[Doosenberry]

Alright, today's my day off and the sending unit is here. I had to get my mailing situation with usps straightened out though. They kept "forwarding" my mail, but what ended up happening was "return to sender". Frustrating. I watched the tracking like a hawk this time and it arrived at the post office this morning, so I went down and grabbed it before anything happened. lol. I've waited long enough for it, not gonna wait another week or whatever would have happened.

It's super cold out right now, but plans are to hit my lower tank straps with a flap disk a little to knock off any big stuff and make sure they are fairly smooth and then coat them with some por 15. On my Bronco i went further and wire wheeled everything to bare metal before paint, but im not sure the juice is worth the squeeze on these straps, especially with the por 15.

I did the frame/crossmember in one coat the other day, may hit it again with another. I'll slice up some lengths of inner tube to go on the upper and lower tank straps. I have to modify the new sending unit, so install of everything will either happen this afternoon or mid-day tomorrow before I go to work. I should have done most of this about a week ago, but man my motivation and energy comes and goes in big swings.

 

[Doosenberry]

Well, like all of my plans, that didn't go as I had hoped. lol

The lower tank straps have been "cleaned" and painted. The 120 grit flap disk that I used actually took it to bare metal pretty easily, which wasn't what I was trying to do, but hey, whatever. I still did a less than perfect job on purpose. I just wanted it mostly clean and roughed up for paint. A couple spots were too narrow for me to fit the disk in, so I hit them real quick with a wire wheel to knock off the loose rust and dirt.

I didn't take these pics as a before and after, but here's a pic showing the kind of rust that was on the straps. The road-facing side was worse than this side. I think a lot of it was actually dirt along with some adhesive from the strips of material that were on them before, but either way it had to go before I painted.

Couldn't get the disk to hit these spots.

After that I washed them off and dried them, then hung them up so I could paint them with a foam brush. I don't have any pics of that right now. The biggest reason I didn't get everything done was due to how long por 15 takes to dry. I'm used to using spray paint and it cures a loooot quicker, so my expectations were a little off as far as timeframes went. I did one coat yesterday and then put on a second coat today. After about 5-6 hours today it was still tacky on the second coat, so I figured I'd finish that later.

Here's the por 15 on the frame, crossmember, and upper straps. No idea how long this took to dry as I put it on then never came back to it for like 2-3 days. 🤷‍♂️ It's dry though! Only thing that bugs me about using rust converters is the aesthetic. You can still see the texture of the rust and whatnot underneath the paint. Only practical way around that is blasting I suppose.

Here's what ~$55 gets you delivered from Dennis Carpenter. The new plan is to do the modifications to it after I get off work in the morning. It'll be too cold to paint anything (I wanna top coat the por 15 on the lower straps with some silver paint I have left over from my Bronco exploits), so I can do that while waiting for the sun to come up.

The yellow portion of the float is foam. I guess you can buy these by themselves from Dennis Carpenter if you want a new float.

Here's the new sending unit next to the original one. I haven't measured yet, but the outlets look to be the same diameter (3/8"). Not sure if it will matter for me, but the outlet on the new one sticks out a little straighter than the original. The original has a little more downward curve to it. You can also see where I had drilled my hole for the return, which is where I'll put it on the new one. I will be much more careful this time and try to prevent a lot of vibration.

 

[Doosenberry]

Lower straps are done. As expected, spray paint dries much much faster than por 15. Maybe 5 mins per coat dry time for the spray paint vs all day on the por 15. I did three coats of the "aluminum" engine enamel that I used on my Bronco's drivetrain since I still had a can of that left over.

Sending unit still needs to be finished up, it's about halfway done.

 

[Doosenberry]

So close, yet so far away. I'm still working on the sending unit. Modifying it isn't being as smooth as I had hoped. The hole is drilled, but I need to cut off a portion on the underside for the washer and nut. I have a little $10 rotary tool from HF and after doing about 3/4 of what I needed to do, it went up in smoke. lol. The ac adapter split in two and the circuit breaker popped. It was one of those moments where you sigh and tell yourself you got what you paid for. 🤷‍♂️

Anyway, based on what left I need to do, I think I'm gonna try to find a mini hacksaw. Maybe something used for modeling? It's gotta be small to get where it needs to go. I'm not sure that rotary tool would have been able to finish the job before it committed seppuku anyway.

