A while back, I changed out the starter in the 1989 Ford F-150 (which came with the name “The Marshal”) that David gave me, and it seemed just fine. I mean, it started and that’s really the most we can ask from a starter, isn’t it? Unfortunately, though, while returning from a day of canoeing with my kid, I stalled it while backing into my driveway, and somehow in the process of trying to start it again, I managed to break five teeth off the flywheel. Crap. I haven’t been using the truck as much since then, but I did yesterday, and, dammit, it felt good.
I’m appalled to realize that the teeth-breaking incident happened last July, but if I think about it, I’m not too shocked the truck has been mostly sitting. I mean, about four or so months after the Flywheel Incident, I had a pretty significant mechanical problem of my own, when my main hose from my heart tore apart. That definitely slowed down my truck usage for a good while, and then after that I just got swamped with other cars and work and all the detritus of life that the truck ended up sitting for much longer than I’d have liked.
I’d pulled it out a few times, but I think it’d been sitting for at least like four months in this current stretch. I would have driven it more, but I know every time I start it, it’s sort of a gamble if I’ll be able to start it again, easily, because of those missing flywheel teeth.
I mean, I keep a big wrench in the car so I can just turn the engine if the starter ends up in the gap, but that’s a pain. Then again, the odds are in my favor. In fact, let’s calculate them!
I have the legendarily-robust 300 cubic inch (4.9 liter) inline-six engine, which means I have a 164-tooth flywheel. If we take away five teeth from the flywheel, that leaves us with 159 teeth still, so that means I still have 96.9512195% – let’s call it 97% – of the flywheel teeth! So, really, there’s only a 3% chance that the starter will be in the wrong place! Those are pretty damn good odds!
I mean, sure, I should replace that flywheel soon, but I think it’s an acceptable level of risk, starting-wise.
I charged the battery up the night before, then went out to the leaf-strewn part of the driveway where the Marshal sat, patiently. Inside the cab, I was disheartened and annoyed to find some mold or mildew or whatever attempting to colonize the vinyl bench seat. I licked off all that I could, savoring the smoky, earthy, loamy flavors of the fungus (I kid! I wiped it with a rag, jeez) and set to starting the truck.
I had to fight all of my carbureted-car instincts, and just pressed the throttle to the floor once, then let go, as this ’89 F-150 is fuel injected. I twisted the key, was relieved to hear the starter actually engage the flywheel with a few of those 159 remaining teeth, and the engine spun and growled and groaned, slowly being shaken awoke from its coma, but then spluttered and coughed itself into wakefulness.
Good truck.
I revved it a bit to blow out any nesting voles or whatever, then shoved it into reverse. The wheels didn’t want to move at first, having been sitting so long. I put it in the ultra-low first gear and lurched forward, then back into reverse, rocking it back and forth a few times to let those axles know I mean business, and soon they relented, and out of the driveway we rolled.
I drove it Italian Tune-Up style for a bit, with the likely idiotic idea that I could blow away months of stagnation with enthusiasm, but it did sort of work, The brakes needed a bit of loosening up, but after a few wheel-locking, skidding stops, the system seemed to resign itself that it would be going back to work, and the braking calmed down to normal levels.
All in all, the perfect time to load a ton of rocks in the thing, right?
See, the thing that got me off my ass was that my next-door neighbors needed to get a literal ton of gravel and pavers for a backyard project, and it was either have me help them with the use of the truck or they would make, as I was told, “two trips” in their Tesla Model Y, which seemed like a pretty bad idea. Messy, too. I don’t think that Model Y would have been happy with 1,000 pounds of loose gravel in the back.
There’s something satisfying about that first drive in a freshly-awoken car or truck. You can feel the car waking up, the parts shaking off the dirt and grime of disuse and remembering what they were made for. In the half-hour drive to the quarry, I could feel the truck waking back up, and to its credit, the engine felt great, and ran smoother than I remembered. It even shifted with relative ease. It felt good to have the old crusty boy back.
While still pretty filthy and leaf-covered, the Marshal still maintains a certain amount of workhorse dignity; I’ve discussed this in detail before, how a worn and battered old truck somehow isn’t embarrassing the way a sedan of the same vintage and in the same condition would be. A 1989 Ford Taurus with the same brushed-on purple paint and the same level of grime and wear would suggest an owner that hasn’t made a good decision in decades; but on a truck? It just looks like it’s owned by someone who likes to do things.
