Know anyone that works in powder coating?

 

I don't. However, Harbor Freight has those powder coat guns and supposedly you can spray something and bake it in the oven. Not sure my better half will let me put them in the kitchen oven though...maybe I can sneak them on the grill

 

I have a powder coating guy 10 minutes from my house. Actually going to pick up my fuel tank tub this week. Im in SE Michigan so I know that doesnt help anyone.

 

It is always something on these old trucks it seems. Thanks for keeping us updated!

 

OOHH!!! A powder coated tank tub!! One day I'll find one in better shape than the one I have and swap mine out. Powder coating would definitely something I should look at for that given the amount of junk that gets up inside there.

For sure! I was really hoping to get my rocker project going by now, but life has thrown a few curve ***** my way so far this year. Now if I can just learn to cut my grass during the week, I can get truck projects going over the weekends...

 

Curve ***** are the way of 2021....LOL. And people were to see 2020 go. I'm not so sure.

 

Got the drivers side front brake changed out on a HOT Saturday. And of course, had a hiccup along the way. Mostly straightforward, but right off the bat, I noticed my Warn hub loose. That's the second time it's happened. First time was over the winter when I went to lock the hubs in and noticed the passenger side loose. Turns out I'm an idiot and didn't line up the small keys between the outer shell and the inside well enough. Apparently the drivers side came loose as well. Super weird as the last time I checked both and they were tight. Anyone else have that happen?

On to the brake. Nice to not have a shudder when braking and now the front brakes work VERY well compared to what they were. Lesson learned on rebuilding them yourself. It's just not worth the time and effort. I spent countless hours behind the sand blaster on all 4 calipers cleaning them up, painting them, and then rebuilding them with new pistons slide pins, and seals to have 2 fail within ~25K miles. Oh well. Now I know how to do it if I ever have to. So, during this I had to change out the ABS sensor because the brand new one that I installed with the new bearing got into a tire because I didn't have it fully secured. I had a couple spares laying around so I went ahead and swapped it out while I was in there. No more ABS light! Being so hot, I didn't really feel like puling the bearing so a flexed the backing plate over the sensor a bit and was able to wiggle it out of there. So, it can be done without removing the bearing and backing plate. Found a bit more rust on the backing plate than I'd like to see, but that's Ohio for you. Got everything all put back together and realized that the bleeder on the new caliper was seeping. Pulled it and it had a different end on it than the old one, so couldn't use that. Tried tightening it to no avail. So, off comes the caliper and bracket, back to Autozone, exchanged it, replaced it all again, and it worked. Had my better half help me bleed everything and took it for a spin and set the pads. All works fine again and super smooth braking now. Managed to get a few pics along the way.

Warn hub loose


The ABS sensor will in fact fit through the little hole there in the brake shield

I did have to swap out the o-rings from the one I removed to the spare I had

Back together and you can see the rust/peeling paint

 

Hah! I did a brake job too, stretched between Saturday and Sunday. I likewise attempted to rebuild my fronts, and then I remembered I had a warranty from AZ. 30 minute round trip and I was home with like-new calipers, forget all that mess/work.

 

Changed the oil and fuel filter yesterday, which in and of itself was uneventful. However, I noticed a problem when putting things back together. It's way easier to get the oil filter off and back on when I take the intake pipe off of the turbo and air filter. So, after I got the filter back in, I went to put the pipe back and the compressor housing started flopping around! At first I though the whole turbo was loose, but turns out that 3 of the 4 bolts that holds the compressor housing to the exhaust housing had come up missing, along with one half of the split ring that the bolts hold on. Fuel filter was the first change I had done since the build and really it should have been changed prior. However, I'll say there's something to buying fuel from one or two stations that run through fuel often. Not one drop of water came out of the filter, which makes me happy.

So, after I get back from vacation, I'll install a new ring and new bolts. Lucky for me I horde parts and bolts and such, so into the pile I went and found several good candidates. One was a bit long, so cut it down and several o the others were not the correct thread. But, I ended up with 2 good ones and clamped the ends of the split ring back on and then tightened the remaining bolt that didn't fall out. Crisis averted....for now.

 

What turbo are you running?? An HX35?
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Yep! that would be the one!

Happen to have a line on new bolts and ring?

 

Bolts yeah, ring no.