No pics of what I'm working on at the moment, but it need to look similar to this pic. Only difference is I'm removing the post next to the hole I drilled used for correctly clocking the sending unit in the tank and I'm removing the portion of metal it's attached to all the way around the drilled hole. Basically I'm eliminated the two pieces of metal being sandwiched between the washers and nut for the bulkhead fitting and just having one.

 

[Doosenberry]

Getting real close now. I have a really good knack for not working on my projects on the days I have off and then cramming as much work as I can into the few hours I have before I leave to do my nightshift on my first night back to work. 🤷‍♂️ It's really dumb, but it's a clear pattern!

I tried a couple of things to finish off my sending unit modification with the tools I have on hand, but just put on my big boy pants and went and spent ~$85 on a Dremel "starter kit", if you will. Came with enough things to get the job done, most importantly a much higher operating rpm (16k vs 33k rpm) and some legit cut off wheels.

The cheap HF wheels are so brittle and barely cut. These look like the wheels I use on my grinder, just tiny sized. They throw off some good sparks and transfer some crazy energy in the form of heat, so you know it's working.

Anyway, some pics.

I didn't take a pic at each step I took, but this is what I got. The cuts I had made before this pic, and before I got the Dremel, had it looking like the pics from my Bronco's sending unit that I posted earlier. The cut out portion was a square, but not a big enough square for my needs. I had test fit some pieces and then marked the last chunk to remove.

Chunk removed. In hindsight, it would have been easy to make this a single cut from top to bottom at an angle with the Dremel I have now. The cut looks rough due to my other attempts with other tools.

Looks like I don't have any before pics of the washers supplied in the kit before I started chopping those up too. Because of my bulkhead placement, and the fact that these washers are larger diameter than the ones that were used on my Bronco's sending unit, I had to chop them up in places for clearance.

Anyway, here's a pic of the original sending unit before I started drilling on it. I used a washer to mark my hole. You can see what the washers look like here before I chopped them up.

What a mess. Don't go this route, kids. lmao. Had to make a few cuts to clear everything, for both washers. I test fit the retainer ring that holds the unit in place once you put it in the tank.

Next issue was the hose on the bulkhead. Basically everything attached to the sending unit is in the way of the hose. lol. Of course it is. I chose this side of the sending unit for my return, because it'd interfere with the fuel gauge plug on the other side. I figured this hassle was worth dealing with vs the plug.

So, I chose to run the hose under the housing for the rheostat (the white box) and then zip tie the hose to the stainless tubing. I luckily had some stainless zip ties, so that came in handy. I was contemplating the longevity of a nylon zip tie and then remembered I had some of the stainless ones, so that really made me feel better about putting one in the tank.

I also shortened the hose a bit. If left at original length it would stick past the filter on the end of the sending unit. I took off a couple inches and it now ends about midway down the filter. I figure that may help the fuel pump suck up fuel returned to the tank a little better, even if just a smidge. Really only a benefit at low fuel levels I'd imagine.

So that's the effin' monstrosity I have created that's going into my fuel tank. My Bronco sending unit was a lot less complicated. Oh well.

My Bronco's sending unit for comparison's sake. Yes, the return hose just free floats in the tank like that, though it's a pretty stiff hose. No issues that I've noticed so far.

Alright, let's put this bad boy in the tank!

Fuuuuuuuu.... it doesn't fit.

It took a deep breath and a little finagling to get everything through the opening. Mostly some repositioning of the return hose while I fed everything through, then I was able to position things back once through the opening.

View through the filler to make sure it sits alright before installing the retainer ring on the sending unit.

Gasket and retainer ring installed. No going back. I mean, I could, but I won't.

Since that whole mess was over, I took care of some other essentials. I cut up some strips from that inner tube I picked up for the price of.. on the house.

