1968 Custom Camper Duramax

[Dieselwrencher]

Oh man, that is so bad a**! I love it. That isn't a rat rod. It's too cool. Haha

[Bdb68]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Oh man, that is so bad a**! I love it. That isn't a rat rod. It's too cool. Haha

Thanks!

Progress is going to be slow for awhile. The wife and I are remodeling our bathroom.

[Bdb68]

Not much progress lately. Work and the bathroom remodel have been taking most of my time. I did some work on my fuel system. Since everyone is running sump kits in there late model trucks, I decided to make my own sump. I bought a 1/2 NPT weld bung off Amazon, drilled a hole in the bottom of the tank and TIG welded it in. Painted the tank while I was at it. Note, I took the tank to a radiator shop and had it cleaned before I drilled and welded it. I installed a plug in the bung and filled the tank with water and let it sit for a few days, no leaks. For the return, I bought a new sending unit with a 3/8 line. I am going to cut off the sock filter and use this as the return.

[Dieselwrencher]

Nice work!

[Bdb68]

Finished up the fuel system. I used 1/2 hard tubing for the supply and 3/8 for the return. Replaced the original 5/16th sending unit with a new 3/8 sending unit. I cut the sock filter off the end and connected this to the return line. I mounted the factory Duramax fuel cooler in the return line. For now I skipped the dual filters and lift pump and went directly to the stock engine mounted filter. To connect the new lines to the engine. I cut the flex tubing with quick connectors off of the factory lines. slid the flex line over my new hard line and hose clamped them.

[Bdb68]

Driveshaft, Shortened 85ish 3/4 Chevy, had it laying around. Using a 1410 to 1350 bastard joint from NEPCO at the transfer case. 1350 heavy duty Spicer joint at the rearend. Hopefully this will hold together for a while. I plan to upgrade the rearend later when I change to a drivers drop Dana 60 in the front. I will be going to 1410 U joints all around at that time.
Finished my hydroboost set up, had to make the brake pedal push rod longer, I cut the loop of the end of the push rod and welded a long coupling nut to the rod. I then used a hardware store clevis to connect it all.
Here is my laser etched stock replacement locking fuel cap.

[Bdb68]

Well its been awhile since I have posted. I got the truck on the road about 2 weeks ago and have been meaning to take a video of it running. Below is a link to a walk around with the truck running. I still have a lot to do before I can take it on a trip. But for now I can cruse around town in it.

https://youtu.be/eynmXnjoBKQ

[Dieselwrencher]

That was fast and the truck looks and sounds awesome! Great work! I love the property there too.

[Bdb68]

Thanks Ryan, I love the view out here too. I choose the property because there are no close by neighbors and I have a lot of loud hobbies. So I have been driving the truck some. My dad and I stripped the interior out and did some sheet metal repair to the typical areas. inner and outer rockers, cab corners, floor braces and lower A pillars. We also had to make up a couple patches for the floor for some small holes, not too bad for an Ohio truck. While we were at it, Dad painted the dash, roof and rear of the cab. We then rolled on truck bed liner behind the tank, on the floor (inside and underneath) and inside of firewall. I will be installing a new rubber mat, but hopefully the liner will help with sound a little and keep new rust from starting. We also glued down some flat rubber on the flat areas for extra sound deadening.

[Bdb68]

I'm planning on repainting the truck eventually, but for now I didn't want the new black metal sticking out like a sore thumb. Dad got creative with some spay paint we had laying around and some kitchen spices for the textured surface rust.

[Dieselwrencher]

Very nice work! That looks great and was pretty fast!

[Bdb68]

Its been a while since my last update. Put a new lmc high hump floor mat, had everything re-apolstered. Hooked up some temporary gauges from a 90s camaro that my buddy had laying around. I did run into some troubles. At some point, one of the u joint clips came out of the drive shaft, allowing for the u joint to shift and throw the drive shaft out of balance. This ended up cracking the tail housing. Turns out the first couple years of these transmissions had a weak casting. I will be replacing it with the updated version and an aftermarket brace to help prvent another break. Besides the tail housing, i bought a dana 60 and 10.5 out of a super duty so I can hook up the 4 wheel drive and have rear disc with parking break. Im planing to install them over the holliday weekend.

[Bdb68]

Also bought a cold air intake and filter super cheap from Amazon for an 01. It also came with a heat shield box but I haven't had time to modify it to fit.

[Dieselwrencher]

Heck yes, your interior is sweet! Nice new axles too! The only thing I don't like about them is the metric lug pattern.

[Bdb68]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Heck yes, your interior is sweet! Nice new axles too! The only thing I don't like about them is the metric lug pattern.

Thanks! I'm happy with how it turned out. Just need to make a bezel for the gauges, one day I plan to do some after market ones set up for the diesel but this works good for now. On the axles, The metric pattern might have been a deal breaker, however I had planned on buying new wheels eventually for the truck and was able to find the ones I wanted in the metric pattern.

