Swapping the Engine in the '67 F250 Part 9

This post is a bit of a misnomer, because it's a deviation from the engine swap, but it's part of the same project, and it has to be done before I can try to start the engine. The background is that I had a lot of electrical problems with the truck when I first got it, and ultimately I decided to replace the wiring harness. 

The first step was to get rid of the original wiring. I pulled the instrument cluster and radio, and the glovebox liner, and that made most of it accessible. I had already pushed both looms from the engine compartment back into the interior when I was doing the painting. 

After that I had to pull the headliner and the door panels, but fortunately it was not necessary to remove the seat or the carpet. This is what a fifty-eight (58) year old wiring harness looks like: 

The replacement I choose came from American Autowire, which has several pros and cons. Firstly, this is not a replacement for the stock harness - that is neither a positive or a negative, just a fact. Instead, this harness uses modern components, a modern fuse box and serves a one (1) wire alternator. It also comes with masses of extra circuits that I will never need, like dual fuel tanks, electric fans, and neutral safety switch* etc. 

First the pros:

1. Much easier to install than the awful Painless (make that painful!) harness I installed in the Mustang. 

2. The instructions are super detailed and everything you need is there in the kit including all the connectors and grommets etc.

3. The kit includes all the replacement headlight, ignition and wiper switches etc., so old crap like the dimmer switch shown below can be replaced with shiny new parts:

4. It's an expensive item, but you get what you pay for. The components are all good quality and the individual wires are all plenty long enough for custom placement - this is useful if you want to deviate from the factory wiring locations and was definitely not the case with the Painless kit where the tail light wires did not reach to the trunk!

Now the cons:

1. Every connector needs to be crimped with one or other of a pair of proprietary tools which add another $200 to the price of the kit. A mate in BAMA did offer to lend me the tools, but I wanted to have my own for if/when I need to make modifications to the wiring.

2. That is really the only con....it's a super kit.

The main loom is secured behind the instrument cluster with two (2) clamps:

The appropriate sections of the harness are then threaded into the correct locations:

The very first connections were made at the fuel tank sender; the fuel tank is located immediately behind the seat.

After that it was just a matter of working through the kit, starting at the dashboard:

The kit does not plug directly to any of the OEM components, so it would NOT be a good choice for a stock restoration. For example, the turn signal connector in the photo below must be cut off and replaced with the connector from the kit in order to plug in to the harness. I imagine this is because Ford owns the copyright on all the original connectors. 

At this point the interior wiring is complete, and everything bar the instrument cluster has been re-installed. The cluster is a PITA to install, so I'm waiting until all the circuits have been tested before I do that. 

(* yep, you can start this truck when it's in gear!).

Pacific Coast Dream Machines

This Sunday was an opportunity to escape from working on the F250 and head out to the seaside for the Pacific Coast Dream Machines show....and it did not disappoint, although the weather could have warmer! 

Swapping the Engine in the '67 F250 Part 8

I've been writing this particular blog since September 2018, so about 6.5 years....and March this year was the first time since May 2022 that I've gone an entire month without publishing a single post. Why? Well, I was out for almost three weeks with a covid-like illness; honestly it really knocked me out. Fortunately, for the week while I was really ill, work was super quiet, and I managed to solider on without actually cancelling any appointments. But after that, and ever since, it's been absolutely nuts. I have been, and still am, swamped....my maternal grandfather would have asked if I was "crying all the way to the bank?"  

While all this has been going on, time to work on the F250 has been minimal, but I have been chipping away where I can. What follows is a summary of progress (almost) to date, mostly presented in the order it was accomplished. 

The starting point was to resolve the lack of pulley alignment. This arises from keeping the harmonic balancer that came with the replacement engine rather than transferring the original part, as I did with everything else; cutting this particular corner has cost me a lot of time and about fifteen bucks for a crank bolt I no longer need. Oh well!  

I think I mentioned that I had an accident removing the crank bolt from the 351W I put in the Mustang. This time I used the interwebs to find a better/safer way to do it. I started with removing the balancer I want to use from the discarded engine. I had to re-install the flywheel with a couple of bolts, and then I could attach a clamp. Provided you put the clamp on the correct side of the flywheel, it prevents the crankshaft from turning when undoing the crank bolt. I used a two-foot breaker bar and the handle from the floor jack to get the bolt undone.

I then transferred the flywheel to the engine in the truck and repeated the bolt removal process. It's not obvious from either of the next two (2) photos, but the is a difference of about 1/4 inch in the depth/thickness of the balancers.

This is with the correct balancer installed in the truck, the water pump pulley now lines up precisely with the central groove at the crank pulley:

Onto the next problem: The first block plate (aka separator plate) I ordered, which goes between the engine block and the transmission bellhousing didn't fit, and I could not find a OEM version that would fit my drivetrain setup (302 V8, 164 tooth flywheel, NP435 transmission). The best I could do was get an adjustable plate from Summit. 

Post modification the starter opening has been enlarged and does now fit with my flywheel:

The next step is some serious cleaning. The flywheel, both sides of the clutch disc and the pressure plate were cleaned with acetone, lots of paper towels and then brake cleaner until they were absolutely micro-spotless. After that, I only handled the parts with gloves on.

I cleaned up the clutch fork and throw-out bearing, re-installed them in the bell housing and put a very slight amount of grease on the engine side of the throw-out bearing.

I installed a replacement pilot bushing at the end of the crankshaft and then bolted up the flywheel:

Clutch went on next; this picture was taken after the alignment tool had been removed:

Bell housing and clutch fork installed:

Attaching the transmission was challenging. I did this on the Mustang with some help from Samuel Sheep, but this time I was on my own. I still don't have a transmission jack, but I do have two (2) floor jacks and a bunch of wood blocks, which worked perfectly well. My driveway is on a 10-degree slope, so I also built a tapered plywood platform to go under the floor jack and provide a level base:

I needed to push the front of the engine down in order to align the transmission input shaft; this was achieved with a tie down strap:

I was on my own, so I had to be creative with some aspects of the process:

This is after the transmission has been bolted to the bell housing. I have ordered a replacement rubber dust boot to install over the clutch fork and prevent dirt/grim/crap from getting inside the bell housing. Like so many other small parts, the boot was missing when I got the F250...

Transmission crossmember installed. At this point I can remove the tie down in the engine bay and secure the engine to the frame.

This is the view from inside the cab before I put the shifter stick back. This is starting to feel like progress!

To be continued....