Builds Family haulin' (2 Viewers)

[Pacer]

On to the AC project.

I had been worried about installing my AC because of the added heat that would get into the cooling row with the condenser up front. On trips up the mountains with a trailer running the factory FJ60 radiator it has gotten hot (like 230F+ pulling a trailer in summer). To try and relieve some of the heat I decided to relocate my transmission coolers.

Did a bunch of reading and found where others had put their cooler and decided to put mine in the rear with its own fan. In a junkyard visit I found some other transmission coolers to play with so I picked up some more transmission fluid line, a new fan, and a temperature switch to start the project.

When I first set up my system I ran a coolant heat exchanger cooler (no cooler located in the factory FJ60 radiator) from a dodge. I later added a regular cooler in front of my intercooler and had the fluid going to the heat exchanger cooler, to my new regular cooler, then back to the transmission. I put a valve in the coolant line and cut coolant supply to the heat exchanger cooler and kept the valve shut most of the time. Transmission temps stayed in the 160F range on the highway and ran about 195F offroad. For the relocation I decided to pull out the heat exchanger cooler from the my system and run two regular coolers.

I had to remember how I had the exchanger mounted and cursed my logic at the time. Didn't have another hand so I had to get creative on keeping the wrench in place while I loosened the nut from the other side of the firewall.

Figured out how I'd stack the coolers and fabbed up some mounts.

I'm using a 10" Maradyne fan (same brand as my radiator fans). Then I bolted it all together. Both coolers are bar and fin style which are better at cooling than the tube in fin style.

I decided to run them in parallel to reduce the fluid restriction. I also decided to run two because I had seen an increase in transmission temps when the outside temperature began warming up after putting on the 40's. I couldn't run below 195F on the freeway TC locked so I figured I needed more cooling potential.

I mounted these under the rear above the rear axle off of the old shock tube on the passenger side. I had the fan pulling through the stack from an air pocket above and exhausting down to open air. I thought it was better to not have the heated air directed at the floor board to heat up the rear of the cab. I wired in a temperature switch in the fluid line to be on at 180F so the operation would be automatic. With the transmission coolers relocated I could now start on the AC stuff.

This is exactly how the Fuso truck I started with was set up.
Intercooler and Radiator stacked up front.

Then it had AC condenser with a fan on the passenger side frame rail, behind the front wheel and Trans cooler with a thermostat and a fan on the driver side.
These would be really good OEM quality units to consider in the future. They are super robust and have stone guards built in.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Mike, have you had your truck on a dyno?

The power stroke diesel guys say that the ve produces something like 230cc (not HP, typo before, sorry) best case scenario, but that seems low to me. Decent tech in this video, check it out.

 

[Hojack]

Mike, have you had your truck on a dyno?

The power stroke diesel guys say that the ve produces something like 230hp best case scenario, but that seems low to me. Decent tech in this video, check it out.

Good 4BT info. This just makes me so much more curious to drive mine when done. Feels good fitting my the stepvan intercooler in mine. When I drove the stepvan it had plenty of getup and go at 12,000 pounds. My 60 was 4500 pounds with the 2F. With the diesel and SOA swap it’ll prolly be 5500-6000 pounds.
Mike have you driven yours across the scales in Clackamas on HWY 212?

 

[boots4]

@GLTHFJ60, I have not put it on the dyno, someday. It's neat that he put a video up about the 4BT but it seems like he made it after a long day. Not all VE pumps are the same. In playing with just two injection pump configs I saw different fueling capabilities so maybe PDD is testing one that is more limited even with their mods "within reason". I haven't posted this yet but I took my IP in and got it tested for some troubleshooting. I was told it put out great, that he wound it up and at 3000 rpm it hadn't started defueling yet which he appeared suprised and impressed with. I've read other internet claims that 500hp on a 6bt was about the max on the VE pumps so at the 2/3rds rule that's over 300hp for a 4bt. He only shared uncorrected numbers. If taking his word that it's a 20% loss than 177hp corrected is 212hp for what it seemed like as a clean tune (owner didn't want it smoky). Also as he stated the intercooler was pretty small and I saw that he was only running a single turbo which he didn't share what it was. He didn't stay what gearing was in the differential. And I always thought you did a dyno pull in a 1:1 ratio on your tranny and he did a 5th gear/over drive pull. Don't know what timing he was running and what kind of fuel pin or what the health of the engine was. So overall it seems like a lot of variables that we don't know. We all know the 4bt won't make the power that a 6bt will and he seemed disappointed by that instead of working with it. Those are my thoughts.

