Hi Guys and Girls, Like the title says, Tom needs a job. I am no longer traveling and I don't think I've put 200 miles on the truck in the last year. The RV is for sale and I just really don't need it. Some of you old timers remember my adventures with Tom as I toured America. Most everyone sees 02 F550 and think $5K, I've got $12K in the motor and it only has 25,000 miles on it. You can see the rest of the detail down in the for sale listings. Anyway do I just market the engine and give the truck away free? thoughts and opinions welcome. Barney

 

Hi bfife! You and I talked about Tom and the trailer, and I wish I could have used such a capable setup - but it was just overkill for my wife and I. You mentioned the turbo setup you pulled out of Tom to install an improved configuration. The one you pulled... was that a 38R with Clay's billet wheel, or was that somebody else's billet wheel? What did you put in there to replace it? (I forgot)

 

Good Morning, I ran a 38R for a year and loved it. Added Dieselsite's WW and broke the shaft on my turbo in 900 miles. Installed another 38R/Dieselsite WW and it broke the shaft in 600 miles. Bob always claimed it was an install error, I disagree. I think its a manual tranny issue. Having talked with other tuners/builders I here the WW turbos don't like the load/unload issues you get with a manual tranny. I went with a KC turbo bushing turbo at the recomendation of Bill Cohen. Its been great. not as fast as a 38R but still good. Looking at their site right now, I would get their 38R combo. it sounds awesome.

 

Aftermarket wheels break the 38R in automatic transmission trucks as well. I recently bought a new replacement 38R for a friend with an auto who had installed an aftermarket wheel on his original 38R.

Garrett states that the center housing rotating assembly needs to be balanced as just that... an assembly. No matter how perfectly balanced an aftermarket wheel claims to be as an individual component, once the original wheel that shipped with the 38R is removed, the CHRA is no longer balanced as an assembly.

Most people do not take their turbos to a turbo specialty shop with dynamic bench balancing equipment, as Garrett recommends with any wheel change.

And apparently the stock journal bearing turbo is far more tolerant of shade tree wheel swaps than the ball bearing 38R is, which could be why it has taken so long for folks to make the connection. The operating logic appears to have been: If shade tree wheel swaps worked in turbo A without bench balancing, and without issue... then why wouldn't they work just as well in turbo B?

Clearly, enough reports of 38R failures, in both manual and automatic transmissions, have occurred during the last decade for us now to connect the dots. Especially when unmodified 38Rs with the original wheel enjoy long term service, and where most reports of 38R failures are accompanied by wheel swaps.

 

I remember your rig at the GTG in 2013, Barney. It's a damn nice truck. I don't have a feel for F550 value. Interested to hear what it's worth. I don't see your sale ad in this forum - can you point it out?

Edit: found your ad in the marketplace section

I think you were getting ready to put a clutch in it at the time this pic was taken. Do I have that correct? Your beast on the right - unforgettable. Mine just to the left of it. Wish I could have held onto it. You've put significant effort into making your rig work for you - I hope you find someone who appreciates that.

 

I think you're right Jeff. I was about to do some updates.

 

I will say that $20,000 SOUNDS high but I don't think it is, I think its reasonable. If I'd known about it 2 months ago I would have bought it..... My buddy (who was trying to buy mine) had his stolen and burnt. Insurance gave him $16,000 for his farm truck that had the body literally falling off of it.

I think $20,000 is fair.
Just my 2 cents.

 

This makes perfect sense to me.

 

For me, i find it to be coincidence. Dont think Y2 pushes his rig like others have/had with same turbo, spinning in the 2500+range for who knows how long because of towing.
i feel, getting your comp wheel balance to your guts is no difference in getting tires balance..take the unit apart(removing wheel to install the guts/turbine) compared with a PROVEN record by his truly, Y2, by having tech show him that the wheel/tire assy is in fact "balanced"...couldnt do it.

 

You've got a good memory Timmyboy76! Remind me not to bet too heavily whenever playing cards with you, or I'll be walking home without a shirt on my back!

Point by point:

The tire and wheel assemblies that couldn't be consistently balanced were truck tires on dually rims. The deep dish (severe offset) of the dually rim cantilevers the center of gravity of the tire away from the clamping plane of the wheel, which is likely a contributing factor to the difficulty that tire technicians have in chucking the tire/wheel assembly up to their machine consistently.

This isn't a problem unique to my discovery. Ford has issued a TSB concerning the problem, although in Ford's inimitable fashion, Ford limits the applicability of TSB's only to those vehicles where the complaint was presented the most... which in this case, was with the F-53 motorhome chassis that comes originally equipped with LT245/70R19.5 tires on 6.75" wide 19.5" wheels... an assembly that is heavier, wider, and taller than the stock F-550 tire, but that could very well be the exact tire and wheel assembly that Barney shooed Tom Dually with, based on the photo posted above. Anyway, Ford recommended that tire shops use Haweka centering hardware on the tire balance machines in order to chuck up the Ford motorhome tires and wheels correctly and consistently... in order to correct the vibration issues that front engine rear drive gas powered Class A motorhomes based on Ford's 1999 up F-53 stripped chassis commonly had.

I guess I say all that to say that a 130 lb severely offset tire and wheel assembly for a dually motorhome is a lot bigger than a CHRA.... but notwithstanding, I can appreciate drawing the parallel in principles, even if the applicability in practice is debatable.

On other points..

With 4.88 gears, my engine rpm is always spinning in the 2500 rpm range.

With my turbo, which is stock, but not bone stock, as it has 1.0 A/R exhaust housing and a Big Head, I do have a different wheel. But the wheel was installed with the turbo removed from the truck, and the CHRA was bench balanced at a turbo specialty shop before the turbo was remounted. The wheel isn't wicked or billet or anything fancy like that. It is simply a less efficient wheel to counteract the surge/chirp and risk of turbo stall... heard only when climbing grades hot and heavy with a tune that I haven't run in 18 years. I've been thinking about putting the stock wheel back into the compressor, but won't until there is enough justification to pull the entire turbo again to do up pipes and a transmission rebuild. Might never happen in my lifetime.

One final point... my argument is that the stock journal bearing turbos are more tolerant of wheel changes than Garrett's ball bearing turbo for this application. If I was inclined to get a 38R, I wouldn't molest it. I'd leave it as Garrett engineered it, and I would want the full use of every dollar of engineering I already paid for with the price of the turbo.

My opinion: I think a lot of forum fueled folks kitchen sink it. They pile on all the popular mods on top of each other "while they're in there anyway." In another recent thread, one member posted that he put on Corey's CNC Fab 4 line feed AND Clay's RiffRaff FRX. Together. Combined. I call that kitchen sinking it. Buying a new turbo, and a new wheel for the new turbo? Kitchen sinking it. Tossing the kitchen sink into a fully assembled aftermarket turbo like the 38R... by backyard bolting a new wheel to it, when it has already been optimized as a performance solution engineered to exceed the stock turbo map in every direction, is not only unnecessary... it is empirically asking for trouble down the road.

 

Y2KW57,

Did you EVER put the chip in?


-Y2KF57

 

 

I don't speak emoji. I'll assume it's still on the shelf though.