Big Blue's Transformation

[Gary Lewis]

Somehow I missed this. Sorry, David.

The speedo is off about 5 mph at 65, but the odo is very close. So I haven't tried to fix it as fixing the speedo will mess up the odo. Need to calibrate the speedo I guess.

But the tranny swap won't make a difference since the speedo is driven from the t-case, and it didn't change.

Well, I've been gone for a fortnight and came back to this on the shop floor:

Yep, coolant. And it came out of this hole in the radiator support:

But, from whence it came I know not. I can feel dampness in the bottom of the radiator support but cannot see where it is coming from. I think I'm going to have to pull the fan and shroud to get a better look at the radiator.

[salans7]

Well, I've been gone for a fortnight and came back to this on the shop floor:

Yep, coolant. And it came out of this hole in the radiator support:

But, from whence it came I know not. I can feel dampness in the bottom of the radiator support but cannot see where it is coming from. I think I'm going to have to pull the fan and shroud to get a better look at the radiator.

The saga continues.....

[Gary Lewis]

The saga continues.....

Yep. May have to replace the radiator. May have to replace the hydroboost unit. Will have to replace the Saginaw pump, but the new one is on the bench. Probably have to replace the hydraulic clutch line due to a leak. The hits keep coming.

[salans7]

Yep. May have to replace the radiator. May have to replace the hydroboost unit. Will have to replace the Saginaw pump, but the new one is on the bench. Probably have to replace the hydraulic clutch line due to a leak. The hits keep coming.

Old trucks just out here marking their territory. Are all these parts original to the truck or others, or have they been replaced piror?

[Gary Lewis]

Old trucks just out here marking their territory. Are all these parts original to the truck or others, or have they been replaced piror?

They are all from other trucks.

[1986F150Six]

Yep. May have to replace the radiator. May have to replace the hydroboost unit. Will have to replace the Saginaw pump, but the new one is on the bench. Probably have to replace the hydraulic clutch line due to a leak. The hits keep coming.

 

Peeling layers of the onion?

[Gary Lewis]

Peeling layers of the onion?

Yep. And I'm crying.

I pulled the fan and shroud, getting lucky that the two serpentine belts on the water pump pulley seem to be balanced well enough to not have to pull the belts. And then I pulled the bolts holding the radiator to the support and laid the radiator back a bit.

That lets me see both the front and the back. And it let me lift the radiator up enough to slip blue paper towels under it to see where the leak is actually coming from.

Apparently over the fortnight I was gone it dribbled a bit as there was the puddle on the floor. And, the towels I stuffed in yesterday were damp. But now that I can see everything I don't see any leaks. So, I rigged up the air pressure tester. As you can see in this pic it is setting on 9 psi, which will hopefully cause the leak to be obvious. We shall see.

[Gary Lewis]

Peeling layers of the onion?

Yep. And I'm crying.

I pulled the fan and shroud, getting lucky that the two serpentine belts on the water pump pulley seem to be balanced well enough to not have to pull the belts. And then I pulled the bolts holding the radiator to the support and laid the radiator back a bit.

That lets me see both the front and the back. And it let me lift the radiator up enough to slip blue paper towels under it to see where the leak is actually coming from.

Apparently over the fortnight I was gone it dribbled a bit as there was the puddle on the floor. And, the towels I stuffed in yesterday were damp. But now that I can see everything I don't see any leaks. So, I rigged up the air pressure tester. As you can see in this pic it is setting on 9 psi, which will hopefully cause the leak to be obvious. We shall see.

Well, after an hour or two at 9 psi there were no leaks. So I turned it up to 12 psi, which is as high as I can go w/o the 13 psi cap leaking. And after another few hours there were no leaks seen. So I left the compressor on for the night and we'll see what it looks like tomorrow.

But, let's do some speculating. The day before we went on vacation I spotted some drops, so I tightened the drain plug as well as the clamp on the top hose. But still I found that puddle under the truck two weeks later.

So, is it possible that one of those fixed the problem and it just took that long for the dribbles to make their way across the radiator support and out of that hole?

I personally don't think so, but the only other explanation I can think of is that the heat of the engine running causes enough expansion so something leaks. I'll check that out by driving the truck if there are no leaks found tomorrow as I want to find and fix the leaks!

And, while I was waiting on leaks to manifest themselves I did a couple of other things. First, I replaced the top ignition module since it was obviously bad. So now I have a backup, but need to test the new one just to know it works.

The other was that I worked on the underhood light. It had been on the truck when I got it, but I took it off as I was replacing the engine, cleaning things, etc. So today I cleaned it externally and then sprayed silicon lube into it and worked the mechanism to ensure it got lubed. Apparently it did as the mechanism is now working pretty well.

Then I turned to the bulb. I don't want to go back with the original #90 incandescent bulb, so I did some searching and found these two on Amazon: 1.4 watt on the left, and 2.4 watt on the right.

My measurements say that a #90 bulb is 1.35" long from terminals to the top. The bulb on the left is supposedly exactly the same, but the one on the right is 1.5" long. But it appears that there is enough room below the lens to put a 1.66" bulb in there, so I ordered the 2.4 watt bulb and it should be here tomorrow. We shall see.

[kramttocs]

Well, after an hour or two at 9 psi there were no leaks. So I turned it up to 12 psi, which is as high as I can go w/o the 13 psi cap leaking. And after another few hours there were no leaks seen. So I left the compressor on for the night and we'll see what it looks like tomorrow.

But, let's do some speculating. The day before we went on vacation I spotted some drops, so I tightened the drain plug as well as the clamp on the top hose. But still I found that puddle under the truck two weeks later.

So, is it possible that one of those fixed the problem and it just took that long for the dribbles to make their way across the radiator support and out of that hole?

I personally don't think so, but the only other explanation I can think of is that the heat of the engine running causes enough expansion so something leaks. I'll check that out by driving the truck if there are no leaks found tomorrow as I want to find and fix the leaks!

And, while I was waiting on leaks to manifest themselves I did a couple of other things. First, I replaced the top ignition module since it was obviously bad. So now I have a backup, but need to test the new one just to know it works.

The other was that I worked on the underhood light. It had been on the truck when I got it, but I took it off as I was replacing the engine, cleaning things, etc. So today I cleaned it externally and then sprayed silicon lube into it and worked the mechanism to ensure it got lubed. Apparently it did as the mechanism is now working pretty well.

Then I turned to the bulb. I don't want to go back with the original #90 incandescent bulb, so I did some searching and found these two on Amazon: 1.4 watt on the left, and 2.4 watt on the right.

My measurements say that a #90 bulb is 1.35" long from terminals to the top. The bulb on the left is supposedly exactly the same, but the one on the right is 1.5" long. But it appears that there is enough room below the lens to put a 1.66" bulb in there, so I ordered the 2.4 watt bulb and it should be here tomorrow. We shall see.

Looking forward to seeing the results of your bulb test. Add them here if you want: http://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/Underhood-Work-Light-LED-Replacement-tp59373.html

[Gary Lewis]

Looking forward to seeing the results of your bulb test. Add them here if you want: http://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/Underhood-Work-Light-LED-Replacement-tp59373.html

Will do, Scott. To tell you the truth, I forgot that your thread was initially about the underhood lights and that you'd bought an LED that worked.

It'll be interesting to see how it works. The rule of thumb is that LED's produce 4 times as many lumens per watt than an incandescent bulb does. So a 2 watt LED should be roughly equivalent to an 8 watt #90 bulb. And the 2.4 watt LED is 20+% stronger than that, which should put it at about what you found with the Super Bright Lights LED's.