WHEW! That is one giant, earth-friendly monkey off my back. TC is green again, passing with the lowest readings ever on CO -- 13 gpm with a 40 limit! Not bad!



How? Part of it was the tester was smooth on and off the throttle, but the carb tweaking I did had a big influence, since CO dropped 85% since last time!

After installing #52 jets in the Motorcraft 2150, the truck was running way too lean. I adjusted one of my two altitude compensating aneroids just enough until TC ran a little better.

Aneroids are devices developed for high altitude WWII fighter planes that allow more air into the carb to lean out the mixture, at higher altitudes using an atmospheric pressure sensitive bellows. I believe Ford tacked on electronic controls in place of the bellows to build a electronic feedback controlled 2150 prior to development of EFI.

Hope you have a Happy Earth Day! It is for love of the planet and its wild, natural resources that I enjoy taking TC out-- for fishing, hunting, camping, four-wheeling. To not only see the sights, but also to participate in nature.

And of course preserving these natural resources is crucial. This hits home much harder when you have seen the beauty of remote places and know what treasures we could lose.

I hope this day is a reminder to us all to work on conserving water resources, reducing our energy consumption, recycling, ensuring our cars are emissions legal (I'm getting close), and heck maybe even getting out there into our public lands and enjoying the Earth a little.

TC likes to get attention. He likes being driven around, especially in winter, summer, spring, and also fall. Whenever he doesn't get driven and sits around he tends to get a bit angry. It gets worse if he failed emissions and has to mull that over while the seasons pass, and birds poop on him. Unfortunately, TC is prone to being vindictive, so what he does is leaves me stranded on the side of the road with the some of the most difficult problems to solve. But hey, that is part of the FSJ adventure I guess.

Like today, when I was testing him out on the freeway. On the way back, on a city street, he stalled out. Ran out of gas. So I thought. But he wasn't out of gas. The gas gauge worked perfectly. No, it was something worse. No fuel getting to the carburetor or even the fuel filter. Why? Another electric pump going bad? In tank pickup sock plugged? Took a good half hour or more to get going. Naturally I had no tools or cell phone with me.

I limped the truck a few miles at a time and arrived at a gas station. Amy picked me up, I got tools headed back, changed out the sock, verified fuel flow restored at the fuel filter/carb. Was able to get the truck home. Did I fix it? Who can say...

I just wished TC would stop glaring at me.

TC's battery was dead again so after charging for awhile, I was able to start up the truck for the first time in months today.

Driving around the block was another reminder of how much I've missed sitting behind the wheel of the ol' heap. The drive was also a reminder of all the work left to do right after passing emissions.

On that note, the next step is to chase down some leaner jets for the carb and see what that does.