Making straight, flat strips from a tubular (🤙) object wasn't as fun as I had hoped. Either way, it got done. I cut two wider ones for the bottom straps and two narrower once for the upper straps since they are different width straps.

Cut them big, then trimmed them down using a lower strap as a guide. Didn't go for perfection, just a "good enough" trim.

My alarm telling me I needed to wrap things up and get ready for work went off, so I didn't get much further than this. Before starting on the inner tube stuff, I removed the filler neck from the truck and I plan on wire wheeling that tomorrow morning and painting it. Also picked up a set of new clamps to replace the old ones when I was on my way to work.

Looks like the old clamps were either originals or replacements from the dealer.

After the filler neck is painted I should be good to go as far as installing this hot mess. Yay...

 

[TheBandit704]

I guess now would be a bad time to tell you about Tanks Inc and that they have a tank for your truck with a purge valve in it and all the access for aftermarket pump and sending units to go in it wouldn't it?

 

[Doosenberry]

Yes, I'm aware of Tanks Inc.

 

[Doosenberry]

Little closer. Should 🤞 be able to finish it up tomorrow. Little bit of the ol' two steps forward, one step back since the last update.

Replaced the small portion of hose that connects the two sections of fuel hardline with EFI rated hose and clamps. The 78/79 Broncos have this same section of hose for reference.

Removed the leftover hose and removed the valve that wasn't wasn't being used in the previous tank. I'll probably just leave the hardline for the evap system for now, it's not currently in the way of anything.

Put hoses on the tank before hoisting it under the truck.

I put the inner tube strips for the top straps on the tank and used a little wheel bearing grease smeared onto that section of the tank in order to hold the strips in place. It worked well, they didn't slide around while I was persuading the tank.

Long story short, remember how I said I wasn't going to remove the sending unit once I put it on? Well, I removed it! I re-clocked the bulkhead to a usable position which it is now pointing up. With it pointing down, the hose would have to kink in order to get it up and over the crossmember.

This was not an issue on my Bronco for a couple of reasons. The floor is higher in the rear on the Bronco and the tank on the Bronco is taller, so the top of the tank sits higher in relation to the crossmember and the sending unit sits at less of an angle in the tank on the Bronco, so the 90* outlet comes more or less straight out rather than pointing down like it does on my truck's tank.

Tank back in place.

Filler neck was wire wheeled and painted.

No pics of it installed yet, but it's mostly in place. I need to attach the vent hose to the filler neck still. Everything else is clamped on. Then I need to hook up the lines coming out of the sending unit and reattach the hanger for the exhaust. That should pretty much do it for now.

Putting the tank in and pulling it out isn't too bad with the rear exhaust hanger unbolted. It might be a challenge bolting it back on though. Not a lot of room to get to the bolts from inside the frame.

 

[Doosenberry]

Well, the weather hasn't been cooperating at all lately with a lot of downpouring. I managed to get my hoses routed, trimmed, and clamped yesterday with some pretty clear skies. No pics of that, but I'll try to snap some once I get the rear exhaust hanger bolted back on as that's the last item to take care of. It's been downpouring again since getting the hoses done, of course.

I did get some fuel in the tank and take it for a spin this morning to see if it still had the herky jerkies once it got up around 60 mph. It'll go 60-65 mph without bucking anymore, so that's good news! I took it on the freeway and I pushed it as hard as it would go (close to 90). Looks like I don't have to worry about keeping it around 50-55 mph anymore, though it clearly gets better mpg at that speed, especially with how weak this 302 is as you have to pretty much floor it to maintain the posted limit on the freeway (80).

I did noticed a couple of things when I was working on getting the truck started again though. My stove choke wasn't hooked up, I don't know why or how that happened, and my air filter looked like someone dunked it in some used motor oil and then drove through a dust storm. This is not how my filters normally look, I don't wait that long to replace them. I seem to have a decent leak on my passenger side valve cover, so I'm assuming it's been sucking up oil into the filter somehow. I suppose if the air is turbulent enough under the hood that that would be possible. I will investigate further.

 

[Doosenberry]

Couple short clips of gauge movement.

