Projects 1965 F100 father and sons project

Thanks @NashRodMan. Will install the moon gauges in the bezel. Even found some small machined turned vinyl to match the stock gauge bezel. Will install then decide if I need to go that route. Thinking I'll heat Gun the wood grain off and go full shine.

Tuning more today. Best I can do is 18 in. hg vacuum. Think that's about what these 300's do?

 

I kinda like the woodgrain.


18 in. hg seems like a good amount of vacuum I think (at least that is what Google said.). Enough for a brake booster. But what do I know....nuttin. lol

 

Actually I don't mind the woodgrain either but, it won't likely look the part in 'Sweet Clementine'.

The Steady 18" of Hg is a sign of good engine health. No needle jumping or high/low vacuum to suggest a health issue. With good vacuum and steady needle positioning we are good to pour the coal to 'er.

 

Got my little box today. These RAC gauges I hold in my hand might legitimately be the cheapest automotive component ever BUT, that's not why I bought them. The bezel completely covers the cut up hack job of a dash hole and transforms it into - something nice!! Keeping the woodgrain until it bugs me. Will install on the weekend.

 

Looks like it belongs there. Sort of mimics the shape of the main dash to the left. Nice.

 

So I'm bumped to the driveway now. Old and improved gauge bezel in. Switches are giving me grief. Signal lights, ignition and headlight switch. In due time.

 

That looks awesome! Like it belongs there.

 

Perfect! Looks like it has always been there!

 

I know not HAMB related but, I want to make our pickup more useful so we'll use it more. I intended on putting a receiver hitch on the back but, now that we are so low, the bottom of the mast of our rack means I need the receiver to be at the middle of our rear plate to make sure we don't drag rear wheels at marginal riding locations. I don't want to cut the bumper up. I could get a flip down plate and cut a hole behind the plate to mount a receiver high, which is a lot of work or I could make something out of wood which is period correct but, for security, square tube and fab time is the logical approach. 2 facing backward and 1 forward. I see lot's of lowrider pedal bikes in trucks but, the bed is too small with the tank and the tailgate trick is no way to treat a bike or a truck - In my opinion! Does anyone have an in-bed rack they've made. As you can see with the bike on the tank trick it will be an unconventional install.

 

I used this back in the day, Will. It just sits flat on the pick up bed, (hanging on the wall and hasnt moved from that spot since the 90s) and you latch your fork into it. Yes, it requires front wheel removal, but you do have quick releases.
I'd imagine it could be strapped to your petrol tank. I don't know if they are still available, or what they cost. If you want it, it's yours for the price of the ride. Even that up to the great white north might cost more than it's worth.
I'd bet you could probably get the individual fork fittings like what this piece has and attach it some other way.

 

Thanks Mike, again, very gracious of you!! Looking at your photo I've decided I want it to look old whatever I come up with. The bike world has evolved in a sick and twisted way. Your quick release(QR) is 12mm x 100mm wide and for bike guys is quite cool. It's a holdover from the road bike world. MTB bikes like ours have a much wider fork and a 15mm through bolt so no QR's available but... sometimes you have to revisit the old to adapt to the new. We are bike bonkers in our house so I have a new project.

 

Will, I did not know that about front hub width. Seems in the bicycle world as with other things, they have "Designed Obsolescence." Or change just for the sake of change to sell more stuff.
"Back in MY day"...the front hub widths were the same. Only the back was wider, 135mm for off road bikes and 126mm for road.
I still have both my race bikes. Yep, took a shot at bike racing too. Both on road and off. I was not good. I had to work hard just to play the game. My off road bike is a Bridgestone MB2. It was "All That" back in 1990. Fairly light for its day at 24.5 lbs. But time has taken its toll. (As well as a few crashes!). It has Shimano XT stuff but the shifters are fubar, and the fork elastomers are junk. My road bike, which has well over 40,000 miles on it is still in great shape and rideable today. A 1989 Ciocc. Hand-made Italian steel frame, with Campagnolo components. I had the frame imported from Italy, and built it out myself, including the wheels.
You'll figure something out, I'm certain. But now I understand why fellers took to just draping the front wheel over the tailgate to transport their bikes.

