1979 F350 build. (Page 2 of 3)
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It's always an amazing feeling when you get done pulling apart an engine. Messing with the timing. Getting it all put back together. Having it fire up & run the first try. And then promptly run out of gas..... Son of a damn bitch. After a trip to the gas station to fill up my 5 gallon fuel tank, he runs again. Still need to mount the MSD 6al box & tidy up the wires, but at least that cluster fuck is done. Now it's back to putting in the new fuel tank & hopefully remembering to to buy an air cleaner finally.  Did piss me off though. I wanted to use the 4160 Holley since I thought that the Edelbrock was jacked. What with fuel pouring out of where it shouldn't have been. Left overnight to deal with today & wouldn't ya know it, it sealed up & all was right with the world. After I managed to find a rebuild kit for the Holley locally. Oh well, it'll go on the Bronco eventually now & probably work better on the 351m than the 400 anyway. |
All mounted up, cleaned up & tidy. I need to play with the timing some more, but I've got to color fill the timing marks on my balancer. I just can't see that well. Could probably use a new set of metering rods as well maybe. I hate tuning an Edelbrock, I've had so many people over the years tell me that an Edelbrock is so much easier to tune than a Holley. But I've just never developed the knack for an Edelbrock. Crank the mix screws all the way in, back them out a full turn & start from there. Turn them in, engine dies. Turn them out engine dies. And it goes on & on & on. Maybe I should try a vacuum tune for a change, not sure since I don't have the vacuum advance anymore. 1405 Edelbrock, I'd think that 600cfm would be plenty for a mostly stock 400 Ford.  Then went for a little ride through the backyard. We'll at least the flat part of it, I still have to do the front driveshaft. I'd like to put a Detroit or Yukon Grizzly locker in the rear of this thing before to long if money allows. 
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Originally Posted By SoCalExile: One of the best things I did to my 71 F100 that someone put a 400 in, was ditch the Edelbrock for a Street Demon. Can agree with that. Unfortunately it's just not in the budget right now. Maybe I can sneak a cam & carb into my stocking for Christmas. |
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I learned something unpleasant about my preferred model of Ford trucks. In 1978 - 1979 Ford in their infinite wisdom used 3 separate types of brake booster & of course none of them interchange & all of the differences is in the rod from the pedal to the booster. The first two are almost identical, just a matter of whether or not the eye of the bolt is offset or not & they're both not that expensive. But the third type has a short little rod & a retarded system to get it to the pedal & cost three times as much. Guess which one I needed for the 3/4 ton. Yup, $360 for a brake booster. But damn does it ever have nice brakes now. For a 45 year old truck anyway. I'm no professional school taught mechanic, but I'm pretty sure that when shit starts falling off / out of the booster it's a good sign that it's bad. Just a wild ass guess. A "mechanic" put that master cylinder on before I bought it, you'd think he'd have noticed. Maybe.  And the new Chineseium hotness.  This one goes for a new windshield this week & them hopefully tags. Now for the brakes on the 1 ton. I have absolutely nothing nice to say here, nothing. The brakes on it have been just about completely rebuilt & were complete garbage. I suspect that it came down to two separate problems. 1: the master cylinder was just about shot. The rear brakes were just about no existing at best & the front weren't much better. 2: I suspect someone may have put a cam in it at some point. I sounds a little lumpy but more importantly I put a vacuum gauge on it & it's not enough vacuum to run the brake booster. The booster wants 16 - 18 inches of vacuum pressure, I'm not producing 16 inches. More like 10 to 14. But fear not! For there is a solution. I now use the same braking system as a 2000 something super duty. Hydroboost.  The wife installed most all of it too.  This just about almost worked out perfectly. Except for one tiny little oversight on my part. I've still have the old Thompson steering pump & I didn't order fittings for said pump and I sure as hell won't use one of those garbage ass Ford C2 pumps. It's either get fitting for a pump I planned to replace with a Saginaw conversion later or just do it now. New pump & the conversion fiddly bits will hopefully be here this week. |
