And now back to our regularly scheduled program…

Last weekend we fabricated the slobber tanks for the Detroit and that was the last thing I needed to do before I could shoot the last batch of Detroit green. Now that they were done, I was getting ready to paint over the weekend. I wasn’t sure if we were going to be ready for the weekend, but everything worked out. Saturday was a busy day, but between a T-Ball game, Mothers Day dinner for the Mom’s in my family and my brother Jason’s birthday, we were able to get everything ready and hung on the rack.

So we needed to shoot both black and green. The new radiator shroud along with several small brackets were going to be black and the blower, bonnet, dipstick tube, water pump tank, slobber tanks, and a few other small items were going to be green. I have been talking about painting the blower for almost a year now but keep putting it off to the side to finish other things. Our blower was in fairly good shape but the seals get dry from age, so we wanted to replace them with high pressure seals just in case we add a small turbo someday.

I talked to Steve L. about rebuilding the blower last summer and he mentioned he was going to visit his Dad in Texas. So my Dad met Steve off of route 33 and gave him the blower and governor a few days before his trip. So the blower made a trip to Texas and Steve and his Dad went through it for me…









I had the blower put aside and covered up so I dug it out and started taping it off for paint…



If you remember the original air compressor pulled fresh air from the bonnet on the blower. In talking with Stan, he mentioned that the compressors typically build air quicker with the filter located on the compressor itself. So I made something to mount a K&N filter off of the compressor, but it wound up hitting the steering box (of course I didn’t realize that until the steering box was installed…) So I was ready to go to the junkyard to pick up a new housing when I did a quick search on eBay and found this brand new one for only $6 with a filter!





We also removed the power steering pump from the engine (thanks again Dave M…) and started to get that ready for paint…



We also removed all the fittings and cleaned them so that we could reseal all of them…



Then one by one we started to hang all the parts. A few of them were parts that I had shot a few years ago but was unhappy with them…





And here is the blower ready to go…



Then on Sunday morning we started to paint. Again with the self etching primer…



Then with the sealer…



And then both colors and finally clear... So here is what we wound up with at the end of the day…









So hopefully next weekend we will be able to start installing the parts on the engine and reinstall the radiator. Then the last thing we need to do before we start the motor is fabricate the exhaust.

That’s it for now!

Straight Pipe!! Braaaap!

that would be good on a 6-71! Lookin good!!

Going through the story again... and recalled this post from 12-15-2008: "After struggling with some Christmas lights yesterday, I figured I better move on to something else. So we decided to continue working on the passenger side of the hood."

Nothing like a little metal work to relieve the stress of stringing Christmas lights.

We accomplished a lot this past week installing the remaining parts on the Detroit… After letting the parts sit for a few days, we started with some of the smaller stuff and then moved on to the bigger stuff…

The first thing we did was install the bracket I made for the fuel filters. I had to make this bracket to push the filters towards the rear of the engine since the check valve was touching the air compressor. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the original brackets was bent and I straightened it in the press. So when I went to reinstall it after it was painted, I realized it wouldn’t work, so I just made a bracket to relocate it…



Since I was hoping to install the radiator over the weekend, we needed to torque the crank bolt to 300 ftlbs. Since I don’t have the drive shaft done yet and this needed to be done before the radiator was installed, I installed a long bar through the trans yoke and along with some carefully placed towels we wedged the bar against the frame. Then we were able to torque the bolt as per the manual…




Then it was finally on to the blower. First we removed the exhaust manifold along with the cardboard sign..