I’m not saying it’s fair, but that is how it is.
Anyway, it just felt good to be driving that thing again. And it felt good to put it to real use. Watching the guy in the bucket-bulldozer dump about a half-ton of gravel into the bed was satisfying.
The gravel looked a lot like Grape-Nuts, and had about as much flavor and perhaps a better mouth feel. And I like Grape-Nuts.
From a distance, it looks like it could be corn, too. Maybe deer corn, which I see advertised all over the place, and may have rolled around in piles of, but never have eaten, not being a deer, or at least never having been invited to lunch by a deer.
Then, we loaded in 1,020 pounds of whatever mineral these flat paving stones are, and, as always, I’m amazed how little room a full ton of rocks takes up in the bed of a truck:
This was actually a bit over a ton, about 2,100 pounds or so, and it never seems to take up as much room as you’d expect. But rocks are dense! Dense and heavy. I think if I filled ip that whole bed with similar rocks and gravel, it would weigh about 6,000 pounds or so? Three tons? Something like that.
On the drive back I could definitely feel the weight back there; the way it handled felt more like driving my old Beetle than the truck normally does, as I think the weight bias had migrated very rearward. The old F-150 handled it great, though, accelerating not really all that worse than when empty, and stopping just fine, though I was a lot more careful with how much room I accounted for when slowing down.
I realize that nothing that I did here is a big deal. I got a truck that had been sitting a bit started, and then took it to a place, and then had a ton of rock dumped into it, and took it back. That’s it! An errand, basically, if a heavy one. And yet it felt great to do it, in some peculiar and basic way, the joy that comes from using a tool in the way it was intended. It’s really not all that different than using an X-acto knife to make a really straight cut in a piece of mat board, or the way it feels when you draw just the right line with a really nice Rapidograph pen, or lay a nice bead while welding.
I promised the Marshal that I’d be better about driving it more regularly, and not letting it sit for months. I hope I keep that promise. Though a perverse part of me does kind of wish I saw 1,000 pounds of gravel in the back of that Model Y.
Why Society Has Deemed A Crappy Truck Cooler Than A Crappy Car
My Extremely Reliable 1989 Ford F-150 Had Another Problem And It Involves Broken Teeth
The Marshal To The Rescue: Cold Start
A truck with worn paint and battle scars isn’t embarassing, as you stated, it means people are doing things with it. In my opinion, it’s PREFERRED. I don’t want a truck with nice paint. I want a sunburned one from new mexico, where I don’t have to give a single care about the paint, dents, chips, etc. It’s a tool. I am going to be selling a lot of cars next year, but I will likely be purchasing a beat up old truck to use on my off grid land, and to haul materials. It is going to be awesome shopping in a state that doesn’t know what rust is.
Nice that you helped the neighbor- rocks could be hauled by the Tesla, but that would mess up the interior. Heck, how would you get them in there? Shovels on to a tarp? No way. Truck is so useful for everything. I’ve done remodels to the house, built my new garage, dump runs, moving furniture, towing my car to the track, all good truck stuff. Most useful vehicle ever. Way back I’d haul stuff inside my Durango with tarp but always got gross.. truck bed can be hosed out. Anybody with a house and adequate parking should have bare minimum even have a used truck like the Marshall because it’s so handy.
Does the Model Y even have tow hitch ability? Amazing number of EVs do not, both for practical reasons of batteries taking all the space a tow hitch structure would go, and legal — if you a close to the 3.5 tonne limit which separates a car permit from needing an heavy vehicle one, a trailer is not feasible.
And although you did not drive over the weigh bridge, usually one scoop in a quarry of sand or gravel is one tonne. Cops occasionally make a fortune ticketing overweight cars / trailers near building yards where I live.
Now I want to see a Model Y with a half ton of loose gravel in the back. For science.
An engine will tend to stop in certain places, A 4 cylinder for example will show much greater wear on 2 points of the ring gear as they tend to stop as a cylinder is compressing. Same with any engine, I guess for a V8 it will be 4 points of increased wear. So the odds of hitting the worn or broken part are higher than you think if you account for that. It used to be that you would remove the ring gear and rotate it a bit to get more life out of them.
