The Story Of A Cummins Suburban (Lots Of Pics)

[gerfunken]

I also like the lights upgrade. I just switched to the LMC (ya, I know) Halogen kit with the upgraded wiring harness that they have. You talk about a world of difference with those. I'd used the silver-star in my truck, and almost positive that the new wiring harness would have made a world of difference with the electricity coming right off the battery instead of through the 40 year old switch, but I didn't check on that before switching out the lights.

[ryanroo]

Looks like it was sweet trip, one of these days, ill have to tag along on one!
Ryan

[ERASER5]

I have a couple of questions about the new rear heater. But first I must say, I like the way you solve problems.

When the engine is running and up to temp, can the rear fan be turned on without the heater unit burning fuel?

Can the rear fan be turned on with no heat to circulate air during summer use?

[6lcummins]

Originally Posted by mosesburb

They are pricey, but they are domestic and this lady sounds like she knows her product very well.

That means you talked to Donna, she really does know their products well. She even drives their drag car lol they are a heck of a group of people to deal with for sure.

BTW this is a pretty badass truck.

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by gerfunken

I've been around, but not posting much (but spying on your, Dieselwrencher & Ryanroo's build threads). I spent last summer working on my cab, trying to repair all of the rust. I've also finally decided to go diesel, and have finally found a donor vehicle that I brought home last weekend.

Looks good!!

Originally Posted by gerfunken

The work on my truck has pretty much come to a stand-still with work, school & family taking more priority than my truck has.

As it should. Mine sat forlorn in my driveway for about five years having nothing done to it while I changed jobs, we had our boy, general mayhem ensued etc.

Originally Posted by ryanroo

Looks like it was sweet trip, one of these days, ill have to tag along on one!
Ryan

Sounds good!! Ryan won't invite you over to the cool diesel section, but I'll invite you to run a trail.

Originally Posted by ERASER5

I have a couple of questions about the new rear heater. But first I must say, I like the way you solve problems.

Thanks. Can't say I've ever been told that before.

Originally Posted by ERASER5

When the engine is running and up to temp, can the rear fan be turned on without the heater unit burning fuel?

Yes it can. I added a switch to the fan relay so this is possible. One of the challenges of this install was figuring out the wiring. When I removed it from the vehicle it was installed in, I took pics of connectors and wires so I'd have some reference in case I got confused going back together. I also managed to find a wiring schematic somewhere too. It took both of these and some serious time to figure this thing out. The wiring has tentacles that seem to go into everything. Finally late one night something in the schematic started making sense, so I kept going with it. I ws taking notes in pencil because I would regularly have to erase them and make new notes that were right. All of that AND this thing is German. That compounds the issues with the wiring. Once I figured it out, it wasn't really so bad, but getting those first few things figured out was a bish.

Originally Posted by ERASER5

Can the rear fan be turned on with no heat to circulate air during summer use?

It can, but it really won't do much. I use other fans for that task.

Originally Posted by 6lcummins

That means you talked to Donna, she really does know their products well. She even drives their drag car lol they are a heck of a group of people to deal with for sure.

Yeah, that's her. Nice lady. Definitely knows her stuff. She actually said Durometer before I did. When she said that I knew she was on it.

Originally Posted by 6lcummins

BTW this is a pretty badass truck.

Thanks man!!

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by gerfunken

I also like the lights upgrade. I just switched to the LMC (ya, I know) Halogen kit with the upgraded wiring harness that they have. You talk about a world of difference with those. I'd used the silver-star in my truck, and almost positive that the new wiring harness would have made a world of difference with the electricity coming right off the battery instead of through the 40 year old switch, but I didn't check on that before switching out the lights.

Where is my soapbox??

Here we go. You wrote something there that it seems like 95% of people do not get (some do though). Wiring ages. It degrades. Its resistance increase. It wears out. You stated a 40 year old switch, but if you simply change the word "switch" to "wire" you nailed it (the switch is [typically] not a point of resistance, whereas the wire always IS). People buy an old hooptie like ours and think nothing of throwing a drivetrain in it and hooking up all the old wires and running it all-the-while thinking nothing of the wiring. Think about it; everytime the motor gets started, the wiring gets heat-cycled. From ambient temperature to several hundred degrees in some areas. How many times has the truck been started over the past 40-45 years?? How many cheesy wiring repair jobs have been done on it?? When I tear down an old harness I ALWAYS remove the wads of black tape from wires just to see what is in there. I am almost never disappointed. Usually it is something worthy of fire starting.

