Merry Christmas! Documentation Is Ready

[Gary Lewis]

Today I added a page which shows the gear ratios for all the transmissions used in the Bullnose trucks.  It's at Driveline/Transmissions/Transmission & Transfer Case Gear Ratios.  And, the information therein comes from the annual Light Truck Facts Books, so should be accurate.

[Gary Lewis]

Today Trent Alexander asked me via FB if I knew whether the F250 4x4 front springs are the same as the F350 4x4 springs.  I didn't but had a couple of hours before my next appointment so added the front spring information for all the trucks to the website.  It is in Suspension & Steering/Front Suspension, and then the Part #'s and then Springs tabs.

But, this was an eye-opener!  I do this via screen grabs to get just the F-Series and Bronco (U-Series) info, and in just the 1980 and early 1981 years alone I had 26 separate screen grabs!  However, in the next 5 1/2 years I only had 10 screen grabs.  Why the difference?

On March 13th of 1981 Ford changed the way they listed the springs.  Prior to that they listed each year, truck (F100, 150, etc), drive (2wd & 4wd), and each GVW rating.  And then they usually had 3 different sets of front springs - probably to go with different engine weights.  And this made for a huge list, even though there weren't that many different springs used.

As of March 13th 1981 they just started listing the spring codes that were put on the certification label.  And since there weren't that many codes it made for a much shorter list.  However, you do have to find your code and then go to the Cross Reference Chart to find the spring's rating, but that's not that difficult.

Having said that, I also noticed at least one other thing - the same spring is given many different ratings in the early list.  I don't know for sure which is correct, but they all had the same part number so I'd go with the rating on the Cross Reference Chart.

Enjoy!

[Gary Lewis]

Today I was adding the 351W part #'s to the website since Don/Pebcak wanted to know the part number for the valve cover bolts, and as I was starting to cut and paste screen shots I had an idea - why not just put the whole pdf for the 351W on?

So, I created a new pdf with just the 351W's parts, all 16 pages, and added it.  All in all it might have taken 5 minutes - instead of the much longer process of taking screen shots and pasting them on the web page.  Plus, it is searchable!  Just scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the "Full Screen" icon in the lower right and it'll open the doc on a new tab in your browser.  And on that tab you can search for names or #'s, zoom in, etc. I got so excited that I did the same thing for the 300 six and the 351M/400.  

Go check it out for yourself - see the Part #'s tabs on each of these pages:

Engines/300 Six

Engines/Windsor and the 351W tab

Engines/351M and 400

[Gary Lewis]

Well, that was so easy that I've added the full parts listing for all of the engines now.  A total of 95 pages added today.

[Gary Lewis]

I was recently asked what part numbers there are for the original hose clamps.  We didn't have those listed, but do now: Cooling System/Hose Clamps.

[kramttocs]

These are great! Thanks

So when are you going to publish a Bullnose coffee table book? :)
Was in B&N the other day and looked through a Ford one that had some photos and captions dedicated to them but nothing substantial.

[Gary Lewis]

There's a book dedicated to Bullnose trucks?  Or did I misunderstand?

[kramttocs]

No or at least not that I found there. It was high level Ford vehicles through the years. Had some neat brochure pics of the 80's trucks but not the nitty gritty details that I'd like to see in a dedicated one.

[Gary Lewis]

I've looked at a bunch of books on Ford trucks, and even have one or two.  But none of them do anything for the Bullnose ones.  In fact, some of them leave them out.

[kramttocs]

That's where you come in, right?

[Gary Lewis]

You think I should write a book?  ME?  That's a huge undertaking, and one I'd never, ever thought of.   Hmmm, we'd (get that "we"?) need lots of pics, but they can't be from the brochures w/o Ford's approval.  And that would be hard to get I'd imagine.

How 'bout we just do a really good job on the Year-To-Year Differences page?  I'm not selling anything or charging fees so Ford may not protest over the use of some pics from brochures.  And, as we start fleshing out the differences we'll be able to update the page, which is something you can't easily do w/a book.

[kramttocs]

Sounds good to me (although I'd really like a bullnose dedicated book :) ).
Happy to provide any photos or numbers that I can get off of the trucks/parts I have available.

[Gary Lewis]

Kramttocs - Not sure what pics we might need, but I'll get back w/you when we do.

All - We have a new brochure, the 1986 Accessories one.  And, on Page 10 is the step we discussed recently.

The brochure has been scanned at 600 dpi into multiple pdf's, then merged into one pdf, and then the file size reduced from 450 Mb to 10 Mb.  It still looks very good to me when I view the file, but not so good off the website.  So, I'd appreciate your feedback.

It is available via Literature/1986 Literature.

[grumpin]

That's neat! Seemed to work good for me.

Have you driven a Ford lately? I was at the Pomona raceway, in the pits, when Bob Glidden was starting to own Pro Stock and he had that on the back of his race car.

[Gary Lewis]

Thanks for the feedback.  

That's a cool memory.  Wow, being in the pits at Pomona!  I've heard about that place for forever, but have never been there.

Lots of people got to read that slogan - if only briefly, before the chute deployed.  

[Gary Lewis]

Well, it is almost Christmas, so here's one of your presents.  

We have a new member that is going to ask questions about parts for his rear axle.  At least that's what he said in his contact form/email to me.  So, I spent some time trying to get ahead of him by getting the info on the website.

I did it with a bit different approach than in the past, and I'd like your feedback on how it works - or doesn't.  Please?

Go to the Driveline/Axles & Differentials page and click on the Rear Axles & Differentials tab.  Here are the tabs you'll see:

Applications Listing: This is the info that's been on the website for some time, and via it you should be able to pick out your axle, although you may have to start with the certification label decoder or find the tag on the axle first.  From this list you can get the illustration # and parts list # for your axle.

Parts Lists: This tab has an extract from the Master Parts Catalog of the pages holding just the parts lists for the Bullnose F & U-series trucks.  This is exactly what is in the MPC, at least the 1994 version thereof, so is "gospel", but these are my optical character recognized (OCR'd) pages in a pdf.  And the the pages that don't apply to us have been removed so you don't have to look at all the "other" axles. And because they've been OCR'd you can search them.

Illustrations: These are also pdf's of the illustrations, and they have also been OCR'd.  So, you can search them as well.  But, maybe more importantly, you can zoom in on them w/o them getting blurry.

Anyway, please see what you think as I believe this approach will be a big help when we are working on things.  But, if it doesn't work then I need to know.  

[85lebaront2]

Very nice sir. Interesting to look at even the 10.25" sterling and see the number of older parts still being used.

[Gary Lewis]

Thanks.  I'll assume that it worked well for you.

It is interesting to see how parts were replaced by '94 when that version of the MPC was produced.  There are even some 1990's parts in the listings.

[grumpin]

Worked for me!

[Gary Lewis]

Good.  

Did the example make sense?  I actually worked through it myself as if I was trying to find the part, and learned that what I called the side gear wasn't what Ford did.  That's when I turned to the illustration and started there.