Builds Family haulin' (1 Viewer)

[TRAIL TAILOR]

That's a big 10-4. Ken said end of September so pending when exactly and my project schedule I'll be there. Hope to make it for the Gearhart departure into TSF.

J

 

[boots4]

That will be a blast and it'll be fun to have you along.

 

[TRAIL TAILOR]

Absolutley, we'll stay in touch.

J

 

[boots4]

We headed down to the sand dunes in southern Oregon last month to do some sand camping as part of a tri-club activity. I'd never been down in those parts so with the rig prepped we jumped over to Hwy 101 to take the scenic route down. Meet some new faces and had a great weekend. CO2 locker activation worked flawlessly. Unfortunately I did find that my front frame to axle brake line was too short and pulled it apart cresting a dune. I was able to close off that circuit and run with the rear brake. On the road I drove civil and left lots of stopping room since I felt like I had a heavy load on a trailer without the front circuit. That was the only issue all weekend and I fixed it when I go home with a 5" longer braided 3~an line. Now the only rubber left in my system is the rear frame to axle section.

This of course lead to trying out another master cylinder in my experiment to find something better. This time I'm using a disc/disc master from a Chevy P30 stepvan application.

When bench bleeding this master I could tell that the rear circuit was pushing a lot more volume of fluid than my other trials. Playing with the system lead to a couple of changes. I replaced the front bleeder screws with speed bleeders. I swapped over to a spare hydroboost unit I have and found that it leaked (thus the makeshift diaper in the pic) so I got a seal kit and rebuilt it. I also had to make some new flares and replace adapters I mangled while tinkering. This master has nice sized reservoirs and a strong sealing top. You have to use a screwdriver/small prybar to release those tension clamps. Overall it's not a modern pedal feel but I'll be keeping this master for a while. Braking has improved with what feels like lots in reserve in hard braking situations.

 

[boots4]

At the end of last month Esh and myself did some pre-running of an overnight route we're putting together for our local club event in September. Family stayed home so I was able to throw an air mattress in the rear and pack light. It's going to be a fantastic route with awesome scenery. We explored different paths to discover our possibilities and I took a trail in that attitude as an option. It was very overgrown and a little too tight for Dora as she came out with some bruises. Only on the passenger side though; rear door and rear panel. I already tried the plunger trick but that didn't pop the dents out much so I'll have to try adjusting from the backside of these panels. It won't be pre-trail condition but Dora never was going to be a show rig anyways. Not sure how the front passenger door and mirror escaped damage.

I've got a few things I want to work on over time but nothing major. Hopefully it's time to put a few more miles on it.

 

[Tapage]

I think I have the very same adapters Mike ..

in which point you swap to AN-3 .. I'm still debating doing that .. ( swap the hole system fittings to AN-3 )

 

[boots4]

Yes it looks like you have similar adapters, except that one of my flared hard lines is 1/4" to adapt my line lock.

All the hard lines (body/frame mounted) stayed. At the point where the line goes from the frame to the axle that is where I converted to 3-AN and all of the axle lines. I used a metric to 3-AN adapter.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

I like that master cylinder, especially how the reservoir bolts to the cylinder.

 

[Tapage]

Can you point me for the adapter you use to go from metric to AN-3

 

[boots4]

Pulling this out from memory the adapter goes from female 10mm metric to male 3-AN. It is the circled piece in the following pics (pics are from my rear set up but I used the same adapter for the front hard line). Due to work computer constraints I am not able to look it up on google for you but at least you see what it looks like.

 

[Tapage]

gotcha Mike ..

 

[TRAIL TAILOR]

Where's that side shot pic Mike? Wanna see the baja rake.

J

 

[boots4]

Dora's been parked in this little heat wave we've had (no AC) so I haven't had her out to snap a pic. I've got a club meeting tonight (forecast shows temps cooling down too) so I should have a no excuse opportunity.

 

[boots4]

J, someday I'll get that side shot pic on level ground. I haven't forgotten about it.

Time for some updates:

I've been doing some camping with the family. Here we're at the coast helping out a youth group.

Dora did some trailer duty and just hung out throughout the summer. The wife and I met up for a family thing in different vehicles one time and on the way home I had her drive the truck so I could check it out. I noticed it was hazy pretty much most of the time and I don't have the pump turn up excessively. Short story is failing injectors and some tired valve springs. I stepped up to 60 lbs springs for both intake and exhaust. While the package was in transit I prepped things by removing covers, removing rocker arms, and pulling out the injectors. Then I covered it up until the package arrived the next day.

