1968 F-100 Ranger

[1971ford]

WOW

very nice progress/truck!!!!!!!

incredibleness!

i also like how you describe the process of things

i love reading your thread, very motivating!

[SteveC]

i got the same tach as you do as well and yeah those tabs are bent up for some wierd reason

a picture before i was finish with wiring

[dablack00]

I'm always impressed by your updates. What I think is funny is that it most likely took you 30 minutes to make your post, but you think it is a big deal to pull the heater and column. I know I can have a heater out in less than 30 minutes and the column would be about the same. It isn't a big deal. If you want to spray the fire wall cover go for it, but it doesn't take that much longer to do it right.
Your used dash looks great. I found one on ebay from a new seller (zero feedback) and I was the only one who bid. I got it for $32. The thing looks brand new. What a deal.
Your cab is really coming together and thanks for the detail pics of the belt install.

[dcbullet]

I'm always impressed by your updates. What I think is funny is that it most likely took you 30 minutes to make your post, but you think it is a big deal to pull the heater and column. I know I can have a heater out in less than 30 minutes and the column would be about the same. It isn't a big deal. If you want to spray the fire wall cover go for it, but it doesn't take that much longer to do it right.

That is good information. I guess I have it worked up in my mind that taking out the column and heater will be a major PITA, but if not, I'll definitely add that to my project list.

[1971ford]

its not a PITA. as long as you bypass, block or drain the coolant, then all you have to do is take the small screws off of the kickpanels area, take the derfroster hoses off and remove the two firewally bolts.i pretty sure thats it.

[69twotone]

Wow your truck is really coming along looks great.

[dcbullet]

I was going to provide an update, but I noticed that it looks like some of the posts that I made previously are gone. So some of this is just a repost to get the info back in the thread.

[dcbullet]

This is my update of the work I've done on the interior of my truck. I actually did this work over a couple years.

This is what it looked like when I bought it. You'll note various stickers, a ghetto horn button install, ghetto cassette deck, "graphic equalizer" and speaker, magnetic ashtrays on the dash, rats nest wiring, etc...



Closeup of the Dash:




This is a used dash pad.



Original carpet I assume.



There was some kind of sound deadening that came from the factory. Thankfully it came off very easily.



There was a little surface rust in the driver's wheel well. I removed it with a wire wheel and covered it with some rust inhibiting paint.



Passenger side wheel well.



Cab floor.

[dcbullet]

I used B Quiet sound deadening material. I chose it basically be cause it was pretty cheap. I have to say I has a little uneasy installing it because I kept thinking how awful it would be to have to remove it in the future. It seems like basically it is a permanent installation.



This is a comparison of the original carpet to the carpet that you get from NPD. It is made by ACC (Auto Custom Carpets). It is longer than the original carpet and if you installed it as is, it would turn up and cover the bottom of the fuel tank. I didn't want that so I cut it to fit. What others have described about this carpet seems to be true - that it is a little short width wise at the kick panels. I think what is going on is that it needs to "settle in" and stretch over a couple years. I'll let you know.



I was considering getting the round gauge dash from an F-600, but ultimately I decided to go the stock route. The bar speedo is definitely a period style and I wanted to keep that look. I got a new dash bezel and plastic. These are said to be made from original tooling but I noticed a couple of differences. Maybe they had some different tooling for different years but in comparison to my 1968 dash there were the following differences:

First, the black "C" on each side is smooth on the Dennis Carpenter dash while on my 1968 dash the "C's" are grooved. Also, they don't paint the FORD letters black on the Dennis Carpenter Dash:



Also, on the back of my 1968 dash, there are these tabs that hold a metal plate across the top. These are missing on the Dennis Carpenter dash. Overall though, I'm satisfied with the product.



Here is the back of the instrument cluster which is nicely labeled for the wiring.



Here is a comparison between the interior light bezels that I have. On top is the original bezel. Next is a repro bezel that I bought a couple years ago which is already deteriorating. Finally is the aluminum bezel that a member of a 67-72 ford truck website made. It kicks ass.



The bezel has a nice beveled edge to the glass.



