The F100 is on the road

I have been driving the F100 around all this week. It's cool. Did a lot of small things to it. Figure I might as well use it for now (more on that farther down). I put a new antenna on it. The radio works. Mostly I drive it around with the radio off though. That cowl vent in front of the windshield throws a lot of air onto your feet when the truck is moving. Very neat.

I was going to check the rear brakes when I discovered that the rear wheels have a locking lug on each. Oh-oh. They're supposed to keep people from stealing the wheels. But the truck did not come with the adapter tool. How am I going to get those off? Look at how they sit in there.
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I actually drilled them out, starting with a small drill bit, and increasing the size until I was up to 7/16". By then there is so little left they break off. You have to get that first hole centered real well though. It's a lot of drilling. Another way is to weld another nut on top of the lock, then turn on that. No real room to do that here.

The exhaust system was crap; the half that had not fallen off was held on with that thin peforated steel strap that plumbers use. It was just looped over the framerails, and under the pipes. The local muffler shop was out of 2" tubing (likely story) so I went to the house of Tony Stewart and got 10' of 2" rigid conduit. I just love makin' stuff out of welded conduit. I got some real exhaust clamps and hangers, and fabbed up a full set of dual exhaust that goes all the way out the back. Not show quality, admittedly, but good enough for this, for now. And cheap.

I made up a set of sign boards for above the bed sides. I'll letter them up to advertise my businesses. Pretty trick, right?

Avert your eyes now if you get queasy from viewing burned body parts...

...OH, TOO LATE! This is what happens when you roll onto your just-used acetylene torch tip. Only what, about 1000 degrees there? That's a full inch across, and yeah it hurts.
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The F100 actually passed inspection, so it is legally on the road. I have decided to do some fixing and just keep it around for now. So it has gotten a second chance. Some would call this indecisiveness, in politics it's "flip-flopping". I prefer to think of it as adaptability, or open-mindedness. I am going to keep it around in case the circumstances allow me to go ahead with the EV conversion. In the meantime, it will continue to get closer to being ready, should that time come, while still having utility as a second car, or just a pleasure vehicle. Ok the exhaust will not be needed, but it is needed now.
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Still to do: I need to put a new input bearing in the transmission. The brakes work, but the truck darts around under braking. The clutch may need replacing. All the wiring works, miraculously, but the electrons are the only thing holding it together; a complete re-wire is in order. I am even thinking of continuing with the frame swap, while keeping the gas motor and trans that are in it now. That would solve a lot of current problems, and still keep to the original project plans.
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I plan to go to some car "cruises" (they're more like parks) with it, to hopefully get some car work side jobs. Despite driving like a 53 year old truck, it is a lot of fun. I had forgotten how cool it is to tool around in a funky old vehicle. It is, as they say, "my bag". I've done probably 100 miles in it already. It certainly is an attention-getter, too. Might be useful to keep it around.
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Kieran, '55 or so Ford, and 2 late 40's cars of unknown make.

First work on the S10; bed removal, keep the wiring harness?

I got to work on the S10 Saturday afternoon, after doing some errands and chores. I only got about 4 hours in, but I made some progress. The main thing I got done is removing the bed. It isn't that difficult, but taking it off makes such a difference visually that it looks like I got a lot done in a short time. A few friends (thanks guys) helped me physically pick it up and take it off on Sunday. The bed is surprisingly light; I would estimate no more than 250 lbs. I expected it to weigh about 500. Interesting.

I do as little work under stock vehicles as possible. Mainly because it is inevitable that I will get at least a little grit in my eyes, and my contact lenses are very unforgiving in terms of comfort if I get even a small bit of grit in them. Glasses don't give me great vision, and goggles are uncomfortable, fog up, and grit gets around them anyway.

The work I was doing required that I get underneath, and of course I got some grit in my eyes, so it was not great fun after that. I was spurred on by the fun of disassembling the truck though. I also got some of the wiring harness disconnected. I am planning on using it to rewire the F100, so I have been diligently marking EVERY connection I undo with marker on a masking tape label.
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By the time I got into the underhood area, I began to realize how complicated the stock wiring harness really is. Hoo boy. There are A LOT of sensors. There are airbag sensors (and airbags inside. I don't know how I'm going to get them disconnected yet). The truck has ABS. The brake combination valve is ganged onto a huge complicated valve body of some sort that has like 3 wiring harness connections going to it. I assume I will have to substitute a non-ABS combination valve later, since I am not going to use ABS. All that mumbo-jumbo just because people don't know how to stop a vehicle. Unbelievable. There is an underhood computer with more connections.
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I was able to do a bit more on Sunday. More wiring harness labelling and disconnecting. I want to reuse this harness, but what a job this will be. I now expect that I will have to trace a lot of wires and make "jumpers" to complete circuits that have sensors that I am not using. I could just clip off unused connectors, but I doubt I could be satisfied with ghost wires (wires that lead nowhere) left in the harness, so I would end up taking the harness apart and rebundling it at some point anyway.

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I began taking the dash apart, but did not get too far. I keep looking at the airbag in the steering wheel, expecting it to blow open at any second and hit me in the head, snapping my neck and killing me. Not good. I don't know if this could happen without power, as I have the battery out. But maybe there's a capacitor in there storing energy in case of battery loss, I don't know. Don't want to find out.

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I have done a couple of complete wiring jobs on race cars, even using relays for higher load circuits and such. I think I could do this vehicle as well, but wiring a car from scratch takes a long time too. I look at time spent on this project in terms of real world labor cost and opportunity cost. A new wiring harness kit for the F100 is about $300. Professional auto repair rates are close to $100/hour. A pro shop would likely start with a kit anyway and the labor would be tacked on from there. So if I get the kit and install it I'm saving $100/hr.
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How much could I earn at my job in an hour? It's no $100, but it's something. How long will I have to mess with the S10 harness to get it to be useable? 10 hours? 20? Time is precious to me now. That's the opportunity cost; the cost of what I can't do during the time I'm working on the project. My point is this: it looks like reusing the stock S10 harness might take more time and effort (and $ value) than getting a new harness kit. I'm cheap, $300 is as much to me as it is to the next guy. But why rebuild junk to save a buck? The problem with doing so is that at the end you just have rebuilt junk that you wasted a lot of time on. I'll keep working on the stock harness for now and see how it goes. A lot to think about though.