Well with the new IC piping in, I found out the battery doesn’t work anymore. Soooo, it was relocated inside the fender. This also required the negative cable to be grounded to the head vs the bottom of the block like the factory did it:
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That brings us to the final assembly of the behind the bumper goodies and one last inspection of all parts prior to full disassembly again for painting and final bolting in:
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This shows all the custom brackets to make this work:
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That brings you up to speed! Needless to say, I have not made much progress on the crew cab! 🙁
Sorry for the delay in finishing this build update. Let me get right back to where we left off.
First thing I had to do was cut the valance. Due to the new IC, the valance would not fit. So a saws all and some creativity solved that. The area now left open in the middle will be covered by a bigger grill.
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Cut once, measure 15x. Thanks to a friend these cut nicely. SOOOO not a one person job and also very nerve racking. You slip, and they need to be repainted. Cut too short, and they don’t work and you then have to find another at a boneyard, cut it, then have it painted.
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Test fit.
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So last step was to test fit everything to ensure it all worked and fit. So, after all final changes were done, everything was stripped back down to starting point so both truck and parts could be painted now that I knew nothing else needed to be modified after paint.
Truck:
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Parts:
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Basically at this point it was a matter of building back up. Rad went in, Horton fan clutch went in, wiring was completed, IC and piping went in, Condenser went in, intake horn went on, turbo went back on, downpipe back on, lower valence was cut to now fit the much more protruding condenser, and then the intake was next. One of the items I wanted to tackle while re assembling was cold air. So that was what went in next before assembly could be completed.
COLD AIR INTAKE:
So for every 1 deg F the intake air goes up, there is an equivalent 3 deg F drop in EGT. So based on calculations, if I am sucking in hot under hood air with my open element filter, and if I can suck min 70 deg cooler air at WOT, then the exponential drop of my EGT would be 210 deg. Now we are getting somewhere worth looking into. So what stared off as something simple ended up taking a full day to fabricate. But it is well worth it. Under hood air previously was very hot so this should help cool the EGTs allowing more fuel to be added. 🙂
So I started out with a cardboard template before getting into metal. I wanted to make sure this all fit prior to welding.
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Next step was to start fabbing with metal. Although this looks pretty straight forward, there is a LOT of time that needs to go into getting everything just right as that area is tight.
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Then once I got the area quarantined from the hot air, it was time to ram some more air into that box. As there is no Ram Air setup available for Gen 1’s, I made my own. This is a semi truck intake that goes over the cab of cab over class 8’s. Figured that would flow enough for my B series. 😀 So that is what went in upside down. Then I fabbed up the ducting and supports that would hold the scoop onto the truck and the ducts for the air feed into the new air box.
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Then a test of the filter proved it needed a support rack to hold the end up.
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Then, the Fleetguard AH1141 (AKA BHAF) filter went in.
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Then the pipe went on with the addition of a filter minder to ensure I am getting enough air flow from my design and it is now complete!
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GRILL:
Next up was the grill. Due to the changes of the much larger IC and rad, that resulted in the condenser upgrade. But that all rendered the previous grill non useable. So I picked up some 20 foot long tubular stock, and started cutting and welding.
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Insert 4 weeks, two chrome platers (first one spilled acid on it and left it in the dampness for two weeks so it flash rusted), one grill re-polished, and you have this!
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End plugs added for clean look.
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Ready to install!
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Interior:
The interior was the next big task. I had wanted to clean up the interior wiring for a while and now with the addition of the overhead console, this became the time. The cab was stripped and all old wiring cleaned up. Then the overhead console was looked into and its wiring installed.
Overhead console:
I wanted a console on the roof of the truck to house all of the rocker switches. So I pirated this out of a boneyard off a Dodge Caravan and got to work fusing plastic and doing a lot of cutting.
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And the console in the dark:
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Lots of wires…
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New Robert made wiring harness from above wires:
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Measure twice and cut once….
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Install wiring harness:
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Once wiring was run, the headliner was changed to fit the console:
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Then the new carpet went in:
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Headliner went in:
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Then the seat and console went in:
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And this was the result:
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Lights:
Due to the pendulum mount of the Hella lights, the covers sat upside down. So I had come decals made:
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After that, it was test time. All items were tested and short drives proved small wiring glitches and hiccups. But within two weeks, she was running reliable, AC charged, and ready for this year’s spring photo shoot.
Coolant filter was added and can be seen in this photo:
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And also the test of the gooseneck hitch:
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