And then we installed the blower. When I started to tighten the bolts, I was using a 1/4" ratchet, only to find that the bolts were turning in the block. I thought I had stripped the block and quickly removed the bolt. When I didn’t see any thread material from the block on the bolt, I quickly realized that the bolts were supposed to be 7/16x16 not 3/8x16… So off to the hardware store to pickup (8) new 7/16” bolts along with some AN washers…



Then we moved on to the 1/4" oil lines. One of the lines twisted and broke when I originally removed it so I made (3) new lines… One for the air compressor, one for the front of the blower (where the governor attaches) and one for the blower drive… I picked up some new 1/4" line from Napa and started bending and flaring…



And here is one of the lines for reference…



On Saturday morning I installed the bracket that bolts directly to the blower. This is the bracket the alternator bracket ties into. For whatever reason, it was not parallel with the motor (off by at least a 1/2"), so I re-drilled two of the holes and reinstalled it on the motor. I also drill a new 1/4" hole and installed a line clamp to isolate the lower radiator hose that goes to the heater core…



Then we moved on to the power steering pump… This things is pretty heavy, especially when you are trying to line it up with one hand and start a bolt with the other. For whatever reason, it took some time to get the 2 gears to mesh, but we finally got it. After it was bolted to the motor, we tightened all the hoses…



Then we installed power cord for the block heater, the fuel pump, the water pump and the dipstick. The dipstick was originally held in place with a wire tie so we drilled another 1/4" hole and used a stainless line clamp…



The finally we moved on to the new radiator shroud. We installed new rubber moldings on the upper and lower edges to make a good seal to the radiator…



And then we installed the shroud onto the radiator…



And then by the time that was done Joe D. (quadbox) stopped by and helped us set the radiator back on the truck…



So all that’s left to install now is the governor and hopefully I will get to that later this week.
On Sunday we took a break from the truck and decided to work on Tommy and Maddie’s new clubhouse. We rescued this from my buddy Mike’s back yard Saturday morning. So on Sunday we gave it a good cleaning and will wind up staining it later this week…



Thanks it for now!

That's lookin' great Tom (as expected by now) and the pics answered some earlier questions I had, but didn't ask. Looks like that play house will get some heavy use.

Emery

Hey Tom the truck is looking great . I think your going to need to rent creepers at the show so all of us can be blown away with the workmanship that went in to this truck . Seeing your pictures has gotten me motivated to get going on my project . Nice job on every detail . I like how you'ved explained each step .You've answered my questions that I had so far. keep up the good work

Ok now, I need my weekly update fix. I know you went to Macungie, you got young kids keeping you busy, but I know you have tinkering in the shop.

thanks in advance

John G

Ok now, I need my weekly update fix. I know you went to Macungie, you got young kids keeping you busy, but I know you have tinkering in the shop.

thanks in advance

John G

Sorry for the delay in posting an update John! It has been a busy month…. first was the show in West Springfield, them the grand opening of the museum/spring fling and then the Macungie show… We were tinkering in the garage so let me see if I can catch everyone one…
When we last left off I had just brought the clubhouse over to the garage… Over the Memorial Day weekend, we pressure washed it, put a shingled roof on it, stained it, rebuilt the front railing and ladder, moved it into place and spent the night it it!



There was a few things that I needed to finish on the motor, and one of them was the air intake bonnet. I had removed the emergency flaps to paint it so I had to reinstall them with new O rings…



While I was working on that, my Dad was working on the rubber elbows… I had several to choose after collecting them for the past few years…



Here is an original setup from a 671 in a 361. This came off of the truck I bought the jake from. Our truck originally had a round Donaldson on it and we wanted a Farr, so we had to change things around. You can see in this pic that to get the correct angle they just installed the 5 1/2” tubing at an angle and tightened up the clamps…



I wasn’t thrilled with that so we picked out two of the best 90’s and my Dad started cleaning them. In the meantime I decided to send out the fiberglass fenders for bodywork. There were a handful of stress cracks and some very poor or repair and bodywork. I talked to the guy that did the body work on the Batmobile (all fiberglass…) and he agreed to repair the fenders for me. I know you just can’t use regular filler on fiberglass, and the work he did on the Batmobile was outstanding, so he was the right guy to take them too. Two weeks later they were done and I picked them up…





