If all four wheels are on the ground, and the front hubs are unlocked, it really shouldn't be an issue towing the Excursion with the transfer case in neutral.

No real stress on the parts, they'd just be spinning and the transfer case oil pump is driven by the output shaft, so it would be pumping fluid around. Worse case would be it might require more frequent transfer case fluid changes is all I would think.
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Another potential project came across my plate and wanted a little feedback.

I can get a full set of 2003 King Ranch interior for nothing. It’s a bit ratted out and will need at a minimum armrests and drivers seat bottom with foam. I haven’t done much checking but I believe I can get replacements for those items. Anybody think it’s worth the effort? My current EB drivers seat, foam, and back need replaced anyway. Also, I tend to use the X to haul around stuff mostly now so the second row flip down and fold flat is useful to me for sure. Not mandatory, but useful. I figure the door panels will about match or be the same, but I can get all pieces, so no issues there.

What say you FTE?

 

Just do the fronts...I would. Make yourself more comfortable. Sell the rear when you can

 

You can get whatever seat upholstery you want from these guy (King Ranch or Eddie Bauer)

https://leather-auto-seats.com/produ...50-king-ranch/

Their stuff is good, not the cheapest (but not the most expensive either), but it fits and the color match is good (color match is really only important if you're just replacing the seat bottom and leaving the OE seat back).

Personally, I'd just recover/ repair the EB sluff vice swapping out the entire interior. If you had a base model rubber floor and vinyl seats type truck, they sure, but the EB is pretty dang nice as is. Not really a major upgrade to go from EB to KR and it'd be a lot of effort and a loss of functionality (the fold flat back seats).
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Thanks guys!

After sleeping on it and your input, I think with the functionality of the middle row, and the fact that the EB is a nice interior that can be fixed, it's not worth the stretch. Frankly there are more important projects to get done this year with the rocker rust and door bottoms. And I don't think I'd be happy with just the fronts changed out.

 

I've been daily driving Clifford for just over a week now as the kid took the car back to school, which I've thoroughly enjoyed. I always forget how much I enjoy driving the old boy.

However, Friday when I got home from work I noticed a weird smell. I couldn't place it, so I went inside, let the dogs out, and went to check the mail. Walked by and saw a giant puddle on the ground under the front. Then it dawned on me: hot diesel fuel. Ugh.

Popped the hood and the filter wasn't leaking, but the entire side of the motor, crossmember, and front end were COVERED in diesel, just under the injection pump. No wet lines up top, but on the side. Fired it up (and it didn't want to from air), hopped out and fuel was gushing out of the fitting for the fuel pressure gauge where it was threaded into the banjo bolt on the side of the pump. Brass fitting had cracked. IT took right around 40K miles for that to happen.

So, I installed the gauge using 1/8" pipe thread nipple to a 90 to another nipple, fridge water line valve, to the gauge. The water line valve lets you open it up just enough to keep from destroying the gauge from the fuel pulsing and still get a reading. Since I had it all hard plumbed, and with all the vibration, it eventually just gave out. Back to the drawing board.

So, I figured that I'd want a lne from the pump to the gauge that wasn't rigid and could take some vibration. My first thought was converting the AN fuel line. Unfortunately, local auto parts stores don't really carry a good selection of that sort of thing. So, looked around and they had two sets of oil pressure gauge line, one plastic and one copper. I figure oil pressure on a car can be in the 60-80 range depending, so 40 shouldn't be an issue. I went with the copper and it had all the fittings included to go from 1/8" pipe thread to the compression fittings. Removed the old gauge and the nipple broke off in the banjo bolt. figured that would happen. Remove the piece with an easy out and se about mounting. The core support has a rubber bushing with a bolt though it just up front, so I made a small bracket to hold the gauge, mounted it with the existing bolt, and plumbed the new copper line in. Seems to work fine, at least for now.