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Originally Posted By HeyCoach: @Mattgunguy - how are the two 1959 Fridges coming along? Past picking up some little odds & ins, essentially they're not yet. I've been having the itch to drag the one with the Y-block out & at least try to get it started. Found some new points & condenser for it right after I bought some. Got a rebuild kit for the factory Holley that's on it, still got the plugs & wires I bought years ago and a new fuel pump that may or may not be the right one. Found the new Chineseium 2150 I bought for the 302 in the red one something like 5 years ago, along with the brakes & associated fiddly bits. All the hard lines on both will be needing replaced, so I got one of the fancy hydraulic flaring tool. Would ya believe it that they used a hydraulic clutch in 1959. Granted all the fluid pots on both are toast. I've probably got enough stuff together to get one at least dirt road driveable. Probably won't be messing with much of anything for a while, need to get some house projects done. Little things like walls & insulation need doing. So much to do. So little time & money. |
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Guess I should update what's gone on with the truck as well, didn't realize that it'd been so long. Due to an unfortunate event, I spent a lot of money. About a month or so back my 1405 Edelbrock became an Edelbroke at a really bad time. Long story short, it's developed a stalling out problem on hills. I have a particularly heavy little army trailer behind the truck on a rather steep hill & I stalled. Then lost it trying to get going again. Backwards down the hill. Was extremely fortunate, but it was a shit day.   Another member here came & saved my ass. I can point out his thread about it if ya like. I couldn't even get myself off the trailer due to the open diff rear-end & no front driveshaft at the time. So due to that bullshit the wife decided that a few things were needed. I'm a big fan of mechanical lockers, not lunchbox lockers but full carrier replacements, be something like a Detroit or Yukon Grizzly. I had put a Detroit locker on my Amazon list many months back & promptly forgot about it, we'll she didn't. She got the part number & went shopping.   So I got that in & then was under orders to get the front driveshaft built finally. I'd bought a new one months back and hadn't go to welding up. Got that done & installed, so of course the axle shaft U-joints are absolutely fucking shot. Yet one more thing. And to address the wonderful Edelbroke carb. I'm not a huge Edelbrock fan, I've just always had them. But they don't offer a real off-road carb. So I got one of these Holley's. Except that it hasn't shown up yet, more than a month later. Maybe tomorrow, unless Ups screws it up, again.  But in the meantime, the wife has a clearance shopping problem & did you know that Holley has a factory refurbished section on their site for a healthy amount of money off. Plus the 3/4 ton could use a new carb too.  There is a problem with that though. 4bbl carb on a can you guess it, 2bbl intake. And I absolutely refuse to use one of those dumbass adapters. So that necessitated an new intake. Ignore the old 4150 in the picture, it's broken.  I haven't gotten around installing that yet. I elected to use the carb on the 1 ton for now & learned something very important in the process, I knew exactly dick about setting up a Holley. Seriously, an Edelbrock is like the simple man's carb. Slap it on, adjust the mix & you're essentially done. Now a Holley, good lord. I had to read a book & watch a lot of YouTube. Transfer slots, power valves, jet sizes, cams, accelerator pump springs, curb idle, fast idle, squirters & the like all kicked my ass for a while. Now I know why all the cool guys when I was a kid all ran a Holley, ya can tune the damn however you need too once you figure it out. But get a load of this. At the end of my first day of getting my ass kicked by a carb, the engine was running. Albeit running like crap, but still running. The next morning, NADA, NOTHING, ZILCH! No run at all. After diagnosis and trouble shooting, my Msd 6al box bit the dust. I'm pissed off at this point & sick of throwing money at it, so I wasn't buying another box & the Msd distributor needs a Msd box to run it. I'd gotten a new distributor for the 3/4 ton so it robbed it & made a harness out of bits & pieces of several duraspark harnesses, found an old child from somewhere & got it going again. Fought with the carb for another weekend and finally got it right. Even though it'll be coming right back off.  