makes one hate a manual trans...lol. In any case, I love the auto in this car and will likely never buy another manual for a daily driver. My truck on the other hand, it's a 5spd and I love it. It is however just for fair weather leisure use, and will rarely ever sit in traffic for any reason. Like I said above, if it was a daily driver, I'd likely be swapping an auto into it.

I like the all white with the black trim pieces. Clean.

Looks great Kevin, much better!

This "pre-smog" alternator bracket swap was on my radar for a long time but I could never find all the right parts together, so it fell off my priority list. Thanks for the reminder that I still need to do this.

Ya Gary, I hope so. If this smooths this thing back out it will be a pretty easy (and cheap) fix! I can't believe I forgot about this (or forgot about all the stories I read about these spacers getting warped...lol). The bottom side was really bad...funny it was sealing at all. Where is that face/palm emoji?>..lol.

That's good to know. Mine runs right in the middle of the "M" when cruising, and in the middle of the "R" at hot idle. I think that's pretty good, but it IS a freshly built engine. I seem to recall them telling me it was at 55 psi during my dyno/break-in day. Well I think I may have found the cause of my engine running rough and the vibration...my carb spacer is warped and twisted...melted...etc. I have to hang my head in shame here. This spacer was only supposed to be temporary, and with the truck sitting for almost a year, I forgot that it was relatively urgent that this spacer be replaced with an aluminum one. In any case, now I know... Not sure how much it matters, but there was certainly one bad visible leak from the front left barrel to the rear left barrel. That was the carb side of the spacer. The intake side was much worse... You can't really tell from the pictures just how bad it is. Not only is the thing FAR from flat, the 4 holes aren't even round anymore...lol. They're more egg shaped. I think it's safe to say that my carb wasn't sealing very well. I checked the carb mounting bolts a couple days ago and found them to be somewhat loose...so then I remembered that these carb spacers are kind of a known issue... The bad part is the truck is out of commission until I get a new (aluminum) spacer. I have another new Phenolic spacer, but it's the hollow type and will not seal on my Edelbrock intake. See below. Bugger. Not sure what kind of symptoms a warped and poorly sealing spacer would cause... How about vibration and a low load stumble?

No trim level badges on the strippers like my truck. Just the F150. My old 1980 F100 Flareside was a Custom and it said "Custom" under the F100 on the fender, but I think that went away in the early 80's didn't it? Maybe the Custom went away with the F100 in 1983?