Steps in the Right Direction - Build Thread for my two Lightnings

Changed the oil this past weekend, 6000 miles on the high mileage Valvoline synthetic and it was only down about a half quart. Not a bad "burn" rate at all.

Moved the recliner handle from the existing seat (had obviously already been replaced once) to the spare seat and installed that in the truck. I think I'm going to try to mimic the stock seat recliner handle in CAD and see if I can get something made by SendCutSend. This is such a common failure point on all the Ford trucks of that era with bucket seats that there has to be a market for a replacement handle.

Redid some of the wiring to be more in lines with my tastes.

Next week the red truck gets a new master cylinder and then finally plan to get the torque converter installed.
 
Changed the oil this past weekend, 6000 miles on the high mileage Valvoline synthetic and it was only down about a half quart. Not a bad "burn" rate at all.

Moved the recliner handle from the existing seat (had obviously already been replaced once) to the spare seat and installed that in the truck. I think I'm going to try to mimic the stock seat recliner handle in CAD and see if I can get something made by SendCutSend. This is such a common failure point on all the Ford trucks of that era with bucket seats that there has to be a market for a replacement handle.

Redid some of the wiring to be more in lines with my tastes.

Next week the red truck gets a new master cylinder and then finally plan to get the torque converter installed.

Or send to Travis [mention]FlatOut [/mention] to cut it out of billet aluminum, if he’s interested. I see other guys asking for replacements on FB.

Edit: just looked at sendcutsend that’s pretty cool. Lots of material to choose from.
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Jeff, I can 3D print it for you if you want to do some prototypes. Even have ABS filament if you want to try that as a permanent solution vs metal.
 
Travis is who turned me on to SendCutSend to have other non-precision work done. I'd get it made out of a slightly thicker mild steel plate than OEM with a fold. And probably a little more material where the "root" attaches.

Possibly have to do two plates if I want more thickness, one with the fold for the handle to attach to, and the other without it. 4 little welds to connect them.

I don't know how well any plastic would hold up to the amount of flex that handle gets from butts sliding over it all the time. I've made it a bit of a habit to raise myself over the handle rather than sliding over it since I broke the original so many years ago.

I bought a recliner assembly off of ebay and will find time to CAD it up when that gets here.
 
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All good, well like I said if you want to do a free print just to make sure the dimensions are good before SCS I'd be more than happy to help.

Yeah Send Cut Send is awesome, they are the ones I had do my steering wheel button bracket and a couple of other items.
 
Apparently Ford revised the replacement part for the recliner with both thicker metal and a flange where the factory parts chronically failed. These failures continued through the 10th generation trucks. :rolleyes:
 
Thought this might be interesting. On the left is a factory '94 passenger recliner bracket (which is identical to the part on my '95). On the right is a driver's side Explorer/Mountaineer handle I got through ebay. The red line points to the zone where the factory bracket usually fails. You can see that the metal is fatigued.

You can also see how much improved the "BB" part is compared to the "AB". The metal is thicker, there is a flange, there's more web, and it's stamped to also give it some resistance to flex side-to-side.

So, I'd advise keeping an eye on ebay for these things. The factory part will eventually fail. These are much stronger.
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Just ordered a set for the sad day that these break on mine. Jeff, can you do a tutorial when you change them?


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Just so you guys know they are at the mercy of the Megasquirt developer, James over on MSEXTRA. James has mentioned trying to get that in the next version of the trans firmware.
Beta of the firmware is available. I'm going to flash the TCM with it this weekend, though I won't be able to test it until I get the white truck's cluster back and make the red truck whole again.
 
Drove the white truck just a little today with the PxS in control - didn't leave the subdivision because its current tune is very lean. I used a 60 pin extension harness I had laying around from a past iteration to make the wire swaps so I can go back and forth to the stock EEC without a lot of hassle.

Ordered a Spartan 2 so I can use the narrow band simulator for the stock computer, and pull the WBO2 signal in on pin 43 (O2 #2) so I can use that for the PxS.

Hoping to flash the transmission controller firmware into it shortly and test the coast clutch functionality.
 
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Nice Jeff! Is there any difference in the wiring for the coast clutch or just firmware?


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I "plagiarized" the tuning work we did on Mike's truck and mine drives a lot better now. I don't have any real idea where the A:F is at the moment, so it was really just an experiment. When I'm done, I should have a nice base tune for a pretty much stock truck for posterity.
 
I "plagiarized" the tuning work we did on Mike's truck and mine drives a lot better now. I don't have any real idea where the A:F is at the moment, so it was really just an experiment. When I'm done, I should have a nice base tune for a pretty much stock truck for posterity.

That's awesome Jeff! What items did you change?
 
Just the fueling stuff. We'd battled through the same kind of lean behaviors on his truck, which is moderately stock except for the E-cam and exhaust, so I figured the base fuel setup, VE table, WUE curve, etc would be a lot closer.

It's hard for me to work from home and not go out and mess with it some more, but I'm just throwing darts blindfolded until the wideband shows up, so I need to control myself.

May have to do a rental program for this harness. Nice to be able to fiddle with it without being totally committed.
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First modification I've done in 15 years with the sole purpose of improving the quarter mile performance.

Circle D 258mm 3000 stall, triple clutch.

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