Runs right good now though. Now back to the 3/4 ton. It had been running like crap & was ridiculously had to start & then wouldn't start. Back to the diagnosis and trouble shooting. Fuel, compression & spark. I had misdiagnosed it earlier and thought the moron mechanic had done the carb in with some of the janky stuff that was done to it, which is part of reason the wife got a new carb. Well I was wrong. I went through the 2bbl for grins and it was definitely delivering fuel. Checked compression and timing, both were good. Multiple ignition boxes are good. Coil is good. Distributor that I had just robbed the replacement for, not good. Hello head, meet wall & off to buy another replacement distributor.  Swapping that out nearly became another broken distributor nightmare, but a few hours soaking in Free all, then some kind persuasive love of a hammer and probably and it came out. New plugs & dropped in the new distributor & VROOM! Fired right up & runs great. I was ready to beat my head against a tree or something. But I've got an extra intake & carb now. Gonna hopefully go get a bed for it in the next week or so. |
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Originally Posted By Danted: That's a awesome project. Your Experience with msd is a mirror of ever one I've owned. I would never buy one again It's super frustrating too. I might try a Mallory setup at some point. Hell, I might try to find a points distributor too. For me it half about getting all the wiring neat & tidy. Having wiring everywhere drives me up the wall. The front mounted distributor is one thing I both love & hate about a Ford. So much easier to work on than a Chevy, but so much more ugly with all the wires running around. Maybe someday I'll find about a 1970 or so K20 that doesn't cost a kidney I can play around with. |
About damn time. Only took 6 weeks to show up.   Holley 670cfm Truck Avenger. Supposedly good for a 40° ascent, 30° off camber angle & 30° descent. We shall see, because I've got most all of that in the backyard. Hopefully it'll be worth the money. Be a couple of weeks before I get to try it out unfortunately. |
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Originally Posted By Mattgunguy: Past picking up some little odds & ins, essentially they're not yet. I've been having the itch to drag the one with the Y-block out & at least try to get it started. Found some new points & condenser for it right after I bought some. Got a rebuild kit for the factory Holley that's on it, still got the plugs & wires I bought years ago and a new fuel pump that may or may not be the right one. Found the new Chineseium 2150 I bought for the 302 in the red one something like 5 years ago, along with the brakes & associated fiddly bits. All the hard lines on both will be needing replaced, so I got one of the fancy hydraulic flaring tool. Would ya believe it that they used a hydraulic clutch in 1959. Granted all the fluid pots on both are toast. I've probably got enough stuff together to get one at least dirt road driveable. Probably won't be messing with much of anything for a while, need to get some house projects done. Little things like walls & insulation need doing. So much to do. So little time & money. Originally Posted By Mattgunguy: Originally Posted By HeyCoach: @Mattgunguy - how are the two 1959 Fridges coming along? Past picking up some little odds & ins, essentially they're not yet. I've been having the itch to drag the one with the Y-block out & at least try to get it started. Found some new points & condenser for it right after I bought some. Got a rebuild kit for the factory Holley that's on it, still got the plugs & wires I bought years ago and a new fuel pump that may or may not be the right one. Found the new Chineseium 2150 I bought for the 302 in the red one something like 5 years ago, along with the brakes & associated fiddly bits. All the hard lines on both will be needing replaced, so I got one of the fancy hydraulic flaring tool. Would ya believe it that they used a hydraulic clutch in 1959. Granted all the fluid pots on both are toast. I've probably got enough stuff together to get one at least dirt road driveable. Probably won't be messing with much of anything for a while, need to get some house projects done. Little things like walls & insulation need doing. So much to do. So little time & money. You’re not the first person that I’ve heard that was surprised about the hydraulic clutch. I’ll message you from time to time. I have my late-grandfather’s ‘59 that I’m working on. Have you seen that there were aftermarket oiling upgrade kits for those old y blocks? Mine has one that feeds to both sets of rockers from the bottom of the block. |
Well this happened, just not to me, I was 200 miles away. The wife had a little accident the other night.    Apart from sore and rattled, her & the girl child are fine says our doctor. Which is the most important thing. I'm going to pick up a new body in the next few weeks & fix him again. |
Hate to see the truck damaged though. 