@Hojack, I have hit the scales and I'm at about 6000 lbs. ALL of my drive train is heavier than stock. I'd suspect about 5500 lbs for yours.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Peak power is directly related the amount of fuel flow the VE pump can produce, and he cited a 230cc max flow rate, which dictates your maximum power potential (regardless of other factors). When you had your pump tested, did they measure the flow rate?

 

[J Mack]

I saw that he was only running a single turbo which he didn't share what it was

I’m assuming he installed the only turbo he sells for a 4BT a Garrett GT2860RS.



Garrett GT2860RS "Disco Potato" Turbocharger for 4BT Cummins - Power Driven Diesel



I was looking at this turbo in 2016 and I believe it has the potential to make good power as a single.

I posted some maps here. HX30 Super Compressor Map Guesstimation. - Page 3

 

[boots4]

Long story, busy shop but I remember him saying it was doing 70-80 cc off idle but didn't get the max flow.

 

[J Mack]

Long story, busy shop but I remember him saying it was doing 70-80 cc off idle but didn't get the max flow.

Max fuel flow would need to be around 178 cc/1000 shot for 300 HP @sea-level , I believe that's quite a bit for a VE pump and considering power driven diesel is located in Cedar City, Utah and they are at 5,846' elevation not sure 300 HP is reality with a 4BT/ VE pump on their dyno without some heavy pump mods.

 

[Jason Andrews]

Max fuel flow would need to be around 178 cc/1000 shot for 300 HP @sea-level , I believe that's quite a bit for a VE pump and considering power driven diesel is located in Cedar City, Utah and they are at 5,846' elevation not sure 300 HP is reality with a 4BT/ VE pump on their dyno without some heavy pump mods.

That is quite a bit of fuel for a VE. It would definitely take some major pump mods to hit 300HP at elevation, but I know it's possible. I'm hoping to have some dyno numbers from mine soon. My VE has been heavily modified to ~200cc and I have 5x.014 injectors so it will throw fuel if I turn it up. I was told by the builder it should be able to make 250-275HP at that rate.

The intricacies of the VE internals are many and there are a few wizards that know what they are doing with them. IMO P-pumps aren't all that. Without the dynamic timing advance capabilities the p-pumps just don't have the same tuning abilities as a VE and end up running very dirty on the bottom end until the turbo lights....unless they aren't turned up or the user has compound turbos.

I think the VE is capable of producing 230cc shots, but I don't think that is equivalent to only 230HP. Not sure what to think of PDD's opinion.

 

[boots4]

With the tranny coolers moved I started on my AC install. I got all my all parts out to figure out what I could reuse and what I needed to change/adapt.

I planned to reuse my condenser, evaporator, and whatever hoses I could. I did assume these components would still hold pressure. I replaced the drier, all the o-rings, pressure switch, expansion valve, and the compressor (think I got all that minus the compressor from RockAuto).

I wanted to stick it in my existing belt system and there are a couple of options for that. After a bunch of research and being cheap I found a thread on 4btswaps that had a DIY bracket with measurements I could replicate here: Custom AC compressor Bracket

So I made my own. It was awesome to have those measurements all predetermined so that the spacing was right for the pulley's to line up.

