Project: Tow-Rat (Lil' Blue)

[6DoF]

it's a cummins ... it'll forever mark it's spot

[6DoF]

turbo drain seal fixed, no leak. the stupid o-ring wasn't thick enough for the groove they put in the part. i just cut a new paper gasket from a roll i had, left the oring, and tightened her back up. guess that worked.

catch can had an internal filter that was restrictive, ditched that. i also forgot to put the steel wool de-mister in the can, so added that. then added 2 more breathers off my 2 oil caps in the front of the engine, no more breather oil. just the front main and rear main leaking oil

added some firewall insulation, as you could imagine that was getting uncomfortably hot inside with the hot pipe basically touching. the wrap does a lot, but not quite that much. it's just warm now, so huge game on.

[6DoF]

the wife had a dream recently that i had 3D printed mounts for a Bluetooth speaker under the dash. she woke up and ordered me this little Bose unit. no way i wasn't going to then print mounts for it! so far no latch of any kind, just cradles it. the rubber like body seams to keep it from moving at all.

with a mount, seamed like a great place to put and hide my "AFC Live" fuel control. should work just like the production version from Power Driven Diesel, but was like 10x cheaper. one bypass valve, an orifice valve to slow the boost signal to the injection pump, and one pressure regulator to set max boost the pump sees. allows you to set the springs and screws in the pump for max power, then dial it back for no smoke and smoother daily driving. or if lazy, have the screws n springs set wrong, and dial in appropriate fueling. in my case, i need to keep the power in check as i should have enough turbo and fuel capacity to yeet the head gasket before i shift gears.

[6DoF]

finally the wife got bored and decided to see why i kept talking about washing the truck with CLR and a soft scotchbright pad. so far, so good! she wants to go over it again with the CLR, and i need to order some patina sauce ASAP.

a fair bit of brown reduction, not sure if it worked more or less than i was expecting haha. the nicest part is everything getting a TON smoother after the rub down. but now it almost looks weird with less blotch blue.

[6DoF]

Friday night i got out to the first cruise, had an absolute blast talking to everyone. no one really knew what it make of it! there was a huge parking lot behind where i'm taking the picture, i was "late" and in the overflow. ended up with a few rows of cars in the grass yet that evening.

Goal Achieved! grass shut in the door

[youngrodder]

Looks like your having fun with it. Sometimes showing up fashionably late to a show/cruise yields the best parking spots. By then they quit policing it quite as bad and you can dump it any ware.

My son knows the drill. A) Find a sweet spot. B) Pull in dump, it on the ground. C) Walk away (casually). Come back later. By then there will be no one there to ask you to move it.

Marc

[6DoF]

this is such crap ... bottom of my driveway we needed fixed, Monday a week and a half ago they did demo but no pour yet! the '55 has been stuck at the house! it's 1-2weeks cure before i can drive that heavy thing on it too.

hard to tell in the picture, but it's a huge hill. where i'm standing for the pic is like 65feet above the cul-de-sac. it's also a shared driveway full concrete below my gravel t's in, and the grass on either side of my gravel is 2 different neighbors. we had a little old concrete in the corner to the gravel, but made the whole corner wider with gravel. the 2 tires on different surfaces would murder a modern traction control. now it'll be all concrete for the first 60-80ft before gravel. the fully concrete shared section was badly broken in one place by a cement truck during the build for my house, so also fixing it. there's a 2 slab long, 3ft wide, 8" deep hole that the neighbors have to drive around now in the other neighbors yard ...

uuuggggghhhhhhh

[6DoF]

it's like having an umbrella! not 10min later now and they showed up to confirm measurements, will start 6am tomorrow morning. game on.

[youngrodder]

Hopefully you get freedom soon...

Marc

[6DoF]

as of Friday, we are free! the driveway is awesome, so so much better. and yet, i got Lil' Blue stuck in the driveway

so after putting in a lot of work on the barn, it was time to circle back to the truck for a bit. getting some tuning taken care of but mainly went after getting the hitch and rear bumper location figured out. decided i really needed to have the hitch on before doing the bumper mounting.

i don't always take weld pictures, but these turned out particularly nice. this thing aint goin nowhere. a few extra gussets to the chassis, a few close out panels to clean up, and i'm really happy how it turned out. 2.5" receiver, CHECK! the power connection will be mounted to the bumper, so it's just zip-tied up for now.

but then since i have a hitch, must test it out! hitched up the airstream and went for a cruise. she towed perfectly, better than expected, barely even know it was back there. absolutely next level reactions on the road too. thumbs up out the window, waving, the smiles and nods, it was cool to see. until i got home. round the new corner, building boost, head up the gravel hill where the 2wd starts to spin. not enough weight on the rear end yet for the total rig weight. got RIGHT to the top and she stopped spinning and dug. had to back all the way down the driveway and around the corners back to the road where i could unhitch and run up to get the Grand Chero-car. booo i know the picture just a post or 2 ago doesn't look steep, but it's hard to walk on cuz the gravel just slips out from under you.

