72 lwb ongoing project (my 1st build thread/1st old school)

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Thanks Leon, I'll be back to work on it tomorrow and I'll take plenty of photos, I guess u can never have too many

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the wheels are still soaking, pulled them out of the molasses/water yesterday and sprayed them down again and the rust is just sliding off now, didn't think about taking pics till I had most of the wheels already back in and soaking but next time I remove them I will be wire brushing them and taking em to the self car wash to pressure wash them and if they look good enough I'll be done with it, ready to paint em black and get some tires on, I need this truck to be ready to be a daily driver by june 2nd when my little brother turns 16 cuz he's gettin my f150 but i'm pumped to have this beast on the road and reliable for the first time since i've had it !

[502ms]

That is awesome
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ordered dakota digital gauges today, gunna mount em identical to a 73-87 cluster in my flat birch panel with some sort of crazy native american indian pattern fabric to compliment the bright blue lights & black gauges, doin somethin a little different lol, it'll be a challenge to find the right weird trippy fabric but could look great if I keep the rest of the interior chrome and black or whatever

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shot of my oem starter, I believe it's a 168 tooth starter had offset & equally long mounting bolts, rather than the parallel mounting points with one bolt shorter than the other, idk if these are interchangeable but I'm planning on just getting an oem replacement for now, 30 bucks with a 1 year warranty at autozone I believe, I'll get a mini high torque later..

also, I mounted the firewall hole cover, put it at this diamond angle because if I mounted it like a square or whatever, you would see the firewall peek thru the holes and i wanted full clearance for when I run the braided covering, so it is what it is. looks kinda cool this way anyway, lot better than have a firewall plug there, all that extra voltage run right thru here and into the panel

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orange wire is running from positive side of coil on the cap, thru the firewall hole to the panel, got the alt plugged in, red wire from plug going to the positive alt post, brown is feed going to the panel, and I guess the better you run the wire, the harder it is to get a pic, lol got a shot of where the alt power to the solenoid is running, down under the alt and down the frame, will be ziptied right next to the 1/0 cable i ran from the pos batt post to the solenoid, out of sight and away from the headers and everything else

everything I'm doing is either finger tight or simply routed for now, most of what you see here is initial hookups, I will make my connections/terminations last, I consider that part of clean-up, cuz I want to leash everything down and loom it, then terminate, so I can get the maximum voltage/least resistance, wires as short as possible but with enough slack to make a good connection, I plan to get my alt, starter, dist, batt, and everything wired it (first 3 bags in Ron Francis kits) and then get her started, then wire the rest.. most of these are not final wire positions by any means. I appreciate any feedback on all of this, I need all the help I can get !

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my ignition lock cylinder, bezel, spacer, made a little tool out of a small piece of cardboard, a rubber band, and a small drill bit. LockDoc on this forum pointed out that 67's and some 68's don't have accessory positions. If you see this, thanks LockDoc for your explanation because it helped me figure it out.

For those that don't know, to release the lock cylinder on your 67-72 ignition switch, insert the key and gently turn it all the way to the left as far as it will go.once it's turned all the way left you can insert your tool of choice and press the release pin, and as you push it in, gently turn the key to the left a little more, but pull your tool out pretty soon so you don't obstruct it from releasing and jam the hole, it should slide right out with a little turn to the left. Nothing should be forced. Then the bezel will screw out, and once its removed from the spacer the whole assembly will come off. Might have to get a screwdriver and hammer to unscrew it the first few movements, there are little indentions on the bezel for this purpose, at least there were on mine

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top pic is a wheel I pulled out of the molasses & water, sprayed down, washed with soap and water & dried with a rag instantly. set it on this angle and it rained, this shows that water on bare steel causes surface rust to form almost instantly, you can see it only got the discoloration at the bottom lips where the rain collected.

bottom pic is the first wheel that i'm considering ready for paint. no more 63 year old rust, other 3 are being pulled out monday morning and then all 4 will get a spray coat, most likely satin black

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ripped out the ugly black carpet they "installed" on the dash, spent some time with a straight razor picking away at this brittle adhesive and sticky silver stuff, a couple before and after photos of the difference

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random shot, front is up on jack stands #TeamGottaDonk #LwbLife

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new starter, 48 bucks at autozone with a core exchange, remanufactured duralast

[502ms]

You are coming along!

