By stark contrast, Last weekend I took the truck to Johnson's Auto Electric and Muffler Shop to have the 165AMP alternator built and installed and the dual exhaust bent and hung. Let me tell you; these guys are craftsmen. I just couldn't be happier with the work - or the price.
Anyway, on with the show . . those pictures should all be loaded by now. Unless you are stuck with dial-up. I'll tell you more about the stuff and the pictures after you get a look at them . . .
Here is what you are about to see:
- 165AMP Alternator (I saw it dyno over 200 myself)
- 1987 Ford 4x4 Shackle Flip Brackets by Sky Manufacturing
- B&M 28,500 GVW Transmission SuperCooler w/9 inch electric fan, and oil temp sender
- Hooker "Competition" Headers and a really nice Flowmaster "Y"
 The New Alternator. I could light a small city. |
 Too much stuff to keep track of!! Digby, I need a panel ! |  The humungus transmission cooler. |
Here we have the engine fan control. Click the picture for details, please. |  Clearance between the Lincoln fan and the water pump. |
 Another angle on the space situation. I am very pleased with it. |
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The photo on the left shows the Hooker Headers and on the right we have that sweeeet Flowmaster "Y". The collectors and the pipe to the "Y" are 2 1/2 inch. The "Y" is 3 inch into the muffler (a HUGE Gibson) and then dual 2 1/2 inch all the way out the back. |
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 Shackle flip brackets by Sky Manufacturing. http://www.sky-manufacturing.com |  4 1/4 inch measured lift. Stock springs and stock blocks. NO driveshaft modifications. How cool is that ?!? |
 Great paint job, huh? |
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The muffler guy did a great job. As you can see, he got the tips far enough out to just see the "GIBSON" stamped into those stainless steel tips. |  |
| As you can see in that first picture; this is no bling-bling laden show truck. That is about as clean as it gets. Well, except for the first day or two after I wash that red K&N prefilter. That first pic does do a fairly good job of providing a component snapshot. The new alternator, (not very much to look at is it?), K&N filters, including the oil. MSD ignition on top of a duraspark distributor (the MSD replacement is ordered)and the MSD6A box over there on the driver's side fender. In case you were wondering, this is Florida. The A/C's horsepower penalty is acceptable. Heck, in August it is welcome.
Next I want to mention the B&M Transmission cooler. I know, that's a pretty strange place to mount one, but it is convenient and reasonably well protected . . . for now. It may seem obvious there needs to be an airgap between the top of the cooler and the bottom of the bed. I recommend spacing it down at least to the top of the frame rail (with no body lift). Then the fan can draw plenty of air down through it. Also note please the "extra" wire going to the transmission sending unit. As you probably know the sending unit only has one wire connection, and is designed to send a variable amount of resistance up that wire to be translated and displayed by the gauge. Well, in order for that to happen properly, that sending unit needs to be well grounded. My sender is mounted in a big piece of brass alright. Which is connected via very thick rubber hose to the rest of the truck. See the problem? I'm not saying the gauge won't work. The fluid passing through the system will provide a ground. Think about that one a minute . . . not good. And I suspect the gauge will be less accurate as well. To avoid these issues I simply ran myself a ground wire, clearly visiable above, and clamped it securely with a stainless hose clamp to the body of the sending unit its self. Then I could teflon tape the joints all to my hearts content without a care in the world for conductivity. Sometime, I even amaze myself with my creativity. Next on my list to yack about is the 1995 Lincoln Continental 2-speed electric fan installation.. For starters I got the fan "as new" on E-Bay - and it really is. You can see it is still shiny, that ain't Armorall I can promise you that. As I mentioned a minute ago; this is Florida. It gets hot. And that little 351w with the big fat cam builds a lot of heat tooling around town. I looked and looked for ways to cool it down better than the factory clutch fan and a 14" auxillary electric. Being an old school kind of guy, with a high compression aluminum headed cast iron engine seeing a temperature gauge climb to 210+ makes me start looking for garden hoses to cool it off. I am told that 200 degrees is about ideal for this engine, and 230 to 240 is completely tolerable by the SVO GT-40X heads. But I still get nervous every time that needle starts onto the 210 mark which it did regularly with the (tested good) clutch fan and 14" aux fan. So I tried to find out how much air, in CFM, a factory stock mechanical fan moves. Finally I realized that was futile. If you ever find these numbers out there anywhere pretty please let me know about them! Being a 4x4 truck kind of guy, this actually made things a lot easier. You know what followed. I went on a hunt for the biggest baddest vehicular wind machine I could find that would fit in the available space. This is it - within sane price limits. It is said to produce 4000+ CFM on high and 2000+ on low. The only one I found that moved more air was the Flex-a-Lite twin 14 inch truck fans. They are rated at 4500 CFM in this application. At well over 2 times the price of this one purchased new from Ford. UPDATE: December 23,2005 This fan failed. It didn't go out in a blaze or glory or anything entertaining like that. It simply didn't come on when it was supposed to. It made for an interesting few minutes in traffic until I could get it off the road and shut down. But otherwise it died uneventfully. I bought a brand new one from the local Lincoln Continental dealer for $438.00. Thats $200 cheaper than the Flex-a-Lite, better warranty support, and moves plenty of air to cool this Glitch quickly. Can you tell I still think this is an excellent modification a year later? | ||
| HERE is the truck's home page. HERE is the second page of modifications. Done June of 2005. HERE is the third page of modifications. Done December of 2005. HERE is the fourth page of modifications. Done February of 2006. |
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