The best example of this situation is a buddy of mine has a 72 K5. He (like the rest of us) went through everything that had bearings in it. It was replaced, rebuilt or refreshed. He used the existing wiring. He brought it over and I built a new harness for him. I used thermal cross linked polyethylene jacketed wire and factory Packard terminals. I increased the charging circuit wire size to match the higher output alternator that he (and all of us have) had installed. The original alternator was 37A or 55A with A/C. What do we do?? We put a 94A or 124A or 140A alternator on and plug it in and hook up the wire to the back. The wire is old and dead and too small to begin with and now we are pumping three times what it was built for through it 45 years later.

So anyways, I built this harness. I replaced all of the wires with new wire and Packard terminals. The dash harness was still pretty good (I replaced them anyways and fixed the brown wire situation), but the engine and lamp harness was worn out. So I do all of this and he comes to get it when I am done. Now the truck ran fine before and everything worked for the most part. When we went for a drive he could not believe how well the same truck ran!! He asked if I had made any adjustments to the carb/timing etc?? Nope, just changed some wire. He never would have believed it if he had not experienced it. It is almost like selling snake oil.

So we build these great machines out of old trucks and put all kinds of new goodies in them and then choke them out with 45 year old wiring that is way beyond its intended service life.

So let's say this truck was started an average of two times a day (to and from work on weekdays and running around on the weekends). That is 730 heat cycles a year. After 45 years, that equates to roughly 32850 heat cycles in its life. That's a bit much to ask of any component.

So, being the subject was headlights before I hung a left and took us down this other trail. Absolutely, I bet those headlights would have worked great with just the replacement relay/harness deal because you would have bypassed all that old junk (no offense) that had been powering the lamps for 40 years. I believe that most situations like this could be solved in this way. It is very common to see things go in this order. They complain their headlights are too dim/yellow (and they are). Buy the new wizz-bang fancy headlamp assemblies with a NEW HARNESS. The new circuitry and bulbs get compared to the old harness and bulbs when actually it is apples and oranges or even apples and squash. You figured this out, Scott. Most people don't.

The purple wire going to the solenoid gets hotter than any other wire under the hood. That resistance creates starter issues. Ford solenoids get installed. Problem solved. I have never installed a Ford solenoid, but I have changed out many purple starter wires and I actually up them one size in the process and route them in a way that keeps them away from the exhaust manifold. Same result; vehicle starts every time now.

I realize wiring can be a daunting project. I am 100% self taught because everyone I knew did it the way I already knew how to do it and I knew that way didn't last. If you break it down into one circuit at a time, use lots of zip ties while running the wires (I actually use twist ties during construction now) and run them carefully it can be done with only a couple special tools.

Then the 32,850 heat cycles can begin anew....

[ryanroo]

Originally Posted by mosesburb

Sounds good!! Ryan won't invite you over to the cool diesel section, but I'll invite you to run a trail.

yeah, he is an elitist or something. but thats cool, i dont mind hanging out with the gas burners

i hear you on the wiring. when i built the jeep i had a lot of internet people that were content to just use the factory harness and recommended such to me. NO WAY. for one, 45 years old. for two, the military didnt want colors. it was all black(except for the req'd PO 12ga red add ons) for three the only labeling was circuit number crimped onto the wire at both ends. fourth, the harness was set up to run no circuit protections. fifth, it was 45 years old. i also got some raised eyebrows when i proceeded to yank apart the entire brand new harness i bought and re-routed and re bundled it so it terminated where i should and routed like it made sense. when i was done i had no amp draws and no mis-connected wires. made sense to me

[gerfunken]

Originally Posted by mosesburb

Where is my soapbox??

