REALLY REALLY bad day today.

[fdlrc]

Awesome to hear.

[djfordmanjack]

Great news !

[CobraJoe]

Congrats Rich, really glad to see it all come together and with a happy ending!   

[RICH MUISE]

I thought I typed a reply earlier..must have forgotten to hit the "post reply" button again.
Thanks guys. Your thoughts are much appreciated.
I may have found enough stuff here here locally to repair my leaky hydroboost. I'll know in an hour or so. I do have a rebuild kit on the way, but they didn't offer express shipping, so it may be a week before it gets here. Hopefully won't need it anyway.

[Tom S]

Got the engine started Friday. Sounded pretty good. ....

That's real good news, Rich!
And as often happens one thing leads to another. (And another & another & ~)
In this case you also made some improvements & repairs to other systems that you're probably gonna appreciate a lot when it hits the road again.

[RICH MUISE]

I found the oddball o-rings for the hydroboost at a local hydraulics shop yesterday. None of the auto supply or off-road supply shops had them. The place I ended up at had "every o-ring known to man", lol. Good to know about them, I'll pass that info along to my local car friends. It did fix the leak in my hydroboost, at least the external leak, which was between the hydroboost and the distribution block.
So, got to let the car run for a while.... 10 minutes or so. The first time I installed the hydroboost years ago, it got super hot within a minute or two because of air in the system. Yesterday it never got past warm, so hopefully, it's bled ok. Of course, bleeding at the same time also eliminated the whine from the PS pump. I'll do some more of the lock to lock bleeding today. I did install the master cyl. and brake line connections, today I need to fill and start bleeding. Hopefully I can get the master bled without too much air getting down into the lines. I spent many hours trying to get the system bled when I first built it. Also, turning the steering lock to lock feels smoother than before, so I'm hoping all the work to change the steering linkage paid off.
My engine light never came on yesterday. Hopefully that'll be the case when I get it out for a few miles. I did have my wife start the car while I looked at the vacuum dashpots on the intake control I talked about in earlier posts. They both functioned, so that checks out the electronics and the vacuum lines. Yay!
I did have an issue with the transmission not shifting properly, and a no-start "when in park".........turned out to be another trip under the car to find a loose bolt I never tightened on the linkage.
To fix/adjust today: I think I had mentioned when I first pulled the engine out, I found a loose shaft/bolt on the left lower control arm. What I found out when I reattached the tie rods and rack, is that control arm must have been like that "forever". Reattaching the tie rod to that spindle now makes the wheel want to make a right turn! That's telling me the car was aligned with that control arm not in the correct position. I had a shop change my front springs way back when I was trying to get my ride height correct. With the tight new bushings, I'm wondering if they loosened those bolts and missed tightening one when they were done.
Gotta go to O'Reilly's and pick up lots of fluids.

[lalessi1]

That is great news. Your car is just going to be all that more satisfying with all those little gremlins sorted out. It may have been an expensive blessing in disguise!!!

[Ford Blue blood]

Rich it won't be too long now, you are well on your way to grinnin and killin bugs!

[Ecode70D]

Rich
     I am very happy for you that you are at this point where you at least got it started .   Hopefully you will be able to get rhe job completed and will be driving your car again.
Jay

[Thor]

Rich,
You might try vacuum bleeding you brakes. Works better for me as it makes it a one man job. Harbor freight has a fairly cheep one that I have used.

[RICH MUISE]

Thanks Jay.....good to see you back.
Thor.....I have a vacuum bleeder, but didn't need it. Bleeding the booster and the brakes went amazingly quick. The booster is working great, and this time I attacked bleeding the master differently. Unlike regular masters, the oem ones on the hydroboost cannot be bench bled, but there are two bleed valves on them. Figuring there may have not gotten air down in the lines since I only unhooked the master, I made a setup where I had tubing in a jar with brake fluid coming off both bleeders. I opened both up and had my wife press the brake pedal slowly, then closed and released the brake pedal. Only had to do that twice and all the air was out. Doing both at the same time meant I wasn't pushing air into one of the lines while I was bleeding the other.

I did take it out for an 8 mile drive yesterday. I was really worried about the smoke..........it was so bad at first I couldn't see the cars behind me. After about 5 miles it stopped completly. Brakes worked great, steering was much smoother than before. I can't drive it a lot until I get an alignment, but I couldn't bring it to the shop with it smoking like it was either, so that's why I took it out. I do have a few leaks here and there.
My idling issue has gone away, but after 4 miles, my check engine light did come back on. I haven't read the codes it was throwing yet, I suspect same as before.

[RICH MUISE]

Just got back from my first trip around the loop............with a smile on my face. I got the car aligned this morning, and as soon as I picked it up I headed out for the first real drive. I drove it 70 miles.
After reconfiguring the steering linkage, the steering for one thing is soooo much better. Much smoother than before. And idling problem is no longer there. It use to oscillate like it had a race cam, lol, I'm gonna miss that part, but I knew it wasn't right. The oil pressure does run about 5 lbs lower than my old engine once warmed up. At highway speeds it's about 45 lbs. ??
I forgot to mention before.......I even have a little more turn on the steering wheel than before. When I first rebuilt the control arms, I noticed there was a place for a steering spindle stop bolt. We talked about that here years ago, and like mine, no one actually had a bolt in there. (Maybe just for power steering equipt cars?). Anyway, I put a bolt in there with a nut under the head, and cranked it all the way in figuring I'd adjust it later. Well, the years went by, and I had forgotten about it mostly. Thought about seeing if it was still there a few times, but never remembered to do that when I was home. Anyway, that bolt was in fact hitting the spindle arm and not letting me turn as much as the rack would allow to the left. Much better in tight spaces now.

[CobraJoe]

Glad to hear Rich, congrats on a job well done.

P.S. 45 psi seems low. I'm assuming a mechanical gauge; what weight oil are you running?
I was always told a good rule of thumb is 10 psi for everything 1000 rpms.

[RICH MUISE]

Electronic gage. 10-30 Quaker State blend, planning on doing a seafoam treatment before too long, then I'll change to mobil 1. "Highway speeds"=2000 rpm. It goes to 75 lbs. when it's cold. As stated, my previous engine ran at 50 at highway speed.

[CobraJoe]

Before I did anything, I would check with a mechanical gauge. I thought there was a TSB on 4.6's & 5.4's years ago stating that you should only run 5-20W  due to the extremely tight tolerances?