There are different ways to keep the valves shut while pulling the springs off. I decided to use air pressure so I opted for the HF compression kit to use it for the adapter and parts. I cut the line and put on a quick disconnect for air. Tested it for leaks and had no issues.

The bottom right adapter in the kit is the correct thread but the lower part doesn't fit into the injector hole. I clearanced it and if fit just fine after that.

I measured the body of one of the stock injectors I pulled out to know how much material to remove.

So my plan was to use this adapter to supply air into the cylinder through the injector hole to keep the valves shut and not fall into the engine. I struggled with it and after some head scratching I figured out that this was for compression testing and that there is a little valve in the connection fitting that I needed to remove. Duh... Once I figure that out it worked fine.

The springs showed up so I borrowed a valve compressor and started the swap. I took my time, kept a little magnet pencil close by to grab the collets once the retainer slipped down far enough to expose them. I kept holes in the head covered to reduce the chance of losing one of those little guys down into the depths of the cummins.

Here's a new spring being compressed to fit it on the valve and slip in the collets. I opted for no gloves since I didn't want one of those collets slipping out of my fingers and not knowing it.

Spring gone and 150 psi of air holding up the valve.

Old spring on the left, new installed spring on the right.

Uninstalled spring comparison. New 60 lbs spring on the left, old stock spring on the right.

Success, all the springs have been swapped with only one or two stray words leaving my mouth.

This is how I supplied my 150 psi of air. Not quite sure how much I started with but I estimate I used maybe a 1/3rd of it. The rest in my 15 lbs tank will probably last the rest of this season.

Reinstalled the rockers, torqued down the studs, set up the valve lash and put on the covers.

Next I'll get into injectors.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

I've read that air pressure would work for keeping the valves up in the head, but this proves it in my eyes. Good work

Looking forward to what you picked for injectors! You still have a turbo upgrade to do my friend!

 

[The Phoenician]

the guy that did mine used the tdc of every piston. Wasn't too comfortable as I couldn't tell where the piston actually was.

 

[TRAIL TAILOR]

One day on the pic or in person... I hope to have the AC brackets done in the near future as well.. Lots going on right now.

J

 

[boots4]

Time to update so I don't forget all these little details. Things are moving forward.

For injectors I had bought some bigger sticks two years ago and tried to run them but I couldn't clean them up enough so I had put the stockers back in. They are 5 x .014 and it looks like the guys I picked them up from are no longer in business or at least it's changed business names. On a minor time crunch I decided to put those bigger injectors back in since I had some different ideas on how to tune them this time. We had another pre-run for the overnight run that I needed to attend. Got everything bled and started the tuning.

Instead of reducing the tension on the AFC I went the opposite and tightened it up, moving the star wheel all the way to the top of it's travel.

To allow me more adjustment and less pre-boost fueling I also ground down the stop on the underside of the AFC housing as well as removing a little material on the stud that the smoke screw bottoms against. I used some antiseize to get some markings to make sure I removed enough material to maximize up travel.

I played with tuning some more but wanted more control so I made a manual boost controller and inserted it into the reference line to the AFC housing. The theory being that the factory designed the AFC spring rate for a boost pressure much lower than what I'm trying to run. Working with the turbo, the factory wastegate opened at a lower boost pressure and would limit the turbo to about 18 psi. Since I'm running more than that and have plans to run much more than that the AFC was basically overreacting allowing the IP to flow more fuel to the injectors. With the stock turbo not being able to spool quick enough unburnt fuel would go out the tailpipe. Putting a boost controller in the reference line to the AFC will allow me to reduce the onslaught of fueling before the turbo can really start spooling. That's the theory anyways.

Of course the factory fitting to the AFC housing broke on me as I'm tightening things back up.

And of course it's a special size that couldn't be found easily. So I decided to make it an easier size to find and pieced together some new parts. I tapped the threads to accept 1/8 tapered threads and got a compression fitting to work. They were out of more ferrules that night so I reused my copper line instead of making a new one. You can also see where I put in the boost controller. Parts cost me pretty much the same as just buying one of these little boost controllers already made so next time I'd just buy one. It's a ball and spring style controller with a small drilled vent on the outlet so as not to trap pressure on the AFC diaphragm.

