Poncho Loco build thread, yes here it is ...

[RenoHuskerDu]

Lots of news the last few days. The biggest is that our daughter herself will join this group and intro herself. She has questions .... Last night we got Poncho running and her face just about cracked from the smiles.

News: The fuel pickup from NAPA was the wrong size, because the 38 gal deep tank was for an 86, after Ford went to pump-in-tank hence a larger hole. We found that we had a working sender/pickup kicking around here anyway, extended its pickup tube and bent its sender arm downward a bit.  That works!  But empty and full are swapped on the gauge. We'll stick on neat little labels.

Got him running after running the 351 on squirts of gas long enough to pump gasoline thru from the freshly cleaned tank and lines, into a clear jar a few feet away, using a long fuel hose. The first 1/2 cup was brownish and after that it cleared up.

Today our daughter and her brother drove Poncho around the property a bit. He runs rich, loads up then cleans up, so carb tuning will be next.

I found a candidate for timing marks. Remember that this 351W has no pointer or marks on the damper pulley.
Tip from my buddy Steve of DUI distributors (whose DUI distributors I recommend, having installed a bunch in V8 Range Rovers in France - yes, you read that right).

[Gary Lewis]

That's good news, all 'round!  Glad you got it running, and will look forward to meeting your daughter.

On the sending unit being backwards, it'll be not only backwards but way off.  The Bullnose senders are 10 ohms Full to 72 ohms Empty.  The later sending units give 145 ohms Full and 22.5 ohms Empty.

I am running a Meter Match to interface the later sending unit to the Bullnose gauge, and while it works it isn't ideal.  It comes off of Full very quickly, hits 1/2 around 50 miles, and approaches empty by 100 miles.  But it'll do another 90+ miles before running out.

As Jim reminded me, there are intermediate set points on the Meter Match that I probably should play with to get its curve closer to right, but I've not taken the time.

Some day I hope to put in an Arduino and already have the sketch written and tested for that.

[FuzzFace2]

There is a member here or that other forum that is installing a later 33 gallon Bronco tank in his 85 F150 and it has the larger opening for the sender & pump and was going to have the same issues with the gauge.

His fix, yet to be put into service but looks factory, was to replace the sender / float assy. with one from the early trucks. He had a spare 16 gallon small opening sender he used for the sender / float assy.
IIRC he was able to remove the sender part with the plate it is mounted to flip it and mount it to the new larger opening pump assy.
Once you look at both parts you will see how each is mounted and should be easy to make the swap.

The hardest part of the job I got from him was the power wire to the pump as he was going to use the electric pump as it had different ends that hook on the bottom side of the plate to the bulk head parts.
The hard part was removing the wire insulation as it was like part of the wire, did not pull off like normal wire. He had to sand it off before making the connection.

The other part was finding something to cover the area of the connection that todays gas would not hurt.
I dont remember what he used now but he said he soaked it in gas for a few days and it was still good where other melted and turned to goo!

Will see if I can find his (Tarheel Blue) post and add a link.
Here it is https://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/95-FDM-for-your-85-gauge-td105086.html
Dave ----

[RenoHuskerDu]

Today is Poncho Loco day, among other projects.  He's getting new tires, we're bleeding the brakes, checking the condition of the diff oil, then putting the bed back on. After that he visits the local muffler shop for a dual 2.5" exhaust.

Here's the proud owner pulling her own wheels off with a 3/4" impact wrench. I was the one to crawl under there and put him on blocks, leveled for safely. Her older brother now works at a local shop that also sells tires, so he'll cart the 4 off for some new Cooper ATs on Monday. Coopers are made in USA, as are certain Hercules.



We had a little mishap while dismantling the grill to inspect for missing screws or other issues. A simple misunderstanding over right tighty left loosey led to the cracked lens reflector you see below.  We tried a test spot with model plastic glue, but it does not penetrate the plastic. The clean area is where we tried the model glue. Does anyone have experience on what glue works? The break is clean and only two pieces broke off. Seems a shame not to try, as the rest of the bezel is good.

[Gary Lewis]

She looks like she's having fun.  

As for gluing those, I don't have experience with them, but had assumed that JB Weld would work.  There's nothing close to them on the back side so you could put a splint or fishplate on them along with the epoxy.

[FuzzFace2]

If the model glue did not work I dont think I would wast my time on fixing them I would get new ones and be done with it.
I was looking to maybe replace mine and why I know you can get them.
I just dont know what colors they come in as there is yellow & clear.

What shape are the side markers in?
I bought new front ones for my truck think through LMC.
Dave ----

[RenoHuskerDu]

I had assumed that they would be hard to find.  But as you mentioned, here they are even on Fleabay.

Fleabay

Thanks for the tip!  They are pretty brittle after life in Texas for decades, so gluing them might be a Sisyphean task.

[Hstrymkrs]

I bought my front marker/blinker lenses at https://www.dennis-carpenter.com/ as they also had the small white “bumpers/bushing?” That the headlights rest on. My guess is that they are all sourced from the same place or just down the street from one another.

