When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Up next, my pregnant (at the time) wife was having problems getting in and out of the truck, so I built some steps to make it easier to get in and out of, and even with me and my father (combined 450lbs, there is very little movement when we bounce on them. At the same time, I built a storage rack on my flatbed, so that we could throw random stuff in the back and not have to strap it down, it comes off easily with just 4x 1/4 turn Dzus Fastners on each side. Of course some company logos and brushed stainless steel backing plates!
4 Bolt flanges allow it to be removed for welded, and I didn't have to drill any holes in the frame. I hate drilling holes.... Tight fit around the transmission filter!
Something I had been putting off for a while was longer brake lines, and I was still running the stock ones that were awfully short. But after seeing the almost $200 price tag online, I went down to a local hot rod shop and the old man was able to hand make me some braided lines. So I pulled my stock lines off, and took them down to him to copy. He took the stainless braided hose, and crimped on some Female AN -3 fittings to each end, then sold me banjo bolt to -3 AN fittings, and everything else I was going to need. The total came out to right around $100 and they even pressure tested to 10,000psi.
Now when I went to go put on the rear line, I ran into a problem, some engineer from Ford decided to make the driver side hard line on the axle, 7/16" thread, instead of 3/8". Now I thought all the fitting sizes would be all the same (3/8"). No the T fitting on the axle only had 3/8" thread on both side, whereas the stock brake line has 7/16" on one side and 3/8" on the other. So I went back to the hot rod shop and he made me up a short little line from 7/16" thread to -3 AN fittings, with a new line. Only charged me $25. Looks pretty snazzy under there, but now I want to do the other side too! Lol.
I did eventually make mounts for the frame side, I'm having a tough time finding the pics though...
And with the added length in the brake lines, I was able to put in my 5" lift block compared to the 3" one that I had in there. Leveled the truck out perfectly, and I was able to powdercoat these ones.
And that leads into finishing the traction bars. I got some 1 3/4" x .120" wall DOM tubing, 7/8" heims and misalignment spacers, with some polyurethane bushings at the frame, and threw it all together. It works perfect! Just ignore the rust/dirt/mud on everything, damn mud...
You can also see in the lower pic a carrier bearing spacer I cut out of some 1" Aluminum on our waterjet to correct angles, I was getting a slight vibration that this solved.
We're catching up to the present! Nov of 2018 we bought a Toy Hauler to pull with Shamu, just a 28' Stealth, but shes a little heavy at 8,000lbs dry! Fully loaded with the CanAm, 120 gallons of water, and 40 gallons of fuel, i'm at a smidge under 20,000lbs combined. Makes for an interested ride up 6% grades with no intercooler. I ended up having a lot of temp problems, with both EGT's and EOT's. It was very difficult to maintain more than 40-45mph, and I had EOT up to 271* the first trip up through Tehachapi grade, so I had more mechanical stuff to look into... Including an intercooler.
So I did a few things to try and get the truck to cool down. My ECT temp gauge on the dash never showed anything funny, but its about as reliable as a fart after eating taco bell, so I take it with a grain of salt. First I replaced the fan clutch with a new unit, and new 6.0 fan blade, they're a tight fit! (Sorry no pics) It was a complete bolt on affair.
After that, it was time for an intercooler, so digging on more info I went. I ended up buying a kit on eBay that a guy puts together, with 99-03 aluminum pipes, 7.3 aluminum tank intercooler, e99 spyder, and all the stock clamps/boots. I think it was around $750, and I was fully prepared to modify the pipes to make them fit right. Upon receiving the kit I was pretty disappointed, very poor qc from the guy putting these kits together.
Pipe full of crap, I have no idea what it was. Some deep gouges, no idea what caused it, but dunno if it was going to leak later on or anything More crap inside the other pipe e99 spyder had a crack on one of the nipples, definite boost leak What I received in the kit. Trimming the core support and test fitting. Test fitting the pipes I can see how the pipes are short, and you can see my red marks of where I was going to cut and re-clock to line them up better Laser cut mounts for the intercooler, with NutZerts into the core support to hold it up. One of my favorite little tools I finally didn't want to go through the hassle of modifying the pipes, so I bought the CSD pipes that are meant exactly for what I'm doing. CSD pipe on the driver side was a little long, as you can see from the completely smashed boot. Assembled view, stock boots suck! But the kit was atleast installed, and the CSD pipes fit pretty good, considering.