I agree with you completely on the issue. First off, I hate chasing electrical gremlins (which are always more difficult for me to deal with.) But, I watched in horror as my step-son went to all halogen headlights, fog lights, stupid lights, colorful lights, and otherwise unnecessary lights, tapping in to the existing electrical system without doing any work on the existing electrical. While a father's job is to provide guidance (which I did) all I could do is sit there and watch as he continued with this fascination. Eventually, he overloaded the circuit, melted one wire in the central loom, which melted other wires in the wiring harness. The result: no electronics at all, and a $1300 repair bill to recover from it.

I do try to be diligent when it comes to electronics, and go so far as to replace the wires and fuses as I run across things when upgrading or swapping. I'm on the same page as you with this one.

[Dieselwrencher]

Originally Posted by ryanroo

yeah, he is an elitist or something. but thats cool, i dont mind hanging out with the gas burners

I hear ya you two yahoos!

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

I hear ya you two yahoos!

I *think* he's putting a Cummins in his '72.

[mosesburb]

I know some of you have heard part of the story, so if you are interested in the Paul Harvey version, here it is:

As some of you have already heard, we took a little trip to San Diego to go to Sea World and Balboa Park. We left Sunday morning (03/17) and headed toward SD in the Suburban. We were actually heading about 40 miles north of SD to a town called Carlsbad where we had reservations at South Carlsbad State Beach Campground. Normally we avoid campgrounds with a passion, but there is no free-range camping in So-Cal (that I know of), so we resorted to a beach campground and reserved a spot backing up to a cliff overlooking the ocean.

We got to Carlsbad about three in the afternoon. We approached the campground on the road that leads directly into it. The problem is you can't drive straight into it. You have to come at it from the north. I didn't know this and I turned south. We went down a bit, then turned around and headed north. We then passed the entrance and turned around thus heading south so we could make the right turn into the facility. When I applied the brakes to turn into the facility the truck pulled HARD right. It was like I had no left front brakes at all. I had just stopped a few hundred yards ago and everything was fine?? I wasn't going fast and the truck has braking power to spare so I was able to reel it in no problem. We pull up to the shack where you check in and the same thing happened. The lady in the shack asked if I had just driven through some mud?? I said no and asked why. She said I was leaking something. I got out and looked and a tan substance was pouring out of the fender in front of the left front tire. I opened the hood and found the coolant reservoir was vomiting this tan substance (this oil/coolant mix is what coated the left front brakes rendering them useless, thus my hard right turn when pulling into the facility). She said I had to move immediately, which I did. I parked in the first parking spot I came to. She said I could not enter the facility because of this (honestly, I wouldn't let me in either). I quickly deduced that it must be an engine oil cooler failure. In this particular Cummins diesel engine the oil cooler is located inside the engine in a coolant jacket in the engine block. The oil is circulated through the cooler which is surrounded by coolant which removes heat from the oil. I figured the oil cooler must have failed because I had no coolant in the oil (yet). A park worker brought me a five gallon bucket to catch the remaining flow from the fender and told me they had a park ranger coming to decide whether I will be permitted to enter or not. He arrived and after some smooth talking by yours truly, I was permitted to travel to a substitute spot. I originally picked site 48 and they put me in spot 1. This was a good thing.

Ever feel like a stranger in a strange land?? I sure did. So, where do I start?? It's Sunday afternoon. Do I call a shop?? Regular automotive repair or a diesel shop or a Cummins specific shop?? What if it isn't the oil cooler?? What if it is the head gasket?? How do I get this thing home if it is a major problem??

While I was doing this I noticed the level in the coolant reservoir was dropping, but it wasn't draining onto the ground. That told me it was back-flowing into the crankcase (when oil and water mix it turns into a super-nasty substance that will wipe out crankshaft bearings very quickly). When I finally decided to move it, I grabbed the bucket jumped under the truck and did my best Bruce Lee impersonation on the drain plug removing it long enough for the water sitting in the bottom of the pan to drain out and quickly reinstalled it when oil started flowing. I then went to start it just in time for a camper to block the driveway. It seemed like he sat there forever, but it was probably two minutes, but water is still flowing into the oil pan. He finally moved, I started it and quickly drove it to our spot and shut it off while still rolling.