 

OMG Mike, we have a lot in common. Ex roadie through 80's-90's, although I still keep my 2004 Litespeed Tuscany for some reason. Alan, Colnago, Porter track bike, Pinarello Treviso and on and on. Mtb'ing I've gone through too many bikes to count. Broke a few. Spent more time in Emerg after tangling with cars than I have with trees.

I want to maintain box utility so I'm going to build a fold down/flip up rack. I can pack up to 4 bikes with this design alternating forward and backward. This is design #3. I'll put a bar across the tank and strap 'em in and I'll mount an angle iron on the tailgate. Should handle some sizeable pot holes up in Squamish.

 

Ok, I get that no one gives 2 beans about your struggles with fasteners but,... come on!... The rust on the booster was a hot tip. I was laughing at the tiny piece of wire for a pin. Needlessly mocked that given the whole Shiteree has welded itself together.

 

So, not having done this before (common theme, remember I'm a bit of a rookie) I just spent a couple of weeks - false starts on the brakes. No Ford boosters in Canada - UH Huh! RockAuto backordered plus everyone else not available I thought this is garbage. Surely someone local has something I can use to avoid shipping and Duty! I stumble into our local tool supplier KMS Auto and was so happy they hooked me up with a 8" dual diaghram Universal booster and a Corvette style MC setup and at a price I swear I could hear Santa's Sleigh bells jingling in my head. Oh ya - went to a British Car show today at Van Duesen Gardens. OK that's some cool shit out there and I was walking on grass doing it. I want a 1934 Morgan race car, that's not asking much is it?

Cut threaded rod, install eyelet to correct 90mm (3-9/16" face to centre of eyelet dim). My MC needed a deep slug and with nothing available to adapt my MC I went with a new one.

 

That's pretty much the same booster and MC I have. Mine was from CPP. I also had to do a bit of adaptication on the rod.
The pedal ratio is a bit long, so the pedal travel is more than it should be, but more than good enough.

 

Hey Will,
That new mc/booster is gonna look sweet compared to the old rusty unit. Looks like the new booster is a few inches smaller too. Nice and neat!!

 

Thanks @NashRodMan! It all comes at a price - I'm plumbing brake lines for the 3rd time. Ovalized the holes of my original bracket to mount the booster. MC uses 3/8" long barrel fittings so cut everything apart to reclaim those built into the system. I'm replumbing to have everything on the fender side of the MC this round so it looks better and I have more room. Oh ya and I drizzled more brake fluid on the inner fender. Good thing I'm waiting until all the messy stuff is done before painting them to match the firewall.

 

Out of NiCop Brake line. New MC has a couple different fittings than the old and because I didn't want to order new brake line, I got creative with the old shapes. How you guys make brake lines look good is an art and somewhat out of reach for me. 2 x tube nuts tomorrow and we're back on the road.

 

Weird one. Battery was dead yesterday am. 'Ran when Parked'. I put a trickle charger on and it immediately kicked off and showed like a crossed terminal. Voltmeter read 0. I took both battery cables off and ran the trickle on the battery yesterday and this am so battery is good. Put Pos+ cable on first and when I touched the neg - cable it arched. New harness, new voltage reg, old starter solenoid. New alternator with maybe 100 miles on it. I'm thinking ignition switch???? What a pain - at least it's in my driveway. Sighhhh! It didn't like being hooked up so cables off and will start a tour of the fuse box and a review of all connections. Might load it on a trailer and drop it off as electrical is a grey area for me. OR...get a 1 wire alternator and get away from the electronic voltage regulator and call it a day. Seems everything I read is if you don't care about the idiot light - just do it. I already have a fusable link wired into the wire. I guess I would need a diode wired into the ignitor and that's it. I heard a pretty good click when I touched the neg cable to the battery so don't know if the external voltage regulator popped or what.