So fast forward to Father’s Day weekend…. Without my Dad knowing, I decided to have his original grill shell chromed. I am pretty sure our truck was bumped in the front end at one time, and the grill shell and fiberglass insert were in much better shape that the rest of the truck. The shell also was drilled for two dogs (huskidrive) so I assumed it was a later shell. On a side note, even drilled for two dogs, you can still mount one dog with the center holes. Just recently I came across a factory pic with a single dog but drilled for two. You could see chrome plugs in the empty holes… So in February I took the shell down to Librandi’s in Middletown, PA. They called the day before the Carlisle swap meet in April and said it was done, and I was able to pick it up at the fairgrounds. So last Sunday we gave it to him for Father’s Day… Funny thing is that he never realized it was missing for the past 4 months!!!

So we set it on the radiator just to see what it would look like… Librandi’s really did an outstanding job on this…



Then we removed and gave the inside a good coat of paint with a foam brush…



That’s it for now, more to follow…

Hi Tom thanks for the update. Things sure look good including the tree house.
Over on the West Coast in Cape Coral house riding out tropical storm Debby winds 40 to 60 miles an hour been raining here for the last three day.

Thanks for the comments Tony... I have been watching the storm and hope you stay safe!


Now onto some more progress…

Since the grill shell was originally drilled for two dogs, I had Librandi’s fill the extra holes. After trial fitting a dog to the grill before sending it out, I realized the front hole was off center so I had them fill that hole as well. So we need to re-drill the front hole… After using lots of tape, we carefully redrilled the new hole…



The dog we are using is something that I’ve had in my collection for 10 plus years. It was given to me by a good friend of Mr. Brown’s (Mike’s Dad…) and it came in one of those purple velvet Crown Royal bags. I have been saving it just for this truck. Here is where is spent that last 10 years or so…



After mounting the dog we bolted on a new 361 badge… Both Darrel W and Bob M were able to help me out with new grill badges since the original ones I had were in fair to poor condition. When we finished with the shell we bolted in on the truck…



Now that we were done with the shell I wanted to work on the fiberglass insert. The insert is in fairly good shape but is one small hole and a small crack that need to be repaired…



I wanted to strip the gold metal flake paint off of it so I bought a can of fiberglass friendly paint remover. So I gave it a good coat of paint remover and let it sit overnight just like the directions recommended…



Surprisingly enough, the paint stripper didn’t even touch it… not one bit… So we wiped it off and set if off to the side. I found some other paint stripper safe for fiberglass made by a company called ‘Aircraft.’ (Ironically on a gallon container labeled ‘Aircraft Paint Stripper’ it says it’s not suitable for ‘Aircraft…’ ) I didn’t try that yet but I will soon…

Then we moved onto the governor, one of the last pieces to install on the engine…. Following Stephen L.’s advice, we were able to line everything up and bolt the governor on…



Since I made new throttle linkages from the pedal to the rear of the block, I also wanted to make one from the rear of the block to the governor. So I picked up a 3’ long piece of 5/16” round stock and dug out the new throttle linkage ends I bought a while back from McMaster Carr…



After cutting the round stock to length and threading both ends to 5/16x24, I installed the new linkage. I did reused the small sheet metal tabs for the return spring, etc.



My original throttle spring was tired and thin, so I bought a new stainless dual spring from Lokar… I have used these in the past on my cars and also used one on the 155W with good luck. The original bracket to hook the spring appeared to be homemade so I made my own and bolted it to the block…



So here is a pic from the end of the day! You can see that I also installed a 6” hump fitting between the air intake bonnet and the first 90 deg bend so that everything will be straight. I also temporarily bolted the fiberglass insert in…



That’s it for now!

OH!! It's a tree house? Last time we saw it, it had wheels on it and I assumed it was a travel trailer!! When's the first Tea Party??
Truck looks great!! Nice touch with the Dad's day gift too. Can't wait to see it in Cortland.