This bracket dictated what compressor I could use and I picked up a Sanden 7320 with an 8 groove pulley. I found a UAC brand knock off for a great price on Ebay and bought it. They list it as a "CO 7320C".

I pulled the evaporator from under the dash. cleaned it up and replaced the pressure switch and expansion valve. I did those since I didn't want to take it out later plus they weren't expensive to replace and I was replacing the o-rings in there anyways.

Then I started playing with placement to see where things would fit. This gave me an idea of what length hoses I was going to need and what other things I need to modify.

Getting it as tight as possible I then started on the bracing to support the alternator. All I did was rotate the alternator down on the block side pivot to keep it lined up. You can kind of get the idea of how I routed the belt on version 1. I wanted more wrap but had the lower coolant inlet that got in the way of belt routing so I though I'd try this route first (fast forward note: it did slip badly at times and I did change the routing for more wrap).

Installed the condenser out front. I made a mount for the drier right off my battery tray mount that sits in front of the alternator. Hose routing was tight but I found places for them to go. The hoses ended up being the most expensive part of the build. These are supposed to be some fancy new hose connections that are reusable if I wanted to change the hose length.

So the easy part was done. Now I needed to figure out how to charge it and how to turn it on.

For the charge part I have a neighbor who was an auto mechanic who I talked to before I started the project. He'd done plenty of recharges and acted like it was no big deal so I got standard R134 refrigerant for the cheapest I could find (he didn't see the need for all those special additives, didn't make a difference in his opinion), got his dials and we got ready to charge the system. I asked about having to vacuum it out but he said we could trigger the compressor clutch to engage while the engine was running and charge it up. I was a little skeptical but sure enough we feed 12V to the compressor clutch (the single red wire you see coming off the compressor in pics above) to get it spinning with the engine and at the same time threw in about two cans of refrigerant into the system. For numbers sake here's the research I found.

My rig is a 1985 FJ60. The R-12 refrigerant capacity per the service manual is 1.4 Lb to 1.7 lb of normal R12 plus .9 LB to that. That = 2.6 Lbs total or 46.1 oz. General rule of thumb is charge R134 to 80% of R12 capacity. Using info above of 46.1 that means fill with 36.88 oz of R134. ​

I only used about 28 oz and my system was full. If I remember correctly I used about 6 oz of PAG 46 oil in the system for lubrication.

With the compressor going and as the system was filling I started to feel the condenser up front get warm. It was pretty quick and neat to see it working. No leaks! I tested vent temps with a digital thermometer held in front of the vent and got 42F. My neighbor was happy with that so my system was now charged. Onto the second challenge, how to get it to turn on.

I know I'd need to deal with the AC amplifier on the front of the evap box under the dash. I read up about it here: The A/C Amp Thread
I wanted to remove the rpm cut out function but keep the thermister functional so it would cycle the compressor and not freeze up the system. I removed the resistor as stated in that thread from the circuit board and hooked it back up. I then tracked down the switched wire for the AC under the hood and connected it to my new compressor. Turned on the AC button but no go, it would not activate the compressor. After several directions of troubleshooting I tracked down no power getting to the AC button itself. On a time crunch I bypassed the AC switch and ran a manually switched wire to the power in of the AC amplifier and AC now works. I'll need to come back and trace that power back further to figure out why the AC switch doesn't get power. I suspect some relay's behind the fuse box area.

All of this because we were planning to head down to California for a family visit again. Earlier in the year (2018) at spring my wife's father passed away from cancer, her last parent alive. We flew her down there the week before he passed and she was able to spend some time with him and her siblings to essentially say goodbye. Two weeks later we all went down for the funeral during spring break. After the funeral we made a plan to come back in the summer to go through some of the estate once things had settled down and that was the trip I was now preparing for. I knew I'd be towing the trailer down and back but the trip didn't go quite like I wanted with Dora. I'll have to break the report out in another post.

 

[boots4]

Trip report.