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Well step 2 was completed today. Went and bought a car trailer, because uhaul is f'ing expensive and my current trailer is to narrow for vehicles & we've needed one for many years. Has a winch as well, because fuck using a come along. My back can't handle that young guy stuff anymore. 83" x 20' with torsion bar axles with brakes on both. Found it 10 minutes from home.   Step 1 was getting a better carb for the 79 3/4 ton, so it'll actually run & can pull said trailer. A 500 cfm Holley 4412. Helpful tip if y'alls don't happen to know about it. Holley has a factory refurbished section on their website. Originally $600, but factory refurbished by Holley & with all the same warranty stuff for $250. I'm a cheapass.  Next weekend is wiring the truck for trailer brakes. Picked up a cheapo Reese controller & plug at the parts house today. Should probably finish bolting down the bed while I'm at it. |
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Originally Posted By Mattgunguy: And so the rebuild begins. Not the spares I was expecting to pick up, those are next week. The wife found these on marketplace today, but the price was right. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/239279/1000000087-3464324.jpg Marketplace is the devil! Good on you for taking on this task! |
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Final parts run for awhile I hope & after picking up the roller s couple weeks ago, coupled with a slight change of plans, it's almost redundant. But I'd already agreed to buy it & i hate backing out of a deal. 1979 F100 Explorer 4x4 with alot of little quirky oddities to it.  Snagged a set of Mickey Thompson 33x12.50's for cheaps that'll go on the Bronco.   And finally, I got my big block & it is a fugly ass red.  Now the plan for the rest of it all...... The 400 from the roller is going in the 3/4 ton. The black parts cab from the roller is going on the 1 ton. The blue on the back of the truck today is gonna go into the factory cab of the roller, the white cab & the 3/4 ton. Parts of it have already been cut out & the good sheet metal mostly will take care of what the other 3 need. Then the front clip of the roller will go on the 1 ton, then the 1 ton will be back on the road. I'll fix the engine from the 3/4 ton & drop in the white one eventually I think & fix the black bed from a while back & put on the white one as well. Then it'll be back on the road. The big block is destined for the Bronco as well as the Dana 60 rear from a while back. A buddy has the front 8 lug parts that'll fit a Dana 44 & I've got the get set to match the rear D60 & throw in the original 1 ton rear springs. A 1 ton Bronco with a big block. Then the 351m from the Bronco is going in the roller & the body from one of the 59 F100 is getting swapped on. So 59 F100 4x4 with 35's. |
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Originally Posted By Mattgunguy: Now the plan for the rest of it all...... snip Sounds like you've got your weekend pretty well lined out! A old school full size Bronco on a 1 ton suspension... sounds like it oughta ride like a Caddy. |
"When you need it and ain't got it, you're singin' a different tune..."
| Cool build. Glad to hear the wife is OK. |
q3131: I can enjoy necrobeastialexhibitionism as much as the next guy, but homonecrobestailexhibitionism is just plain sick.
Tomislav:If you truly love something, you need to shoot it, then set it on fire. (And then post pics!)
كا
Tomislav:If you truly love something, you need to shoot it, then set it on fire. (And then post pics!)
