1993 F-150 Flare Side

[DerekTheGreat]

I tried getting the column apart last night, but had to abort. There's a hole under the lock cylinder like others have mentioned, but I couldn't find the tab that's supposed to allow me to take it out. I fished around in there so much with a screwdriver that I honked the horn several times. Is there a trick to it?

I also checked and saw I've got battery voltage at the brake light switch. Bypassing it did nothing, so I'm really anxious to try and get the column apart and look at the multifunction switch, specifically pins 2,3, 44, 385 and 511.

[friskyfrankie]

As for the lock cylinder, if you have the right hole, a pick or small Phillips screwdriver should be able to push the small button up so you can pull the lock out. Car/truck may need to be in the "run" position for this all to work.

[VicCrownVic]

What he said. It doesn't take much force to push the retaining pin in. I get on the pin then roll the key to run. You should feel the pin push in as you turn to run, then pull the lock cylinder out.

[DerekTheGreat]

Thank you, fellas.

I was able to get the column apart yesterday. It's amazing what proper lighting will reveal- there's a 4th screw to the right of the column between the column and the trim. You can't get it out until you remove the instrument cluster bezel. Really stupid design, surprised it wasn't already busted off, given the amount of broken & reglued dashboard bits I found hiding behind all the other trim i had to remove. I've never seen one of these busted up so badly.. Anyway, with the 4th screw out, the bottom cover dropped right out of the way and I could easily see the retaining pin on the lock cylinder. The problem was indeed the multifunction switch, three wires were loose so I popped 'em back in. Someone has already been in there as the connecter's tabs were busted. The pin retainers in the connector for those loose wires were busted as well, so I'll have to replace it at some point. But everything works again and the torque converter is locking as well.

Drove it this morning and this little truck is a lot of fun. I've only had one other regular cab short box and it was a straight six, five speed with 3.08's. This one being a 351 with an E4OD and 3.55's with trac-lok really scoots! Sounds great without the manifold leaks and handles pretty decent too. The E4OD has a love/hate reputation on the interwebs, but I really like it so far, especially compared against the AOD.

[VicCrownVic]

I just leave that screw out when I put mine back together. Ford steering columns are pretty much the same '90+ between all of their vehicles.

[gadget73]

gotta love those brittle plastic retainer fingers in old Ford connectors. Have had lots of them snap off when touched to extract a terminal when a wire needs to be repaired.

[DerekTheGreat]

I left that screw out when I put it back together, especially since I know I'll be back in there at some point. This is the first time I've dealt with a connector with crappy retainers. The multifunction switch has another connector and it's retainer looks much beefier than the problematic one. Whenever we make it back to a yard, I'll see about pimping one from a non tilt column truck.


Over the holiday I also replaced the heater core. It wasn't leaking, but I assumed it was the original and thus on borrowed time anyway, that flushing it would've probably made it leak and be a waste of time. Turns out the one in the truck was a replacement and that it was just plugged up, but oh well. Dealt with that before where I flushed the heater core in my K1500 twice, but didn't get great heat until I replaced it. There was a significant amount of trash around the HC and so it was nice to get all of that out of there and reseal it. I checked to make sure the blend door was closing all the way as it didn't go full cold- found there was a pen stuck in there, had a number with area code "317" on it. In addition to the free pen, I also found free tools- a Crapsman 1/4 drive ratchet and a 3/8ths socket. That was left behind the HVAC control head, not sure how something like that got left behind or how the gorilla which left it could bust all the mounting tabs for the HVAC head.

[VicCrownVic]

317 are code would be Indiana. If it's hard to read and perhaps 517, that would be mid-Michigan area.

[gadget73]

Never fails to impress me how people can fuck things up. I get that the plastic isn't super robust and things happen but every single tab? At that point its almost an accomplishment.

[Mainemantom]

Many so called mechanics have no pride in their work. They do just enough to get by.

[gadget73]

Some of them don't even do that much. Some go above and beyond to ruin things though.

[DerekTheGreat]

Right. As I like to say, they know just enough to fuck shit up for the next guy.

317 area code, pen was legible, but you could tell it had been in there for a long time. We bought the thing in Indiana, forget which town. The dude we bought it from had an area code of "517" and said he bought it from someone in Auburn Indiana. That's all the history we have on it. Would love to know more, just occurred to me we could do a Marti report and CarFax on it. Might even be able to post it somewhere and see if anyone remembers it. It's unique enough such that I can't remember the last time I've seen one like it- All the FlareSides I've seen have all been extended cabs.

[gadget73]

Someone locally used to have a teal standard cab flare side.

[DerekTheGreat]

You live in PA? What was in that one, a 5.0? No one ever asks me when I drive Red, but my wife gets questioned on a regular basis. They either guess 4.9 or 5.0. I've never seen a regular cab shortbox with a 5.8 from the factory. Although there's always "that guy" who claims they're everywhere. When I poised that question on the Ford trucks forum, "that guy" claimed to have personally owned two. Didn't have any proof, of course.

[sly]

I have seen ONE OBS 5.8L regular cab short bed automatic pickup that was a fleet truck (XL).