Builds Family haulin' (3 Viewers)

[Hojack]

Somewhere in here during all my timing tests I had to replace the TDC pin. Not bad, only the second one I've had to replace over the last 12 years.

Odometer turned passed the 300K mark. (Really there's quite a bit more on that due to the tire/gearing differences.) I should be close to 90-100K on this build now. But really, at this point mileage doesn't mean much anymore.

I also played with some new LED headlight bulbs. My old ones still worked fine but the new ones take bulb placement into consideration to help them work better in housings designed for Halogen bulbs. Old on the left, new on the right.

They have cut offs for low beam use.

They are still plug 'n play but there is a box in the line in the new ones.

I did not go high end and sorted through a bunch of mid grade options on Amazon. The new bulbs work much better in the Hella housings I have. The old ones where bright but there was not a great cut off and I had them aimed down pretty good to keep the spread from being too annoying to other drivers. High beam didn't really seem to make a lighting difference. The new bulbs use the housing much better and there is a clear cut off now on low beams. High beams also make a real difference now. Overall they are not quite as bright in low beams but are brighter in high beams. I was able to aim the housings up a little higher now for better light spread. Definitely like the new style much better.

Did you forget to pull the pin out and crank the motor only to realize that after the fact...
Do you have a link to your LED headlights. I like the City Racer ones and read good reviews except no heat to melt driving snow like the halogen. I guess the LEDs are worth it anyhow, that’s when a light bar would be handy.
I still have my stock odometer in my 60 swap pile. Not sure if I should just toss it, kinda cool to have the mileage of when I removed it from the 60 on it.

 

[boots4]

I continued researching and kept circling around a torque converter problem. Then I read some information that suggested that torque converter issues can be hard to diagnose... well that sure hit the spot! What it seemed to me was happening with my current converter was a stator problem causing no torque multiplication causing the initial dogging feeling when trying to accelerate. What I also later found out was that I had a lock up problem too. So, with it being winter and having a track record for this sort of thing it was the perfect time to drop a transmission and play around.

I called several torque converter shops and narrowed down my list to two options since others did not make something for my set up, call me back, or never answered the phone. The two companies I focused on were Huges and Precision Industries for making a custom converter. Both had good general reviews. I told myself way back when if I did another torque converter I'd pony up for a custom job.

The Huges tech suggested to go with a smaller 11" converter with a single lock up. For some reason that kept sounding off to me for a cummins diesel as a daily driver. I know he was probably thinking that would help get the revs up sooner thinking that would solve the low end lag. Precision suggested a standard 13" size with a triple lock up. Honestly for the power I'm putting out a single lock up would be plenty but Precision was having a sale and the tech offered better suggestions so I ended up going with Precision Industries. The other part that I just wasn't sure about was what stall to aim for. It needed to be low for the cummins torque curve but maybe it would be too low. Or maybe it was too high. I trusted them since they had prior cummins building experience to match my power and set up info. I get 2 years to send it back for a free stall adjustment if needed.

I think my was probably sick of hearing me talk about it so she was on board with the purchase. I was pretty excited for it to show up and the day I was ready to start the install that beautiful brown truck stopped in my driveway.

One of these days I need to just buy a tranny jack to make it easier but we got it safely.

New and old. Lavender-ish color is their thing.

Looking for outer visual differences I could see that the outer fin nubs look to be a different angles. The lower section where the lock up is housed is different (billet on the new one), mounting feet are part of the lower section on the new converter and not welded on like the old converter.

The bowl on top is deeper on the Precision unit.

The three things I did "while I'm there" was to replace the stator support bearing with a better wider version, replace the seal, and change out my mounting setup.

I hated that I'd have to remove the 4x4 adapter to change out the mounts and that meant taking off the 203/splitcase. So instead I fabbed up a mount that could be removed without disassembling stuff.

Did some bracing on the underside for strength.

Grabbed new mounts the same that I used before and still had to clearance them to fit. They bolt to this piece.

Ended up giving it a mad vibe so my drivetrain would be scared.

Then it bolts to the 4x4 4L80E adapter. Now I can just drop the crossmember and swap out mounts if needed.

Made the new hole adjustments on my crossmember to fit the new hole locations from the mounts.

I did need to use spacers to get the correct depth on the converter but it's now installed.

So did it solve the dogging I was having... YES. Is the lock up improved... YES!! Will I exercise my free re-stall... YES, well, maybe. Overall it's much better. It pops out of the hole again and the lock up is insane and feels very direct. I think that was the biggest surprise of how locked down the lock up feels. Highway rpms dropped to match up with the gearing calculator's expectations for my tires and gears. I do think it's stalling just a little too high but I want to drive it for a year as is to see if I really want to re-stall it or not. The other fix is that my transmission temps dropped. I'm back in a cooler temp range of 160-180F. I have not wheeled or really towed with this converter yet so I've got a few more scenario's still to see if I like the stall where it is.

