Update: it turns out the cam synchronizer did the trick. The Road Ranger is roadworthy again!
When I finally got the sync in the other day, I was out of time that afternoon, so all I could do was rev it. It had the same warble that it had before I ever touched it.
@Peter_'86_2.9L_Auto was over here today to help out, and we did a couple things to his truck. He must’ve brought me luck! After he left, I did a test drive in the Road Ranger, and it purred like a kitten under acceleration and under load. I’m sorry for the thoughts of gooey lizards and slimy frogs on all you guys because you put your lives, your wives, your families, your jobs, etc. in front of fixing my truck that you’ve never seen from a thousand miles away. You are all out of the doghouse.
On the other front, I took the new brake light switch on and off and apart and back together another 20 times on the Missing Linc.
View attachment 140580
Two brand new switches, and a new bushing kit, and it was still doing the same thing it was doing before: you could push it lightly, and the brake lights would come on, push it further, and then pull back on it, no lights, and then step on it again and brake HARD, no lights. No lights when you were braking hard. Not good.
Stupid design. The really stiff spring actually holds the switch open as you step on brakes. Eventually, if you step hard enough, it compresses the spring and makes contact. To fix it, I finally replaced the spring (which was NOT designed to be replaced) with a thinner/softer wire spring with a much lower spring rate. I had to do a trial and error about seven or eight times, taking a little bit off the spring each time, but I finally nailed it. I can now take that switch in and out with my eyes closed.
In retrospect, I’m thinking the linkage between the foot pedal and the vacuum booster/master cylinder may need adjustment to remove any slack in the motion in the connection. In any case, the lighter spring ended up doing the trick.
View attachment 140582
That’s how I feel, times 10!!! I’ve been fighting them both for months
Brake lights, air horns & hood star:
Update to the update on the brake light switch and actually a confession and some progress. And I finally put my air horns in in addition to doing a whole bunch of wiring cleanup behind the grill on the Missing Linc.
It turns out the original design of the brake light switch assembly may not have been the problem. The problem is the replacement parts. I know, for sure now, that the reason my brake light started being intermittent, was simply because the contacts had become corroded and carboned up from decades and hundreds of thousands of miles of use. When I put in the new switchs, which are fine, I also put in the new little black top-hat bushing - that bushing is the problem.
I called out to the two local Ford dealers I use, everyone born way after that truck was made, searching for the old fart like me who might know about it. Both of the guys I used to deal with were retired. I asked the manager at the one if he could have that guy call me since he wouldn’t give me his number. And he did call me, great guy, I miss him.
The cylindrical stud that comes off the side of the brake pedal is supposed to be able to wiggle about a 16th of an inch inside that black bushing. The only purpose of that bushing is to avoid a “click” noise when you step on the brakes, from metal to metal contact. It is supposed to float on that stud, and be tight outside in the eye of the push rod that goes to the vacuum booster/master cylinder. I ended up buying three of those bushings, and every single one of them was snug to the stud and was also snug inside the eye - no motion - so the push rod would not move to depress the spring and close the contact.
Someone said it, I apologize. I couldn’t find it right now, but simply removing the bushing solves the problem, and I can’t hear any click with all the other rattles in that 40 year-old truck. Very frustrating, but it’s all working properly now.
Now for something REALY important, the air horns and Lincoln Star hood ornament. When I got the truck, the guys before me had it stripped down and they were charging through the woods with it. Can you imagine anybody doing that? It had been banged up a little bit with a bronco hood, fender and door. The wiring behind the grill was a little suspect to say the least.
When I put the engine in and had the brainstorm to put in the Lincoln grille and quad lights, I always like to improve things, so I put in a whole lot more suspect wiring behind that grill. When I put the hood star on top of the grill originally, it didn’t clear the hood. So you would have to tilt it forward a little bit to close the hood. I’d forget that about every 10th time, and it finally snapped off the spring below it. That meant I had to take the grill off to fix it.
I basically redid 90% of the wiring behind the grill. I installed the airhorns facing down in front of the radiator, and I tossed the activated carbon vapor canister (which probably hadn’t been hooked up in decades), and I put the air compressor in it’s place.
If you look at the first picture closely, you can notice two chrome marine horns on either side of that opening, and an old fashioned deep toned Cadillac trumpet from the 60s or 70s below my red horns (both from SOM). The truck still has the two horns behind the headlights that came with it. I’ve done this before. They’re wired through a relay that also runs the compressor, but I left the original horns on the original circuit, which I tapped into to trip the relay. That way, if the fuse blows on all the extra ones, the two original horns will still honk.
EDIT: I also wired the quad headlights the way they’re supposed to be. When I originally wired them, I accidentally reversed a ground and a hot lead, so on low beams, the interior lights would glow a little bit, and on high beams, the interior lights would be bright and the exterior lights would glow. It’s a pretty cool effect, but I think it was burning up my multifunction switch, so since I was in there anyway…
My Lincoln grill and hood star were not the prettiest in the world, I’ve always been dissatisfied with the way the top of the grill sat under the hood, and the fact that the hood star was in front of the hood instead of being on top of it. It looked like some old fart did it laying on his back when he was sick. Oh, wait, I was. So while I was doing all this, to eliminate the problem of clipping it with the hood, I moved it up on top of that central rib. I had to fabricate a new spring system, so it would spring back instead of break off. It’s some of the best wire coat hanger work I’ve done in quite a while.
If you look close, shows better in daylight, you can see the red horns behind the grill. I ran out of time, but my next step is going to find an appropriate piece of stainless trim that I can cut and fabricate along the top of that Lincoln grill so it looks more finished.
I’m not sure if I have something in the shed of miracles (it hurts me to say that). Project for another day…
Triple