I've rebuilt a couple stock Dodge-Cummins HX35's using Turbo Labs America rebuilt kits, those kits come with new bolts but re-use the big cover snap ring. I'm guessing the ring is available as HX35's (and their Chinese knockoffs) are everywhere.

One thing I do recommend doing is putting a little weld bend on the ring ears (the place you grab the ring with pliers). Makes a little ridge for the pliers to grab onto so they don't keep popping off the ring when you're trying to clock the front housing in the truck.

I may have invented a few new curse words when I was trying to clock the front housing of the HX35 on my F250 conversion project. After I got good and frustrated with it, I welded a couple small beads on the ring ears and it went back on easy. Wish I had done that from the start.
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Well, went ahead and put my baseplates on in preparation for flat towing the X behind the motor home. They are installed where the front tow hooks are (in place of them) and are fairly straightforward to install, with a few exceptions. First, the instructions say to remove the air dam from the bumper in order to access the 3 bolts that hold in the tow hooks. While this may give access, I didn't find it enough access when I was pulling the air dam. So, bumper had to come off. Unfortunately, my front bumper is a bit janky and rusted. So, the air dam bolts were NOT easily removed. And, who the heck has an 8mm ratchet wrench?? Turns out I do, but I didn't find it until after the fact.

So, removed the 4 bolts holding the front of the bumper on the frame horns, and the two bracket bolts holding it to the frame underneath. I was able to one man it onto a 5 gallon bucket while I removed the plug for the fog lights. On to the hook removal. Three bolts, easy enough with an impact, right? Nope. Dang 12 point impact sockets got me on one, rounding the head, and one on the other side just stopped my impact right in its' tracks. No problem, I fired up the oxy/acetylene torch, added a bit of heat and a 6 point wobble impact socket and out they came. Bumper back on, and in with the base plates. they use 5 bolts. Two existing front bolts for the bumper, you have to drill 2 additional holes on that face, and one where the 3 bolts from the tow hooks were. So, got the bumper back positioned, started all the bolts with the factory 4 up front and the two underneath, and forgot to hook up the fog lights. Got that harness pulled out and hooked up. Then it's on to drilling two additional 1/2" holes in the front of the bumper. I started with a pretty high quality 1/8" bit and got through fine. Went' to a 3/8" bit, again no issues. Then I pulled a brand new bit out of a set I got from an old farmer in IN. One hole in, it was smoked and deformed. And I used oil on all holes, multiple times. Ugh. Back to the bit collection and found another one. Got through two more holes and snapped it right in half. One more time to the bin and another bit that went through and I didn't break. 4 remaining bolts in with red loctite. Though, now that I'm writing this, I remember NOT putting loctite on the original bolts. Also, given that the bumper was back on, I couldn't get my hand in there to get to the single bolt where the original tow hooks were bolted in.

I still have to add on the safety cables and I'll pull the air dam off now that I've found the 8mm ratchet wrench and see if I can get that lat bolt up in there. The front springs are in the way pretty good, so hopefully I can get them in there. I'll put red loctite on everything when I do that.

Next steps to the flat tow project are order up the Air Force 1 braking system (coach already has part of the system installed) and make up my transfer case shifter linkage so I can get to neutral on that. Once that's done, I'll have that ability to flat tow behind the coach. I'm alos in process of rebuilding the tow bar that came with the coach. I have most of the parts in hand and everything cleaned up and painted to put back together. On to the pics!


Base plate prior to install

My janky bumper on the bucket. It actually worked fairly well.

Lots of rocks hiding in the bumper

Baseplates are a tight fit

The bolts are super tight in there


Broken bit

Super hard to get my hand down there to tighten the bolts

Ended up taking the grill out, which helped with access

 

I'm interested in what you're doing for this. I'm considering keeping the stock EX transfer case when I do the Cummins swap (its better than the 241 dld that came behind the NV4500, and I already own it too). But I don't what the electronic shift (I want a dang shift lever in the floor.) .

Please share/ post pictures of how you go about getting this accomplished so that I may draw inspiration from (or blatantly plagiarize) your work. Thanks
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Will do! It's now hot on my list to get done.

The basic premise is, use the shift motor housing and add a lever and cut a slot in the case to accommodate it. I have the floor shifter out of a Super Duty and adapted the pivot point to the G56.

Gotta move one of the kiddos back to school this week, so I'll be able to use her car to daily while I get some of the more major projects going and not have to worry about finishing right away to be able to drive the next day. Hopefully that gets me back on the project track.