Swapping the Engine in the '67 F250 Part 10

Ever since I got done with installing the new wiring harness and making all the dash and interior connections, which was documented in the Part 9, I have been chipping away at transforming the engine from a bare hulk to an operational motion provider. There have been some issues along the way, a few to-and-fros, several components have been installed and the re-installed two or even three times. What follows is a potted history of this process; the triumphs without the tears, so to speak.

I started with bolting on the parts I previously restored:

starter motor

headers

oil pressure sender, fuel pump and oil filter

power steering pump and fan belt

heater hoses and carburetor

This is later, after I installed a brand new Powermaster alternator and started working through the wiring connections in the engine compartment: 

The new master fuse box comes with the American Autowire harness:

A lot of the under-hood wiring was "roughed in" to start with, which will give me some flexibility regarding the final routing:

The NP435 transmission I am using does not have a neutral safety switch, so I just connected the incoming and outgoing NSS wires together for right now. I have a plan for how to modify this in the future. 

With all the basic connections made, I can re-install the battery....

....and test the lights and turn signals etc.

Next step: install new fuel lines and a fuel filter - there was no fuel filter in place when I got the truck which seems to be par for the course with this vehicle.

I ended up tossing the electronic ignition setup that came with the truck and installing an old school points-based distributor that came with the engine I got from Ninja; I re-used the ignition coil. 

Finally time to try and start the engine! I syphoned a couple of gallons of gas out of the Mustang and transferred it to the F250. I've had a lot of practice at doing this over the years and I managed to accomplish the task without getting a mouthful of gasoline!

After a bit of twiddling of the distributor I got the engine to fire up, and then I wound out the carburetor idle screw, so the engine runs rich but holds its own at idle. It was SUPER noisy running the engine straight out of the headers, so I had to abandon plans to work on the timing and turn to re-installing the exhaust. The photo below shows the section of the exhaust that I removed when I was painting the engine bay; the rear section is still on the truck:

Bolting the exhaust back in should have been easy, because it should have been done before the transmission went back. Oops! This problem was solved with a cutting wheel, a sheet of aluminum roof flashing and two (2) hose clamps. 

I got the idea from the previous owner who did the same at the other end of the exhaust (see below). Once the F250 is roadworthy, I'll be heading to the muffler shop for an upgrade to a dual exhaust. I'm not decided on mufflers or tips yet, but I'm considering getting Flowmaster 50s because they sound so good on the Mustang. 

At this time of writing, I still need to dial-in the timing and adjust the carburetor. The clutch might need some adjustment, and I have to figure out what to do with the steering. I also have to finalize the location of some parts of the new wiring harness. I also need to get a new set of plug wires because red doesn't look right with the blue/black/silver engine color scheme. This is how the engine bay looks at the time of writing:

And this is how the engine sounds:

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!