It took me way too long to make a new coil wire. My skills were a little rusty in this department.
I spent some time and made another wire for the new Ford mini starter upgrade. It is a remanufactured starter, so it didn't come with any instructions. This starter is different from the original antique starters in that it has an integral solenoid and a high torque gear reduction drive. basically, its smaller and "more better" than the original ones, but you have to wire it up to the truck differently. A few minutes on the smart phone got that sorted out.
Since I was doing electrical stuff today, I got out the radiator and new electric cooling fan to start sorting it out and planning for the hook-ups. It turns out that the kit did not come with any fastening hardware, so I had to go out at lunch and buy 16 bolts and nuts. While I was at Ace Hardware, the tech support guy from CVF alternators called me and told me that he didn't feel good about the part that fell out of the alternator, so he was going to ship me a replacement unit. Good service, but bad timing on finding out about another problem.
Speaking of fastening hardware, I dug out my radiator support bracket bolting kit that was purchased from Midfifty.com and found a pleasant surprise in the box. Tootsie Rolls! A much needed reprieve from the rest of the day's activities.
The radiator support bracket mounting kit came with a bottom plate and I ordered an extra one to try and cover up the decay on the top of the cross member. I may tack weld it in place depending on how well the fenders fit-up later. There was nothing wrong with this part exactly, but I had to keep holding up random body parts to the bracket to try to get it close to where it needed to be, which took too long. I'll need to drill some new holes through the rubber grommets once everything is located correctly.
The radiator is gigantic, which caused me to spend many more minutes on the smart phone looking at internet pictures and checking to make sure I ordered the correct one. All indications are that it is correct. It seems even more bizarre looking in person, trust me.
The coup de grâce was in the late afternoon. I had re-wired the starter and ran a new heavy duty 4 gauge wire from the 100 amp 1-wire alternator. Like the starter, the alternator is a modern upgrade that is "more better," but you have to wire it into the truck different than the factory equipment. So, with the starter and alternator hooked-up, it was time to crank the engine to check the starter-to-flywheel interface and all of the wiring. Nothing happened. After 20 minutes of troubleshooting an otherwise straightforward set of wiring under the hood, I started tracing wires back up under the dashboard. Its a hot mess under there, but the problem turned out to be that the ignition switch on the steering column broke in half and was not making contact when I turned the key. I had an old wiring harness in a box that came with the Craigslist purchase of the good body parts, but it was in worse shape than the one currently on the truck. I jumped the starter over with a hot wire and it appeared to function well.
I gave up after this happened and cleaned the garage for an hour just to feel good about making some forward progress on tasks that did not require parts, wiring diagrams, or playing the "find the disintegrated component" game.
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