In amongst all of this I had called several people. Several people wanted to help, but because of their location, or housing or work situation were not able to, but offered any assistance they could. My call to my buddy Lance (in Phoenix) got the avalanche of help flowing. He contacted a guy named Mike. Mike was down in/near San Diego, but he knew a guy named Rick who lives in Oceanside. Mike contacted Rick, whom he knew, but just got his phone number the week before because he was going to do some welding for Rick. Mike gives Rick my info and Rick calls me and offers the side of his driveway to me. I explain to Rick that the job I need to do is horrendously messy and that I will do the best I can to keep it contained, but the possibility exists that I may have to leave some kitty litter on the ground. He is cool with that and his offer stands. Mike calls and offers any assistance he can to me (this is going to be huge).

We finally get settled down and relax (I'm not sure I did) for the evening. We have dinner, went for a nice walk down to the beach and hit the sack. Even with all the uncertainty, we got a good night's sleep. We got up in the morning and started making calls to get the ball rolling.

Now, I am going to cheat a little and copy some text from a website that we are all members of instead of trying to re-type what was said as it is a pretty long story (I would post a link to the site, but it is in an area that you have to be a member to access). The bold type is what the other people wrote and the normal text was my response to them in the thread on the forum. The posts are in order, but some details will seem out of order because of when they were written. Keep in mind, I had never met these people before.


Originally Posted by Mike
Well, it was a long day. Nick was able to get the rig towed to Rick's place about 12:30 (tow company screwed up and first truck sent did not have enough room for Nick, his wife and son). I showed up shortly after with a new oil cooler and required gaskets. Little did they know I had taken the rest of the day off and brought old clothes to work on the rig. I think I really surprised them. LOL We all then ran around picking up needed supplies (oil, coolant, buckets, drip pan, etc., etc.). With supplies in hand, we need to figure out if it really was the cooler or issues with the head gasket, as Nick replaced this about a month ago. We started by draining the oil which had a lot of water in it. We left the plug out and water continued to drain well past the point of a head gasket leak. At that point we felt fairly certain that it was the oil cooler (which is mounted into the side of the engine block). We finished draining the radiator. Some of the nastiest crap came out. Then we started getting the filter adapter and cooler out. Though these came off fairly easily, the old style fiber gasket on the block did not. Nick spent about an hour and a half scraping this off. Cummins had updated this gasket as the replacement was a steel core/silicon type one, which would have taken minutes to remove.

By about 6pm we were getting parts going onto the truck. We left the oil drain plug out and used a pressure tester and pumped up the cooling system to see if we go any water coming from the oil pan. All looked good. Then came the hard part of making sure we could get as much of the oil out of the cooling system and water out of the oil system. Luckily we got really lucky with the oil system and we likely got 99.5% out. We put a soapy water mix into the cooling system and got the truck fired up around 7:30pm. We let it warm up for about 30 minutes to get it warmed up (so the t-stat would open and circulate the soapy water). We then drained the oil (with only a little water first coming out) and the filter. That look really good so a new filter and oil was put in. We then drained the soapy water mix and flushed that with some clean water, proceeding with fresh coolant.

Since the coolant overflowed originally, from the overflow tank, it drenched the left front caliper and brake. We set about cleaning that up as well. Once we felt we had the work on the truck need, then came the clean up. With cardboard, buckets and drip pan, we kept Rick's driveway clean. Nick not wanting to leave all of this nasty oil/coolant mix, poured most into empty gallon containers and sealed up the last in on bucket, so he can haul it all back to AZ to dispose of. All said and done, we got out of Rick's house a little after 10pm and I got them down 5/805 split before pealing off for home, with Nick having given the A-Okay that all systems were working fine. I got home about 11pm.

Again a huge thanks to Rick and his wife for opening up their home. It was perfect for Nick's wife and son who were able to comfortable while we fixed the truck versus sitting in the middle of a parking lot or worse, side of the road. It was great working with Nick, as the craftsmanship and attention to detail really made the work fairly easy. It is definitely one of the nicest engine conversions I have seen in any type of vehicle. With them back on the road, they are able to keep their plans for today, to go to Sea World and then driving their rig back to AZ tomorrow. It salvaged the vacation that otherwise would have really sucked.