One recommendation, if you don't mind. Make sure that you are not hitting tight/sharp angles or in places they can rub loose/arc against metal. Definitely of course, away from heat. Lastly, make sure that you are making it serviceable in case you have an issue in the middle of the night on I-10 through Florida (no lights, only trees and pitch black).

Keep up the good work!

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most of the wires you see in these pics are simply routed, not leashed down or terminated yet, the ones I have tied down are away from heat zip tied to the frame rail out of sight, etc.. trying to keep it out of sight and still accessible, same with the starter, gonna keep the wire lengths as short as possible, but gunna make solenoid connections with the starter sitting on the ground so that I have just enough slack to drop it to the ground for easy troubleshooting and raise back up without balancing shims, bolts, 10-15 pounds and a bunch of wires above my head lol

thanks for the recommendations Leon, any help is appreciated

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got to hear my truck run again today. took the battery out of my f150 (soon to be my little brothers truck), put it in the 72 and checked for continuity on the panel, fired right up on the 2nd try with a couple fuel squirts and pedal at half throttle, pics to follow, got some really short wire runs so the voltage is maximized, resistance is minimized, and that 1/0 cable worked out well, turns over pretty quick

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using the po's headlight switch as my temporary neutral safety switch. got it routed and sitting about where a real NSS will mount when I get one, but for now it's a real switch instead of a jumper wire on the panel. I'll prolly buy my real nss from Brothers eventually.. lol, also a random shot of the new headlight/dimmer switch that came with the ron francis kit

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shot of where the neutral safety switch should be. also a shot of the ignition switch ziptied roughly where it will be mounted in the birch

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shots of the wheels right after I finished the chelation process/molasses & water soak derusting. still not pretty but 99% rust free and smooth to the touch now, lot of wire brush scrubbing and soap and water washing, etc.. gonna get em powdercoated prolly satin black and get the tires on soon

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wires being routed and terminated to the panel

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solenoid connections, multi connection junction stud hooked up to solenoid & mounted to frame nearby, wires leashed down and away from the headers and heat as much as possible, enough slack to be able to drop the starter all the way to the ground and troubleshoot without holding the starter up in the air lol, plus it's easier to tighten down the center stud from under the truck than it is to get a 20 inch extension and tighten from in between headers and spark plugs lol, tried to keep it accessible but away from heat

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tried to take a few pics of the clearance between the flywheel & the ring gear, kinda weird angle to get pictures but I used 2 half shims on the outside to push ring gear closer in, the measuring rod fits perfectly in between the flywheel & ring gear now, haven't heard any grinding starting it yet

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shot of the wires to the starter tucked up, this is the slack I mentioned that allows me to drop it to the ground and troubleshoot or service without balancing it in the air or being in a tight spot between the headers, none of these wires make header contact and are as far away from heat and out of sight as much as possible

also I've seen a hornet crawling in and out of the same spot on my truck for a couple days so I sprayed a bunch of poison and the hornet fell out on the ground but when I went to wipe it down I found a couple hornet babies and looked up and found this nest. got it out of there, had a spider nest near the same place on the opposite side of the truck, I did more troubleshooting on spiders and hornets than I did on wires so far with this install lol, ron francis kit has been very simple and I've had fun installing it so far, great product, next step is building my birch flat panel dash and wiring up the dakota digital gauges when they arrive.

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1/4" birch flat panel dash coming together with the dakota digitals, bought a hole saw kit which helped me out with cutting the even holes

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random install pics

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hopefully if I type the numbers 67-72 in this sentence, someone may be on google & stumble upon these shots of my brake switch and find them useful.. lol, cuz thats how I find a lot of useful stuff to help me out

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moar random install pics.. some lighting wire run thru the firewall hole cover & wrapped up sittin on the fender, 1/0 wire run cleanly to the starter, new dakota oil pres & water temp sender.. used some npt fittings & a 90 degree elbow to get the oil pres to sit the way it is.. supposed to use one terminal for ground & one for the sender, but it didn't prove to be a good ground for me so I ran it seperate with the rest of the gauge grounds, i'll post pics of those too.. but I also threw on some new ground straps from the engine to the firewall, old one was frayed grimy, & almost completely in half