Ready for install. Screw in the bolt to increase tension on the internal spring which means it takes more boost pressure to overcome the tension hopefully allowing the turbo to start spooling before the AFC reacts and starts adding more fuel.

I played with tuning and got it to run a little cleaner by reducing two flats on my Full power screw, Star wheel all the way up, Smoke screw all the way up, Rotating the fuel pin to the lease aggressive curve, and a few turns on the boost controller.

Then I headed out for the pre-run. I brought the family along this time. It was pretty dry and dusty this trip and my old filter was getting pretty clogged so I hunted down something that would work the night before at an part store since I needed all the air I could get to run cleaner. Here are a couple of shots of the trip.

We camped up here for the night, the view was fantastic and it was a great view to wake up too in the morning as well. Even though there was a fire in the area (you can see the layer of smoke in the distance).

Had lunch and played at a river before we hit the pavement to head home.

Tuning results... poor. It was gutless, took too long for the turbo to spool up, and was still too smokey for my tastes. I now had two weeks to continue tuning before the event. Also, I sprung a reasonable leak from the front main seal and that was going to need to be fixed before the event too. I'm going to break this up into a couple posts. Stay "tuned"

 

[boots4]

Picked up some parts and started wrenching again. Through further research I was convinced that I need to play with timing too. The way I understood it is that since I'm dumping a bigger chuck of fuel into the cylinder it needs a little more time to burn, thus the need to advance the timing. In my experiments rotating the VE injection pump 1/16 is almost equal to 1 degree. I was at a 1/8th bump (plus I'm running the M&H spacer allowing more timing advance as the pump spins faster) and I wanted to try more. I debated about this but decided to advance the IP by one tooth (equating about 10 degrees in advance) and then rotating the pump all the way away from the head to net me about the 1/8th bump I originally had. This would give me more advance to play with, plus since I had the cover off to fix my front main seal it was a convenient time to do this. After finding TDC and making some marks to make sure it didn't move I used a puller to pop the gear off. I admit I was a little nervous about this but I went ahead anyways.

I was on "F" and now I'm on "B" which is one tooth advanced for me. It felt a little tricky getting it back on but with some persuasion and patience it went back together just fine. Torqued down the retainer nut and then rotated the pump all the way away from the head. I doubt I'll return lower than that for timing (been running this timing for a couple years now and I liked it, 15 degrees, factory was 12.5 degrees) so the benefit is that I have more room to reach the backside of the IP with it rotated away from the head like this.

One of the tips to making it easier to align the front cover was to get some bolts and cut off the heads to act as guide pins. You just thread them finger snug and side the cover on.

I picked up a new seal and cover gasket. Cleaned up the cover and got the seal installed. That plastic piece stays on while you slip the cover and seal over the crankshaft. These are installed dry so I cleaned up the crankshaft before I installed this.

You can see one of the guide pins I used for alignment. It really did make this part easier with less worry about tweaking the main seal while pushing the cover on, plus the guides hold the gasket in place so you're not fighting to align that too.

With the truck back together and it successfully starting up I advanced my timing to about 19 degrees. The unfortunate side affect of advancing the timing on a cummins is that it gets a bid louder but that's what happens. I took it for a couple of test drives and continued tuning. Yes it's louder but it did clean up some smoke. Not as much as I'd hoped but it did help. Low end grunt was still poor but didn't get any worst with this advance in timing. Ultimately I compromised to get at least some low end grunt back by turning the smoke screw in two turns, rotating the AFC fuel pin curve to 30% more than the lowest setting, turning down the star wheel 1.5 turns from the top and playing with the boost controller. When idling with no load (park or neutral) there is no smoke out of the tailpipe, when idling under load (in drive with the brakes on) it hazes, more than I want but really not bad, when accelerating easing into it to get the turbo to spool but not get run over from the guy behind it hazes pretty good but no black clouds, when romping on it from a stop it smokes black but not like blacking out the intersection and nothing like a sled puller. At speed and laying into it it will put out a minor black cloud, just cruising it doesn't look like it's leaving a trail. The timing and reduced full power screw did help the EGTs and pushing it up a hill I could only get to 1150-1200F. Max PSI on the turbo is 23-25.

Down and dirty opinion... these sticks are just too big to run with a stock turbo. I want to run cleaner than this so ultimately I need more air. This has accelerated my next project. Compound turbos.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Compounds?!?

I'm excited to see what you do here. I was always concerned with the support of both turbos on the manifold while off-roading, thinking that was a lot of extra weight on those 8 bolts.