Cummins swap time! (1 Viewer)

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Much easier to modify without the engine in there. Another route to go, and more complex than the standard chop, bend and add a spacer approach is to make a removable cross member. This enables you to drop the oil pan without having to pull the motor. If you’re interested in that approach you can see how mine is setup in the Dirty Koala build thread in my signature.

I'll definitely have to check that out! I like the idea of a removable crossmember. I've been slowly going thru your thread during my build, and have been grateful for a lot of the info there. its helped me out quite a bit. a big thing I noticed is we have the same transmission, and everyone else seems to have the newer style with the two piece shifter. I thought for quite a while (until I saw your thread) that I was going to have to change that.
 
Maybe not on your radar but now would be an excellent time to fire that welder back up and plate steering box and panhard side of the frame where the rhd’s are notorious to crack.
 
Maybe not on your radar but now would be an excellent time to fire that welder back up and plate steering box and panhard side of the frame where the rhd’s are notorious to crack.

I did not know that was a thing! I need to pick up some plate steel anyhow for a few other projects, so I suppose I should add that to the list lol. Might as well do it now before I'm forced to do it. Any idea why the RHD's do it?
 
No idea! Just something I noticed and it seems like the aussies run in to it a lot but US trucks there’s hardly a mention. I have a cad profile I made and would be happy to cut a pair out for you and ship them your way since you’re just down the road in Portland if I recall.

I did not know that was a thing! I need to pick up some plate steel anyhow for a few other projects, so I suppose I should add that to the list lol. Might as well do it now before I'm forced to do it. Any idea why the RHD's do it?
 
No idea! Just something I noticed and it seems like the aussies run in to it a lot but US trucks there’s hardly a mention. I have a cad profile I made and would be happy to cut a pair out for you and ship them your way since you’re just down the road in Portland if I recall.

Well that certainly takes the hard work out of it lol. Mind sending me some photos and such? Those might change my plans for how to rebuild the crossbar.
 
I'll definitely have to check that out! I like the idea of a removable crossmember. I've been slowly going thru your thread during my build, and have been grateful for a lot of the info there. its helped me out quite a bit. a big thing I noticed is we have the same transmission, and everyone else seems to have the newer style with the two piece shifter. I thought for quite a while (until I saw your thread) that I was going to have to change that.
I did not know that was a thing! I need to pick up some plate steel anyhow for a few other projects, so I suppose I should add that to the list lol. Might as well do it now before I'm forced to do it. Any idea why the RHD's do it?
It’s not just RHD trucks, LHD trucks do it too, more than likely it has to do with the average 80 driver in Oz loads them down super heavy and abuses the heck out of them. Take a look at how my steering box and panhard mount have been reinforced...I can tell you this, when that panhard mount rips off the chassis at 70+ mph it’s quite the experience. Think of what it’s like to have never ridden a horse, but then being thrown onto the back of a PBR professional rodeo bull...you have zero control and just have to hold on and hope your don’t die.
 
It’s not just RHD trucks, LHD trucks do it too, more than likely it has to do with the average 80 driver in Oz loads them down super heavy and abuses the heck out of them. Take a look at how my steering box and panhard mount have been reinforced...I can tell you this, when that panhard mount rips off the chassis at 70+ mph it’s quite the experience. Think of what it’s like to have never ridden a horse, but then being thrown onto the back of a PBR professional rodeo bull...you have zero control and just have to hold on and hope your don’t die.


Well s***, I'm learning a whole lot about it today lol! I guess I ought to do some beefing up before I get much further.

Your brace upgrade is quite intricate! That's much nicer than how I imagined a removable one would be. I was thinking about welding a small triangular plate to each end putting three bolts thru it while making a bracket off the passenger side to drop it down.
 
Well s***, I'm learning a whole lot about it today lol! I guess I ought to do some beefing up before I get much further.

