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1980 F350 Farm Truck Re-Build

good thoughts, thank you :beer:

any other one and i'd've tried tapping it with a hammer. no good and easy way to get to this one without setting up the crane. :shaking:
anaerobic sealer dries in the absent of air. I thought that you were going to replace it.
 
anaerobic sealer dries in the absent of air. I thought that you were going to replace it.
If I can treat it from the outside, I will. locktight may well be thin enough to wick in there if I drain it out. then it'd be absent air.

if not, probably wouldn't be too bad to take the weigh off with the crane and pull the mount off.
 
If I can treat it from the outside, I will. locktight may well be thin enough to wick in there if I drain it out. then it'd be absent air.

if not, probably wouldn't be too bad to take the weigh off with the crane and pull the mount off.
Coat in locktight and pull a light vacuum on the block.
 
Your module pics reminded me of a trick I learned

Every 70s and 80s ford my grandpa owned had a spare duraspark module already bolted to the inner fender in a manner that the plugs would reach, easy diag, easy road side repair

The man had a thing for redundancy:laughing:
 
The duraspark boxes of that era seemed to suffer 2 problems:
Ground and heat

The under hood temps of the 400 and 460s seemed to cook them faster, and paint and rust would cause grounding issues. Relocating them and running dedicated ground wires was always a good idea. My uncle was a Ford ASE certified mechanic at the dealer right in the duraspark era and he always said if you could keep em cool and with a clean ground path they’d last a while. Not like a GM or Chrysler electronic ignition, but not “have 2 boxes under the hood and one in the glovebox” bad as some people would do. :laughing:
 
Went outside today to see if I could get the slow coolant leak and exhaust handled. Stepped in cat shit the first time I walked around the truck and there was a bunch of cat barf underneath the truck. :laughing: hosed all that off and decided today was not the day to lay on the ground. Damned strays everywhere. Not sure how one appeared to have thrown up pasta :confused:



almost out of things to do:

set up a 3/8" port for the PCV into one of them manifold plugs
verify that all remaining vacuum ports are capped/plugged
trace them 2 wires that don't go anywhere :confused: heading out of the firewall where I ran my manual choke through
Add water and pressure test (silicone for the freeze plug? not sure)
drill adapter for oil pump and check for leaks
ignition timing
verify brake fluid leak at master cylinder
EXHAUST
check differential fluid level

that's about all I can think of.

Did get some of the above things done though

Couldn't find the plug with a fitting that i had had the other day, did find the multi-port vacuum fitting though. Tossed that into the rear of the manifold to run the brake booster and set up the PCV to run into the base of the carb. plugged all the excess ports that I could find

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These are the 2 wires I need to do some more digging and see if they do anything important. There was many wires on the inside of this bulkhead :confused:

Edit: looking at the 1985 schematics from the "resources tab" here on irate, this appears to be plug C-319 which is for the Carb Valve Control Solenoid (throttle kicker). Not going to need that. :smokin:

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Did add water, didn't pressure test because I know the 1 freeze plug is leaking. Did discover a not-quite tight clamp on the lower rad hose.

Set up drill adapter and ran the oil pump with the drill, spun engine 2 full rotations and ran oil pump TDC and BDC on each stroke for #1.
5/16" socket, 1/4" drive extension, 1/4"sq to 1/4hex adapter, hex extension. Didn't find any leaks :rasta:

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Went to set the timing......couldn't get the distributor to sit down all the way. Noticed what looks like some damage to the ramp for the oil pump drive

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tried a step bit, that didn't help

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1/2" drill bit did a much better job.

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went until the transition was smooth, very easy to drill the shaft. There isn't much mis-alignment allowed, but there is some.

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and ended today being absolutely unable to get the distributor to sit down the final ~1/4". Engages camshaft, made lot's of small adjustments trying to get it to line up, set the dist in place and rolled the engine over a couple times....nothing :laughing:

hammer might be next, that another day dilemma though
 
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did verify that the brake master cylinder is still leaking, going to need to find a longer snout 3/8" inverted flare fitting for 3/16" line

didn't check the differential

oh yeah, did get the hood to latch closed and open without binding :laughing: Couple scrap shims did the job

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she's fully vented now. Gaps like the grand canyon :smokin: just couldn't get there with bracket adjustment bolts

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Did get battery cables made al well. Out with the old, alternator harness, battery pos, starter pos, battery negative.