Hard to add much to that post. One thing I can add, or at least elaborate on, is Mike's kindness in taking time off of work for an emergency. Now I had spoken with Mike briefly the day before and he offered to bring parts to me in Oceanside from the San Diego(ish) area. Now when he offered this, I *thought* he had said he lived up that way or at least near there. I was wrong. He actually lives way south of there. Honestly, I would not have accepted his offer had I known this, but I am glad I made the mistake because his driving skills coupled with his determination to get us back on the road was fantastic. I was planning on renting a car when we got to Rick's house to run around and get parts. Because the tow companies took so long getting the right equipment on scene, we got to Rick's house shortly before Mike arrived and he offered to run us around. We went here, there, and everywhere. He even stopped at an Eat-M-Up joint so we could get something to eat. Class act. Total class act.



Originally Posted by Rick
Nick's 'burb is running! Probably a few things to button up... But the initial problem has been resolved - replacing the defective oil cooler did the trick. ExpoMike has been a godsend - spent the day running down parts and assisting anyway he could.

Looks like their vacation can resume.

Rick,
I wanted to say thanks again to you, Rick, for so graciously offering your home to us for our repairs. I know your home was not part of the deal, but you and your family could not have made us feel more welcome if we had known you for many years. That was a wonderful bonus to the "driveway" you offered :-). I realize your house was not on our itinerary, but I know my wife and boy enjoyed themselves enough that that detail did not matter. Thanks again!!


Originally Posted by Larry (This is a guy from Colorado that we traveled with last summer--I actually know this guy, LOL))
Great work Mike and Rick! That is outstanding you took the time out of your busy schedule to help Nick and his family. You can’t ask for a nicer family than Nick’s and you’re right….his Cummins conversion is cleaner and better engineered layout than factory installed Cummins engines. I was shocked to hear anything could go wrong with that machine.

Wow, thanks Larry. Those are some compliments not to be taken lightly coming from you. Thanks!! Yeah, it goes to show that no matter how much prep work and aircraft-type maintenance is done to a rig, there is always a possibility of an unscheduled surprise. We got real lucky that it happened as we were pulling into our destination and not five hundred feet earlier. I was able to contain the mess flowing from the fender (yes, fender) enough to eventually convince the park ranger to let me drive into a substitute spot where we had a real nice evening and even got a good night's sleep.


Originally Posted by Mike
Just got word from Nick, they made it back home to Phoenix without any problems. Glad they had no problems and was able to salvage the rest of their vacation.


We did. We made it home!! We were effectively on a 375 mile test drive, so it seemed like everything we passed was a milestone. At least we made it to El Centro. Hey we passed Yuma. There's Gila Bend!! And so on.. We got home and unloaded the truck, I drew off about 2" of residual oil/funk/cake batter from the coolant overflow reservoir (it was a layer sitting on top of the clean coolant installed at Rick's house), then proceeded to drive it to get something to eat. I bypassed the heater hoses during the repair to save time, so I still have to flush the cake batter out of that system, but the crankcase is clean and the cooling system seems to be pretty close to clean now too. We'll see in a couple days here.

A couple other people need to be recognized for their efforts in getting us going again. First, of course, is Lance. He wasn't my first, second or third call, but he is the one who got the ball rolling. Another character in the play behind the scene is one of my parts guys from Phoenix. I called him Monday morning and left him a message telling him what was up and what I needed and if he could point me in a direction to a Cummins supplier in the vicinity. Now a little back story on this cat is he plays in a band that plays Irish bars. This is Monday morning and Sunday night they did a triple header at THREE DIFFERENT bars for St Patrick's Day. Now I didn't realize it was St Patrick's Day Sunday and that he would be taking the day off Monday, so when he didn't call me back in some amount of time, I started hunting around for Cummins suppliers. I found Cummins Cal Pacific. I called one of their locations and got a gal in parts who said their entire system was down in the region and she took my information and said she would call me back. I'm still waiting on that return call.... Enter my parts guy from Phoenix who sounded like a train-wreck-in-motion when he called me from his house. He had gotten my message and looked up the parts I needed on his own computer, got me the part numbers and also some possible suppliers; one of which was San Diego Freightliner (SDFTL). I called SDFTL and Angel said they didn't have the parts, but he could get them from Cummins El Cajon. SDFTL is closer to Mike than El Cajon, so I had him get them from Cummins for Mike to pick up at Miramar and the 805. Which is where Mike started his day working uncompensated for me.