Installed

[dcbullet]

I installed a three point seatbelt system from http://www.seatbeltpros.com

The kit was pretty good. They don't retract with as much force as I'd like - sometimes you have to help them along. But I'm very glad to have my face protected from hitting the wheel now.

There is an installation kit that comes with some brackets. First you attach this L bracket:



Then you bring the bracket from the belt down and over the retracting mechanism and bolt both of them to the floor (these are loose in the following picture)



The truck has a shoulder belt hole already from the factory, but one of mine had some sheet metal slightly offset so I had to grind it out a bit.



Here is a finished install picture. I also got new seat mechanism covers.



The driver's side door had the paint rubbed off of it from years of the arm out the window. So I repainted just that portion of the door.







Here are the final "after" pictures of my interior. I'm very happy with the results with the exception of one thing - the firewall cover. The original is there and it looks really bad now with everything else new. But you have to remove the steering column and the heater to replace it and there is no way I'm doing that. So I was considering spray bombing it flat black, just to make it disappear better.



This is the original seat which is in great shape. The driver's side cushion is a little worn out but I don't feel like replacing it at this time.





Besides these items, I also:

1. Installed the intermittent wiper switch from the 73+ trucks / broncos.
2. Fixed the cargo bed light so it works. There was some sort of short int he wiring of the actual light housing so I replaced it with a used one.
3. Fixed the heater control panel light. I didn't even realize there was one there for the first 3 years.
4. Installed original style AM radio. Speaker works great.

[dcbullet]

I had been having two issues with the driveability of my 1968 Ford F-100.

First, for several years, I've had hesitation / stumbling when flooring from idle. This is the classic symptom of accelerator pump failure. When you floor a carbed engine, the amount of air entering the cylinders overwhelms the amount of gas the carb can provide and you go lean, therefore causing the hesitation. To prevent this, there is a mechanical linkage from the throttle to a rubber diaphragm which pumps an extra shot of fuel into the carb and therefore prevents the lean situation. Over time, and particularly with ethanol fuel, the rubber diaphragm dries out and is unable to effectively pump the extra fuel.

Even though I've known this was the problem for a long time, I get lazy / other things prioritized, and I just lived with it.

Recently, however, I started to have a stalling issue where the engine would just die at random times and I wouldn't be able to start it. Secondly, when put in park, the engine would surge between proper idle speed and a few extra hundred rpms. This was more difficult to diagnose because I couldn't replicate the stalling with any consistency. I couldn't find any vacuum leaks which might have been an easy answer.

I went ahead and decided to rebuild the carb to see if that would fix the problem. The carburetor is an Autolite 2100, otherwise known as the best 2 barrel carburetor in the world.

Here is a picture of the carb off the truck. You can see the linkage to the accelerator pump, which is behind the cover with 4 screws. There is a lot of staining from fuel leaking past the gasket.



The carb side of the diaphragm.



The old diaphragm on the left, new diaphragm on the right. Most of the rubber is hidden behind the metal plate. To the touch, the old diaphragm was stiff.



Here is the top and bottom of the carb all stripped down of parts, ready to soak in carb cleaner. You can see there is a lot of dirt and build up throughout. These went into carb cleaner for 4-5 hours. Carb cleaner, by the way, is amazing stuff!



After cleaning and putting everything back together, a somewhat cleaner carb.



I did have one "oops" along the way. When I put the carb back on the engine and went to start it, it started right away, but then stalled. After I cranked it a bit, fuel started pouring out of the top off the carb. After scratching my head I thought maybe a stuck float pin? I took the top of the carb off and figured out that I had forgotten to attached a clip that holds the float to the float pin seat. You can see this clip below my finger in this picture. Without this clip attached, the float can't hold down the float pin and fuel will just keep filling up the float bowl until it floods.



Once I fixed that, the engine started right up and idled smoothly. I've driven it a few times over the last couple weeks and my stalling issue is gone and so is the hesitation. I know what fixed the hesitation but I can only assume there was some gunk or clogged passages that once cleaned, fixed the intermittent stalling issue and surging.

I'm real happy with this cheap repair. Next I need to due some tuning since I think it's running too rich which hurts both my power and mpg.

[sdsurf]

If you don't want those western mirrors, I'll take em