thoughtnot

When I bought my truck, I asked the guy I got it from a LOT of questions. Since it was just outside Seattle and I was in Indiana, I clearly couldn’t see it. So I had to rely on his word. He was a nice guy, but he wasn’t overly descriptive. And once I received the truck, that quickly became clear. For example, I asked “does it have any rust? His response? “Just a little here and there, but nothing major….” To clarify, I asked “So the drip rails and floor pans are all solid?” That got me a “yeah, they are….”. Well, it turned out that the drip rails have a lot of rust, the driver’s side door has a lot of rust, and the driver’s side floor pan is half missing. But, I honestly don’t think he misled me on purpose. We just had different standards.

Warning…. what follows is a long, truck-related update on some recent work I did. If you don’t want the specifics, you can just click on the before and after pictures and get an idea of what I did. =) 

So anyhow, when I asked “How’s the engine look?” and he replied “Oh, it’s solid… it was just rebuilt a few years ago.”, I had to interpret that literally. Had I a translator, I would have understood that what he really meant was “Well, it was rebuilt 8 years ago, hasn’t been cleaned since, is getting rusty, and has generally been neglected.” lol! As you can see from the picture to the right, that was pretty much the case. It WAS rebuilt in roughly 1998/99, according to the date on the picture I found in the glove box. But the time span between 1998 and 2007 by most defnitions is not “a few”. In going through it since I got it, I can tell much of the original electrical components were re-used, which is fine. But it was badly in need of a tune-up and some TLC.

Of course, the first order of business was to do a tune-up, which I put off for a long time but finally did last year. I had also bought a big 14×4 air cleaner when I first bought the truck. That gave the engine a more “muscular” look, and worked really well in the summer. With a little elbow grease, I cleaned up the hoses, shined the valve covers (as much as possible), and tried to generally spit-shine it the best I could. But, as I noted previously, it was running HORRIBLE in cold weather. My gas mileage, which is already not good, went through the floor. I could barely keep it running on cold/damp days, and it was wanting to stall on me all the time. I also had a lot of fuel spilling or leaking from the carb and pooling on the manifold, and oil leaking from one of the valve covers.

So once again, I turned to my good friends at fordification.com for some advice. Some good discussion led to the conclusion that I was the victim of “carb icing”, too much cold air, bad timing, and some other suggestions. Several recommendations were made, including the installation of a heated carb spacer, the installation of a “factory” type air cleaner with snorkel, and an “air riser” that pulls warm air from around the exhaust manifold and feeds it up through the snorkel to the carb. One other suggestion was to replace the thermostat.
 
Armed with this advice, I tapped some resources, made some calls, and obtained a newly refurbished air cleaner from a friend in Michigan. As a bonus, it came with newly refurbished valve covers. I also scored a heated carb spacer, filter, and all gaskets. I then made about 50 trips to O’Reilly and Advance Auto, as well as several eBay purchases, and began to strip down the engine. I even completely removed the carb… and what a mess!!

After getting everything removed from the manifold, I plugged the holes and removed the valve covers. I scraped and wire-wheeled the surfaces, then installed all new gaskets. I cleaned the heck out of the carb, and used a whole can of degreaser on the manifold and other various parts. More than once Emily came out and opened the garage door because of the fumes. LOL! Following that, I installed the heated spacer and all new heater and lower radiator hoses, as well as the new 195° thermostat and gasket. I reinstalled the carb, set the timing, and adjusted the air mix the best I could. I then completely flushed the radiator, and installed the new air riser. I was fortunate not to break any exhaust bolts while extracting them, but I had a heck of a time finding the right bolts. When I did, they were too long and I had to “custom” cut them with a hack-saw (which was a real pain in the rear!).  

Finally, after a week of days and nights bent over the hood, I have to say I’m pretty happy with the results! I had some issues with the original snorkel (which I had re-finished and tried to re-use from my old air cleaner), and had to go find and buy the right one on eBay. I had some trouble getting the carb adjustment “right”, so I finally broke down and paid someone to dial it in for me (I was able to drive it there). But now that it’s done, it runs like a top!! I can’t believe how easy it starts up and how fast it warms up, even when the temperatures are in the 20s! Everthing seems really tight, excepting a tiny bit of fuel leakage around the base of the carb. But that’s nothing like it was before, so I’m not too concerned.

Overall, this is probably the most mechanical work I’ve ever done… and particularly with no-one looking over my shoulder. I just took my time and made sure I was understanding what I was doing, which helped. I also appreciate a few folks who were there to answer questions for me. It was a bit nerve-wracking at times, but it was a great learning experience! And I think you have to agree that it definitely looks better! Maybe not “new”, but a far cry from the picture at the top of this post.