 

[boots4]

Did you forget to pull the pin out and crank the motor only to realize that after the fact...

Either that or when I was getting readings with the dial indicator for timing. Those pins are just plastic so it doesn't take much to shear off that little nub. I'd still rather run a plastic pin than a metal one since the plastic won't do anything to the front gear train when it breaks off.

 

[White Stripe]

To finish up my direction with gears I decided to drop down to 4.56s. I had not installed the front set so I returned those and got some 4.56s for the front coming as well. Doing some more math 4.56 and 40s are just a tiny bit deeper than 4.10s and 37s. Since I liked the 4.10 and 37 combo with my set up I decided to aim more for that. Since I do a decent about of highway travel I wanted to get my higher speed rpms to drop back down some.

Pinion comparison from left to right: 4.10 (11 tooth), 4.56 (9 tooth), 4.88 (8 tooth)

Ring gear comparison from left to right: 4.10, 4.56 (thick version), 4.88 (thick version)

I was going to try and reuse the pressed on pinion bearing but I destroyed it so I pick up a new timken one (HM803149)

Lady luck did not visit this time and I spent more time playing with different shims under the pinon and settings on the carrier. It wasn't as good as the last set up but this was the best I could get. Backlash wasn't in the middle of the range either but it is just within tolerance set on the looser side. Interesting how different gears set up differently.

I did the break in on these gears too and swapped fluid again. Highway rpms came down a little but were still higher than what the gearing calculator indicated they should be. Low end power still felt lame. At this point I started researching other culprits and started to question my torque converter.

So the lower you go the weaker the ring and pinion setup because of less tooth contact with the ring gear correct?

 

[boots4]

I think the tooth contact is pretty similar and it's more that the pinion head gets smaller. The way I see it is with less mass, the pinion becomes weaker. Chipping teeth out is more about metal composition/strength and proper gear set up.

 

[Rock40]

Nice to see you narrowed this down and solved it, it's always fun to see your 60 on the trail

 

[cruisermatt]

Awesome. I think torque converters get overlooked very often.

I need to tee my splitcase /203 breathers together like that. Smart.

 

[boots4]

Mixed in the middle of all this I connected with @Hojack and helped him set up his SOA. There were a couple of other things that caught my eye with turbo selection at the beginning, exhaust, and a tranny mount that needed rework. I spent quite a few weekends over there and seeing how it turned out and him excited to use his rig is satisfying. He's got forklift access so that made a couple of things much easier. I stabbed the forks under my rig to check on some clearances with the bigger tires now.

Rear tire kisses the fender now. But with the work I did on the rear there are no sharp edges to catch. I suppose I could lower the bump stops an inch.

Front looks pretty good on clearance.

But the front springs go a little too negative. I'll want to lower the front bumps a little bit to help out here.

Tranny cooler placement. To the left of it you can see where I had the heat exchanger (coolant powered) part. I had to clearance the triangulation brace to get it to fit in there. Transmission fluid would go to that unit first, then to the regular cooler, and back to transmission. I've just recently changed this up.

Another shot of the new transmission mount set up.

The weather provided entertainment on some of the nights I was helping out.

 

[boots4]

@Hojack didn't have fans yet on his set up. We worked out a deal and he bought my dual setup with shroud (Maradyne MJS22K) and I picked up two bigger fans to cover my larger radiator. After some measurement I found I could squeeze in a 14" and a 16". I had good success with that previous unit and it pulled pretty hard so for the 14" I went with Maradyne M142K and the 16" is a Maradyne M162K.

I still have some aluminum from the stepvan body so I made a shroud out of it and some 1" aluminum angle. I put it together with rivets.

14" is on the left (driver side) and the 16" is on the right (passenger side). They barely fit side by side and they still overlap the actual core.

Underside view.

I'm starting to need a shoe horn to fit my parts in the engine bay when I put new stuff in. Things are getting tight.

But it still clears everything I need to clear.

Since I did this in winter we'll see this summer how they do. I did have problems running too cool all winter with the bigger radiator and improved air flow with my lower valance opened up how I did it last year. Think I averaged 150-160F and the fans never came on all winter.

 

[Hojack]

That was an awesome night, Snowballs first drive in the snow. We really need a campout buddy.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

I have issues with overcooling in the winter too, and the poor engine only warms up if I'm on 45mph roads (with stoplights) for hours and hours. Only solution I've found is to put cardboard in front of the cooling stack.

Wish I could find one of the OEM HJ60 radiator shutters, but I don't think we got them on this continent.

