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Posted by Keith in Washington [24.41.41.111] on Tuesday, July 06, 2010 at 13:51:30 :
I have been working on my 51 ffPW the last couple of weeks. Nothing major just a bunch of minor things.
1) I put the headliner in that I have had for a couple of years. It was a really simple job and it went in quite easy.
2) Leaky exhaust manifold. It appeared to be leaking out of the gasket on #1. Took it all apart. This turned out to be one of those jobs where anything that could go wrong did. I got all of the bolts off the manifolds except for the last one. It stripped the treads on the stud. Of course it was the one between the manifolds and I had to chisel the nut off. Man what a pain. Quite a few of the studs came out of the block so out came the antifreeze. The stud that stripped took two days of patient work to get out but it came. The exhaust manifold was fine no cracks but it was leaking on # 1, 2, and 3. I took the intake and exhaust manifolds apart so I could align them. Broke 2 of the 4 bolts even with heat being applied. The bolts were eaten through. Had to drill them out. Finally I was cleaning the treads on the studs that were still in the block with a small hand die. On the first one I dropped the die and it fell into the exhaust pipe. I took a magnet and pushed it down the pipe no such luck. Took the pipe off the front of the muffler (fun) and no die in it. Then I took the magnet and put it into the muffler and bingo got it first try. The funny thing is I bought a new stud that morning and they had a small magnet that looked like a small pen pointer and I said that might be useful so I bought it. Little did I know that I would need it in a could of hours. I got it all back together with the manifold aligned and even got the carb heater flapper working. Much quieter now.
3) Horn. The horn has never really worked in the 24 years that I have had the truck. I opened it up and it was rust free and very clean. Nothing burned or other wise. Went online and got directions to fix it. It turned out that the front face of the horn was on 180 degrees out so the tab on the diaphragm would not open the contacts. I put it back together and adjusted the contact screw until the horn would work. Now it is freshly painted and working great.
4) Dimmer switch: The dimmer switch stopped working a couple of months ago. it would not turn on high beam. I have looked for a new on but nobody had the one with the bullet connectors on it. So the other day I took it apart and it was really clean and basically no wear in it. The grease was a little stiff. The problem is that the tab on the plunger was not catching on the fan like wheel which rotates the switch's contacts. I looked at it for a few minutes and saw that I needed to bend the little fan like stamped cutouts a little to allow the plunger tab to catch on the wheel. A little fresh grease and I put the assembly back in the case and held it with a small clamp while I re-spiked the case into the indents on the bakelite. Then I cleaned the outside contacts and the bullet contacts on the wires. It works just fine now and I have better lights due to clean contacts.
Next couple of jobs are:
1) Winch hooks and repaint part of the winch where there is surface rust and replace a few nuts that have a little rust on them.
2) Interior light. I believe that I have one on the way to me this week. I may cheat and put switches in the doors so the light will go on when they are open (I did this in my carryall).
3) PTO handle pivot needs repair as it cracked and came apart.
4) Check shift fork on tranny as it pops out of 2nd gear from time to time. Gears are new and not worn but it has a real short shift into 2nd and one that is a little long into 1st. I suspect that the pin that hold the shift fork onto the shift rail may have sheared.
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