Wait till you spend weeks getting an old air cooled Porsche motor together, finally get it in the car, start it up, reach over on the tool bench to get your long screw driver to adjust the carbs and see half a main bearing shell laying on the bench and it is a new one!
Cummins Canoe (A Stepvan Story)
- Thread starter PlethoraOfGuns
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PlethoraOfGuns
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Ok ok, since my pockets are full of a bunch of other stuff, we took the head back apart and put the alignment pins in. No, I didn't tighten the head bolts down so the head gasket is fine. The old Cummins engines you can reuse the head bolts, as long as they are still in spec and didn't stretch. Forgetting to put in parts is the worst, especially if you put it all back together! I feel all of your pain, we're in this together...
mudbunny
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Yeah, we've all forgot something a time or two. Though I've never forgot a bearing shell.
Put a new motor in a 78 chev pickup and it knocked when we started it. Scratch our heads a while till we decided to pull it to look at the bearings. When we got it out we noticed a shiny spot behind the flywheel. We had one long bolt holding the pressure plate on and it just barely touched the block in one spot. A lot of work but relieved it wasn't anything serious.
Put a new motor in a 78 chev pickup and it knocked when we started it. Scratch our heads a while till we decided to pull it to look at the bearings. When we got it out we noticed a shiny spot behind the flywheel. We had one long bolt holding the pressure plate on and it just barely touched the block in one spot. A lot of work but relieved it wasn't anything serious.
PlethoraOfGuns
Well-known member
Oh boy, that sounds terrible but great at the same time! Scary sounds I bet.
PlethoraOfGuns
Well-known member
So I ended up taking the cylinder head back off to put those alignment pins in. Yes yes, those are very much needed. But while we have the coolant all drained, lets do a cooling upgrade.
The Cummins runs pretty cool. It only got hot once or twice climbing some hills in Colorado. The old setup lacked a fan shroud, and the mechanical fan was nowhere near the radiator. Making a shroud was going to be too complicated, so electric fan was the way to go. Aftermarket fan kits are almost $1000!!! Lots of inter web searching brought me to the Lincoln MK 8 fan. Apparently this fan is the most powerful cooling fan ever put into a production car. Called some junkyard and picked this baby up for under $100. Some simple aluminum brackets and rivnuts did the trick!
It fit pretty darn good! Just had to drill some holes and cut off the original mounting tabs.
This thing draws more than 30 amps on high speed. It is a two speed fan. The low speed wire we're just going to leave capped off for future use for something one day? In the upper part of the photo you can see the 100 amp relay for the fan. I don't think the little 30-40 amp cube relays will last long with this thing. I had the 100 amp relay sitting around so in it went. I hope we don't need a bigger alternator!
Oh this is great! Look at all this room we still have! It would have been a nightmare making a fan shroud around those turbo charge pipes. Also the old fan sat about 4" higher than the radiator. This was the way to go. It pulls a lot of air! Sounds like a rocket taking off. Anyway, threw some coolant in, cracked the first injector line to bleed fuel, and it fired right up! I always blow up these Cummins engines, but they are so easy to work on, so it almost cancels each other out. We're back on the road! Let's see how engine revision #3 will do.
The Cummins runs pretty cool. It only got hot once or twice climbing some hills in Colorado. The old setup lacked a fan shroud, and the mechanical fan was nowhere near the radiator. Making a shroud was going to be too complicated, so electric fan was the way to go. Aftermarket fan kits are almost $1000!!! Lots of inter web searching brought me to the Lincoln MK 8 fan. Apparently this fan is the most powerful cooling fan ever put into a production car. Called some junkyard and picked this baby up for under $100. Some simple aluminum brackets and rivnuts did the trick!
It fit pretty darn good! Just had to drill some holes and cut off the original mounting tabs.
This thing draws more than 30 amps on high speed. It is a two speed fan. The low speed wire we're just going to leave capped off for future use for something one day? In the upper part of the photo you can see the 100 amp relay for the fan. I don't think the little 30-40 amp cube relays will last long with this thing. I had the 100 amp relay sitting around so in it went. I hope we don't need a bigger alternator!
Oh this is great! Look at all this room we still have! It would have been a nightmare making a fan shroud around those turbo charge pipes. Also the old fan sat about 4" higher than the radiator. This was the way to go. It pulls a lot of air! Sounds like a rocket taking off. Anyway, threw some coolant in, cracked the first injector line to bleed fuel, and it fired right up! I always blow up these Cummins engines, but they are so easy to work on, so it almost cancels each other out. We're back on the road! Let's see how engine revision #3 will do.
mudbunny
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Only one thing left to do..........burnouts! 
PlethoraOfGuns
Well-known member
Haha I would love to help you. But I keep blowing up my own engines! I do enjoy fixing things.
PlethoraOfGuns
Well-known member
My rig needs to stop malfunctioning so I can can assist others in their debacles!
PlethoraOfGuns
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That's the only way to get my self esteem to work!
Nice work! Could you use an overdrive pulley on the alternator to boost output?
PlethoraOfGuns
Well-known member
Hmmm, overdrive pulley. Would have never have thought about doing that, good suggestion, I'll keep that in mind! Good alternative to replacing to a larger alternator and having to upgrade the wiring. But I don't think I'm going to need to need to alter anything with the alternator. I don't have a radio, upgraded to LED lights, and the heater fan is wired off the house batteries. I think this fan is only going to be running when I'm going up big hills in the summer. So if it only runs for a few minutes per day at most, I shouldn't run into a problem?
. Never mind that the outside temp was 95+.
PlethoraOfGuns
Well-known member
Ah, I never mentioned how the fan gets activated. Duh, silly me. So the ground wire for that giant relay goes to a simple thermostat switch that is threaded into an extra 1/2" npt port just after the engine coolant thermostat. The thermostat switch closes at 200 degrees and opens when temperature drops below 185 degrees. The stock Cummins engine coolant thermostat opens at 180 degrees.
And yes, I've had to turn on the heat before on those big Colorado hills. Hopefully with this new fan I can putter up them hills in the summer and keep the a/c on!
And yes, I've had to turn on the heat before on those big Colorado hills. Hopefully with this new fan I can putter up them hills in the summer and keep the a/c on!
PlethoraOfGuns
Well-known member
Back to tackling things that grind my gears.
The concept of these party lights is great. The end result, eh, not so much. When you're standing, they glare into your eyes and are very spotty.
Came up with the idea to add diffuser lens to them.
The diffuser lenses really help out. Make it seem all 1980's like! These lights are almost totally pointless, but not useless. The switch for them is on the inside of the rear doors. So when entering through the back, these are the only lights to turn on until you find your way to another light. Plus they really set the mood!
The concept of these party lights is great. The end result, eh, not so much. When you're standing, they glare into your eyes and are very spotty.
Came up with the idea to add diffuser lens to them.
The diffuser lenses really help out. Make it seem all 1980's like! These lights are almost totally pointless, but not useless. The switch for them is on the inside of the rear doors. So when entering through the back, these are the only lights to turn on until you find your way to another light. Plus they really set the mood!
