Builds Family haulin' (1 Viewer)

[Jason Andrews]

not to mention I have a perfect image or “blueprint” really to move forward.... duh.

on a serious note... what about pulling air from the cab?

I think if you were pulling air from inside the cabin the sound from the turbo would make it insanely loud as well.

Haha, I have visions of being oxygen depraved when I pull high boost numbers up a long climb and those turbos sucking out all my air. For me, there would still be the trick of routing to get a large tube through the firewall. I guess if I were running my AC I could really get cold air intake.

More details on my current thoughts: To build a box around my air filter where it currently sits to seal it up from underhood air. To get enough room to put a box around the filter I'd cut the fender well and extend the box down into that area. I've done some flex testing to see how far the tire goes into the well and it looks like I've got a little room to play with in bringing the top of the well down a couple inches. I'd then route the intake to that sealed box through the hood with a prefilter thingy exposed on top of the hood. I wanted to try and see if I could route the intake to the base of the windshield as that will be positive air flow but I've got windshield wiper stuff in the way that I still need. Then there is another thought of sinking something into the fender so it doesn't stick too far out to get pulled off on the tight trails we have in our area and route the intake through the fender. That might give it more of that Mad Max vibe.

I had the same thoughts when I was brainstorming and scheming for ways to solve this problem. I originally had a box sitting on my inner fender with the filter inside that connected to the snorkel. The issues I had with it was that first of all the space limits you to a smaller air filter size. And that no matter what, the box would get heat soaked and the air would not be near as cold as if the filter was located elsewhere. I stumbled upon mine thinking of how semi's have a giant canister on the side of them which is essentially the air filter housing.

I used to temporarily connect some couplings under the hood and pull my air filter and run it on top of the snorkel to test how much cooler it ran. I was always afraid of getting caught in a rainstorm and sucking tons of water in and ruining my turbo compressor. The 50-150* drop in EGTs across the board make it appealing. IMO it's better than an intercooler upgrade because you aren't shedding heat in front of the rest of your cooling system and engine bay.

 

[RUSH55]

If you had the Donaldson style, cylindrical filter housing with a precleaner bowl, that should keep the water out. Might stick up kinda high.

 

[mr jits]

Haha, I have visions of being oxygen depraved when I pull high boost numbers up a long climb and those turbos sucking out all my air. For me, there would still be the trick of routing to get a large tube through the firewall. I guess if I were running my AC I could really get cold air intake.

More details on my current thoughts: To build a box around my air filter where it currently sits to seal it up from underhood air. To get enough room to put a box around the filter I'd cut the fender well and extend the box down into that area. I've done some flex testing to see how far the tire goes into the well and it looks like I've got a little room to play with in bringing the top of the well down a couple inches. I'd then route the intake to that sealed box through the hood with a prefilter thingy exposed on top of the hood. I wanted to try and see if I could route the intake to the base of the windshield as that will be positive air flow but I've got windshield wiper stuff in the way that I still need. Then there is another thought of sinking something into the fender so it doesn't stick too far out to get pulled off on the tight trails we have in our area and route the intake through the fender. That might give it more of that Mad Max vibe.

The only thing you can possibly do at this point is a snorkle....

 

[boots4]

Seeing that Google was going to change their Photos storage had me nervous and reliving the webshots fiasco. But reading the detail gave me some peace that all my photos should still be ok. With that understood I figured I'd add some more updates.

Drive to work started to get a little more vibrations so after tugging on parts my rear most u-joint showed some movement. Truck needed to be road worth so I grabbed a autozone variant and swapped that in. Good thing because the u-joint was worse than I suspected.

Let's see, we connected with a new local family last year and they are into the sand stuff so we joined them on a dunes trip. Found a tree to ramp on.

He let me play with his 4-seater and my daughter came along for the ride. First time I'd played in one out in the dunes and I had a blast! Those are a lot of fun but boy can those get expensive.

Was also the first time the kids have been on ATV's. Oregon has license/training stuff needed for kids so we did the online portion and they got a chance to piddle around. Here I'm taking my two boys out on the beach.

 

[boots4]

The Distraction

Last year when I did my radiator and intercooler updates I had a friend that offered his truck for me to use. It was a third vehicle that he didn't drive much anymore. For borrowing it I fixed a couple things on it, thanked him a lot, and gave it back. As time passed and conversations progressed he then approached me to see if I wanted it. We struck a very favorable deal on my end and another vehicle entered the stable. I can't emphasize enough how wonderful it is to have a third vehicle to drive when I've taken the Landcruiser down for whatever project I'm working on. The stress of having to get the Landcruiser back on the road the next day is gone since leaving my wife without a car is no longer an option.