One shows how useless the ammeter gauge is, if yours works at all (common that they don't). Your battery has to be pretty low to actually see any needle movement. My battery was low from the truck sitting for so long and from cranking the engine over a few times without the engine starting. I actually swapped in my Bronco's battery in order to spin the engine fast enough and long enough to pump some fuel up to the carb and get the truck going. Then I swapped the truck's battery back in and this is how much the ammeter moved. The belts were pretty unhappy as well.

And then after I got the truck running again, I drove it over to the closest gas station and filled the tank all the way up and checked for leaks. I started filling the tank and made sure the nozzle was happy and then got in the cab and put it to accessory to see if the sending unit was working. Fun fact, if you watch this video in reverse it's like driving my Bronco.

The station this is at has old school pumps where you flip up a lever where the nozzle sits, rather than pressing a button, and when you do that the pump kicks on and its super loud. That's the humming you can hear in the background. You can hear the pump nozzle click off once the gauge goes past full and the needle travel maxes out.

I have a small gas can that hold 1.25 gallons and that's what I used to get the truck running. The nozzle clicked off once it hit just under 18 gallons, like 17.8 or 17.9 and the tank is a 19 gallon tank. It's my experience with this era of truck that the needle always goes past full when you fill them up like I did here where you let it just click off. I'm sure the gas going up into the filler helps attribute to the gauge going past full.

 

[TheBandit704]

Good to here you got it back up and running! Looks like The ammeter gauge is working as it is intended to. Needle moves to the C or charging when it's charging and it's producing more amperage than the trucks electrical system is using and it will move to the D or discharging side when you are using more amperage than the charging system can provide to keep battery at a safe voltage level.

 

[Doosenberry]

Look at this pos that Little Caesars gave me. This is essentially how my week started and how its been going. lol. They should be perfect rectangles, among other things.

Anyway, the weather hasn't been playing nice for me lately.

I went through some totes and found a set of belts that I've needed to install. I've had them for a while, basically back when I was going to be putting something other than a 302 in this, so I never got around to putting them on.

I doubt the old ones were originals, but they certainly are old and an old style of belt. The alternator belt was apparently barely holding on as it was missing nearly all the ribbing on the topside of the belt. The other two weren't crazy bad, but they were dry and weather cracked, so they definitely needed to be replaced.

The only thing I'm not super happy about is the idler pulley for the ac. Its out of alignment and I'd have to hammer it or something to get it straight. It's basically got the right depth, but just has a bit of angle to it. I'll have to see what I can do to get that straightened out without damaging the pulley itself.

Good news is that the new belts eliminated a lot of vibration I was getting in my cab. They haven't eliminated everything that I can feel, but most of it. Maybe the pulley being out of whack is still creating some, but I'm sure there are other sources of vibrations to be found other than the belts. The carb could definitely use a rebuild and I have a kit tucked away somewhere that I've had for literally years. That'd smooth some things out for sure.

But of course, as one thing gets fixed, something else breaks. The spring on the driver side door latch remote broke, so the door handle is floppy now. The door still opens and closes fine, there's just no resistance to keep the handle in the proper place when it isn't being pulled.

This actually happened on the passenger side as well a few years ago and I replaced it with one from the JY. Guess the conditions were just right for this one to break on me a couple days ago. Oh well. Suppose it's time to hit the JY again.

And last, but not least, I'm not sure the sending unit is playing well. From full to 3/4 it seemed to do pretty well as far as it's sweep while the tank was being depleted. 3/4 to almost half seemed to jump a bit as it would go down and then half to about 1/8 was a crazy fast drop. Like, I could watch it go down when it'd actually move, almost like it was sticking and then when it got free it would drop considerably.

It was sitting for quite a while at about 1/8 while I drove around today running errands and I was skeptical about its accuracy. I decided to fill it back up on my way to work this evening and when I filled up I set it on the slowest setting on the nozzle and waited for it to click off. I waited for several seconds and then repeated the same thing and called it good when it clicked for the second time. I ended up putting in 16.5 gallons with a little less than 1/8 showing on the gauge when I started filling.