[Bdb68]

Over the Long weekend, we got the front and rear axle mounted up and rolling. The rear was quick and easy, we just cut off the spring perches and welded them back on, at the correct spacing. The front axle took some engineering to make everything work. The springs pads on the super duty axle are about 3 inches wider on each side then the Chevy axle. They can not simply be cut off like the rear, because the drivers side is cast into the center section. We decided to make a set of spring hanger brackets that will move the springs out 3 inches. They are plenty strong and tie into the front cross member that was already installed. There are easier axle swaps to get the pinion on the drivers side. The main reason I decided to use this axle is because they are cheep and plentiful. People in my area were asking double or triple the price for a worn out late 70s Ford Dana 60 then what I paid for my low mile matching set.

[Dieselwrencher]

That was a really nice way of doing it! I found out the hard way on a 2002 Ford D60 I got to put under my 76. I ended up selling that axle and not messing with it. I like the way you did yours. I'd like to find 05 up D60 for my next build.

[Bdb68]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

That was a really nice way of doing it! I found out the hard way on a 2002 Ford D60 I got to put under my 76. I ended up selling that axle and not messing with it. I like the way you did yours. I'd like to find 05 up D60 for my next build.

It was defiantly not the easiest axle swap. The rear end was a piece of cake, just cut the perches off and moved them in a couple inches. one thing I would recommend is getting new perches the width of the old truck springs. I didn't notice till we welded the ford ones back on that they are a little wider then the springs and sit make the u-bolts sit a little crooked. I really like how beefy thees axles and brakes are. they use huge 2 piston calipers front and rear with a drum in hat e-brake. If anyone is thinking of swaping these axles into anything take a good look at the brakes, I got my axles cheap and had to spend around$500 for parts to replace all the brakes.

The 05+ D60s are the coil springs correct? I would like to put them under something just to be different.

[DieselSJ]

What did you do for shifter linkage? Do the indicators on the column line up?

[Bdb68]

Originally Posted by DieselSJ

What did you do for shifter linkage? Do the indicators on the column line up?

I guess I didn't take any pictures of the shifter linkage I made. I used the Lokar universal kit on my 55 Chevy car. After I saw how simple they are I made my own from hardware store parts. I bough a piece of 3/8 round stock and cut threads on it with a die. Threaded an end link on both ends and conected on end to the steering column shifter tab and the other to the transmission. On the transmission It is a flat piece of metal with a hole in one side and a slotted hole in the other that fits the shape of the piece that comes out of the transmission and attaches with a nut. If you don't feel like making it I think the Lokar one would work great and is simple to put together. I don't know what my steering column came out of but its not correct for the truck. PRND21 line up pretty good on the indicator. I just ordered an aftermarket tilt column and it came with an indicator that has PNRD321. I will post pictures of the tilt install and linkage when it comes in.

[Bdb68]

I have tanken a lot of pictures of this project, but it takes too much time to upload them to this site. I have attached a link to an album with most of the pictures I have taken. If you see anything you want me to try to explain or show another picture of just comment on here.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/UZMtZvwdu84mfZxp7

I just traded my 16 Duramax in for a fuel saver car. Now I'm in a big rush to get this thing finished up so I can pull my camper with it. I will try to keep the updates coming.

[Bdb68]

Some recent progress, I worked on the axles some. I replaced all 4 rotors, 4 calipers, new pads all around, new shoes for the e-brake, and backing plates for the rear axle (these parts cost more then I paid for both axles). Got the axles cleaned up and painted. Hooked the break lines up using the Chevy hoses I had just put on a few months ago. We got the brakes bled, and the old driveshaft slid into place, it is too long but did not quite bottom out in the transfer case. Drove the truck out of the garage, turned it around and drove it onto the 4 post lift.

[Bdb68]

After successfully driving the truck about 100 feet with the new axles under it, drove the truck back into the garage, on the lift this time. Got it in the air, ripped out the freshly installed driveshaft and the fun began. Taking a step back to a few months ago, I lost a U-Joint retaining clip (possible operator error). This caused the U-joint to shift, knocking the driveshaft out of balance. This caused excessive drive-line vibration, which in turn may have contributed to the failure of the Allison's tail housing. I had a car show to go to and not enough time to drop the trans so a heavy duty ratchet strap was installed to keep the transfer case attached to the transmission. It was finally time to fix it right. We loosened the strap, removed the 1 or 2 bolts still holding the transfer case on. Dropped the transfer case and transmission. Note: step 1 on line for replacing the transmission tail housing is to drain the trans fluid. Don't skip step 1 or your floor will look like a murder scene with all the red fluid everywhere.

[Bdb68]

As I said before, I traded my late model Chevy pick-up for a fuel saver car. I decided it will probably be awhile before this truck is ready to pull my camper, and being that it is summer time, I decided I need a truck for the meantime. I found a good candidate and hatched a new plan. The truck I purchased is a 1991 Dodge 4x4 with Cummins engine. The truck has been taken pretty good care of. It has had a later turbo installed with inner cooler, and seems to have pretty good power. The plan for this truck is to just drive it and use it till I get the Duramax truck on the road and all the bugs worked out. Then if I can steel the Dodge away from my wife (she loves a flat bed for some reason). I will be transplanting the Cummins and axles into my squarebody crew cab.

[Dieselwrencher]

Sorry to see about the trans housing and I've been there on the murder scene oops before. Nice score on the 1st gen and the crew cab square body will be way better with that power train in there!