It's a 91.5 Dodge D250 with a 6BT cummins! Obviously I wanted this truck for the engine and that engine will make its way into another project in the future but for now I'm just enjoying it. He had just put on new tires before he sold it to me. It did need some work to get it commute worthy so this became a distraction for a little while.

The first thing I did was rip out all the carpet since it was water logged from all the various leaks coming into the cab. It dried up and smells way better now and I drilled new drain holes to get new water out. After living with me for a month or two I got a few other things fixed. Fixed speedometer which was the common broken tooth on the speedo gear in the dash. I fixed the fuel gauge by finding a sender unit from a different dodge application that looked the same and ended up working. Now all the gauges worked. Adjusted the TV cable to get the tranny to shift better. Fixed the floppy mirrors. Did a front end brake job and think I can get my old 14B drum brake set up (bigger cylinders, bigger drums) I pulled of my Landcruiser rear axle to fit onto this Dana 70 so that's a future project. Got the kenwood radio working and replaced the original speakers (that still worked!) for tunes. Before I started playing with the injection pump I installed an EGT/Boost/Tranny temp combo gauge.

Started playing with the pump. Installed a 3200 rpm spring. Had the AFC housing starting to leak and ended up cracking the governor lever when putting the top back on (first time I've done that with all the times I've had my 4BT pump apart). I took it in and after a tired diagnosis I had the shop rebuild it and turn it up. They included a new fuel pin too. I timed it to 15 degrees when I put it back together.

The alternator charging was intermittent and I fought with the voltage regulator mod that had been done to it. I ripped that mod out and ended up getting one of those internal regulators, set that up and it's been dead steady on charging ever since.

Through research I found that my old turbo (turbine side) I originally ran on the 4bt was an upgrade to this one so I slapped that in. Had to figure out the right parts combo from what I had and threw in a rebuild kit while I was at it. It spools much quicker now and I can hear it whistle now. Only getting 19 psi total so I'll play some more with that. The EGTs are stupid low and it cools off super fast. Every injection pump is a little different and I'm at a high idle now with the tweaks that have been done. If I tried more power screw I won't be able to get it to idle at a reasonable speed. I think from here I'd need bigger injectors but it gets out of it's way now and I need to tighten up the tranny with some internal adjustments to handle more power. It doesn't have a lock up, just overdrive so when this engine goes a new project I'll swap to a different tranny then, which means I don't want to invest much into this one.

I got the AC working for part of the summer but it stopped so I'll play with that again next year. Overall it's a great beater truck and has been pulling commuter duty for me. I never liked the looks of the long beds but it's been fantastic for picking up house projects. I still plan on doing some front end suspension work and fitting a better air filter in there but as for the body it's keeping its patina and beater truck status. It's been a blast.

 

[Hojack]

It's a 91.5 Dodge D250 with a 6BT cummins! Obviously I wanted this truck for the engine and that engine will make it's way into another project in the future but for now I'm just enjoying it. He had just put on new tires before he sold it to me. It did need some work to get it commute worthy so this became a distraction for a little while.

Saw a similar dodge 250 for sale for $1500 OBO while elk hunting when I went into Mount Vernon. Unfortunately when I walked up to it found out it was gas not diesel

 

[boots4]

Distraction #2

The roof.

We tackled our roof this past summer.

After tearing off the metal roof, which wasn't the right kind anyways, we found that a metal roof can hide many sins that were covered up. We also tore down our carport.

After consulting with contractor buddies and a local roofing supplier we fixed the sins and made some improvements.

We converted to a no tab shingle that was rated for lower sloped roofs. We like having covered parking but decided we'll replace it with something non-permanent instead of rebuilding what it was. We've been dragging our feet once it got cold but the only thing left is to get gutters done.

 

[boots4]

Distraction #3

Picked up the boat from my wife's late father. No one else in the family wanted to deal with it since it'll need some work but they all wanted it to stay in the family. They all though it was a good fit for me to work on... lucky me. We made a trip down to CA for a summer visit and brought it home.

It's an 18 ft Aquacraft. I spent a bunch of time researching whatever I could find about them (which is minimal) and kept looking at it when we were trying to work on the roof. I finally had to buy a cover to keep the new "squirrel" in our backyard from distracting me from the house project. It's got a chevy big block and a Berkeley pump in it. I already gutted the interior and will go from there once its time comes. We replaced the tires for the trip back and didn't have any issues towing it back with the Landcruiser. Plan is to just make it fun for family stuff, no monster hp planned.