So all of these people put their effort, however seemingly insignificant or massive, and it all added up to one family being able to finish out a little vacation on a great note instead of a sour one. Much thanks to all!!


Originally Posted by Mike
Nice post Nick. Again, you guys are very welcome and I am happy everything worked out in the end.

One thing to note, even with all the stress of what was going on, Nick remained calm and level headed. I have seen way too many people go off the handle and it makes working with them very difficult. He kept working through each problem without a whole lot of fuss. It made it a pleasure to work with him versus a chore.

Again, glad you guys made it home and I am sure your son will have lots of stories to tell his buddies.

I am sure he will!!


So there you go. The story of our California adventure. All in all, I call it a win. We did miss out on the Balboa Park, but that was not prepaid, so it was skipped due to time constraints. I left with several bloody fingers, purple torn fingernails (yes, more than one), battered and bruised forearms, and a sore back, but we left under our own power and had a great time to boot. It was really amazing to get so much help offered to us having never before met most of the participants. There are still some great people out there.

[mosesburb]

I normally wouldn't post a trip of this nature, but because of the circumstances surrounding it, and the fact that some members of the site contacted me to help, I figured it was worthy of posting for that reason alone.

So here are some pics to go along with the previous story.

The drive out is fairly long and there are some stretches where cruise control would be nice. I don't have cruise control, but I do have hilbilly cruise control!!



With the amount of torque this thing makes, speed doesn't vary much more than a couple/few +/- where I set it.

Remnant of a bygone era:



Dunes!!



Made it to San Diego. Just have to go the 40ish miles up to Carlsbad now:



For some reason there is a lack of pictures for the next few hours......

The next morning this was the view from in front of the truck:







Shortly after those pics, we were on our way:



No pics were taken during the repairs due to time constraints.

Sea World!!



It is amazing the amount of water these things can move with no effort whatsoever:



Preparing to leave town:



If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the



I could have used them a couple days ago.....

This area is pretty neat. Its like it is made of piles of weathered granite boulders:



Well, we have been to 13,114' in elevation, now we find ourselves here:



The Space Age Lodge in downtown Gila Bend:



What was found when we got home:



I'd say we did a pretty good job cleaning the cooling system out in the time frame we did it in. I guess we could have spent a few more hours on it, but we really didn't have that time to spend. I figured this is what would happen in the end and a little oil in the water is better than a little water in the oil... So we ran it. It worked. We made it home. I would have been just fine without the oil cooler failure. A nice relaxing few days would have been nice, but even with the mayhem, we still had a great time and even better, got to meet some great people.

[1985-GMC]

There are still some great people out there indeed, glad you were able to find some while in a little trouble. Thanks for telling "The rest.. of the story." Haha

I like your cruise control, I had an idea to do mine like that but hadn't come across anyone else with a setup that way. Does it just pull or does it screw/unscrew?
Posted via Mobile Device

[v-man]

That cruise control is a awesome idea, the V-Rig surely needs something like that. Our Pumpers at the fire station have those on the pump panel. They have a button on the end of the knob that allows you to just push it in or pull it out then you can screw either way to tweak the rpm's. My buddy has a tree service and his woodsman chipper has the same thing. Can't wait to put that right foot up on dash. LOL

[Dova]

Made it to San Diego. Just have to go the 40ish miles up to Carlsbad now:



I used to work off of Rosecrans at Point Loma Submarine base, was stationed there for a year. Great Mexican food on that street as there are in most of San Diego.

Glad you guys made it back safely. That really sucks, but glad people pulled together to help you get it going. Makes you remember the good in people.

[gerfunken]

Originally Posted by mosesburb

I *think* he's putting a Cummins in his '72.