 

[boots4]

It's been a really busy summer so I haven't been on MUD to catch up on my updates. Things are calming down now so here's a few more things.

With the new torque converter I found I wanted better control over the lock up function. USShift has an upgrade program and I took advantage of that to get a new transmission controller. There are a ton of new options and more control over tunability than the last unit I had so I swapped it out. I did have to add a few wires to my current harness (well documented instructions, it was easy) and then it plugged right in. This one has room for 4 tables and a whole section for offroad tuning with doubler options. I can now play with converter lock up in each gear where before it was one line covering all gears. I'm pretty happy with the new options and have gotten a working table for normal driving. There is another selector switch I want to wire in for table selection before I start building other tables for a towing map and and offroad map.

Old on top, new on bottom.

Then we did some spring camping in southern oregon at the dunes again. Found a perfect quiet campground away from all the RVs and dirt bikes. The dunes right next to this campground were for walking only, no OHV so the family would go out towards sunset and play on the dunes.

We continued exploring the dune network and have hit all the sections. We have now pretty much figured out where our favorite places are out of those three major sections. The bigger tires did great in the sand and we had no issues on the dunes. Hopefully we can continue to head back every year or two to enjoy that awesome landscape.

 

[boots4]

After enjoying the weekend at the dunes our trip home became somewhat eventful. Climbing up and over the coastal range mountains I was pushing it pretty hard in the passing lanes getting around other drivers. There were some extra smells but everything settled down and gauges were reading well as we settled into regular freeway driving. Right before we hit Salem on I5 I noticed that my engine temps where pretty high and since this is a flatter section it wasn't due to the terrain. I went to flip the fans on to high but noticed my voltmeter was reading low as in no charging. I pulled over to investigate and found that my belt had slipped off. That was weird. So I put it back on but it was really easy to get on, hmmm, that's weird too. I asked my to start the engine while I looked and the belt was immediately thrown back off.

It was then that I realized my AC compressor mount had a problem. It was loose. To get to the mount bolts I needed to take off the compressor and as I did this I found my problem. Out of three bolts one was missing, one had the head popped off and the last one was loose. This mounts to the thermostat housing were the Alternator used to mount. I found bolts broke off in the holes and the threads on the loose one just about shot. There was also a crack in my bracket between the AC compressor and the alternator.

Luckily we had pulled off on an off ramp so it was a little better than being on the side of the freeway. As I was wrenching an incident response ODOT truck pulled up behind us and ended up staying with us until I got it back on the road. Great guy and I'm grateful he stuck with us. After a couple failed attempts and even a failed run to an autoparts store to try and get a smaller belt to bypass the compressor I got one bolt that I robbed from the front of the gear cover pretty snug with creative reinforcement provided by some ratchet straps. This kept the belt from jumping off the pulleys and we were able to get back on the freeway. The ODOT truck stuck with us for a while to make sure the fix was holding. I kept rpms under 2000 and just cruised.

As we passed the Woodburn outlets I saw the voltage drop again indicating the belt had probably jumped off. This time we were on the side of the busy freeway but there wasn't a close exit ramp so I pulled over. I found this time that the snug bolt had completed cleaned out the threads in the mounting housing and that the bracket between my compressor and alternator had completed broken. It was time to call in a favor and get trailered home. Wasn't quite the birthday gift I was looking for on my birthday but I was grateful for friends willing to drop what they were doing and come rescue me.

After letting her sit for a couple days I got back to figuring out a real fix. Ended up buying a new thermostat housing and stepped up to much stronger bolts.

I also added an additional support via a brace on top of the compressor mount.

While I was there I decided to switch out my thermostat to a genuine cummins version. Cummins is on the right.

Comparison. Cummins is on the right

To finish it off I redesigned the bracket between the compressor and alternator. I'm using the lower bolts and shrank the bracket.

I've had zero issues with the new design and it's holding up well.

My next issue that popped up was to deal with a juicey turbo.

 

[Hojack]

What temp Cummins Tstat did you get?
Your king of ingenuity buddy. Sorry to hear about another tantrum with Dora...

 

[Kief]

The 4bt will find the weak links amongst your accessories. My 4bt is testing the weaknesses of my exhaust system. I admire your tenacity and determination to overcome the little issues that seem to come up.

 

[boots4]

I believe the tstat is a 180F or 185F. My normal driving engine temp settles in right in that range. When I start working it, things warm up.

 

[Hojack]

I’m running the 180F Cummins

 

[boots4]

How have your temps been this summer now with that new tstat and the fans?

 

[Hojack]

The fans rarely kick on only really when it sits idling. My water temp runs average 160-170F

 

[The Phoenician]

The fans rarely kick on only really when it sits idling. My water temp runs average 160-170F

If that translates to 205-215 in Texas, then our setups aren't so different.