I got things done a week before the trip so I had a couple of driving days to see how it worked. First off, having AC functional again in Dora changed the whole dynamic driving in summer. I love it and now looked forward to expedition trips during the summer months. Feels like a piece of luxury in a raw truck.

But... temps became a problem. The tranny temp was running hotter than before, engine temp was up and EGTs went up with the intercooler not being in front.

In the past pre AC and pre cooler move I saw tranny temps of 150-160F on the highway and usually 190-195F offroad. Rarely if ever did I see it go above 200F. With the tranny coolers double-stacked, moved to the rear, and under their own fan I started seeing 185F-205F as the new norm. This was disappointing because I thought the change might actually cool too much and I was seeing the opposite. I bypassed the thermo switch for a manual switch but leaving the fan on the whole time didn't change anything. I did expect and see an increase due to the 40s and 4.10 gearing but that averaged at 180F-185F before the change. With summer temps setting in it made me a bit nervous for our towing trip.

Hit the road with an empty trailer and used AC for about the first 20 minutes on the freeway when engine and tranny temps just weren't coming down. We found a slower speed that kept engine and tranny temps around 210F. Going faster increased both and running the AC increased the engine temps. Once we hit the hills and mountain passes it go worse. As long as I could keep the tranny torque converter locked I'd stay in the 220F range but then engine temps would rise. Downshift to get some rpms and then tranny temps would rise. We ended up driving through our stop in Medford to finish in the cooler temps of the night. We did stop a couple times to let things cool down and stretch our legs and made it to our destination without additional drama and only temperature paranoia. Didn't instill much confidence knowing that we'd be towing a bunch more weight on our way back.

Down there I ended up flushing the tranny fluid due to the high temps we saw and I threw in some Lucas additive to offer some additional protection/temp capacity. We enjoyed lots of swimming and summer time laziness spending time with both sides. We then headed out to her Father's property as planned which is out passed Oroville CA. It's hilly and hot and we took the back roads so we could go slower and keep the temps down.

My wife's father had a bunch of tools that most of the siblings didn't want or know how to use so I was able to acquire some great items that will get a second chance at being useful, something her dad would have been happy with. It was a good experience and those who did want certain things to remember him or use all felt happy.

I ended up doubling my tool box and focused on the specialty stuff that the others didn't need. Some things that came home with us were:

Table saw

Belt sander that I've used several time now. This is pretty handy.

Bigger older bench grinder which I still haven't set up yet.

Then a nice bigger toolbox, a whole mess of hand tools and other miscellaneous stuff. I've organized most of it but still have a little left to go. My shop has been needing an overhaul and clean out... someday.

So we loaded it all up and decided to leave at 3am in the morning to drive the mountain section during the cooler hours. To my surprise we weren't the slowest thing on the road and we were able to keep temps in the range we saw coming down with an empty trailer. Max temps we saw or didn't go above were a short spike to 240F engine and 240F tranny. These were at the top of a pull and came down after cresting the hill. This engine can sure take some abuse.

After the trip, new research and plans were put into motion to cram in a bigger radiator and move the tranny coolers to someplace up front. One big reason being that we were headed back to CA the following month to hit the Dusy Ershim trail with @Cruiserdrew and the gang.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

AC is on my short list. Hoping I don't have temp issues after installing it like you have!! Keep the updates coming.

 

[J Mack]

I've fought similar issues and decided to go back to a large mechanical fan.
Good luck I hope you find the setup that lets us run AC in the summer without over heating the 4BT

 

[boots4]

The bigger radiator did made a good difference but it wasn't easy to cram in there. More on that to come.

 

[Jason Andrews]

What about moving the AC condenser to the rear so it doesn't dump hot air into the cooling system? Or an electric instead of belt driven compressor like this?

 

[boots4]

What about moving the AC condenser to the rear so it doesn't dump hot air into the cooling system? Or an electric instead of belt driven compressor like this?

"we give you da best prices" haha

If I wasn't passed that point now that would be a great idea. Wonder what the load is if it's all electric? You'd have another set of fans and then the compressor to run.

