vintage6t

Your solution of a spring loaded pin was immediately popped into my head. I think it's a good one. Another possible solution that I saw used on a pickup tailgate is to repurpose a seatbelt buckle. Remove both sides of the buckle from the webbing. Mount one side of the buckle on the inside of the bed (fixed half). Mount the other side on the tailgate (pivoting half). Close the tailgate and it latches. Press the seatbelt latch button and it releases.

Nope, I'm saying when you install the starter the connection to the alternator replaces the ground wire you used on the bench. The alternator wire acts as the ground when the starter is installed.

Sound's like your starter is fine. From what I've read on this forum in the past, it's something like this: That alternator wire is equivalent to the ground wire you just installed. The difference I think is when the engine starts the alternator connection in simple terms "breaks the path to ground". I don't think it actually breaks the path, I think it probably puts 6v on that relay terminal. With both relay terminals at 6 volts, its coil can't energize. That prevents you from engaging the starter while the engine is running. I'm not sure what specific problem you're trying to solve at this point.

I wouldn't run it, even temporarily, without a dual filter of some sort. IMO an inline before the fuel pump is best. I'm not saying this is your problem but it only takes a minuscule particle of debris lodged in your float valve to make it leak. That in turn can overflow gas into the carb making look leaky. If the particle gets by the float valve it can cause clogs elsewhere in the carb making it operate horribly.

If you're testing the relay in isolation, all wires disconnected from the small relay terminals, it shouldn't matter how you connect power to those terminals. I can't tell 100% from the pictures but if you want the starter to run keep it wired as shown in the picture with the remote starter button. Ground the small relay terminal that has no connection in that picture. Ground meaning the opposite side of the battery than the red battery cable shown in the picture. Then when you press the button the starter should run. If sparks fly don't blame me, but it probably means I'm not seeing the picture correctly.

You have three things that happen to make the starter run. 1. A relay that switches power the the soleniod. That is the contacts that you were pushing with the screw driver plus the coil right beneath the contacts. Apply power across the two small terminals and the coil should energize and pull the contacts closed. If not you may have a bad relay coil. 2. When the relay contacts close it energizes the solenoid coil (inside the round can). When energized that coil pulls the soleniod armature into the solenoid and through the mechanical linkage moves the starter gear forward. 3. When the armature is pulled into the solenoid it also closes the heavy duty contacts at the very bottom of relay. When those contacts close the starter motor is energized and starts running. Looks like you proved steps 2 and 3 work by manually pushing the relay contacts closed with a screw driver. Now see if the relay works as described in step 1.

I don't know anything about the trucks, so this may just be non-sense, but wouldn't a seal like that mount similar to the clutch and brake pedal seals? At least as used on cars. That is it does not actually secure through the floorboard. Instead it goes on the rod but on the exterior of the floorboard. So it essentially seals against the floorboard from the exterior and only when the pedal is in its home position. Step on the pedal and the seal travels with the rod. Just a thought.

Step 3 - PRND12 Indicator You can buy indicators both electronic and mechanical. The problem with those options is they just don’t fit well with my goal of a stock looking cockpit. So the task is to make something that looks like it came from the factory. I’ve always had working stock radios in most of my classic cars. The thing is I never listen to them. First of all there’s nothing to listen to on AM and second even with a Bluetooth retrofit I’m still not likely to listen to tunes. I guess I just like to listen to the car and enjoy the driving experience of a classic. As a result I decided to forgo the Mopar 808 radio and use that space for the indicator. Basically, put the PRND12 indicator into the dash bezel for dial and use a factory radio delete plate at the tuning knob and button location. If I ever need tunes I guess it will be a hidden system. To build the indicator, I know that some manufacturers use a cable driven slide mechanism. That seemed like a good solution especially because my indicator is in a location remote from the steering column. I’m only a bit of a pack rat, so a few years ago when I had to replace the electric window track in my Honda because of a broken cable, I hung on to it. That track is basically a slide on a track that is driven by two cables that are wound in and out on a reel to make the window move up and down. I also have 4 or 5 Mopar 808 radios in various states of repair. The idea was to cut the window slide’s track down to size and mount it into the face cover of one of the radios. That assembly would then simply mount into the dash bezel the same as the original radio. I fitted a bicycle bake cable on one side of the slide and a return springs to the other. Pull the cable and the slide moves right, let go and the slide returns to its home position. The tuning indicator needle from the radio was mounted on the slide and I cut a new “dial plate”. To get a stock factory look, the lettering for the PRND12 dial itself has to match the existing gauges. I probably spent 5 or 6 hours looking at online font libraries trying to find something that matched. Slim chance I thought but finally I was lucky enough to find a font that’s probably 95% accurate. It’s called DS-Roundup. If you study it, you can find slight differences between the existing gauges but it’s really just fine. I already knew from making the interlock plate that the spacing of the letters on the indicator is not linear. As you go from Park to drive 1, the spacing on the detents on the transmission get closer together by almost half. To get the proper spacing for each letter I measured the distance between each hole on the interlock plate and directly used those measurements. After laying out the indicator I printed it for testing. The lines in the photo are just registration lines to help with placement and testing and will not be on the final indicator graphics. What remains to be done is to create the a permanent indicator graphics. Most likely painted the same bronze background as the original gauges and then stenciled letters painted on with a mix of white/green blacklight paint. That’s so they will glow at night similar to the original phosphorescent gauge letters. Interesting enough the stock radio backlighting has purple covers over the bulbs so I think blacklight is the right direction. Lastly, I connected the indicator’s cable to the shift arm that the interlock peg is mounted on. I cut up parts of a cable operated bicycle brake to get the cable adjuster and cable clamp. As the shift arm moves up and down it pulls and releases the cable accordingly and on the other end the slide on the indictor moves the pointer over the proper letter.

Step 2 - Gear interlock To create an interlock I took advantage of the fact that the column shifter has a built-in spring loaded in/out mechanism. In stock configuration this is used to move the transmission between low and high gears. When the shift lever is pulled it basically moves the shift arm at the steering box end of the column in towards the firewall. That same shift arm also drives a linkage connected to the shift bell crank up and down as the column shifter is moved up and down, causing the gear changes. The interlock mechanism itself is comprised of two fabricated components. The first is a peg that is welded to the nut that secures the shift linkage to the shift arm. That means the peg can move in and out with the pull of the shift lever and move up and down as the shift lever is moved through the gears. What’s a peg without a hole? The second fabricated component is a mounted plate with a series of drilled holes that are indexed to each of the transmission’s detent (gear) positions. When the shift lever is released at a given gear detent position, the peg drops into the corresponding hole in the plate. That locks the shift lever at that position. When the shift lever is pulled back the peg comes out of the hole in the plate and the shifter can freely move to another position. Let go of the lever and it will spring back into the hole indexed to the new location, locking the shift lever at that position. Great but how do I know what gear I’m in? That’s why a PRND12 indicator is needed.

I’m in the process of repowering my 50 Desoto to a Mopar 383/727 TorqueFlight combination. I’m keeping the stock steering box and column. I’m not a fan of more modern columns in cars of this vintage so one of my tasks is to adapt the stock manual column shifter to the 727 transmission. To accomplish that three things are needed: Connect the shifter linkage to properly move through the 727’s shift detents, create an interlock for each gear position, and create a PRND12 indicator for the dash. Step 1 - Connecting the shifter linkage At first this seemed simple, just put a rod from the existing shifter bell crank to the 727’s shift lever. That’s pretty much the same configuration as the stock manual shift rod. The catch is that the 727’s Park position requires the shift lever to move all the way towards the back of the transmission. The low gear position requires the lever to go all the way forward. Using just the stock bell crank results in shifting that is opposite of the normal convention. Park would put the shift lever on the steering column all the way down toward your lap. Low gear would be all the way up. That configuration would shift the transmission fine but would just be too odd to operate. To reverse the shifting action, I incorporated the no longer used clutch bell crank. That bell crank is now driven by the stock shifter bell crank on one end, and drives the shift lever on the other end. This worked out great in terms of the column shifter controlling all the gear positions and in the right direction. The transmission itself has built in detents for each gear position so the lever has a positive stop at each gear. The problem is that once in a gear, there is nothing to lock the shift lever into position. An accidental hit of the shift lever can easily move it out of the selected gear. That’s why a gear interlock mechanism is needed.