1967 F250 Camper Special

[duaneo]

My radius arm bushings look pretty close to yours. How hard was it to replace them? Where there any snags to be aware of?

I never would have imagined the nose of your hood falling off. That's crazy! Thank goodness your hood didn't fly up in your face and cause an accident.

Cheers
Duane

[sargentrs]

So I'm this guy now... ^^^ .

Wow! I've never seen a hood do that before. I was "that guy" for awhile. Wrecked my '86 Grand Am and put a '91 hood on it. The hood was too lomg to latch. Took a couple of pieces of coat hanger and a small turnbuckle with hooks on it. Twisted one piece of the coat hanger in the hood and put a loop on the end. Same at the grill. Close the hood, hook the turnbuckle and tighten it snug. When you need to open the hood, loosen the turnbuckle and pull the hook out of the loop in the coat hanger. Barely noticeable.

[Fall_of_Olympus]

My radius arm bushings look pretty close to yours. How hard was it to replace them? Where there any snags to be aware of?

I never would have imagined the nose of your hood falling off. That's crazy! Thank goodness your hood didn't fly up in your face and cause an accident.

Cheers
Duane

Rusty bolts is your biggest issue if your truck is anywhere near the condition of mine . Make sure you have two jacks so you can compress the coil spring and lower it nice and slowly to avoid....death . Be prepared to do a good deal of cursing and pushing and pulling. Now, there is a bolt underneath the coil spring. When you get the spring out, there's a bell shaped housing under it that comes off. Under that is a secret bolt that we couldn't get to loosen at...alllllllll. We assume this bolt would allow the whole arm to swing so you can line it up with the bracket. Our solution was to get everything lined up height wise with the jacks and then use a ratchet strap to pull it to where it lined up and it popped right in.

It took us about 6 hours to do both. 4ish for the first one and 2ish for the second one. We were, however, learning as we went. In the end though, the ride is already 100% better. I mean, it still kind of rides like crap, but the alignment is still WAY off and the tires... well they were put on without doing anything other than putting them on. So there's that.

As for the nose of the hood... the weld was already toast and being held on in only one corner. Zip ties held the rest. What happened was that the wind lifted the damn sheet metal of the hood off of the hood framing. There's a LOT of rust under there...

Currently I am waiting to get a quote on a new hood with shipping. There's SO damn much damage under there that rebuilding it with welds and new metal etc. would be a waste of time and money.

Just redid the belts. Alternator belt was chirping and I just figured why the hell not do both and call it a day.



Now it's on to figuring out why exactly the transmission is doing what it's doing. It hates shifting out of first about 50% of the time. My first order of business is to change out the modulator, which I'm fairly certain is the factory installed part. UGH!

[sargentrs]

Under that is a secret bolt that we couldn't get to loosen at...alllllllll.

When I started my project, I removed both I-beams and left the radius arms attached to finish disassembly in my basement. One came apart easily, the other.... The nuts came off easily but the bolt was froze solid and I couldn't pivot the radius arm on the I-beam. I soaked it with PB Blaster for a whole week. Then I hooked a ratchet strap to the end of the I-beam and to the end of the radius arm and pulled it as tight as I could. Then I put my 1/2" impact on the bolt's head and ran it for about a minute on forward, a minute on reverse, a minute on forward, and so on. 20 mins later it moved slightly. Tighten the strap, run the impact. Tighten the strap, run the impact, squirt PB Blaster. So on for an hour till it moved about 20*. Then wedged the I-beam under the deck and hooked the strap to pull the other way. Another hour and 20* the other way. Spray PB. Altogether it took me around 6 hours but I could swing the radius arm back and forth freely. Then I could rotate the bolt with the impact and hit it with a dead blow hammer and another hour later I got 'em apart.

[Fall_of_Olympus]

Under that is a secret bolt that we couldn't get to loosen at...alllllllll.

When I started my project, I removed both I-beams and left the radius arms attached to finish disassembly in my basement. One came apart easily, the other.... The nuts came off easily but the bolt was froze solid and I couldn't pivot the radius arm on the I-beam. I soaked it with PB Blaster for a whole week. Then I hooked a ratchet strap to the end of the I-beam and to the end of the radius arm and pulled it as tight as I could. Then I put my 1/2" impact on the bolt's head and ran it for about a minute on forward, a minute on reverse, a minute on forward, and so on. 20 mins later it moved slightly. Tighten the strap, run the impact. Tighten the strap, run the impact, squirt PB Blaster. So on for an hour till it moved about 20*. Then wedged the I-beam under the deck and hooked the strap to pull the other way. Another hour and 20* the other way. Spray PB. Altogether it took me around 6 hours but I could swing the radius arm back and forth freely. Then I could rotate the bolt with the impact and hit it with a dead blow hammer and another hour later I got 'em apart.

CHRIST man. Lol.

[Fall_of_Olympus]

So I did the super important tag light switch out today! WHEW! NOW I feel better . At least I won't get pulled over for it anyway.

Onto bigger issues. I popped the vacuum modulator out today.

I kind of figured there would be more liquid involved. Not sure if I should be concerned or not... should I be?


In any event, it came out fairly easily.


Now I feel like that little bent washer dealy right there MIGHT be causing some degree of vacuum loss...


The new one comes in tomorrow AM, so once I pop it in and take a drive I'll get an update up. Fingers crossed!

I'm also going to replace at least the hose that connects to the modulator. The top side looks pretty new actually.

Now.... there are NO hose clamps where the rubber tubing meets the steel line. Should there be? I feel like the answer is yes.

[Fall_of_Olympus]

Part came in minus it's little washer there. Had to reorder for tomorrow :/

Replaced the rubber line pieces though and after that and just re seating the original part, there's already a noticeable improvement, albeit slight, it's there....

[Fall_of_Olympus]

Got caught by my neighbor doing the vacuum lines. Hi guys!!

[Fall_of_Olympus]

Got my modulator, WITH gasket, this morning. Popped her in with the new tubing etc. (still want to replace the steel line as well soon) and took her for a spin. What a difference. I'd say she's still only running at about 50% her potential, but I can get out of first gear a lot easier now, which was my main problem. I would cruise fine, hit a stop sign, and then wallow in first gear letting off the gas, gassing it, and repeating until she decided what she wanted to do. Now, it's much smoother and automatic rather than having to be goosed in.


It's insane that an $18 part can so easily affect such a frighteningly complex piece of machinery. But I'm glad it does .

NOW, clearly this gasket needs some attention.


and I have a slight drip from this general area,


I'm going to continue my hope train and hope against hope that the gasket/seals in that area just need replacing.
That plus my apparently bad vacuum advance are my next areas of attention.

[duaneo]

WOW! This story just keeps getting better! Thanks for the updates!

Cheers,
Duane

[Fall_of_Olympus]

WOW! This story just keeps getting better! Thanks for the updates!

Cheers,
Duane

The joys of turning a truck that sat for god knows how long into a semi daily driver...

[duaneo]

That and it appears that a previous owner was the chep/creative type. Makes it exciting!

Duane

[Fall_of_Olympus]

That and it appears that a previous owner was the chep/creative type. Makes it exciting!

Duane

Cheap/creative/jerry rig type. It's going to get more and more interesting

[67mann]

ha! you call that rust?!

a bunch of floridians and californians talking about rusty vehicles... you notice nobody from wisconsin is chiming in... all our bumpsides rusted out 20 years ago. There ain't anybody on this forum from the rust belt. haha!

You guy's have never been to Upstate NY in the Southerntier then

Nice job so far

[duaneo]

haha I recognize how good I have it... At least I'm not from Arizona complaining about rust.

Cheers,
Duane