كا
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Originally Posted By Mattgunguy: Got pictures. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/239279/Screenshot_20240220_200201_Chrome-3193526.jpg Original 292 Y-block. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/239279/Screenshot_20240220_202642_Chrome-3193527.jpg Daughters Fridge. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/239279/20200111_105037-1230616-3193528.jpg These are nice. Wish I had the space and money for a project like this. Hopefully when we move and get a place with some land I can actually get to work on something cool |
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Step one, swap out the engine in the 3/4 ton. The one in it was just flat worn out & in desperate need of a rebuild, which I have neither the time, nor the inclination to do right now. Took the 400 out of the roller to go into the 3/4 ton. Swap out the 4x4 pan for the 4x2 pan & drop it in.   Get this done & then it'll be the new body for the 1 ton. |
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And why I don't like cleaning up after shade tree hacks. Do it right or get someone else to do it right. Back in the day Ford had this bright fucking idea to use a nylon gear for the timing chain, they've got a habit of exploding. This one was replaced after exploding at some point. Note the tube of rtv oozing out of the timing cover.  So instead of dropping the pan like you're supposed too, someone just dropped the front enough the get the timing cover off to replace the timing set.  Then left all the crap in the pan like an asshat.  Small wonder that a bunch of the rings failed. Ain't got a dang clue what all the shiny metallic crud is. But fortunately I've got the spare engine, which I'll have in next weekend hopefully. |
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Well that clapped out shit is swapped around & sorta running now. Got a few little things left to do yet still. The high pressure line for steering pump decided to let go almost instantly & made a nice mess, so new hose is needed. Needs mufflers badly. This bitch is worse than open headers right now, I've got some old glass packs I'll try before buying anything. Had to get one of the janky 2 to 4 barrel adapters because the 4160 that was on it, is in desperate need of a rebuild & I've got the nice new 500 cfm 4412. I really like that 4412, seriously nice 2bbl. Changed out the shitty timing set for a double roller and advanced the timing 2° for giggles, which is probably why I had fits trying to get this thing timed right. My standard neverspark stuff just didn't seem to want to fire it off & keep going. Ended up using the MSD 6AL & MSD distributor & coil. Need to mount the box & tidy up the wiring still. But she runs.      |
Slow going due to work, but the clapped out 3/4 pile of crap is running, titled, inspected and tagged. Desperately needs some paint on the bed, but he's capable of pulling a trailer. Needs some tuning as well, kind of a gutless pig going up hill. Probably timing or not enough carb.  Since this weekend was a bust for getting any work done without a garage, I did what any reasonable guy would do during a massive storm. I drug yet more crap home, because marketplace is the damn devil. From a 73 & in really good shape, aside from the drivers floor pan & a few other rust small rust spots & the speaker holes someone cut. All easy & cheap fixes. Came with its title & vin plate as well. Didn't think it was a bad deal for $100 & a scenic if soggy drive.    I'm hoping it'll dry out this week and I can get started with fixing my truck. I've got a pecking order for projects & I wanna get to the Bronco. Ive got something a bit different planned for the engine that should be fun. |
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Originally Posted By Buckshot4U: The new rig even came with a gun rack!! An extra added bonus. Got about a grand worth of sheet metal on the way for the Bronco & new body mounts coming for the 1 ton. So I gots bunches to do & many much frustration in the process. |
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Did not get as much done as I would've liked. Ran into a bit of an issue, like a almost seized engine that was full of water. I never bolted down the stock intake manifold after robbing the Edelbrock off of it last year & after 2 winters worth of rain & snow run off into the engine bay. Got lucky with it though, just one cylinder had any rust & that just below the top of the stroke. Ideally I'd take everything apart & fix it right, but I'm not doing that. This is a run it & keep it running long enough the get the 460 put together & dropped in. Because a 351m isn't much better than a boat anchor. My 20 year old daughter did most of the work the last 2 days, with me supervising. Installed the intake, carb, cleaned & installed valve covers, wiring, oil changes, plugs & wires, strap towed around the property. If she's wanting to learn, I'm willing to teach.    Had her rob some parts out of another one.  Swapped out the tires for the 33's. She couldn't fit her tit's under the radius arms & the ground to change the oil. Dinky as little 235's.   Went and got a good transmission jack for next weekend, assuming it's not raining. We get to split the trans and engine.   
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