EDIT: Looks like Campfire beat me to it…
My 1952 John Deere tractor has a big honkin’ 5.3L 2 cylinder and is missing a couple of teeth on the flywheel. It feels like every 4th or 5th start I have to open the decompressor valves and slowly roll the engine forward to get it to go. This summer, I plan to remove the roughly 150 lb flywheel and put on a new ring gear. Just gotta convince my wife to let me use the oven to heat up the new gear.
Just tell her you’re baking a gigantic cookie for the Deere of your life.
Did they still have the big external flywheel and belt pulley in 1952?
I got to be pretty good at starting ours by grabbing hold of the flywheel and spinning it.
Well there was a lot of adjusting the spark, a squirt of ether and other futzing involved.
The last few years of production, they were pretty much all electric start so the flywheel was covered. Apparently, you could pop open an access cover, remove the steering wheel and it would slot in the flywheel like a crank. I have never tried it. It does still have the belt pulley and that is what I use to roll the engine forward to get the starter to engage.
I have no real reason to keep that tractor but I LOVE the noise that engine makes putting along.
Oh right, one of ours was like that. Almost normal.
I miss ours. A PTO powered generator, and a PTO powered sump pump are handy in various rural emergencies.
This and the comments got me to thinking of a job I had in S Carolina. We had a box truck based on a F150. They loaded based on if it fits it can handle it. When I got there I immediately noticed the leaf springs were bent permanently in the wrong direction. The owners son, Steve, got a great deal on the truck that was maximum weight on the empty box. Add 9 USPS mail carts filled with newspaper the same as a block of wood the same size, and at least 2 tons over weight. Then explain to the idiot who won’t order a new vehicle that can carry the weight that it cost money to rebend the springs and add 5 more too still be over weight.
Well a few questions. Are the missing teeth all together or separated? Do you have a sloped driveway to park in and gravity start it? Did you consider removing the mold/mildew with a chainsaw? But yeah stuck in the hospital is a legit excuse for not running it. Did you get gas money, a case of beer for your help? BTW with a truck a case of beer is legit payment for rental a bottle of wine is not.
Ah, I wish I had a beater truck. I’d have finished so many more household projects because I can just go out and get supplies (like in the winter when you want a warm day for outside work).
Instead I have to plan for a delivery, and then never place the order because I am not 100% sure I can get all the work done on that day next week that I want to do it on.
Guess I just need to wrap around the idea of a 200k+ mile truck being a “good buy”.
Just saw a Comanche show up though, only one picture of course, and not close enough to look at it to see if it actually a David Tracy special underneath the decent looking body.
Comanches are rare and have high street cred. You should check that one out.
I have a Comanche as my truck. Even though it is very nice, I use it for truck stuff all the time. It’s the perfect little truck and can do real truck stuff.
It’s fun doing stuff with it like getting 20 bags of cement or renting a stump grinder. I’ve used mine to haul the better part of 25,000 lbs of metal to the scrap yard.
The only annoyance with it is, it is in really good shape so I am very careful of putting stuff in the bed.
That’s why my truck was struggling with a cubic yard of sand. It’s 2200-2500 lbs. This article finally inspired me to look it up, though I picked up the sand months ago.
Yep. That’ll do it.
Jason, that’s a great way to spend a day. I would suggest borrowing a dog to ride on the bench seat with you. It makes the dog happy, will make Marshal happy and will probably complete that trucky-go-lucky happy feeling in you as well.
No the truck should be Otto Matic
Fun fact: trucks feel much better when they’re doing truck things too. The ride in a 3/4-1 ton truck is garbage when it’s doing passenger and commuter things, but put it to actual work hauling or towing near it’s design capacity and the ride is surprisingly smooth. Cars are meant to be driven, and trucks are meant to be put to work.
True but considering the propensity towards obesity in the USA 4 300 pound guys is 1200 pounds so that would carry a three quarter ton pickup as fully loaded.
Size is not a literal thing. My 1/2 ton was 1,500lbs payload. dad’s 3/4 ton w 1 ton running gear was about the same but older. The aluminum f150 was far higher rated. Rear axle limited payloads, with a “if tires allow” clause. Mine had a max rating at 80psi but was marked as 35psi max as people are stupid.