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In addition to the alternator ring terminal being destroyed, the harness itself had some other issues. Melted lines and broken splices

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this guy that's melted and on with a wire nut is supposed to be my fusible link. Going to pick up a new one of those eventually, just left the main charging line long for now.

edit: Dorman 85623 is a 14 gauge fusible link. $5 and on it's way. According to the wiring diagram, there is a hand written note that says "16 gauge Orange" and "14 gauge Green". If them's my two options, figure the 14 gauge will the way to go. Something better than nothing i guess

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this guy that's melted and on with a wire nut is supposed to be my fusible link. Going to pick up a new one of those eventually, just left the main charging line long for now. went with some 8 gauge in blue because it was already the correct length :smokin:

edit: did want to verify on the wiring diagrams for the starter solenoid, it only uses the single ignition trigger wire and the other side (doesn't matter which) just goes to a local ground. This is different from the 78 truck that has a harness wire for both the trigger and ground. so i'll get one of them worked up and fitted on there.

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the starter battery + lead was in decent shape and cleaned up pretty well, so it gets reused :smokin:

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used 4AWG for the positive and ground leads. 5/16" ring terminals at the solenoid and frame junction, 3/8" at the battery terminals and engine block ground


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Left the battery leads long enough to reach any corner in case some random battery ends up in this thing with the lugs reversed or whatever. only had 1 "military style" battery terminal for some reason, though I had bought some others. Did find a clamp style terminal. Covered the exposed stuff with form in place gasket/RTV to give it a seal :laughing:

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Did some playing around with the spark plug wire routing. going around the front seems to be the best results

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also sent the ignition harness over the top of the PCV, with the module so far forward on the fender now, it won't reach the way that it went before. This has the best odds of keeping it out of the exhaust.

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messing with all that led me to discovering the coolant temperature sensor lead has a couple spots worn through, camera focused poorly

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couldn't find something handy that would duplicate the push connector/female bullet style. Which means this guy got taped up and then covered and sent back into the mix :rasta:

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guess today is a sign that I should really do the exhaust before test fire
 
Probably worms not pasta, especially with a stray.
Nice work on the Ford, love seeing old stuff brought back up to snuff.
oh hell, that's something i didn't even think about :lmao: i'm just happy it just got my boot and I wasn't in sandals or laying right in it!

and thank you :beer:
 
alright, first things first, brake fittings showed up. New on bottom, about twice as long as the old on top

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Used a box end to straighten the line back out

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had enough line in the loops to get it all lined back up pretty easily, doesn't leak now....from there anyway :rasta:

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found a spot I could get the crank from the top while leaning on the distributor and got it to set down pretty quick :laughing:

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and a rough reference for about where the junkyard exhaust lands

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using the old tubes from the manifolds gives this kind of a thing

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Took a bunch of staring at it and futzing with things and a decent bit of hammer and grinder work, but using the old stuff, sections of the rest of the exhaust, and some of the new stuff that I had leftover I got a wye pipe together

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When in doubt, goop that stuff on there rather than mess with trying to get real nice and tight fitup

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This picture didn't come out, might update a better one later. Big surprise, the output of the wye is straight from underneath but angled up a few degrees towards the floor :rasta: used a hammer and a length of pipe to put a sweet ~10* bend into a straight length

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really had to hammer the snot out of it to get the slip-fits back to pretending to be round :laughing: going to pick up a couple u-bolt clamps anyways

disconnected the ignition coil and cranked over the key for a bit to see if it would pump fuel after putting about 7 gallons into the front tank. Learned that the cable to the starter was loose :laughing: made some cool smoke. all the darkness there is new.

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Tightened that back down, didn't manage to get fuel to the filter. Used some fuel in a water bottle and sent some down the carb vent, tried cranking with everything hooked up and not getting any spark. Tossed on the inline spark tester to confirm :homer: Very uneventful video going to get added if it ever uploads.

But it's cold outside, so that's all it gets :laughing:




Still need to make hangers for the exhaust
figure out what's the deal with the ignition
prime the fuel system and see if the fuel tank switch is working
 
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Did you say earlier on that you hooked up that blue wire as a ground?
Yes, the other side is to the ignition key. Is it supposed to go somewhere else to be grounded?

Looking at the schematic last night, there is supposed to be a 12v source for the ignition module, that then gets resitored down a few volts, from somewhere on that solenoid. Possibly off the starter side for ignition signal during cranking. There should be another source for the run position from the alternator leads or main fuse panel as well. Dunno what's real or not
 
Yes, the other side is to the ignition key. Is it supposed to go somewhere else to be grounded?

