I recently purchased an 85 E350 (5.8 L 351 CID V8 )Club Wagon from an auction. I am trying to fix it up and have a few questions.
1) on the driver side floor, there is a tubular shape button / Switch? What is that? Pix here
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2) under the access panel, on passenger side. there is some kid of metal tray / box under the manifold, what is that? This metal tray/box is coming from the front of the van where the air cleaner inlet hose is also connected to. The metal tray on my van is pretty rusted and just hangs there. Where does it suppose to be mounted to?
Glad you got a heavy van. I love them, but the engine bay access is not ideal. I've had 3 of that model van myself, plus I've worked on 2 or 3 church vans of the same era. I've moved up to the newest generation of the Club Wagon to haul my wife and 5 kids.
The questions look like they've already been answered. The button near your left foot is the dimmer switch. They used to be down there on all cars and trucks, believe it or not.
The heat shields are not worth fooling with unless they cause a problem.
The valve cover gaskets are indeed leaking. Do you have fuel injection or a carburetor? On the carbureted version it will be much easier to replace those valve cover gaskets than on the FI version, but I've done both.
Lastly, I think you have a PCV valve at the back of the intake manifold. Look to see if you have a round 1.5" hole with a rubber grommet, a metal plug of a thing, and a vacuum hose going to it. If so, pull out the PCV valve and the rubber grommet. under it you'll find a metal screen with a metal mesh under it. Pull the thing out and replace it. Those PCV screens get stopped up and cause all sorts of bad oil leaks on those old 351's and on the 302's.
Thanks for your help with the high beam switch. However, I am not sure if the second item I described is just a heat shield. Especiall it is connected to a hose. Also it is so rusted and fell off the mount. It is just haning in there. Here are more pictures and hope this will clearify a bit
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is the metal tray that is just hang there. on the righ hand side, it's connected to a hose and eventually to a box under the battery)
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bottom hose is connected to the rusted metal tray)
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is another shot of the metal tray from the engine bay)
In regards to the heat shield. this heat spark plug heat shield fell off. It is suppose to bolt on to the manifold bolt. But the bolt is too rusted to be loosen up. Can I just leave the heat shield off ???
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Lastly, there is a crack on the manifold. Instead of replacing it, can I just patch it up for now? What would be a good product? The reason is that I might be selling this van once I get it all fixed up.
Again, you're dealing with a heat shield. The "hose" in question is for the heat riser. It's a system that ducts warmer air from around the exhaust manifolds up to the intake for cold starts. When the engine warms up, a damper changes position to get cooler air.
Since you have a cracked exhaust manifold anyway, the right thing to do would be to replace the exhaust manifold and have the correct heat shield put on at the same time.
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