Based on the mileage I went on the odometer from my last fill up, the mpg is not looking good. Basically my Bronco's kind of highway mpg. I don't know if the odometer is accurate, especially when my speedometer sticks while on the freeway. I'll have to track it via gps and see how it does that way.

I was also driving it essentially as hard as I could on the freeway to see how things held up with the fuel system, so I'm sure that plays its part in things. I'm gonna watch over the next tank or two and see if the sweep on the gas gauge improves any. I just need it consistent at the very least.

 

[Doosenberry]

Decided to mess with some stuff the past couple days. Since it's been super cold, I figured I'd mess with the choke and see if I could get it dialed in as it doesn't really matter as much in the warmer months.

This linkage was just dangling when I took the air cleaner off, so when you pressed the throttle to the floor before attempting to start the engine, the high idle cam would never set and the choke butterfly was just constantly open all the way.

I need to stop at Napa sometime and pick up a tiny e-clip. For now I'll just let it hang, but yesterday I had everything together loosely and I dialed in the choke butterfly and the idle for the high idle cam as much as I could. I'll probably have to back the high idle off a little once I get everything together. It was really finicky when I was adjusting it.

The whole carb is a dirty hot mess with seeping gaskets and vacuum caps cracking out, so I may go back to using the Bronco as a short term DD and then rebuild the carb with the kit I have tucked away.

This truck came with a 2150, which is the same thing that would come on a 78/79 Bronco. This carb, however, is a 2100 off of a 60's Mustang 289. The intake manifold and the carb were off the 289.

 

[Doosenberry]

Then I decided to replace the door strikers. I did the passenger side striker on my Bronco, as the driver side is fine, then did both doors on my truck. They use the same strikers.

Here's a pic of the striker with the Napa packaging for reference. I bought a set of them a few years ago, but they still carry these exact ones. Prices have gone up though, of course.

SO.. after spending half the day fiddling with these strikers on my Bronco and truck, I've learned that the plastic bushing needs to be able to spin in place for best performance. When I put the new striker on my Bronco's passenger side, the door would latch fine, nice and easy without having to slam the door, but when I'd try to open it, I'd have to give a pretty solid yank to get the door to open. It was just that initial movement and then it'd swing open fine the rest of the way.

I compared the new striker to the old one on the driver side, that worked perfectly, and the only difference I could find in anything was that when they were both bolted down, the old one was allowing the bushing to spin. The new striker has the bushing just a couple hairs too long, which doesn't allow it to spin. I'm sure that if I just bolted the new one in there and let time take it's toll, that the plastic bushing would eventually shrink enough to allow it to spin, but I'm not waiting for father time.

Clip of the bushing spinning on my Bronco's driver side door striker.

So, I whipped out that newly acquired Dremel (excellent tool) and shaved it down, poorly. lol. I came up with a better way to do it with the Dremel on the last one, of course. I used a cut off wheel to cut a chunk off the first couple, which was taking more than I wanted off of the bushing.

On the last one, I flipped the cutting wheel and put it on upside down which had the rough side facing out and I used that as a grinding wheel to just shave a little off of the bushing. I just pressed the end of the bushing against the spinning wheel rather than trying to slowly cut a sliver off the end of it. Much nicer result.

Anyway. Here's one of the strikers unmodified. This one was bolted onto the passenger side of my truck and then I shut the door to see if the door would stick when I would try to open it like what happened on the Bronco. It stuck. The greasy line is where the latch was hitting it. You can get an idea of how much you can get away with cutting off, though you absolutely don't need to remove that much, just enough to let it spin which is nearly indistinguishable.

Here is the old striker on the driver side. It's got some pretty good grooves worn into it from the latch. Notice the two shims behind the striker. All four strikers, the two on my truck and the two on my Bronco, had these two shims behind them. I transferred them over to the new strikers.

Striker removed. Looks like it's been moved around a bit before. The rightmost circle with the dirt outline is where it was when I removed it, so I put the new one there.

New striker with a poorly trimmed bushing.

Here's a clip showing the bushing spinning on the driver side striker once it was trimmed.