True.... soon....

And, I'm amazed at the kindness of strangers. That's really awesome that those guys all stepped up and helped out. Happy to hear that you got back home under your own power.

I took the wife out to San Diego last year, September, for our anniversary, and we had a good time hanging out for a long weekend. We didn't do many of the touristy things, but we did manage to have lunch at the Stone Brewery, visit the Birch Aquarium, and spent a good deal of time in Little Italy and the Gas Lamp District.

[jbclassix]

Just so you know, your rig is one of the inspirations that made me want to put mine back together. Funny you should talk about being a stranger in Carlsbad, I got pulled over for blowing black smoke when I lived there. Is all that story from K-5?

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by 1985-GMC

There are still some great people out there indeed, glad you were able to find some while in a little trouble. Thanks for telling "The rest.. of the story." Haha


I like your cruise control, I had an idea to do mine like that but hadn't come across anyone else with a setup that way. Does it just pull or does it screw/unscrew?
Posted via Mobile Device

There sure are some great people out there. It took a while to figure out how to put the whole thing into some form of typed story. Mike did a good job telling the story of the day so I decided to just copy his posts and call it good. As long and drawn out as the story is, even that is not the whole story. It's a good 75% of it, but there is even more stuff not included. It was definitely an adventure.

The throttle is CCW to increase and CW to decrease. The screw function can be overridden by pushing it past the "teeth" that the screw runs on, but it can't be pulled over them.

Originally Posted by v-man

That cruise control is a awesome idea, the V-Rig surely needs something like that. Our Pumpers at the fire station have those on the pump panel. They have a button on the end of the knob that allows you to just push it in or pull it out then you can screw either way to tweak the rpm's. My buddy has a tree service and his woodsman chipper has the same thing. Can't wait to put that right foot up on dash. LOL

I'm not sure I'd recommend using a hand throttle on an automatic. If something pops up I can push in the clutch whereas an automatic would have to be clicked in neutral or have brakes strong enough to hold the vehicle back while under power. I actually rarely use it for this purpose. Usually it is for alternator output, or with the fan clutch on to keep the a/c cool while stopped/parked. Works great for that!!

The type of throttle calbe you refer to with the button is called a micrometer adjustment push/pull cable. Very cool if you have the room to run it. I had a pull then twist-to-lock throttle cable prior to the O.E. cable, but I was having a lot of issues getting it to stay where I set it without cranking the snot out of it. I don't remember if I finally broke it or just got sick of it and replaced it with the original style unit. I am out of holes in the bezel, so I made a tab and mounted it under there.

Originally Posted by Dova

Glad you guys made it back safely. That really sucks, but glad people pulled together to help you get it going. Makes you remember the good in people.

It sure does.

Originally Posted by gerfunken

And, I'm amazed at the kindness of strangers. That's really awesome that those guys all stepped up and helped out. Happy to hear that you got back home under your own power.

Me too. All the while this is going on I am thinking two to three steps ahead trying to formulate a plan for the possible outcomes of the scenario at hand. Everything clicked off as perfectly as it could, but I was forming several contingency plans in case it isn't what I thought it was, or something else is wrong too, or, or, or..... All the way back down to our room in San Diego on I-5 my head is still spinning because things were working just fine and it was pretty much the original plan. I was having a tremendously difficult time wrapping my head around what had just happened (over the past 12hrs). It took quite a while at the hotel to unwind, make my brain realize things are cool now, and pull it out of disaster recovery mode then try to shut it down and get some sleep as tomorrow was going to be a long day too.

Originally Posted by gerfunken

I took the wife out to San Diego last year, September, for our anniversary, and we had a good time hanging out for a long weekend. We didn't do many of the touristy things, but we did manage to have lunch at the Stone Brewery, visit the Birch Aquarium, and spent a good deal of time in Little Italy and the Gas Lamp District.

Sounds nice!!

Originally Posted by jbclassix

Just so you know, your rig is one of the inspirations that made me want to put mine back together. Funny you should talk about being a stranger in Carlsbad, I got pulled over for blowing black smoke when I lived there. Is all that story from K-5?