Emery

What a great fathers day present. And the clubhouse is awesome too.

BTW, what is that in the foreground, lower right, in the last pic?

Tom;

thanks for the update, the universe is back in order and we all can carry on with are daily lives

John G

Thanks for the weekly fix cant wait to see the next chapter the truck is looking awsome cant wait to see it in cortland

Thanks for everyones comments!!!

Paul… in the bottom of the right hand corner of the pic is the new tall valve cover for the Detroit, which leads me to this weeks update…

Stan also let me know that the ‘paint’ I was trying to remove on the grill insert was not actually paint. The gold and metal flake was actually part of the gelcoat. So now it makes sense why my paint removed didn’t work at all!!!

Last week I had ordered a number of parts to fabricate the exhaust… While we were waiting for the parts we decided to work on the tall valve cover. If you remember a while back we stripped the paint off of it started getting it ready to polish it. Using some threaded rod ‘L’ hooks I made, we clamped it to a horse to hold it in place…



A while back I DA’d it with some 400 paper but it just wasn’t cutting it well enough. So I started with 180, 220, 320 and then finally 400. This probably only took an hour or so. The hardest part was getting into the tight spaces around the letters, etc…



And this is what we wound up with after we were done sanding…



My Dad picked up a 6” sewn buffing wheel along with some green compound (in a bar…) So we started to polish the aluminum with the compound and were surprised on how well it worked... After about a 1/2 worth of polishing and then going over it with Mother’s, this is what we wound up with…





Not too bad for a nights worth of work… After polishing the breather, we set it on the motor…



The exhaust pieces finally came in later in the week so our plan was to fabricate the exhaust system over the weekend. I ordered (2) 84” long 5” stacks, (6) stainless Peterbilt mounting brackets and a 5” Y pipe without a divider. I also had one with a divider that I originally wanted to use for hanging the pipes, but changed my mind after I saw a system on a 389 Peterbilt. The 359 was delivering fuel in Port Jervis and we happened to stop there and fill up on the way home from West Springfield.

So here is a pic of what we started with…



I also ordered a 4” to 5” reduces along with a 4” stainless flex coupling. I want to isolate the motor somewhat from the remainder of the exhaust system and one of these couplings worked very well on the 155W…



If you remember I mentioned a while back that my friend Rick gave me a brand new MBRP straight through muffler that he had bought for his Duramax. This muffler is a straight through design and is 24” long. The only problem is that it very tight underneath. With the flex coupling and the 24” long muffler I didn’t have a lot of room to work with. In looking at ways to save some length, I decided to trim the Y pipe and the reducer…



And you can see here that this save me 6” or so…



After I trial fit everything and was happy with the fit, I welded everything together…



More to follow...

While the pipes were cooling down I decided to cut 1” off of the factory pipe leaving the exhaust manifold. By doing this I wound up raising everything which gave me some additional room between the crossmember (where the fuel and air lines run across) and the exhaust. I am also going to put some fire sleeve over the lines directly under the exhaust but this 1” helped a lot… After trimming the 1” off we reinstalled the muffler…



I decided to make vertical mounting brackets out of 4” x 3/16” flat stock along with some 2” angle. I started with cutting (2) pieces of the 4”, each 9” long and then drilling the mounting holes…



And here is a pic of the angles that we cut a few days ago… These will bolt to the middle crossmember (where the carrier bearing bracket bolts to) I also cut two pieces of heavy rubber to isolate the brackets from the crossmember somewhat…



And here is what the hangers worked out to be…



And here is a pic of where the muffler is located along with the Y pipe…



When I was happy with the location of everything we installed with 90’s along with the straight pipes. We may wind up adding mufflers, and I am considering this in the design of the stack brackets. So here are some overall pics!!!





That’s it for now!

WOW!! Hope we all get to hear it before you add mufflers.

Emery