1951 F16

[kb426]

O&S put in a full day but accomplished little. I'm fighting some little things and they're ahead in winning. The windows are in and working. I put the inspection panels on. There is a top panel that I need to upholster and it can go on and the doors will be completed. The arm rests go on after the upper panel. The rear caliper I kitted is leaking again. All of the kits are listed for a 1.75" piston. The piston measures 1.78" I wonder if that is the trouble or it's just misprints. I ordered a rebuilt caliper. I've had enough fun with that. I ordered a DEI heat sleeve for the clutch cable. It's supposed to be good for better than 1,000 degrees. I thought I would give it a try. The O2 sensor is installed for the sniper. I have the wiring connected but not run. The ads say it takes 4 wires to run. When I count that bundle, it sure looks like more than 4 to me. LOL. The wiring is laid out for the AC and I need to fab a panel for the controller. 

[chimp koose]

soon you will be driving this one too ! 

[kb426]

O&S got started with picking up the rebuilt caliper. It was on time which is pleasant to have happen these days. The caliper cured the problem and I have brakes now. The saying " a picture is worth a 1000 words" might apply to what's next. On the table is the remains of the 88 F150 harness. The fuse panel and the light circuit is what's left. On the table is a box with a lot of the wire removed and the remains of the power dist. panel I purchased on ebay some time ago. I would like to use the maxi fuses and there are 2 70 amp relays and 1 30 amp relay still attached. The sniper and Vintage Air harnesses both have relays in them. That leaves me with needing headlight and cooling fan relays. I haven't decided if I will modify those harnesses so I can relocate all the relays to one location or not. Lots of decisions coming up.

[idrivejunk]

Funner kinds of decisions though. And you've had practice. Wiring now looks not unlike a typical basic old car's.

[kb426]

O&S has 1 thing to report today. The Trooper was here and did the vin inspection. I've been to the court house and have a title and tag on the way.

[idrivejunk]

 

[123pugsy]

Right on!

[kb426]

O&S spent part of the day ordering some electrical parts I couldn't find locally. Then I moved on to mounting the radiator and running a few hoses. There is one heater hose left to connect to the heater. I need to find another Gates unicoil or get a preformed hose. Just another bump in the road.

[kb426]

O&S made a little progress today. The cooling fan is mounted along with the ac condenser. It's full of antifreeze and so far there's no green on the floor. I picked up a formed 90 degree hose and that enabled the connection of the water valve to the bulkhead on the heater. It's plenty close in there. I made a bracket to hold the ac control panel. After I took the pic, I decided that it needs to be moved back under the dash some. 2 more holes to drill.

[kb426]

O&S was stuck in low gear again. I started off by painting the fan shroud with flat black. I moved on to relocating the heater control panel and connecting all of the wires. I hooked up power and everything is working properly. I needed to make a spacer to mount the ignition switch. It took 2 tries to get a workable solution. That turned into a couple of hours of machining and thinking. I had looked at placing the stereo in the dash but didn't like everything about it. I thought about mounting it in a console but I want it to be easy accessed. I taped off the area and got brave with a cutoff tool. I think it will work fine. I got started on the console but not far enough for any pics. I had to put the seats back in for measuring. It was nice to sit in them instead of on the floor. However, they will be in the way for all of the finishing so they will get removed, again.

[jaybee]

The little things that take 75% of the time...

Reminds me of when you download or install something on the computer and it hangs up at 99% complete for almost as long as it took to get there.

[kb426]

I had a good exp. to share. On another forum, someone mentioned BatterycablesUSA.com. I decided to give them a try. The local options didn't have the correct hole size in the terminals for what I wanted. I ordered around noon on friday. The order was in my hands today. The cables are very nice and exactly what I ordered. It was a pleasant surprise.

O&S got started today with fabbing a simple console for the truck. It has holes cut for speakers, the power window switches, and the cup holders are roughed in. There is a small compartment on the rear for the registration and insurance card.  I shot flat black on it but I may glue black vinyl on it. I picked up a piece of metal and made a hurtz shifter lever. It misses the console by at least a 1/2" in all the gears in the rearward position.

[kb426]

O&S accomplished very little today. It took several hours to get the console bolted down. Several attempts before nutserts were installed and it was bolted down. I installed a cable throttle kit. There's an angle on the firewall where the cable passes through that is going to cause a problem. Tomorrow it will get removed and I'm going to have to flatten that area on the firewall where the cable attaches to it. Late in the day, I had to drain the antifreeze down. The intake manifold has a water crossover at the rear. One of the outlets had a plug that was leaking. I removed that plug and replaced it with a brass unit that I've had for years. I believe that is the end of that problem.

[kb426]

O&S crossed 2 items off the list today. I made angle cut spacers for the throttle cable. That allowed it to run perpendicular to the throttle arm and solved that future problem. I shortened the cable up some and took some of the angles out of it. The effort to make it open the throttle is far less now. I knew that to make the tfi distributor operational with the sniper, the shutter wheel from the distr. needed to be modified. One window was .150" larger than the others. In sequential fuel injection, something has to tell the ecu where number 1 is. hence, the wider window. The sniper is batch fire so it needs none of that info. I welded a piece of metal .150" wide to the shutter wheel. I sanded the weld down because the clearance inside the distr. is real close. I had it on a spare distr. to spin and verify that all the clearances are correct. The pic of the shutters shows the stock on the left and the modified on the right. I'm back on wiring now. I'm still searching for info on how to connect the tfi distr. to the sniper. 5 years ago, there were some people who solved the equation. I'm trying to track that info down. Now, it seems the preferred thought is to buy the $500 Holley distributor and ignition box.

[kb426]

O&S has added new meaning to "an embarrassing amount of time" on the wiring. 1st off: I was able to talk to a Holley tech guy yesterday morning. He told me that I would be unsuccessful in trying to use the tfi distributor with the sniper for controlled timing. I had read on the Holley forums that several years ago, people had tried it with very limited success. The distributor creates a magnetic field that causes the ecu to make errors. So on monday, I will be searching for the Holley distributor. The pics show the current status of the wiring. The 1st shows it laid out on the table this morning. Yesterday I fabbed up a bracket to hold the fuse panel under the dash. The 2nd shows the wiring running from the firewall access to the battery. There are 3 main feeds for the fuse panel and switch, a relay tap for the efi, a.c., headlights and the cooling fan. All of the main grounds will terminate at the battery. Next to the battery is the fuse for the efi and relays for the efi and headlights. I have a 70 amp relay connected to the ignition switch to transfer power to the fuse panel rather than using the ignition switches internal contacts. I need to wire the gauge cluster, stereo and interior lights. I have wires running to the front and rear for lights but they won't be connected until the sheet metal is all back on the truck.