Your brace upgrade is quite intricate! That's much nicer than how I imagined a removable one would be. I was thinking about welding a small triangular plate to each end putting three bolts thru it while making a bracket off the passenger side to drop it down.
Yes, @bryson did a really nice job fabbing up that brace and beefing up the chassis with custom fish plates. We just pulled the motor back out, and having that brace removed made getting the motor out a lot easier than with it still in the truck.
 
Yes, @bryson did a really nice job fabbing up that brace and beefing up the chassis with custom fish plates. We just pulled the motor back out, and having that brace removed made getting the motor out a lot easier than with it still in the truck.

Does he want to come out and do mine? It looks really Nice! Lol.
 
Couldn't find the metal I wanted but I managed to find some decent 1" x 2" rectangular "tubing" with adequate thickness for the brace and did a few practice runs on two small pieces I cut off of it. hopefully the smoke from the fires stays low this week and I can clean up the frame and get it welded in! If all goes as planned that will get done and I'll drop the cummins back in and ideally start working on wiring and stuff.

No progress on transmission or transfer case, wish I could say otherwise! The fires here put a slight damper on that. I hope everyone is safe and we get them under control. I'll probably order the overdrive gear for the x-fer case here soon and pull it apart. I think I'll attempt that one while the NV4500 is at the shop getting everything put in. I really want to do it myself but I'm not tooled for larger things like that. in fact I might not even be properly tooled for the transfer case! lol.
 
While I still really do want a removable brace, for the time being this will get the job done. I cleaned the areas up, removed as much of the old metal as I could, and made a new brace. I.....got a little into it and kind of boxed it. It was more of a learning exercise the further I got into it. Originally wasn't going to close the ends on it but I had the metal and wanted to go for "fancy".

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Then I welded it into the cruiser. At the start I was just going to tack it in and let my coworker do the rest, as he is a much better welder than I am. But hey, I won't get better that way. So I continued to weld it in the rest of the way! I'm fairly please with the results. I can jump up and down on it and it held, so I must be getting better!

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Bought a new hoist today. Been borrowing my co-workers but I figure I should have my own. Attempted to stuff it in today, but I need a load leveler. So it's just kind of sitting in there at the moment, lol. Gravel sucks so hard.

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There is no way your are going to move that over gravel unless you mod the houst with some massive casters....it’s hard enough to move on flat concrete.
 
I got the left and right lined up and have just been shoving the truck in and out. Good workout!
Oh boy, thats definately one way...a very hard way to do it, but whatever works.
 
While I wait for my NV4500 kit to arrive (presumably whenever the fires are under control and Joey can ship stuff again if the kits have even arrived to him) I figured I should tackle my transfer case. Upon some light research, It doesn't really seem like there's much choice other than a full bearing kit for a "rebuild". Being that I am only doing the overdrive gear and not rebuilding for leaks / failures, I'm having a hard time grasping if I should do a full rebuild or just slap the gears in.

How do HF2a's hold up over time? are they common to never be rebuilt? I assume due to how clean the underside of my rig is and how the transfer case looks that it's had a relatively calm lifestyle in japan.
 
While I wait for my NV4500 kit to arrive (presumably whenever the fires are under control and Joey can ship stuff again if the kits have even arrived to him) I figured I should tackle my transfer case. Upon some light research, It doesn't really seem like there's much choice other than a full bearing kit for a "rebuild". Being that I am only doing the overdrive gear and not rebuilding for leaks / failures, I'm having a hard time grasping if I should do a full rebuild or just slap the gears in.

How do HF2a's hold up over time? are they common to never be rebuilt? I assume due to how clean the underside of my rig is and how the transfer case looks that it's had a relatively calm lifestyle in japan.
Many people have just slapped the gears in, many take the wait and see approach and replace anything that looks questionable once in there. Others just get the whole rebuild kit and go through it completely. I have two cases I need to put gears in over the next few months, I am in the camp of do it right the first time around. @cruiseroutfit is your best source for rebuild kits and parts.
 

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