Thanks!! Yeah, get it going, take it on a trip to AZ and run some trails with a couple other Subs. No, but I posted the story there too.

[MrBeast]

That is pretty crazy.

That is quite the Achilles heel to have built into that engine. Why not switch over to an external oil cooler?

[mosesburb]

So we got home and had this in the reservoir:



I got to cleaning it and the heater system out and made more of this:



and this:



and about ten more jugs of the crap sitting around here. Some of it is the super nasty "cake batter" substance, some of the other is not too bad. Now that it has been sitting a while, some of it has separated back into its original form. When this happens I can clean the oil off of the coolant and then I will be able to turn them in as what they should be instead of an emulsified mixture.

Is it bad when your coolant filter has an oil leak??



I don't think this is the right substance for the filter:



The first pic shows the plates of the cooler. It is a stout design that does not often fail. The plates sit in the cooling jacket of the engine.



This is the side of the plate that the oil filter mounting casting sits against:



This is what the backside of the filter mounting head looks like. It has the bypass spring in it and it directs the flow of oil away from and back to the holes in the lower end of the casting which take oil from and return oil to the engine.



This is what the cooler looks like when it is mounted in the engine. The lower holes in the plate are where the oil originates from and returns to once it is filtered and cooled. That is the outside of the filter head in the pic also. The owner of this pic, ryanroo, cut the filter mount off the casting and welded on a flange with threads to create his own remote filter mount setup. Now, I swiped this pic, but he took the prior pic upon my request. He has his apart and it is hard to explain all that goes on behind the filter head whereas a picture explains it much easier.



So I guess it is possible to eliminate the factory cooler, but it would be quite the engineering ordeal. That coupled with the fact that they don't fail very often, seems to make it a less desireable project, for me anyways.

[jbclassix]

We used to run into ruptured coolers in off road equipment in mining often enough to keep Cascade in stock. Seems that stuff works pretty good. But most of those failures were the result of the operating environment. I hope the contaminates don't damage your Wabasto. You will want to consider replacing any rubber cooling hoses as they will react to the oil/coolant mixture. Yours is the first B engine I have seen fail. Knock on wood.
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[MrBeast]

You know what is funny is I had no idea there was even one of those on my trucks.

I still have a lot to learn with the Cummins, completely different system than the SB/BB Chevy, the more I learn though the more I like them.

[Dieselwrencher]

Nick, I was glad to hear you made it home safe with your rig operational. The cooling system is really hard to get cleaned out after an oil cooler failure. I've had the joy of doing several 6 uh oh's. You can eliminate the oil cooler from that location, but it is a lot of work and expensive. More than likely the cooler gaskets were the culprit, but with as much damage can be done, I'd replace it just as you did. I've got the same cruise control set up for the Longhorn. it works great. Oh, wait.....

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Nick, I was glad to hear you made it home safe with your rig operational. The cooling system is really hard to get cleaned out after an oil cooler failure. I've had the joy of doing several 6 uh oh's.

I've dealt with head gasket failures on gassers back in my repair days, but this substance is nastier than any of that crap that I remember. I think I finally have it cleaned out. I've been driving it daily for a couple weeks now and there is just an ever-so-slight film on the top of the coolant in the reservoir. I think I will run it for a while longer and then do another flush and finally refill it with the Rotella ELC that I was running prior to the mess.

Have you ever used this stuff?? Sounds like I could have used it back in the beginning.

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

You can eliminate the oil cooler from that location, but it is a lot of work and expensive. More than likely the cooler gaskets were the culprit, but with as much damage can be done, I'd replace it just as you did.

I'm not planning on moving it. I had a couple people mention getting rid of the stock cooler, so I was just trying to show that it is not an easy task. I have not tested the old cooler yet, but I will pass along the results when I do. The gaskets both looked good when I pulled it apart, but I can't say for sure that it wasn't them.

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

I've got the same cruise control set up for the Longhorn. it works great. Oh, wait.....

Yeah. Post a vid of it "working great".

[Dieselwrencher]

Originally Posted by mosesburb

Yeah. Post a vid of it "working great".

I will. It idles steadily and is the quietest 24v I've ever heard.