When you pull the driver side boot off, you can see how close the pipe is to the intercooler, and I understand why the stock boot was so smashed together. Only about an inch away. So I ordered up 2 intercooler boots from DieselSite, Dan nailed it and these boots fixed the problem exactly how it needed to be! After all this, I blew the passenger side HPOP line. With 365,000 miles on it! It finally gave up! It looked tired as hell too, I'm amazed it lived! So I had Corey at CNCFab overnight me one, and he knocked it out of the part, it left Ohio at 1pm, and I had them in my hands at 9:30am the next morning. Installed and back in action! BUT I didn't know that CNCFab uses a different port for the driver side, which interfered with my RiffRaff HPX, so I wasn't able to install the other HPO hose. My luck though, the line that was on there (replaced by the PO), was almost IDENTICAL to the CNCFab line, just routed to the stock location, so I left it.
Well, I just got through my first trailer pull with the intercooler. I admit, it surpassed my expectations, the truck worked so much better, almost like it should have from the factory.
I did the exact same trip as last time, with even a little more weight than the time before (about 20,000lbs rolling compared to the 19200lbs last time), and all the little hills, it held over drive and maintained speed throughout, incredible. In my heavy tow tune, it was almost impossible to get the EGT's over 1200 degrees, I could basically floor it at any point in time, in any gear, and my EGT's were never out of control.
So, then came the grade, the Tehachapi grade. I looked it up, and is a 4-6% grade for 14miles. I got a little running head start, and hit the bottom at about 70mph in OD, then got down to 62mph and downshifted to 3rd, the truck MAINTAINED 60MPH for about 3 miles. EGT's at 1200*s, EOT got up to 250* (which is better than the 271* than last time), BUT, thats when I blew an intercooler boot. I limped it about another 1/4 mile to the nearest pull off, to find out it was the top boot from Spyder to Driver side CAC pipe. I quickly threw it back on in a few mintues, and got back on the road.
Then, 1 mile up the hill, blew it again.
I limped it another mile, at 25mph, trying to find another pull off, before I just pulled over against the hill (barely out of the lane, and the trailer almost in the lane). And quickly tried to reinstall the boot again. Then I dropped my 7/16" socket into the valley, and theres no grabbing a socket in the valley when the engine is at 250*, so I had to go grab my 11mm (Thank god i had one). Got it back on the road, and just took it super easy, keeping boost under 10psi to make sure we didn't have to pull over again. Maintained about 43-45mph the rest of the way. Total BS. I was livid. I kept blowing the boot because the SD boot is almost too short with the CSD pipes, so it leaves less than adequate clamping surface on the boot, so I ordered more DieselSite boots today, hope they get here soon.
So yes, my EOT never got over 250*, but then again, I only got through about 4 miles of the grade before limping it the rest of the way, instead of the full 14 miles like last time. But I did have a ton of power, and got 9 mpg the entire trip.
My wife even wanted to drive, so she towed it all 200miles home! Pretty cool, if you ask me.
Well mid April 2019 I got to take another trip with the trailer, except this time without the CanAm X3 and no water, so I was about 2000-2200lbs lighter. We went out to Avila beach and stayed in an actual trailer park, with full hookups and everything. Truck did fantastic, and passed most other truck/trailers on the hills, and most semis too. Its a 7% grade for about 10 miles, and let me tell you, the truck didn't like it. I got down to 43mph in 2nd gear. Just not quite enough torque to keep it in 3rd. Which 40-45mph seems to be the norm, my dad has a 40ft diesel pusher with a 400hp cummins, he says he does about the same speed.
Other than that, it was a great trip, my 2 year old daughter loved the ocean, got to roast some marshmallows and make some smores.
Didn't get any pics of the weather on Saturday, it was a perfect sunny and 75, but Sunday was a little overcast, but still nice.
Another trip planned for the next weekend too, a trip to Cougar Buttes, another desert trip to go riding, and about a 4 hour drive through the Tehachapi grade again, so I got ANOTHER rematch at the hill that has claimed me twice now.
After I got home I went to check the fluids this morning to prepare for my trip, and realized I haven't had the hood open since I replaced the HPOP line, and even then I never checked my fluids.
Come to find out the last 2 trips I've been 3.5 quarts low on oil... oops. I forgot to top it off after the leaking hpop line and all of the lost oil during replacement. I picked up a gallon and topped it off, whoops lol.
I've been doing oil analysis on this truck since I put the new motor in, and this was the 5th oil change since I put the motor in. Now on the prior test, they told me to take it 8,000 miles because the oil looked great even after 6,000 miles. But after 6500 miles and all this HARD miles from towing/overheating, I figure I do it early, and good thing I did. Here was my report:
