The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk You don't know what you don't know.

Hello everyone.
This is not a rant or a complaint. Just an observation and bit of tale telling.

Seems that most of the time I do a modification to one of my trucks there is a ripple effect. Changing one thing requires changing something down stream. If you don't know, you don't know. You dont know the questions to ask. You just live and learn.


For example
Years ago. (05) I swapped power steering into a (66 F100) automatic truck. Direct bolt in, easy. NO.. Steering column is now 3 inches to long. Couldn't find a replacement so I had one cut down and modified. Fixed. NO. now I don't have a neutral safety switch and the shift indicator does not point to the correct position. I grew up driving a standard so I didn't even know there was such a thing as a neutral safety switch.

Currently. I am working through doing a T5 swap on my 56 3100. After the aforementioned power steering fiasco I do my research. Of course I can only research what I know I don't know.

So 3 years or so ago I purchased a T5 out of a 93/94 S10, at the time, I knew the electronic speedometer would not work with factory gauges but I would keep my eye out for an older tail housing with manual spedo. Bird in hand sort of thing. After a lengthy internal debate of Jeep input vs adapter plate I decided on the jeep input. I gather my parts and wait for the manual tail shaft to show up swap meet or salvage. I also continue to research.
Last weekend I found one in an 83 S10, bingo. I grab the tail housing, and drive gear with clip and the measurement from the end of the output shaft to the hole the drive gear pin sits in. (7 5/8 or 7 21/32). The speedometer cable was shot but I did get the bullet with driven gear. I am good to go minus speedometer cable. more research.
Luckily while doing research on what speedometer cable to get, I saw a reference to calculating drive and driven gears.
Somehow, in my research, I failed to note the importance of those two gears in the accuracy of the speedometer. It would have been a PITA to find out I had the wrong drive/driven gears after I installed my T5.

Thank you to everyone on the forums who ask questions and to those who share there experiences, knowledge, and opinions. Without the random mention of the drive/driven gears in a post about a speedometer cable I would have been wondering why my speedometer was inaccurate.

Ditto.
If it wasn’t for ole interwebs help, it would be a lot more errors than trials.
Unless you have worked on or had knowledge of something, it’d be like touching something, then turning around and banging your head on a concrete wall while wondering what just happened.
I am also fortunate to have a gear head father and a professional mechanic/engine builder brother-n-law, but the knowledge of this forum is what’s saved my bacon a time or 2.

I do know what I don't know. That's why I never assume that I know more than the people who designed the vehicle.

If I have a problem, I read the manual.

It always seems the more "Homework" you do the more you need to learn. At least here there's no such thing as a stupid question.

I think that this forum in particular is very good at the " At least here there's no such thing as a stupid question." aspect of working on these trucks. I have asked several questions over the years that I suspect would have been riddiculed in some forums but here people provide helpful input and support. Well done one and all!

What I like is when an answer is over my head , there is usualy someone willing to break it down in a way can understand.

Thanks for the kind comments about the site. Glad to know it actually turned out well which I attribute to encouraging folks to be patient and share what we know. We all started out not knowing anything.

But I disagree about the dumb question. Way back in the day, when I was a Journalism Instructor, I told my students that there *was* such a thing as a dumb question but I doubted I'd ever hear it. I'm still waiting.

John - I agree on the "dumb" question.

I define it as what comes from: "That is the wrong answer , how should I phrase my question so you give me the answer that I want?"

Jon

Jon.... Concur. No question, asked in good faith, will be a "dumb" question.

Yep, yep, very true. I have learned that on the forums. Give details, be as specific as possible. Wait for signs.



-Woog