After pulling the transmission and rear fuel tank from the FMT, I turned my attention to the interior. Not necessarily the seats or carpet or dash but the doors as well as the gauge cluster and some miscellaneous hardware. The doors are currently missing the interior handles used to open the doors, with one replaced by an angle brace but for some reason was still unable to release the latch. The window regulator on the driver's door is damaged where it doesn't hold the glass up. I still didn't know if either window worked since there was no power on the truck's electrical system. Then there's a matter of the steering column and gauge cluster. There's no key for the ignition switch so I would have to somehow remove the tumbler assembly. The shifter handle needed to be removed along with the gear indicator in the gauge cluster. I also needed to remove a couple of indicator light bulbs so those lights won't be constantly on when the truck is running. Of course I still need to trace wires for the gauges so I can isolate those lines in the engine bay in order to properly hook them up to the engine.
The first thing I had to do before going inside was check and see if the wire harness from the old E4OD transmission was a separate section of the overall wiring harness where I could unplug it intact where I could sell it off versus cutting it and having a bundle of bare wires somewhere under the floor that would've needed capping. Luckily I found that the wiring harness was terminated at a plug just under the brake master cylinder. Once I unplugged that, I was able to remove the whole wire harness for the transmission without any butchery. At this point I made my way inside the truck. I removed the door panel so I could access the hardware in the door, starting with the door handle. After looking at the mechanism for the lever, I seen that everything was still hooked up despite it not releasing the latch. After doing a little test it turned out that the cable wasn't pulling enough to pop the latch. I also found that the lever mechanism was moving some, which if I could solve that problem then the cable would have the extra pull necessary to release the latch. After removing the lever mechanism I found that the mounting surface where the bolt went through was actually cracked, allowing the mechanism to pull free some and move like it did. I had to straighten out the bent out metal around the bolt hole then remove the threaded clip in the hole and replace it with a nut and fender washer underneath the bolt hole so everything when tightened up would hold against the damaged mount of the door frame and not move. After doing this, the lever was able to release the latch, finally. The next order of business was the window regulator. The window was able to slide up and down with minimum effort but still have resistance. I did take time to charge up a battery and hook it up. Now going on a tangent, on the ignition switch was in the on position with the key removed, as is common with these trucks. I was able to switch the key on to put power on the door windows. After trying the window, I found that the regulator had stripped gears inside. The motor would run but you could hear the grinding of the plastic gears inside the gearbox. I had to remove the regulator. Problem is, Ford in their infinite wisdom, took time to use rivets to attach the regulator mechanism to the door. I had to grind the damned rivet heads off to free the regulator. After grinding the rivets out I pulled the window regulator free but had to use a 2x4 to prop up the window so it would stay up, can't have rain getting inside the truck mucking up anything. Now, I will go back to the ignition switch. Thinking that the switch was just broken, I turned the switch to the off position with the outer knob piece spinning freely as it did. This is where the fun part began. Since these switches have this flaw, you can still lock the switch if you return it to the off position, and it will stay there. This one did exactly that. It wasn't broken, just had the flaw where it'll release the key in the on position. And I didn't have the regular key. And the key for the F250 wouldn't work. So now the switch is stuck in the off position. And the steering wheel locked. This cylinder assembly would have to come out by hook or crook. There is a locking peg that holds the cylinder in but will only release when the key is in the first position. That won't happen without the key. So out came the tools. For the next hour I drilled at the peg and pounded a center punch into the thing. I pried into cylinder breaking pieces off the cylinder body, allowing me to move and manipulate the assembly more, with the hope of being able to get that locking peg clear of the housing so I could pull the cylinder free. After enough working and beating and working and beating some more I was finally able to get the mangled cylinder assembly removed from the housing in the steering column. With the ignition switch taken care of I moved on to the gauge cluster and the shifter. I removed the molding covers from around the gauge cluster. That plastic piece will need to be replaced since it was in a couple of pieces. I ended up having to drop the steering column in order to have access to the top of the unit to remove the clips holding the shifter in place as well as open up the space to pull the gauge cluster free. After pulling the gauge cluster out, I had to disconnect the little cable that attached to the shifter and linked up to the indicator in the gauge cluster. At the same time I removed the retaining clips that held the shifter handle in place, After popping the cable free from the shifter handle and removing the indicator from the gauge cluster (which was held in with a couple of screws), I was able to free all of these unneeded things from the truck. The last order of business was the passenger side door. Since the interior lever was alredy broken off there was no need to worry about that, I'll have to buy another one of those just like the driver's side. After pulling the door panel free I tried to work the regulator and had no action. I metered the lines going to the regulator motor and had power on them when I cycled the switches, so that pretty much told me what I needed to know, the regulator was dead. Just like with the driver's side, I had to grind out the rivets to remove the assembly, as well as propping up the window with a board. With that I was pretty much done for now. I have to pick up motor gearboxes for the regulators on both doors, I need to get handles for the lever mechanisms on both doors. While I'm at it I need to get new key latch cylinders for both doors, since I don't have the keys. And of course I need to get a replacement ignition switch cylinder. Once I get those parts i can reassemble the doors and write those off as complete. Also I still need to get to the bottom of the locating of the specific wires for the gauges so I can have them ready for when I reinstall the powerplant so I can have everything hooked up and properly working without having to run aftermarket gauges, especially when I have an entire gauge assembly. I would love to be able to keep this truck looking somewhat original, even with the changes being made to the type of powerplant going in. At least we are making progress.
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