 

[boots4]

Back to the Landcruiser.

At some point this year I ran into another piston pump leaking (externally thank goodness) and was feeling tired of dealing with those. I decided to convert to an electric lift pump. I wanted to go with a FASS system but didn't need their filteration since I had already set mine up so I experimented with just a FASS replacement pump for a cummins. It's the DRP 02 meant for a 3rd gen I think and was rated for about 18psi and around 100GPH. The psi is too high for a VE injection pump so I picked up a nice regulator to step it down. I fabbed up a mounting plate to fit both of them and the main fuel filter.

The electrical connector is a Deutsch DT06-2S connector. I found kits on amazon so I picked one up to be able to plug it in.

I made a little harness and used a relay that I wired switched with ignition so that the pump comes on only in the on key position.

For whatever reason I was not able to get the regulator to set the right psi. I tried a couple of different things but kept reading high on my fuel pressure gauge. I'd only run it for testing and if the psi was too high I'd turn it off and try something else. I remembered reading about some spring the FASS users would stretch to get more pressure on these lift pumps. After taking the plate off the pump I found it. It is that yellow spring holding that check ball.

Well, if theory would suggest that if you stretched it to provide more spring pressure on the ball that outlet pressure would increase, the opposite must be true. That if I reduced the spring pressure on the ball that less oulet pressure would be produced. I figured I could go to the hardware store and get a couple of lower spring rated springs to try out. Then I figured if I wasn't going to use this spring anyways why not cut the size down a little. This is what I had previously done to the piston style lift pump to get lower pressure. So that's what I did and it worked out perfectly.

Since I didn't need that regulator I cut down my mounting plate and eliminated it. I only cut a little at a time on the spring, maybe a quarter length of one coil and would test it. I continued trim and trial until I dialed it down to a 10psi reading on my fuel pressure gauge.

Of course with all my in and outs in that spot I broke my oil dipstick. It was brittle anyways so I replaced it.

Also by removing my mechanical lift pump I needed to block off the hole it left so I cut out a plate and sealed up the hole.

I wasn't expecting any performance increases but I have now reduced the spots diesel fuel could leak into my crankcase. The only spot left now that diesel could contaminate the oil is the Injection pump front seal.

 

[Hojack]

Dang Mike I would have bought your Hungry Diesel lift pump...

 

[boots4]

@Hojack my lift pump was leaking again so that's why I replaced it with this set up. You bought a good one so hopefully that lasts a while.

 

[Hojack]

@Hojack my lift pump was leaking again so that's why I replaced it with this set up. You bought a good one so hopefully that lasts a while.

Can I get the lower pressure spring from that lift pump?

 

[baldilocks]

Awesome 60. It’s refreshing to read an informative and well written build thread. I’m still contemplating my rear bumper. Not sure yours would look as good on an 80.

 

[Jason Andrews]

Where was your low pressure piston lift pump leaking from?

I replaced mine in 2009 and haven't had any leaks that I know of. But recently system seems to lose prime when it sits for a few days. No evidence I can see tho, so that's why I ask.

 

[boots4]

On some of the lift pumps there is a weep hole in the body near the mounting flange. One leaked from there which is better because that doesn't go into the crankcase oil. I then had a different one leak passed the seals into the crankcase. That one sucks because you end up needing to change your oil out for safety.

 

[esh]

Going to need more 60 updates on this thread before I shut it down.

 

[brokenparts]

Going to need more 60 updates on this thread before I shut it down.

Geez, you are all up in everyone’s business aren’t ya?

 

[esh]

I mean I'm here once a year, so I should make the most of it.

 

[Tennessee80]

I did get some pics of the rear bumper but will take a full one This week. These were at the event.

I think I'll add a little more material at the bottom connection of the bumper and slider to make the transition smoother.

I still plan for tube for quarter panel protection and want to redo my shackle mounts. After that I'll paint it one color, probably with rustbullet to match the sliders.

Bumping this, someone needs to produce a bumper like this....

 

[boots4]

@Tennessee80

Thanks.

I'm going to need to get an update here sometime soon. Haven't done too much work on the 60 but there has been a few things. We did move to a place with a nice shop (no more gravel fab for me!) with a lift already installed and I've been running around doing new house, land, and shop projects. We just explored a local trail network near our new place called La Dee Flats OHV in Oregon and ended up busting the ujoints out of my rear driveshaft. It was a decent obstacle. Had to winch out and drive home on front wheel drive after I removed the rear driveshaft.