 

New 150 Amp 1 wire alternator on my bench, on route - new steering column harness with signal light switch, new headlight switch, new ignition switch and bezel to replace my jiggling unit in the dash. New key cylinder. Think that completes every wire element with the exception of the rear pigtails for the taillights which are suspect too. Hoping that's the end of the gremlins. Happy friday.

 

Usually when beginning electrical diagnosis for a drain, I just systematically disconnect stuff until I find it. Typically doesn't take long on these types of vehicles. But then I've only had to do this a few times when it wasn't something obvious such as a light staying on. Stuck brake light switch, glove box light, etc.
Most every time is was either the voltage regulator or in the case of single wire units, the alternator.
The VW racer has had this happen twice with a single wire alternator. Killed the battree dead.
Maybe these alternators don't like being spun up past 10 grand....I don't know!
A word on the turn signal switch...
I'm on my third one, but at least this one is still working.
The first two were made in some far off land, and each had the cancelling tabs break off in a very short time. The first one before I even got it one the road. They were about 45 bucks each.
The third came from C&G ford parts, labelled "Made in the USA" and was $95. Still cancelling after several months. I also found out that the cancelling cams are available separately, although actually changing one might be a challenge!
Brakes lookin' good!

 

Hey M,
The dash lights flicker on an off which led me to the path you took which was replace everything. I have nothing hooked up - no heat, ac, power windows, not even a radio. Think the voltage reg was around $80 and it gave off an audible pop when I put the battery cables back on after a full charge. I heard going through multiples to find a good voltage regulator is a thing. As for cancelling signals. It's my wires coming out of the column that are really bad. If the tabs snapped off the replacement I'd likely live with it at $95 USD to replace plus shipping and duty. I have the voltage stabilizer at the back of the gauge panel coming and a new headlight switch.

Hi-light. I have steel fab guys building cantilevered stairs into a structural steel wall on the house I'm building - no stringers. The welds these guys do is pure art. Mentioned to the lead guy about my project manifold. His offered bring it around to the shop, the guys there will be lined up to work on it or he can tig it on site, I just need a couple of tacks so I can mock it up and decide on multi carb or single. It doesn't make sense for me to install a single barrel carb mount given future plans so, options are 1), adapting a 4 bbl carb plate or 2), 2 x 2bbl mounts. Leaning to the 2 x 2bbl, why be conventional. My Carb is a single barrel and will force feed it for the initial round.

 

If two are good, then three would be better! A three deuce set-up running on the center single as a primary would be a big fat win in my book!
But just you never mind that. I'm good at making more work for people as well as spending their money!

 

You're a corrupter man! I like it. More carbs means I might cruise without the hood.

Schaweet! Since I've owned our P.O.S. it hasn't charged itself. Well today it does, even looks better for the effort without all those extra wires. 2 carbs - I mean 3 carbs here we come. Depending on your metabolism - that's good.

 

Brakes bled, alternator works so grabbed my oldest kid as a winger and headed out for a shakedown cruise. Got a few blocks away from the house, pulled over and handed the helm over to Jr. He drives a 1986 Audi 5 speed so I laughed as he got acquainted to the Farm 4 - Find 'em and Grind 'em. You have to shut 'Clementine' down to grab reverse but, hey that's the fun part. Lot's of smiles. I'm not dropping in a T5 until the Young'ins master the T85 first. What a hoot!

 

Man...those gauges and panel look AMAZING!! And cool on all the other stuff.

 

Swapped out the power window unit in my wife's truck then pulled out the F100 to go for a cruise. I'm fiddling around inside the glove compartment thinking 'Where the hell did I put my glasses'? Even without them I know my dog isn't brown, he looks a little smaller than Wally and he's got a severe case of Bed Head, then again, so does Wally.

 

That big dog is pretty shaggy!
Good news on the charging system. Sounds like more on-the-road stick shift training is what's on tap!