Builds 1987 fj60 12h-t h55f conversion (7 Viewers)

roma042987 · Aug 29, 2017

Sunday we took some forest service roads from Wall over to Mount Rushmore and camped at horse thief lake. The forest service road ended up being a bit longer than I had expected and I ran the the rig out of diesel 3 miles from the service station. I've never ran a 12ht out of fuel before and was shocked at how easy it was to restart. I poured the 2.5 gallons in and cracked the bleeder on the fuel filter housing. I pumped the prime pump until I had steady fuel and the rig came to life. No cracking injector lines or anything like that. My wife freaked out when we pulled over to the side of the road and I told her we were out of fuel. She didn't know I had my emergency can.

roma042987 · Aug 29, 2017

roma042987 · Aug 29, 2017

Monday morning we hit the road. We stopped for a great breakfast in Deadwood then got onto the road and crossed into Wyoming. Our goal was to view the eclipse at devils tower and then head into Cody for the night.

roma042987 · Aug 29, 2017

We got off the free way and decided to drive through the black hills and over warren peak and onto a forest service road to get to devils tower.

roma042987 · Aug 29, 2017

roma042987 · Aug 30, 2017

The drive up to warren peak is a long steady climb up to 6500 feet. I was moving up this steep grade at a pretty good speed when about three fourths of the way up I looked down at my gauges and noticed the coolant temp was at about 3/4. Up until this point it had not moved above the 2/3 mark or so after reaching operating temp. I quickly slowed down which let the temp come back down to normal. I checked my fluids at the top of the peak and the coolant reservoir had not fluctuated at all. All belts were good and no coolant leaks. So we proceeded toward devils tower where we watched the eclipse. After the eclipse we got back on the road. The route we were taking had us crossing the big horn mountains which had a good bit of steep climbs. The temp seemed to fluctuate a good bit and I had to turn the ac off and turn on the heat to keep the temps from climbing on the grades. I stopped at Murdoch oil company in Greybull, Wyoming and talked them into letting me use their lift to change the oil in my rig. They were a little apprehensive at first but, when I told them I turned wrenches and had all my own tools and supplies they let me have at it. At that point I was a hundred miles or so shy of 3k miles since I had first dumped the oil at 500 after the rebuild. I also changed the oil filter for the first time.

I made it Cody without any more issues but I was very concerned with the temp fluctuation. I had a day long drive to mentally trouble shoot the issue and since my coolant level had not changed I was pretty certain it was a flow issue. I stopped at a couple local auto parts stores and asked if they had a radiator in stock for a Honda Civic which unfortunately they didn't. I was actually thinking of running my rear heater hoses up to an additional radiator and rigging it up somewhere to keep the coolant temps down so I could continue the trip. The one thing I wanted to check was my coolant filter screen that I had added to the top radiator hose but I didn't want to open it up with the rig hot and loose a bunch of coolant. I decided I'd check it in the morning and figure out a plan of action at that point. We ate dinner that night at Pat O'Hara brewing company and got a fancy room in one of the hotels. I went to bed hoping I would run down stairs in the morning and find a bunch of junk in my coolant filter. Like a kid on Christmas morning the first thing I thought of when I opened my eyes was that filter, I ran down stairs and here is what I found...

roma042987 · Aug 30, 2017

I was extatic to say the least. The radiator hose probably 80% blocked. The piece of clear plastic I believe was actually clear powder coat from where I powdered the thermostat housing inside and out. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Nevertheless I cleaned the screen and we were on our way. We saw these two cool rigs I had to take some pictures of.