I will say that I now see a little more vale in having the fuel pressure gauge in the cab. If this would have happened and I could see that gauge, I might have caught it when it happened. At this point, I'm not sure how long I was spewing diesel. I don't think it was long, but I do have ~25 miles each way from the office to home. Had this happened and I was low on fuel or it had broken off completely while driving down the road, I could have had a real problem. A gauge inside would at least alert me to something going wrong ahead of a catastrophic failure with a 1/4" diameter stream of fuel gushing out of the side of my injection pump. I do have a small spot left on my lower dash were I could mount the gauge I have. I'll think on moving that in the near future. On to the pics!


Original plumbing. You can se the shiny part of the nipple, which is where the crack was.

Broken off fitting.

Banjo bolt with the piece inside.

Pretty easy to get out.

Start of the bracket.

Here's where I ended up before paint.

Mounting point.

I left the copper coiled so as to hopefully withstand some vibration.

All plumbed and installed.

 

If it happens to break again try using a flexible grease gun extension hose.

They’re cheap, rated to like 5k lbs, flexible, available at just about every auto parts store, and have standard NPT fittings in both ends ( most are 1/8 NPT if I remember correctly).

Something like this is what I use to connect a fuel pressure gauge.
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That's a pretty darn good idea! Anything you can think of that would be long enough to get into the cab? I haven't gone back to the Cummins Forum lately to see what folks are doing in that arena.

 

Running pressurized fuel into the cab is not something I’ve looked into as that just doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.

For in cab fuel pressure ( which both of my currently running 12 valves have ), I use an electric gauge that mounts a sensor under the hood and just runs wires inside.

But I suppose if you really wanted to, you could use double female couplers to link together as many grease gun hoses as you wanted.
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Im with @Antonm on this, the pressure blew out a fitting and you want to pipe it to a gauge in the cab, sounds like a good way to turn the truck into a diesel powered oven, or possibly a deep fryer.

Get an electric style gauge that has a electronic sending unit that goes under the hood.

Here is a Diesel Fuel Pressure Gauge kit, that includes a electronic gauge, and seperate sending unit, far safer.

If its the High Pressure, and needs to go up to 100 PSI, theres this one

 

Point taken, thanks!

I don't want a BBQ at my expense. I'll run this setup for a while and see how it goes. If I pay attention to it, nothing will happen.

 

I don’t think a BBQ is very likely ( diesel is a lot harder to ignite than gasoline ) , but if a leak happened in the interior and flooded down the dash with diesel. You’d be chasing wiring issues forever and the diesel smell would never go away.

Also, if you just like mechanical gauges better, they make gauge fluid separators. Basically a diaphragm with fuel on one side and antifreeze on the other. As fuel press goes up it flexes the diaphragm putting equal pressure on the antifreeze side ( the Pascal’s law thing about enclosed fluids at rest). The in cab mechanical gauge would of course be hooked up to the antifreeze side.
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Changed the air filter today. Past due for sure.

 

Well, the fuel pressure gauge lasted all of a week. Apparently I tightened the compression nut too tight, causing it to crack. That, or too much vibration. In any case, removed the copper line and installed a plug into the banjo bolt on the injection pump. No more gauge, but I have a Tork-Tek valve installed, so shouldn't have too much worry. I may hook it up again in the future.

As to the vibration, I have some and I wouldn't mind setting it down a bit. I'll be hunting a FluidAmpr in the near future.

 

I did some actual vibration measurements (with calibrated equipment) of a Fluidamper and stock 215hp Cummins damper (the dampers are different between the different HP offering of the 12 valve, with the 215hp one being the biggest).
I found no difference between a stock 215hp damper in good condition and the Fluidamper. Now with that said, I do have Fluidampers on all three of my 12 valves because they're a maintenance free, pretty much life of the vehicle part (no rubber to dry rot and fall out), but if you're looking to calm vibrations, they don't actually work any better than a stock 215hp damper.

See thread below for pictures and discussion.

https://www.cumminsforum.com/threads...stock.2516933/
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