 

[cruisermatt]

Mike, have you ever had issues of the bolts in your 203/splitcase adapter coming loose?

 

[boots4]

Not the 203 to Splitcase part but the transmission to the 203 connection did loosen on me once. I saw transmission fluid starting to leak off of that union. When I take the transmission out I pull the 203/splitcase combo from the transmission and then I can drop the tranny from the engine. So I could have not gotten that tight enough one time. Maybe I forgot to lock tight them that time.

 

[boots4]

Researching, buying, building, all in one month. The plan was to increase the radiator size and move the tranny coolers somewhere up front. The stock radiator did well with the stock to mildly increased 4bt. But now with the amount of boost my intercooler was dealing with trying to shed that heat, then plus the time AC will get used I would need a bigger more efficient radiator to handle it.

Got out my tape measure and visualizing cap to get some dimensions to see how big I could go on a radiator and what it might take to cram it in.

Factory FJ60 radiator core size is ~ 15-3/4 x 24 which equals about 380 sq. inch. of surface cooling area. After my research I choose the AFCO 80126N Double Pass Racing Radiator from Speedway that I found on their Ebay store for the best price. It has a core of ~18.5" x 27.38" which gives me 506 sq inch of surface area. Plus it's a double pass radiator which is said to increase cooling capacity 5-10% compared to an equivalently sized single pass. There were bigger options in my research but I wasn't sure I could get those in.

The new radiator did not have a tranny cooler built in (which I'm fine with) nor did it have a drain spout. Knowing how many times I've drained my radiator in the past this was a necessity for me, so I installed my own. This location for me worked best.

I decided to keep my intercooler top mounting the same and attach the radiator to the back side like I did with the factory FJ60 radiator. Here I'm trying to find some kind of weatherstripping to seal between the two to keep the air flowing through the stack.

I made simple mounts for the top and bottom to attach the radiator to my intercooler. The bottom mounts would be lined to cradle the lower part of the new radiator.

The new lower mount for the intercooler and radiator is welded right on the center section. At this point I was pretty short on time so I didn't care to clean up the welds.

I ended up offsetting the radiator to the driver side. I needed to adjust the battery position on that side to allow space so I bashed in the wheel well a bunch more and modified my battery tray.

And then I still needed to cut the corner out of my passenger side battery tray to get that tiny bit more clearance I needed. This is also where I mounted my AC dryer.

The top mounts work like this.

The new radiator's inlet and outlet are on the same side which made that easier on hose routing. The issue I had with the lower engine side inlet is that it was in the way of a better belt routing to get more wrap on the pulley's. So I modified the lower inlet to get clearance and make it a straight shot to the radiator. I apologize for the phallic nature of the design but it was the shape I needed and only looked that way after it was installed. I cut off and patched my previous inlet. Drilled a new hole 2" through the outside of the inlet and welded in a new piece. I sealed it all up with JBweld like I did on my last modification to this part.

This now allowed me to route the belt like this to get much better wrap on the compressor and alternator pulley's. You can see where the old inlet was right in the path the belt wanted to be. It took a few more tries on belt length but I finally found one that would fit although it's just a little snug. The gates number on the belt is K080820 for 8 groove, 82 inch.

The radiator still fit under my intercooler tubing and I did end up spacing the intercooler core support mount up with some 1/4" plates under the top cross piece to get my radiator off the frame gussets that slop up where the radiator was landing. Even with my cutting out some of the edging from the center hole I wanted to get more airflow to the radiator to get the benefit of a larger core size. I cut out holes in the lower support tube to allow air to flow through. I also cut some circle holes on the driver side of the core support since I had offset the radiator to the driver side to allow air to flow there as well.

