After getting the wiper motors swapped out, I got the motivation to get several other things done on the F250 to make it more ready for the continuous use that it's facing as a defacto gravel truck. Obviously the first thing was replacing the wiper blades since the old ones were trashed. Among other things that needed to be done, I had to change the oil and do a radiator flush. The oil hadn't been changed in this truck for probably a year or more since the truck hadn't seen much use and the radiator had been filled with water more times than not so the cooling system definitely needed flushing. Cheap wiper blades obviously didn't last all to well in that they fell completely apart, so this time I got some name brand decent ones that will hold up better and have a better quality squeegee style wipe on the window, nothing but the best for the old truck. The next thing was the oil change. Of course the oil was black as tar but after replacing it with some name brand Quaker State, I took the old oil and mixed it with some gas to use it as a weed killer for the weeds that were still sprouted up through the gravel. With the oil and filter taken care of I went to the radiator flush. I had a bottle of flushing liquid in the trailer so I was easily able to get this little procedure on. I drained the old water from the system then added some fresh water and the flush liquid to the truck and ran the engine until it was at operating temperature. Afterward I opened up the system to drain it. The water that came out was baby shit brown. After draining all of that water I left the drain open and put the hose in the top of the radiator and let fresh water run into the unit while running the engine to circulate fresh water through the cooling system to further flush the cooling system. The next thing I decided to do was see if I can get the HVAC system fully running again. The system had the problem where none of the blend doors worked and I only had defrost on the system. I pulled apart the control panel to look at the vacuum hoses to see if there was any damage present. This was clearly a problem with the vacuum in the system so after checking this out I traced the lines going out to the firewall to see how they were on the outside. I ended up finding the main vacuum hose broken at the junction coming from the exhaust manifold to supply vacuum to other components. I ended up having to dig into my stash of vacuum fittings and other shit to get a replacement fitting. The fitting where the hose went into had a piece of the broken hose stuck inside and was unable to be salvaged. With the fitting replaced and the hose hooked back up I got vacuum to the control panel working again. With the HVAC system working on the inside I decided to try and get the AC working again. This ended up being a simple attempt to recharge the system. I had to dig out my AC tool bag and a few cans of refrigerant since this is an old school system and it takes a lot of refrigerant compared to newer cars. After dumping three cans of refrigerant and a can of stop leak into the system I was able to get the system at a mid range pressure on the gauge. I finally got cold air from the system once again. I thought all was well until the next time I made a gravel run and it was warm out so I figured I'd use the AC system. Wrong. Apparently there's a small leak somewhere in the system making the refrigerant bleed out. Great. So now I'm going to have to make that another mission to try and locate the leak and repair that shit now. My first target area is going to be the AC compressor since this unit is a used unit that I replaced a couple years back. Whether its the compressor itself or the O rings, I will be focusing my energies here first. I never touched any of the other system components so it only makes sense that if there's a leak its going to be where the system was last opened up. Also I can replace the dryer and the pressure switch while I'm at it since the dryer is the original and these things tend to allow shit to break up and go through the system plus the pressure switch isn't working since it was bypassed with a jumper wire at the plug. While I'm at it I'll even replace the orifice tube just so I can say I covered all bases in the repair. I want this truck to be ready for next year to the point that I'll be able to count on it to do damn near anything.
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