Looking at the schematic last night, there is supposed to be a 12v source for the ignition module, that then gets resitored down a few volts, from somewhere on that solenoid. Possibly off the starter side for ignition signal during cranking. There should be another source for the run position from the alternator leads or main fuse panel as well. Dunno what's real or not
I thought they ground thru the body, that ignition source you're referring to, is where you have that blue wire hooked up, I'm pretty sure
 
I thought they ground thru the body, that ignition source you're referring to, is where you have that blue wire hooked up, I'm pretty sure
Thats an easy enough check, would be nice if it's that simple. Or at least that's part of it, didn't get spark in start or run :beer:
 
Thats an easy enough check, would be nice if it's that simple. Or at least that's part of it, didn't get spark in start or run :beer:
The wire from the solenoid to ignition box isn't a power source, its supposed to retard the spark for easier starts. I'm surprised if you wired it to ground that it didn't dead short when you tried cranking
 
The wire from the solenoid to ignition box isn't a power source, its supposed to retard the spark for easier starts. I'm surprised if you wired it to ground that it didn't dead short when you tried cranking
Engine is retarded enough :flipoff2:

It didn't even get hot.
 
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Huh. Looking at the wiring diagram is what made me think it was for ground. Now I'm questioning how I did it on my 78 as I'm fairly confident the "i" terminal also goes to ground there and it is always hooked up to a battery :laughing: haven't had any issues with that one
 
alright, this is starting to make sense now :laughing: I did look and the battery isolator, same solenoid as starter, on my 78 is wired with the "I" post direct to ground as well. It was done this way from way back in the day, combined with the schematic showing the key 12v activating the solenoid and ground on the other end is what had me thinking I needed a ground for that post. When I checked the short ground on my 78 after the drive home, it wasn't hot or warm at all, if it was drawing power when the solenoid is active, it would've been smoking as it is CLOSED whenever the truck is running and takes power straight off a battery.

So back into the schematics. 2 pages here. First image is the same as the one above which shows the battery, starter, ignition system. Second one shows the ignition switch breakdown.

The splice 302 is Brown wire from I terminal and turns into Red/Green line (#16). The splice goes 2 directions, 1 direction goes to the + terminal of the ignition coil, the other direction goes through a 1.05-1.15 ohm resistor to the Ignition Switch in RUN position. This, then, means that we get full battery voltage while cranking, starter relay CLOSED, and reduced voltage while running and not cranking, whatever the voltage from the Ig Switch through the resistor is. Whatever voltage is higher is what the coil will see and it'll just backfeed the ignition switch as long as it is cranking, no big deal since the ignition switch is fed with the Yellow wires straight from the battery/alternator/fuse link.

Since battery voltage already drops during cranking, it makes sense that you wouldn't want to send that reduced voltage through resistor on line #16 Red/Green and drop it even further.

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now why isn't either of my grounds on either truck just making a smoke show, beats me :laughing: the top diagram clearly shows Brown wire #262 as being closed when the solenoid is CLOSED. I didn't figure that was the I terminal and just figured it meant it was to be on the main lug with the battery feed.

starter relay on the 78 has 2 connections. this 80 only seemed to have 1 factory push on terminal near the starter relay :rasta: Going to add checking the resistance of the ignition coil + wire to the list of things to check.
 
just a little bit today, going to spend some more time tomorrow. Consulting earlier pictures and validating with a meter, removed the ground lead from the I terminal. Since it already existed, used it to double up the body ground :beer: to posford for helping me out there

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playing around with the meter and I wasn't getting any power to the + side of the coil regardless of the key position, spend some time trying to follow wires working backwards. Ended up taking most of the dash apart, if you can tell, the key selector on the steering column was about in half. Not real sure how or why this happens

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pliers and hammers and an event that really couldn't used more hands OR just remove the 2 bolts and put this back together on the bench. Bench is what I should've done, seems the return spring is pretty weak from the start position

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used a blade fitting, 1/4"? wide, so that I could get measurements for the female plugs. one of these days i'm going to buy a meter lead kit with multiple leads, not today and not tomorrow though

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validated I was getting 12v to the ignition box and 7v to the coil with the key in run, used a wrench at the solenoid and got good old fashioned spark on the test light and confirmed I was getting 12v to the fuel selection solenoid along the frame.

popped the bowl level sight plug off the carb and bottle fed it until it came out, then dumped fuel down the line until it seemed full as well

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and went in the cab and hit the key so that I could operate the choke and such at the same time. cranked, crank, crank and nothing.

the instant i let off the key from START the fucker started to idle :confused: so i'm not getting ignition during START but I am during RUN.

going to see what I can figure using the 78 and 85 wiring diagrams that I have and see if something will line up. If not, then i'll run a discreet wire from the I terminal of the starter solenoid to the + side of the coil, as the 78 diagram shows, and just pretend that is what was supposed to be there the whole time.
 
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