Torq_Shep

Is the 1997+ antenna base just curved different to accommodate the change in panel shape or are their other changes?

I worked in a lab for a very long time. I think of water in C just by habit. I think I had issues with the Fuel Tank Sender from the UK cluster but I am going off of memory. I switched back to the Comanche fuel gauge.

I looked everywhere, everything seems connected and I am not having any electrical issues that I think could be linked to this... Maybe I will figure it out someday but I am just not going to worry about it. It is definitely not OPSU or primary ground to block for certain. It could be something to do with the coil or a leftover from the alternator.

I have the same Speedo in my cluster! I am also running the metric oil pressure and temp gauge. I definitely prefer the degC temp sender but I have found bar to be somewhat more difficult to get used to.

I will look closer. The big one that is connected to the coil pack bolt is present but this one is close enough to the alternator that it could be an alternator ground. I think it is has an aftermarket alternator on it so maybe that wire wasn't needed? As far as charging, it seems to do alright, sometimes I am closer to 13.5 than to 14 if I am running all of the fans but other than that it is right in line.

It does not have continuity to ground but when I found it, it was physically touching the engine block. It is definitely not long enough to reach the common ground next to the dipstick but it appears to be coming out of the same bundle of wires that the ignition coil trigger is connected to.

Finding an original in decent shape is going to be a challenge. The vinyl/rubber ones seem to hold up okay. You can probably find someone to recover it for a few hundred though?

I have a disconnected ring terminal that looks like a fat ground wire near the ignition coil on my truck. Does anyone know what I am supposed to have this connected to? I am assuming it is an engine ground but I really have no idea.

Specifically, I used Flexon Techflex F6 PET 3/8" sheath. Its good. Working with non-split loom is a bit of a pain and requires planning not to screw it up. But the quality is great and if you just hit the end with a lighter right after you cut it, it doesn't fray easily. Getting the lengths correct is a bit of an art also as if you are any fatter than 3/8" then the length that you cut ends up being short. Where I had the joint going back to the 6 pin I had heat shrink at each end of the Techflex sections and then wrapped the joint itself in Tesa tape. I also use Tesa exclusively but try and use it sparingly as unwrapping a tapped harness is super annoying. The sticky vinyl crap from 3M is the absolute worst if you ever have to unwrap it after a few years. The Tesa tape is very difficult to unwrap but it does not leave a residue. It is easy to apply and is very strong. I am not an expert but I have done a ton of wiring. Connectors should always be as high quality as you can get, tinning the wire seems to be mostly unnecessary unless you are fording water, exposed wire should be in as good of a sealed joint as you can get (double wall adhesive lined heat shrink at a minimum) but anything touching the wire sheath just needs to resist cutting and rodents but should let water and debris out if possible. I really like the braided stuff from my time building construction equipment. There are a lot of caveats to each product/method of assembly.

Found the issue with the brake lights. The Ignition Off Drain (I.O.D) connector was just completely missing on the battery side. I have no idea when this happened or how I had taillights from San Antonio to Salt Lake before they just stopped working completely but whatever... I made a new taillight harness with 18ga GXL wire, pigtails from ACDelco LS253 sockets and Standard S768 sockets. I tinned all of the wires and connected them with brass open face crimps covered with double wall adhesive lined heatshrink. The entire harness is wrapped in Flexon 3/8" solid sheath and I terminated the 6 pin with a deutsch as the 1991-1992 is not a plug I can find new currently. Overkill but I never want to do this harness again on this truck =P The parking brake was also not working. I had tried just adjusting the cable and that did not work. This truck has a D44 with disc brake conversion on it so I had a feeling that the parking brake pawls were out of adjustment. Popped the back wheels off and manually adjusted the pawls and now the parking brake works fine. I will eventually convert it back to a foot brake. Last thing I did yesterday was to wash the truck. The paint is way worse than when I parked it 2 years ago but I knew it was going when I bought it. Still looks okay from 10 feet away. Just ordered plates for it so I will likely get it registered in the coming weeks. Washington is surprisingly friendly to registering old vehicles. I will even get to use plates for 1991 instead of modern plates.

Ended up building a new taillight harness with the aftermarket pre-crimped pins from the LS253 sockets. They work okay but are a bit tighter than the originals. If you use the ACDelco LS253 sockets for rebuild you can use the pins, back plates, and gaskets from them. You must use the original housings unless you use the Standard S502 housings. 3 of the 4 ACDelco LS253 sockets that I bought had the same pins and wiring as the Standard part. I used the Standard S768 for the reverse lights. The housings are much cheaper looking than the originals so I just used the pins and rubber seals from the Standard and used my old housings. If your wiring has any semblance of being in okay shape I would only replace what you need to and not rebuild the entire harness like I did. My wiring was crunchier than month old tortillas so I chose to rebuild it entirely. I did chose to use Deutsch connectors for the 6 pin connector to my 1991 harness but the OE connectors and pins are available for all other years besides 1991-1992.

