SUPER CREW!!!

[oldestof11]

With just the cab and axles, it looks like one of those lingerie mannequins. You can see the stuff that dresses up the really fun bits.

[m880cummins]

Hahahaha!

[PToombs]

Your Cummins "C" is crooked.

[m880cummins]

What? Lol its lined up with the fender line not the door jamb

[PToombs]

Aren't the 2 supposed to be parallel? Maybe it's just angle of the pic, I'm busting on ya anyways!

[m880cummins]

Progress is slow...until tomorrow! I've been flat out of money for the last 6 months and just doing whatever I can do buy parts. Selling my '93 w250 tomorrow and buying a '90 D250 cummins 5 speed for $1500 just to haul my skinny butt around until the crew is done. I may just hold onto the 2wd as a back up. After all, I paid next to nothing for it.

Tore down the knocking 4bt for the rat. Was not a heat related issue from the last start-up. Pistons and cylinders are perfect, all valves and pushrods are ok (even though #1 kissed the valves). The #1 rod bearing roasted from the previous owner's oil pump failure and when we ran it, the rod bolts started coming loose and the rod bearings slid over top of each other for a wicked knock. Luckily, I shut it down before there were pieces flying. Crank will be turned, #1 rod replaced and new bearings for the bottom end. Also, doing ARP rod bolts for peace-of-mind. No camshaft damage, lifter damage or head damage. The only damaged journal was #1 rod. Mains all looked good.











Moved on to my Crew cab again. Pulled off the pitman arm, plugged the ports, sandblasted the box, disassembled completely, cleaned and installed new seals. Also painted all parts the proper color tones of bare metal for OEM look. Then, I made a stainless bracket for the wilwood proportioning valve which I then mounted to the hydroboost I rebuilt last week in my kitchen (LOL). Started running brake lines up around the firewall, installed steering column body and installed some more dash pieces.







Cleaned up my power steering setup



Then, I had to start aligning doors (pain in the butt doing it by yourself) and rolled it outside to be exposed to sunlight for its first time. This picture is now my phone's screen saver. Love this color every time I look at it.





Valve covers lit up


Got a little off the priority list and filled in the awful rut right where I like to work by the chain hoist.



Epic build team:



So, this week, I am buying:

Cylinder head $200
Trans $500
input shaft $100
Cluster shaft $180
bearings for trans $?
29 spline coupler $?
Weather strip for doors $300
2 S300 hybrid turbos $150

Then, I will trek to the junkyard and pick up 2 more dana 60 front axles for parts and to sell stuff off of and do some trading with some buddies. Hoping everything I sell off the dana axles will pay for the purchases this week.

Getting close. The goal is in 2 weeks, I want to make phone calls for drive shafts and as soon as those are bolted in, I can take it for a ground breaking (literally) drive.

Charlie

[m880cummins]

Picked up an NV4500 4x4 trans with bell and 2 forks for $500!!!!!! Finally, I finally have a chance to drop the drivetrain in the crew! Also sold the club cab and picked up a beater 1st gen getrag 2wd for $1500 out of a field. Drove it home and have been driving it every day! Need to get the inspection done (not since 2006).

So I now need to rebuild the NV4500, buy a clutch and flywheel and then I can drop the drive train in and measure drive shafts out!!! I also picked up a cylinder head and pushrods for $200 to throw on the rebuilt motor.

Ahhhhh

Charlie

[m880cummins]

Worked some on the crew cab and also purchased a new beater truck after I sold my 1993 to pay debts.

I decided to use a 1970s dash wiring harness and wiper harness in the engine bay. The rest will be scratch made. I used all weather pack connections and each circuit group is wrapped individually so I can remove to service/modify if I want. Also, I plan to put 2, 4 circuit ATO fuse blocks on the firewall. One will be IGN ON, the other will be Battery. Battery circuit will run lights, brakes, dome light, etc. The other will run the wipers, gauges, ignition, turn signals and radio. Each circuit was also labeled every 12" after wrapped.







Soldiered all connections and all blade terminals have heat shrink over them to insulate. I will have a large weatherpack bulkhead connector bolted to the firewall.




Replaced ignition switch connectors with weather packs just like everything else. Originals were burnt and melted.





Also, gasket matched the head and started porting the head. This is about as much as I want to port it. All I did was enlarge the valve pockets, smooth the casting, radius the top of the runner a little tighter under the valve seat and run the sanding cylinder for the die grinder down it. It feels much better than how it was and should flow better. I will also gasket match the exhaust manifold. Need to figure out how to do the intake pockets.











Bought this for $1500. Has 250,000 miles and has the cummins/getrag with a D70 4.10 Powerlok. Working on tuning it up (fluids, grease, replaced calipers, gut interior, fix electrical etc. Needs doors but it is rust free except the drip rail. Floors are perfect. Runs great and already turned some screws and ground a pin! I am doing a basic cosmetic redo on it to make it look better. I finished the drivers fender, did the hood last night and will do the other fender soon. I used a DA sander with 80 grit to blow all the burnt paint and rust off, then sanded with 220, primed and painted. Looks good and a close factory match. I want to make it look like a sleeper truck (stock on the outside, upgrades on engine) to blow all the ricers away.







NV4500 is apart, buying bearings, clutch, countershaft and input in the next week.

