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Hey Fred, this is just too cool for words. It makes me want to go out for a ride and bang some gears.

I finally tackled a problem that has been a thorn in my side since I swapped engines in Ol' Blue. Namely, the back two barrels of the Holley spreadbore never did respond very well to the foot feed (as Fred would call it). At the point where the back two barrels would tip in, the linkage would seem to bind. Sometimes if you press harder, it would release and, Katie bar the door, off you'd go. Well, lately, it's gotten to the point where they wouldn't work at all, so I've been running on the front two barrels for some time now.

That's OK for gas mileage, but what if you want to let the guy next to you in the new Ford pickup hear your Flow Masters?

Today was the day. I pulled off the carb and took a good look at things. The lever that controls the back two barrels swings on a stud that is threaded into the carb body. Well, rather than swinging, it was corroded onto the shaft and the stud was screwing and unscrewing when the back two barrels was called for. A little PB Blaster and some WD40 and now it swings as slick as snot on a glass doorknob. As you can guess, I couldn't wait to try her out. Wow! What a difference. I can get extra gas into her without a sweat. I think I used a quarter tank of premium in about ten minutes just enjoying the ride.

Worth every penny of that $4 / gal too, isn't it???

-BP

Basement Paul wrote:Worth every penny of that $4 / gal too, isn't it???

-BP

I know my 12.30s are worth every penny of that!

I used to get 8 mpg on the street in my aerodynamic 73 mustang. I bet that truck can really suck it down. But it is hard to care when you feel that big push in the back. Enjoy!

Tim

Hey Tim,
Good to hear from you.

Actually I calculated about 14 mpg on the interstate.
The overdrive 5th gear on the ZF trans helps a lot. It runs about 2200 on the tach at 70 mph. I think 8 mpg would be about right when I'm playing in the street, but there's no sense in checking it. It is what it is.

A couple years back, I took the Nova for a road trip to Grafton Ohio. Nova club meet. I got 13.2 on the Interstate.
That was with the Ol' 327, 3.73s, 26in tires and NO O/D. I thought that was pretty good.

Something funny and interesting happened today. As most or all of you know, I've been working to complete a remodeling of our sunroom. Progress has been good lately and painting has commenced. We have been using this room as a sort of catch-all storage place so there is a lot of stuff to get out of the way in advance of the final step of laying the carpeting. As I was looking through boxes, I found the long missing hydraulic clutch slave cylinder for my truck. This is the one that Fred/BP purchased for me along with all the other parts for the engine swap. This is the part that went missing and we had to buy a replacement. We couldn't understand why it wasn't among all the other clutch parts when we got ready to install the clutch. So now we know the rest of the story. I had stored the collection of parts in the sunroom for a while and the box got mixed up with other stored stuff.

I started the process of replacing the seat yesterday. I finished installing the upholstery on the seat bottom before it got too dark. Here are the pictures:


The old seats look pretty good in the pictures, but the splits in the driver's side would soon spell it's doom.


This is the old seat bottom and new seat frame. The task is to take the seat rails from the old seat and install them on the new frame.



Old sliders on the new frame. The studs on the old sliders fit the holes in the new frame perfectly. All I had to do is drill them out a little. Note the air pump for the lumbar supports.



Test fit of the new frame. Spot on! All holes lined up perfectly.



Top it off with the foam and the seat begins to take shape.



Now we start installing the upholstery.




Getting ready to stretch and pull and attach the cover.



Finished! It was a perfect fit.



It fits and looks great but I think I have to get accustomed to the color change. Maybe the better comfort and support will make the transition easier. I heard someone describe the old seat as a trampoline.

(Dave, I love the new process for adding photos. It's much easier to post something like this.)
Stayed tuned for part 2...

Continuing from yesterday, I now began work on the seat back. It was quite a bit more complex than the seat bottom, so I had to do some figuring to get it installed.







The most difficult part was remembering how to attach the center arm rest. I had to do a little unassembling until I got to a point where I understood how to get it together.




Finally it gets bolted down in the cab. I still have to wire up power to the lumbar pump and finish up with the head rests.

Your seat job really came out sweet! Definitely worth the effort. I'd love to try it.
That cloth type material has to be more pleasing to your bottom end than the vinyl.
You always want to keep the your bottom end in good shape.

I'm not sure I'd even put the headrests back in. The old seats didn't have them, and IMO, they won't look quite right in that classic truck. Great work on the covers!

-BP

I started to hook up the 12 volts to the lumbar pump but found that I had tapped the fuse block one too many times and there just wasn't room for another tap. I decided to order a Painless auxiliary fuse block to bring some order to the situation. In the mean time, I jumpered the lumbar pump to the battery to test it and it worked just fine. Adding air to the seat back changes the sitting position for the better. I'm now anxious to add the new fuse block and get things hooked up permanently.

As far as the headrests go, I'll have to see how they look once I get all the parts from the seller. He owes me a few pieces of hardware (actually plasticware).

Walt, I don't think anything has changed with posting pictures in a long time. I haven't made any.. errr... glad you like the upgrades!

What was different for you this time around?

-Dave

In the past, I would go through the process of resizing each of the pictures before I posted them to TireSmoke. Now I can just post away and the automatic resizing takes care of everything. I guess the only potential downside is the space take up on the websites hard drives.