36 Ford truck on Ranger

[GJunktionMike]

Very cool

[I-R-POPS]

And it's legal too! Can't beat that. Congrats.
Ride on!

[MercuryMac]

Hi GJM and POPS. Thank you for the good wishes. I am pretty proud of this truck, even though there are a few little changes to be made.

[MercuryMac]

As promised, I screwed up a few things, but now I'm fixing and learning. My homemade idiot lights weren't working right so I started unwiring and trying to figure out the problem. My idiot lights are made from little glass cylinders about 1/4" OD and an inch and a quarter long. I glued an LED light in the bottom of each one and painted the back half pewter to match the gauge faces. These lights now mimic the stock '36 temperature gauge. They looked good and suited the dash; they just didn't work right. They flashed when I turned the key off. Well, it turns out that you have to wire an LED [light emitting Diode] one way. Diodes are one way electrical valves. I had wired the LED backwards thinking it would be just like a small light bulb. There's no way to tell which wire goes where in the plastic base of the LED, so I guessed; ---Wrong both times. Here they are lit up correctly. [pic 1]
Then I tackled the temperature gauge, which read backwards. I had given this problem quite a lot of thought and realized that my experiment with a 12 volt gauge and a 6 volt sender was the mistake. 12 volt systems are negative ground and 6 volts are positive. While I pulled out the old sender and replaced it, I had the shop vacuum running in the rad filler neck so I didn't loose any water at all. [pic 2]

[Dirtyrat]

Yup, the diode is a one way indeed! Those do look nice in the dash!

[I-R-POPS]

Good idea with the shop vac. I would have a mess to clean up.
Looks great!

[MercuryMac]

Thank you guys on the homemade glass tube idiot lights.
The 6 volt sender for the temperature gauge had worked pretty good except up-side-down, so I thought the answer would be to put a 12 volt sender out of a Ranger PU into the head. It didn't look right with its big plastic plugin and, it had two wires coming out of it. Try as I might I could not find the combination of wiring to make that new mated sender work with its gauge. I ended up putting an old sender out of a 390 into it. By then the water was cold in the block so I couldn't test the gauge. I went on to fix up some 'have to' stuff on the old Kenworth.
Keep on tinkering.

[MercuryMac]

I have now test driven the sender from the 390. It has a different ohms resistance than the gauge so it reads too high.
My test drive was to the A&W and its MS fund raiser car show. My nephew Bart helped me out by driving the '55 Merc in and I got to take the '36.
Pic 1 is me backing into place. Already there is interest in the truck you see.
Pic 2 We were the last to leave, I think I BS too much.
Pic 3 a shot of me in case I get famous. Whoa, wrong picture, and I don't know how to delete it.
Pic 4 I finally left. If you think that we northerners brag about our long days, well not so much way down in August. This is probably about 10 o'clock.

[MercuryMac]

Hi Guys. I went to town and complained about my two wire temp sender at Napa. This partsman looked up my history and found the sender that I had bought and said you got the one that sends information to the computer; here's one that sends to the gauge. Whoa, cool, I can blame someone else. It looks better than the big plastic one but I have not tested it as I have another problem now to overcome. My throw-out bearing seized up while I was out on a Sunday drive with the Mrs.

[Snake Farm]

Looking good Mac! Glad to see ya make it to a show with the truck.......get that throw out fixed soon though cause those Sunday drives with the Mrs. it where it's really at.