Overall if I had a different intercooler I could probably go with a slightly taller core. If my batteries were in a different location I could probably go with something even wider. But as it was there was quite a bit of work to get this in there. I reinstalled my Maradyne 12" dual fans since they were still rather new but I would be able to get bigger fans in there now. If I do it right I could get two 16" fans in there or more comfortably a 16" and 14".

Coming up next, As part of this project I also moved the transmission coolers.

 

[mr jits]

Researching, buying, building, all in one month. The plan was to increase the radiator size and move the tranny coolers somewhere up front. The stock radiator did well with the stock to mildly increased 4bt. But now with the amount of boost my intercooler was dealing with trying to shed that heat, then plus the time AC will get used I would need a bigger more efficient radiator to handle it.

Got out my tape measure and visualizing cap to get some dimensions to see how big I could go on a radiator and what it might take to cram it in.

Factory FJ60 radiator core size is ~ 15-3/4 x 24 which equals about 380 sq. inch. of surface cooling area. After my research I choose the AFCO 80126N Double Pass Racing Radiator from Speedway that I found on their Ebay store for the best price. It has a core of ~18.5" x 27.38" which gives me 506 sq inch of surface area. Plus it's a double pass radiator which is said to increase cooling capacity 5-10% compared to an equivalently sized single pass. There were bigger options in my research but I wasn't sure I could get those in.

The new radiator did not have a tranny cooler built in (which I'm fine with) nor did it have a drain spout. Knowing how many times I've drained my radiator in the past this was a necessity for me, so I installed my own. This location for me worked best.

I decided to keep my intercooler top mounting the same and attach the radiator to the back side like I did with the factory FJ60 radiator. Here I'm trying to find some kind of weatherstripping to seal between the two to keep the air flowing through the stack.

I made simple mounts for the top and bottom to attach the radiator to my intercooler. The bottom mounts would be lined to cradle the lower part of the new radiator.

The new lower mount for the intercooler and radiator is welded right on the center section. At this point I was pretty short on time so I didn't care to clean up the welds.

I ended up offsetting the radiator to the driver side. I needed to adjust the battery position on that side to allow space so I bashed in the wheel well a bunch more and modified my battery tray.

And then I still needed to cut the corner out of my passenger side battery tray to get that tiny bit more clearance I needed. This is also where I mounted my AC dryer.

The top mounts work like this.

The new radiator's inlet and outlet are on the same side which made that easier on hose routing. The issue I had with the lower engine side inlet is that it was in the way of a better belt routing to get more wrap on the pulley's. So I modified the lower inlet to get clearance and make it a straight shot to the radiator. I apologize for the phallic nature of the design but it was the shape I needed and only looked that way after it was installed. I cut off and patched my previous inlet. Drilled a new hole 2" through the outside of the inlet and welded in a new piece. I sealed it all up with JBweld like I did on my last modification to this part.

This now allowed me to route the belt like this to get much better wrap on the compressor and alternator pulley's. You can see where the old inlet was right in the path the belt wanted to be. It took a few more tries on belt length but I finally found one that would fit although it's just a little snug. The gates number on the belt is K080820 for 8 groove, 82 inch.

The radiator still fit under my intercooler tubing and I did end up spacing the intercooler core support mount up with some 1/4" plates under the top cross piece to get my radiator off the frame gussets that slop up where the radiator was landing. Even with my cutting out some of the edging from the center hole I wanted to get more airflow to the radiator to get the benefit of a larger core size. I cut out holes in the lower support tube to allow air to flow through. I also cut some circle holes on the driver side of the core support since I had offset the radiator to the driver side to allow air to flow there as well.

Overall if I had a different intercooler I could probably go with a slightly taller core. If my batteries were in a different location I could probably go with something even wider. But as it was there was quite a bit of work to get this in there. I reinstalled my Maradyne 12" dual fans since they were still rather new but I would be able to get bigger fans in there now. If I do it right I could get two 16" fans in there or more comfortably a 16" and 14".

Coming up next, As part of this project I also moved the transmission coolers.

Do you have a fan for your transmission coolers?