Then! Then I shut the door! But when I shut the door, it noticeably went up when it closed! I thought, wth... Turns out my hinge pins have play on the driver side door and my door is sagging. With the new striker that now has a bushing on it, it forces the door to go up into it's proper position since the bushing ads a little height. It's very noticeable when you shut and open the door. You can feel it drop down when you open the door. I'm gonna see about fixing those hinges. Ugh.

I didn't do it in this clip, but if you open the door like 6 inches and then grab it at the bottom, you can lift it up and down. Sucky. I even went as far as doing the same thing on the passenger side to make sure I wasn't crazy. No movement on the passenger side, not even a hair. The truck just moved with the door when I yanked it up and down. That was hard to film without having three hands, so this is the best I could do to show how it goes up when you close it.

 

[Doosenberry]

More things catching up to me. A couple years ago my blower motor would start creaking or quietly howling when the temps would get really low out, but it would stop if you turned the fan to high or waited until the engine warmed up a little and it wouldn't do it at all if the temp out was maybe 45 or so and higher.

It currently sounds like a freight train driving through the cab and blowing its horn. lol. It will go away if the engine is up to temp, but it's gotta reallly be up to temp. Can't be almost there, gotta be there 100%. Guess I gotta pull that all apart sometime and check things out. Not looking forward to that with the factory a/c.

I suppose it could be the motor going bad or the blower wheel has somehow loosened up and is sorta freewheeling on the shaft of the motor, which sounds plausible with the cold temps maybe contracting the blower motor shaft and the set screw not being able to hold on tight, in theory. This is right after starting the engine and having the controls set to defrost and low. I just had the camera aimed towards the blower's direction, the sound isn't necessarily coming out the vents.

 

[Doosenberry]

Happy Thanksgiving!

On Tuesday morning I had to get a jump start after work. I found out later that it had been single digits out, but my battery was pretty weak and with it being that cold it wouldn't spin the engine fast enough for it to fire before it just wouldn't crank anymore.

Tuesday night I got off early and by then it only got down to about 32 and it was able to start the engine first try and spun the engine like it was a new battery. I went out today mid day and it again wasn't up to the task.

I dug out my charger and I currently have the battery pulled out and charging. The charger says the battery is around 75%, so hopefully it's not dead dead. I was hoping to celebrate 10 years with this battery, it's 10 years old in January.

 

[Doosenberry]

Splurged. Who needs a new battery? Not this guy. lol.

 

[Doosenberry]

Long story short, but I'll be dropping off my 5.0 in short block form to the machine shop in a couple weeks. The time frame was requested by the owner. I'm assuming he has quite the backlog. I spoke with him about a month ago, so I've been waiting a while already.

Temptation's been a real bitch though. I've been eyeballing AFR heads on the Corral, among other tasty used parts, for a few weeks thinking I could maybe swing that cost... and then coming back to reality and knowing I'll most likely be having the tranny gone through, probably a new radiator, etc., and that money will be going there. Tis the season to blow money though, December.

 

[Doosenberry]

Another long story short, 302 is turning into 347. Been super busy this month with OT, but I need to get the short block to the shop and have the cylinders mic'd to see what size pistons I need for the stroker kit, so they can order parts.

 

[Doosenberry]

Here are some videos from Richard Holdener on Youtube that kinda show the power numbers I'm looking at with a stock style head, 350ish hp and near 400 tq. He's using the more restrictive E7TE heads in these dyno pulls, so I think I'd be able to get near what he is, on a dyno at least, with my little bit better GT40 heads even though I'm using a little smaller cam than what he uses a lot of the time.




First bit is a 347 with E7TE heads, larger cam, flat top pistons.

First part of video is LS stuff. Second shows the difference between a 302 and a 347 using the same factory heads, cam, and intake, which are E7TE heads, factory Foxbody Mustang HO cam, and GT40 efi intake. Figure I can do better than this one with GT40 heads and the cam I have which is bigger than a stock HO cam.

Video should start where the E7TE heads are being tested on a 333 stroker. Uses a larger cam than I have, but is carbbed vs efi.