Charlie

[m880cummins]

Have 90% of interior wiring done. Made my own fuse panel, wired it in and tested circuits with a battery jump box. Every connection is soldiered and heat-shrinked. All connectors are weatherpacks which are soldiered as well. Looks super clean and a nice secure connection. Fuse panel is mounted on cowl under center speaker grille. Then I moved on to other things. Headliner is installed. Made out of a club cab and standard cab joined together with new headlining material. Material is from Jo-Ann fabrics ($15/yard). Felt kinda weird walking into that store as it was filled with women but, I got what I needed. Dome lights are spares from our 1966 Dart Wagon. Ran a strip of aluminum diamond plate down the center to cover the seam. Picked up my seat belts today from a yard. Had to get 2 sets of black seat belts. Also painted the engine and dropped it in for a test fit. Cleaned up the transmission case and ordered all the bearings for it. Should have the engine/trans/transfer case mounted this weekend in the truck. I also scored a wiper motor and wiring harness from the yard so I can now wire that up. Need to order my steering joints tonight so I can build the shaft.







Fuse panel:









Head porting was going great so far. Had #6 exhaust done and unshrouded the valves. THEN, I saw cracks between every valve and injector bore!!!! WTF! I wasted 5 hours on this head!













Whelp, need to buy some stuff tonight for the big weekend. Should have all the door seal kits in as well this weekend.

Charlie

[m880cummins]

Here's what has been going on since last Tuesday.

I dropped the motor in and found my mounts sat the engine about 1.5" too high when I added the motor mount isolators in. Redrilled mounts and now need to reinforce them a little. Nice thing is now the drive shaft angle (sighting in along the oil pan to rear axle) is right where I want it. I'll aim the rear axle pinion down about 3-5* off parallel to allow for U joints to operate smoothly and allow for axle wrap to put it back in line when under power.

Before I redrilled mount brackets. Pretty bad.





Nothing seemed right!



Indulged on parts for trans etc:





Friday night, power went out but I worked for 2 hours then caught some sleep. Hooked up a battery to the truck and had the dome lights on and running lights on while working on door glass. I still need to hook up the other cab lights.



Started on transmission installation:





Cleaned gears and installed new needle bearings. Ordered the wrong frickin' countershaft so I hope I can assemble this thing this weekend.











My chinese marine remote oil plate came in. Pretty impressed by the quality but I could tell they ground off the cummins logo. Gasket surface was flat and threaded holes looked nice. Cost $90. About 1/4 of that from Cummins.



Cleaned up the wiper motor and painted it. Works.



Glass installed. My buddy did a favor of cleaning it after it was installed. Looks really good!









Today, I moved on to the radiator support. Had to finish the mounts and cut holes for the headlight buckets. I used 1960s mopar headlight buckets. They are really nice because the adjusters and mount along with the bucket are all one assembly so you don't have to hack slots for plastic thread nuts and try to relocate the integrated buckets some rad supports have.





Tested them out. Used some new Phillips bulbs off the shelf. They have an almost blue light. Looking at the filament, it is some high tech doo-dad in there.









Brake lines up front are pretty much done:







Still have the goal to have it done (road worthy) for Prom on May 10th.

Charlie

[m880cummins]

Some stuff is coming together...

I ordered tires and wheels today, and picked up another cylinder head...

Trans assembled (still need to torque 5th nut). Then I turned down the coupler to use a seal on the tailhousing.













My buddy loaned me these shocks off his new wrangler he just lifted. They are the perfect length and are the unlimited series shocks (upgraded OEM) I will probably give him some money for them and use them.



Also finished rear interior trim and mounted my sweet MIL spec bulkhead connector.











Charlie

[PToombs]

FYI, that's an Amphenol connector, used on aircraft and all kinds of other stuff. I've been in the factory in southern NY. Pretty cool.

[CumminsPower59]

We just call them cannon plugs in the Army...

[m880cummins]

Says Deutch MADE IN CHINA! Whatever, it is a really high quality piece and the connectors are a piece of machining art as well.

Ordered tires/wheels!




Went down this afternoon and accomplished this in 5 hours.

National 4739 Seal installed to accept my machined coupler. Has a 2" ID



Made a 5th gear nut. Can you ID all of the pieces I used?!?! I had a 6pt axle nut hence the reason for the axle nut I destroyed doing this...





Installed the 5th nut with plenty of locktite...Torqued with a bar and tube til it wouldn't turn anymore. It basically stopped once the cone washer collapsed. Then I applied locktite to set screws and did not use the brass caps they supplied hoping to get a better bite on the shaft. After tightened, I peened them in so I wouldnt have anything floating through the gears and peened 2 sides of the nut into the keyways on the mainshaft. It shouldn't be going anywhere!





Then I installed the transfer case. I gooped up the insides of the coupler with RTV to prevent oil from passing through easily.... There is no room for exhaust inside the frame rails now since they are boxed. That's alright though, I was planning to run outside of the rails. I moved onto making a crossmember. I left it long so I can slide square box inside each end for steps I plant to make someday. The trans mount is a piece of 3/8"angle iron with 2 spacer washers to allow clearance for the tailhousing bolts.









Looks like a good amount of room for the front driveshaft!











Charlie

[m880cummins]

Oh yeah