[RenoHuskerDu]

Poncho Loco is assembled and running well enough to go pass Texas Safety check.  Here's the happy girl riding the bed down into place the other night.




I just remembered that we still need to connect vacuum advance to the distributor. Can anyone tell me which nipple on the carb is ported vacuum for the advance? I'd guess the one with the red cap, pointed towards the battery. (this pic is from before we rebuilt the carb!)

[mat in tn]

you must be living right if your daughter is right there hands on with you. teach them right. as to the red capped vacuum port, that looks to be a 1/4'' port. i believe you should find one no more than 3/16'', often its an 1/8'' and it will be directly off the venturi on most holleys . vacuum advance happens after the throttle is opened and a vacuum signal is present above the throttle.

[mat in tn]

be sure to check any port with a vac gauge first before hooking it to vac advance as manifold vacuum will give you full advance at idle . no bueno...

[Gary Lewis]

She does look happy!  Well done!

On the vacuum, Mat is right.  Check with it running and hook the advance to the one that doesn't have vacuum at idle.  

[RenoHuskerDu]

Sage advice, gentlemen, and I thank you.  It's coming back to me now, carbs and testing the vacuum ports ... so long ago it was that I fiddled with them, in my teens. It's been nearly 50 years.

Yes the young lady is happy when she makes progress on her truck. Her brothers chip in after work. Now she wants to figure out why the backup lights don't work, so it's a teachable moment to explain that switch on the tranny.

I drove it today around the property after it passed Texas safety check. I was amazed at how low the Low Range is on the transfer case. In reverse gear low range it really creeps slowly. Does anyone know the actual ratio? The tranny is a 4spd manual.

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, we know the ratio.  Go to Documentation/Driveline/Calculators and you'll see all of the tranny and transfer case ratios.  

[RenoHuskerDu]

That is a great page, thank you. One additional tidbit that would help is the reverse gear ratio.  F150hub lists the T-18 reverse as 7.44, wow. F150hub.com

It appears that Poncho Loco has a T-18 or T-19 and NP208.  I'm sure about the NP208 but not about the T-18/19. It's 49F and raining cats and dogs right now or I'd go see if there are any syncros on 1st gear. Certainly they are worn but I seem to recall some synchro action. It looks like the T-19 started in 1983 and Poncho is a 1982 model so probably a T-18, but who knows what's been swapped in.

With 3.73 (DOT sticker axle code 16) in the pumpkins and a T-18 that yields 3.73 x 6.32 x 2.61 = 61.53:1 crawl ratio in low range 1st gear. Not bad for a torquey 351W and cautious teen driver.

I also have a doubt on the axle ratios, to the extent that Fordification.com lists it as 3.50:1 (WDM-CN, Bronco '80-'82, Ford F150 Pickup '79-'82, 3.50, 9 in, NL, 31 spline) while the DOT door tag translates on Blueovalttrucks.com to either 3.73 or 3.50, and I don't know which is correct. I didn't know that 3.50 was a ratio option, but looking down the list I see plenty of other ratios I didn't know about. Blueovaltrucks does list 9" (16, Ford 9″, 3750, 3.50) so perhaps 3.50 is correct after all. Redoing my calcs that would give Poncho a crawl ratio of 57.73:1 in low 1st and 67.96:1 in low reverse gear. That's what I noted backing off the trailer yesterday, a very low reverse gear.

[Gary Lewis]

I'll see if I can add the reverse ratio to the spreadsheet.

And the T-18 does have 7.44 reverse ratio, and Poncho Loco should have a T-18.  Plus, the only trucks that got the T-19 had the diesel or the 460.  Smaller engines always got the T-18, and the "F" does indicate T-18, as shown on Documentation/Specifications/Transmission Codes.

As for the F150hub link, I'm sorry but I have a hard time believing them when their T-19 page says:

A common application is the 1983 to 1987 Ford 6.9L IDI diesel, but this version of the transmission had a less favorable 4.02 : 1 first gear. 2WD Ford's with the 460 cid big block also received this version, while 4WD Ford's with the big block got a more desirable 6.32 : 1 version from 1983 to 1986.

That's not true about the 460's as the factory literature (Documentation/Driveline/Transmissions/Transmission & Transfer Case Ratios) says they had a 5.11 1st gear and it doesn't appear to vary by 2wd or 4wd.  And that has been borne out by what I've found on T-19's I've been around.  In addition, their chart shows the T-19 to have a 6.96:1 reverse with the 460 when it was actually 5.63 - which I've also checked out on T-19's from Bullnose trucks.

As for Poncho Loco's axle code, the factory axle ratio info (Documentation/Specification/Axle Ratios) says that a "16" is for 3.50's.

[RenoHuskerDu]

Hmmm, wrong info is worse than missing info. I deleted my post recommending that site.

[Gary Lewis]

I'm not at all saying that the factory info is perfect.  But I believe it is a lot closer to perfection than lots of the info floating around on the internet.  And when Ford runs the same gear ratio info for several years in a row, and I've been able to confirm it hands-on, I'll take it any time over the "info" found elsewhere.

But if someone has info that is counter to the factory stuff, please let me know.