I found, purchased, and verified fitment of the correct grommets for the fuel tank rollover valves. The rollover valves themselves are probably Ford E7DZ9B593A or Chrysler J5360058 and they look like this. The original seals are Ford PN: E3EC-9B076-AA and they cross reference to new Ford PN: F6TZ-9B076-AA. I have bought these and confirmed that they are the same as the ones on a 1986 and a 1991 so I assume it is the same for all years.

$13k I would expect that there is not 1 spec of rust and that it had desirable options, mostly original, all rubber replaced, and everything works at 280k miles. Miles don't matter much at this age. If it is an original engine/trans at 280k I would probably be buying it for everything else. Anything that is from the west coast is going to be very clean. Although, west coast buyers are also probably pickier but more willing to pay for what they want.

New info on the square 6 pin. This is the same connector as the brake light switch for a 1991 if you have cruise control. I just bought a new brake light switch and it had the mating side in a brand new part so I bet these housings/pins are still available somewhere!

FYI. These are still available as new parts.

Update 2: I cleared enough space out of my 1 car garage in Seattle to justify bringing the running truck up. The truck had been parked on a gravel lot at my friends place. The failing paint is now really failing. Almost unbelievably letting it sit for 2 years did not fix the cooling fans or taillights =P Surprisingly, it fired right up after fogging the cylinders even on 2 year old gas. Smoked a little on startup but ran fine. Forgot to take a picture of it's parking spot. Spent an entire weekend trying to fix the brake lights. The whole circuit had issues and still has issues. Started by figuring out that I had a short on the Hazard Circuit (which also drives the brake lights) direct to ground. Started disconnecting harnesses until I found the first short. The brake switch completely left the chat. Replaced the switch and I still had a short. Figured out that the taillight harness had a short. I pulled the harness and brought it back to my hotel. The harness is not original at all and is highly modified so there was a lot to investigate. Redid like 6 connections and still could not figure out the short. I am pretty sure it is one of the sockets (which are not correct) but I just gave up as I wanted to get it back to Seattle. Ended up just wiring up a "trailer harness" to get rid of the short. Even after doing all of this. I had no power to the brake light switch. I don't know where it is broken but I was 100% certain that I was no longer shorted so I popped the pin of out of the new brake light switch and ran an "add a circuit fuse" kit to the marker light fuse and drove it back to Seattle. This way there was no chance of doing more damage to whatever is going on in the circuit. The paint that was peeling is now really peeling. However, I now have money and my paint guy has some time so he is going to get the roller truck in epoxy and start doing body work. I told him not to be in a hurry as I want to figure out the electrical and a few other things on this truck for when we swap everything over but I think I might see some progress there towards the end of this year and into next!

Okay. Update that I forgot to put up 2 years ago. I hauled both of these up to Portland from Texas ~2 years ago. Towing them up there I lost my taillight circuit somewhere in Utah. It was running a bit hot here and there but it was due to only being able to get 1-2 of the 3x 10" cooling fans working at any given time. While it was moving it had no issues. Otherwise it did great from San Antonio to Portland.

It's super cool though.

Only if you want to buy 1000+ of them at >$1 a piece... The ACDelco LS253 has pre-crimped terminals that are the real Delphi pins but they are unfortunately pre-crimped. The back plate is a real Delphi part but the housing is incorrect. **Correction, old stock LS253 had real Delphi pins, new stock uses aftermarket pins like the standard and Dorman. The aftermarket sockets (Dorman and Standard) use okay terminals but they are not knurled at the lamp socket like the real Delphi ones. Otherwise they are identical.

If the gaskets also work for the reverse lights please report back. Those are a different socket technically although I assume the gasket is similar enough.

I scraped the chunks out and threw them in an ultrasonic. Generally the housings seem to be okay it's the wiring on mine that is so dried out that it cracks when you bend the wires. Btw. Mouser has the Aptiv/Delphi seals still available.

1987-1990 Tail Light Harness Connector

I found one that I wasn't looking for... The vanity mirror lights are a Metri-Pack 150 series.

So a few more notes just to make sure I write them down somewhere. All of the wires in the harness are 20ga 16strand copper except for a 16ga 19strand ground wire that also feeds into the harness for the fuel pump. All of the wiring has sheath thickness indicative of "TXL" automotive wiring. From what I can see, the single ground at the very back of the truck is the only ground for the rear lighting and the fuel pump... The power wire for the fuel pump itself is also 16ga.

One more note that I found when doing research on any of these plugs. PED stands for Packard Delphi at least according to one website I found. If you find a PED marking it likely has an Aptiv cross reference.