Indeed! My truck is far nicer and easier to shift when a 3000+ lb trailer is behind it.
Those Ford 300s are one of those engines that are pretty much perfect for the task. Fuel injection seems a little fru-fru though.
When my f100 was loaded down to the bump stops it always felt like “Why doesn’t this feel like this all the time?”
You know that with a manual transmission and a parking place on a hill you don’t even need a starter, right?
Enough planning and you don’t need reverse either.
300 I6s are very reliable. I would NOT be surprised seeing some at 5 million miles…
These I6s are much easier to work on compared to a Coyote 5.0 + will need less maintenance…
What I loved about my F100 was that there was plenty of room for me to stand inside the engine compartment to work on it.
The best part of having a 300 in a Ford F100 is that you can stand inside the engine compartment to work on it.
The head is capable of inflicting serious back injury if you aren’t careful though.
As someone who recently entered the state of pickup ownership for the first time in over 20 years, I feel you. While my lifted 4×4 Ram 50 doesn’t scream “work truck”, that hasn’t stopped me from doing truck stuff with it. I’ve made numerous dump runs as well as hauled a washer-dryer set and a Nissan VG30E.
We’ve also had some pretty nice truck lineups at recent TriangleRAD events. You should join us with the Marshal soon, Torch.
Welcome to truck world. You’re doing it well.
Damn that’s a purty Ram 50 ya got there, I love it.
I have considered bringing my 2000 S10 out to one of your meets. I consider it to be a very nice example and it is a rare color along with having 231k miles on the original clutch. I think people would dig it.
It shall always be true: When you own a pickup, everyone wants to be your friend. You’re a good man, Jason.
I thought everyone wants to be his friend just because he’s Jason Torchinsky.
That just means he gets twice as many friends. Or the the same number but they’re twice as friendly?
A few years ago I had a V10 F250 that I picked up specifically for renovating my house and property. The 8′ bed and nearly-4000lb payload rating was awesome, as I moved about 16 tons of rock in five trips to the quarry. Gutting my house and hauling the refuse to the dump wasn’t quite as convenient as a dumpster, but it was considerably cheaper over the duration of the project. I ended up selling the truck to a hobby farmer who very quickly discovered the glory of hauling anything and everything in that F250.
Yes but why can’t you get a dump bed anymore?
“The gravel looked a lot like Grape-Nuts, and had about as much flavor and perhaps a better mouth feel. And I like Grape-Nuts.”
You should try the special Cat Vomit Grape-Nuts flavor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQmNVyQREPs
JFC! That guy is nuts.
At my old age it has become obvious that when it comes to “crazy” and on the air staff,
weathermen take the cake.
And I honestly don’t know why…but still I have eaten a ton of shit off the floor before.
Thanks for the morning gross out, and laugh.
Five second rule
I am confused. Are grape nuts shaped different than other nuts? I thought it was just the flavor that was different. I learned something new today.
I understand the feeling, taking my F150 to the dump feels more real than taking kayaks to the river. I usually drive it every week or so but once left it parked 6 weeks.
I wonder what the rated payload capacity of Marshal is. And of some of the other vehicles mentioned in the comments. Also, a thousand pounds in a Tesla Y (other than the mess) seems within reason. Think about 4 adults with their luggage going on a trip in one. Not far off.
That would make for a great article! Now days they have the payload and tow rating posted on a sticker on the doorjamb. Back then you had to find the gross vehicle weight rating and subtract the curb weight of the truck to find the payload.
The Marshal can take about 1300-1400lb if well distributed. A half yard of rock, gravel, sand, whatever, is usually 1000lb or a little heavier, maybe 1200lb. A half yard is just right for a half ton pickup.
I own basically the same pickup, that’s how I know.
Thank you! 🙂
“Though a perverse part of me does kind of wish I saw 1,000 pounds of gravel in the back of that Model Y.”
I’ll bet I can tell you what that looks like: probably a lot like the guy I saw at the contractor pickup area at Home Depot one day, loading AN INSANE NUMBER IF CINDER BLOCKS into the back of it. Seats collapsed, rear cargo are wide open, and being slowly filled – and I mean, filled – with block, from wheel well to wheel well, floor to ceiling, rear hatch sill to front seat backs. I was parked behind him waiting for my material to be brought out, and I could see the rear wheels slowly “stancing” themselves; they were about 15° off center when I pulled away.