[57FleetsideC4]

I wish I had your welding/fabricating skills. Hitch looks great and works great to. Steve

[6DoF]

Originally Posted by 57FleetsideC4

I wish I had your welding/fabricating skills. Hitch looks great and works great to. Steve

thanks! only way to learn is just go do it. break some eggs, make a mess, have fun with it.

[6DoF]

fixed it! it's soooo much better now ... almost too smooth. pretty sure i'll be adding clicks to actually make it a little more responsive, and for a little more top RPM just cuz race truck things.

so first thing last night, lets try the cam plate. well, it's already fully to passenger side, crap. try mid, try full drivers, no change. time to pull the idle spring and see what's up for settings that way. feel like i'm going to drop stuff in the pump, and the wife offers to stop on her way home for a new pen magnet for me. she's awesome. in the mean time i watch the PDD gov spring install to see what i missed cuz none of the adjustment instructions make any sense on mine. see nothing i don't remember, go start pulling it all out just to make sure something stupid didn't happen like ... wait ... ccrraaaaaaappppp ... i put the springs in upside down with the bottom seat on top.

throw it all back together with a conservative click count, now all the descriptions make sense and are super easy to set up. back to the cam plate, still little change, but obviously was full passenger for it's entire life, lock it down and send it. she now starts with no throttle input, idles at like 800 cold n 830 warm, brakes or steering don't affect it much, i can even get going in 2nd gear with no throttle. almost like that's how it was designed!

[RockTonka]

[Jason 56]

Always nice to find a simple solution to a problem. It’s coming along great!

[6DoF]

truck did great, but it needs AC freakin ASAP. speaking of AC, the airstream's worked great until the condensation started running out between the wall panels instead of the drain. tried a few things but i'll need to tear the covers off and that can wait til sweater weather.

5th gear, 65mph, 2300 R's, it just didn't care that the trailer was back there. on the way out was 93deg, high humidity, and some of the long up-hill runs into the mountains the engine would get to 208, once to 214, but right back down to 190s on the downhill. might need a little more cooling capacity to run AC and pull a 10k trailer. but that's a Future Matt problem.

the waves, thumbs up, camera's, was crazy. ppl at the campground were obviously talking about it cuz ppl would come by and know some of the details already

[6DoF]

i've gotten little to nothing new together on the truck other than some tuning as i've been driving it. the ride and power just keep getting better and better. i have however been going to a few cruise nights, and really enjoying talking to ppl. the reactions have been awesome.

this weekend was a rat centered cruise/show. i got there early but was shuffled down into the cruise lot, not the main street show. was probably better that way actually cuz i got to park with my parents who drove their Jeep and the '69. then just as we were getting ready to head out, this dude comes walking over the hill with a freakin trophy! custom rat shop owner from NC that was part of the show picked the '55 as his favorite! freakin honored

[RockTonka]

That's cool...congrats!

[dsraven]

if you put a bumper on the front it would look even lower.

[6DoF]

Originally Posted by dsraven

if you put a bumper on the front it would look even lower.

getting there!

i have a front and rear to put on, currently doing the bed floor / fuel filler

[KevinK7]

Amazing job on the truck, crazy fab skills
I travel through PA often. Following through the thread seeing 'somewhere, PA'. Then on the very last post (and kudos on the well deserved trophy), ...Mars.
Ironic, I head to the Bakerstown area a few times a year

[6DoF]

haha, thanks much. would "black n gold country" be a little closer circle?

[6DoF]

new bits! got the bed floor screwed down and the fuel filler set up. floor is just pressure treated 3/4" ply stained black. it'll eventually get a full rubber bed cover, just not decided between utility or fancy yet. battery hatch i used 2 marine hatch latches for easy access, the maintenance/show door in the middle will get another pair with some hinges.

the fuel filler i can't take full credit for, I saw the jerry can filler neck on insta-tube or whatever propaganda site it was scrolling. the dual filler however was me and i hope it works as well as i'm thinking it will. we'll find out after work when i try n fill it. so the can is screwed to the bedside, you open the lid to reveal a Y tube. stick the fuel nozzle down one or the other and send it. each has their own vent. the tanks have a balance tube between them and i only draw/return to one, but it's not enough to fill thru. a check valve does keep it from draining away from the main in a long corner or hill.

the side of the jerry can is cut out for easy access, but will get covered by an old job box. it's next on my list to get off the garage floor. will be nice to have some extra storage to just throw stuff.

[6DoF]

filled up after work, the dual filler worked great! put it in one hole 'til it clicks, minor adjustment to the other hole, and run 'til it clicks again. so far no leaks either.

i just simply love driving this truck. sure there are things to fix up or finish, but it just makes me happy!

[KevinK7]

Originally Posted by 6DoF

haha, thanks much. would "black n gold country" be a little closer circle?

yup
Great idea on the gas filler too, fits right in with the theme of the truck
...well done.