I don’t remember why I had to leave right away, but I wished I could have witnessed the guy pulling away with this, uh, payload. I’m guessing the first traffic signal or stop sign was quite an adventure – if the thing would even move under its own power by the time he was fully loaded. Hell, maybe the driver himself was already “fully loaded” when he got there.
Most likely a female driver. Much like chocolate chip cookies if it isn’t a full cookie the calories discount. So gravel or chipped block the weight doesn’t count.
I empathize a lot with this.
Despite having my van for ~60,000 miles, I’m lucky if even 8,000 of those were spent with more than an average car’s load of people and/or cargo in it.
Felt good driving to band gigs or DJ gigs with equipment jamming the back, or to an amusement park or vacation destination with friends and cargo.
Was a big part of my mixed feelings about it.
When I built my camper van, I purposely built all the furniture modularly, securing it via L-track that I bolted in. So I usually drive with the camper setup, but I can have it gutted and completely empty in 30 minutes, ready for real van duty.
Don’t worry I offset it with my box truck drove it for 10 years with over a ton it it every mile of it at 1,500 miles a week.
From experience it’s going to always suck brake side. Rear abs is nice but largely amounts to meaningless thanks to drums and self energizing of such. I did lock them up once, but the tires could vote by that time they were so old.
The summer after moving into our house (2019 I think?) I set to work building a shed for my addictions (IH Cub Cadets and mini bikes). It’s a 16 x 20 built on railroad ties I bought from Menards. In one trip I got nine ties and the roof tin was put on top of them. I did not realize until I tried to pick one up how HEAVY railroad ties are! I figure there was 2000+ lbs in the bed. My 2010 1/2 ton Chevy was on the bump stops the whole 30 minute ride home, but it did it! Still driving that truck to this day
Std treated tie is roughly 225 lb, you are spot on.
If you have a driveway that slopes downhill and a granny first, you probably don’t really need a starter, let alone flywheel teeth. I had an old car which had a battery drain somewhere and I just made sure to reverse it onto the drive so I could bump start it. Left it like that for a good six months or so.
Most of my cars/trucks/vans in high school were started this way.
Even in my late 20’s, and married, it was the same.
My sister had a 1960 Ford Falcon with an auto trans.
If memory serves we could push start that piece of fecal matter as well.
As a result I got in the habit of parking in the garage, and parking lots backwards, so in case I ever needed a jump the battery was easily accessible by the donor vehicle when a boost jump was needed.
In a lot of ways I miss being young and broke.
BTW, being old and broke kinda sucks a lot…YMMV of course.
The death of the manual trans is a pain in the ass for lots of reasons.
When I was around 16, I got a summer job working for a local bricklayer as a laborer. One of my jobs was to go to the local yard and get sand to mix mortar. I took his brand new 1979 Ford F150 to the yard and they loaded it up. The loader operator looked at the back of the truck and said, “That’s enough for that truck, kid”. So, I drove back to the jobsite and started to unload the truck.
My boss saw how much sand was in the truck and blew a gasket, claiming I was lazy and didn’t get a full load of sand so that I could make more trips. In the colorful Quebecois vernacular, he accused me of “***king the dog.”
The next day, I had to go back for more sand and I had them load that truck right up to the top of the box. They guys at the yard didn’t want to, but I insisted. When I left the yard, I could barely keep that truck on the road and I got a nasty surprise at the first light when I almost didn’t stop; but I made it back.
That truck was never the same after that, I’m pretty sure I bent something but at least my boss stopped yelling at me.
Sounds like he was determined to blow a gasket one way or another.
That is how you fix stupid
Great that the horse is being exercised.
I’d have some concern about a few things, here. One, you will likely keep knocking off more teeth from the flywheel, whenever the starter tries to just barely catch either tooth just behind or just ahead of the gap. And, it will damage the pinion on the new starter. I have had this happen in non-automotive applications, and probably your gap started with a single tooth breaking and then grew. Also, the flywheel is now out of balance, which NVH aside, is bad for any bearings — though it may be inconsequential in comparison to other loads present.