I really love your choice of power. Best Diesel engine ever built. I’m kinda biased, I drive one everyday. The Servis Recorder is also called a Tachograph. When I started fixing trucks 23 years ago, these were still occasionally used. I’ve been doing this for 29 years, but started on school buses and they never used Tachographs. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Hey Jamister1, you should have started your thread over here. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/social-forums/coes-cab-over-engine.283/ Its a little place in the backwoods of the HAMB just for COE's. We do not need to follow the same rules as the other pages of the HAMB. We would love to have you, and your thread will never be shut down due to OT modifications /parts
I have done a few Cummins conversions . Get yourself a hydraboost for you brakes and toss the booster you have saved . You will be very pleased that you did this . You can also toss the vacuum pump and get a power steering pump only that will give you some more room in the engine bay . Now is the time to look into the killer dowel pin that kills Cummins engines while it’s on the floor . Google this repair , it’s money in the bank . PM me , I’ll do my best , if I can be of any help to you .
Yep, I will be doing the dowel pin before I do the final assembly. I'll also be throwing a new governor spring in there with slightly larger injectors, redo the pump timing as well as the fuel plate mod. Finally got the cab tilting again since I ripped out the original suspension. The front spring mount was a big ugly cast piece that also supported the end of the cab tilt ram. Built new ram mounts today. They aren't quite finished but they work well enough for now. I'll add some gusetting and eventually they will get welded to the new front spring perch as well. You can see one of the new brackets installed on the right side of the picture. Definitely needs some further beefing up. So glad to be tilting again, time to test fit the Cummins next! Walked out and realized I forgot to turn the trouble light off the other night. I thought this was a cool unintentional picture.
When it rains it pours! The guy I bought the Dodge from complained that it would occasionally die on him. His mechanic went through the high pressure pump and a bunch of other stuff, couldn't find any problem. I pulled the fuel heater today which has a filter in it... its absolutely packed with a sand looking substance! I think he pissed someone off and they dumped sand in his tank. None of it made it up to the water/ fuel separator so hopefully everything is ok. I was getting ready to pressure wash it outside and it hit an expansion joint in the concrete. Cherry picker and the whole engine fell over and hit pretty hard. Severely dented the oil pan, cracked the turbo housing and broke the a/c bracket. GRRRRR!
Man that is like dropping a Harley once it starts get clear because it ain’t stopping till it hits the ground . Man I’m sorry , 6BT pans are easy to come by . I have a nice Cummins rebuilt turbo resting . PM me if your in need . Stuff can be fixed , be thankful the big Bastard didn’t fall on you or a loved one .
That sand looking stuff looks like it could be from a moisture problem that causes a growth in the low sulfur diesel fuels. Check the entire fuel tank if you are re-using it and flush the fuel lines and entire fuel system. There is also an additive that will kill the growth that can be added after the through cleaning of every fuel part.
I won't be using the dodge tank that the sandy stuff came out of ... I was talking to some friends and we decided to put some of the substance in a glass of water to see if it dissolves... it did. Then (after a beer or two) we decided to taste it... its sugar. Sugar soaked in diesel but 100% unmistakably sugar. Did some reading and it turns out that sugar doesn't dissolve in diesel, it just clogs the fuel system. Someone definitely tried to sabotage the truck at some point. It ran great though, just after a few minutes of driving it would die from starvation. Thanks for the offer deathrowdave! I have a buddy sending me his old turbo and I have another friend giving me a oil pan from a motorhome that had a cummins in it. Slightly different but should work.
Survived the holidays and I'm back in the shop. In order to mount mount the engine I needed to figure out where ride height was gonna be. The stock f550 front springs were only a saggy two spring pack. A buddy gave me an overload pack out of the rear of his truck. I threw it in the front packs just to get the thing up a little. With no weight from the engine or trans, bed or a vehicle on the back it was really soft and really low. The hybrid pack is temporary for the time being. Raised it up about 3" in the front.
I pinned the killer dowl pin and resealed the timing cover and threw on a new water pump as well. Dowl pin hadn't moved at all. I pulled the oil pan to install another and discovered the giant dent completely missed the pickup tube. It's not leaking and only displaced maybe a cup of oil so I figured that was good enough. The other oil pan I had was pretty nasty and slightly different too. Didn't wanna gamble that it'd bolt up the same. There's a blatant relief near where the front driveshaft would go. The yellow pan was from an rv of some sort. A ridiculous amount of bolts on the oil pan!
Before you finish up the engine maybe two other things to do while it’s out .1st Rear Main Seal , 2nd Lifter Valley pan gasket .
Did you pull the cam and reseal the inner gear housing? The inner gear housing gaskets are very notorious on B Cummins for leaking. I’ve done quite a few in my career. I’ve also heard a lot about “The Killer Dowel Pin”, but in my entire career, have never seen one move, and I’ve worked on a ton of B Cummins. They are my second favorite engine, right behind the Small Block Chevrolet. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I agree with those gaskets but after many years of building cars, especially my own, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Neither of those gaskets leak at the moment. The oil pan gasket did leak a little and so do the rear-most 2 valve covers. The absolute worst case scenario is I put 40-50k on this truck in the next 30 YEARS... whether the rear main gets replaced or not and whether it leaks any kind of significant amount doesn't really matter. It'll be parked in gravel and the pan holds a crazy amount of oil. Being a cabover it gives me more access to the drivetrain than I've had with any of the 100 and something vehicles I've owned so fixing stuff in the future sounds more fun than daunting. Optimistically I'll probably drive the White 1k a year assuming my wife is even remotely ok being in it with me. Even a severe leak at 1 quart per 1000 miles is totally within an acceptable amount. I do appreciate the suggestions though.
Spent quite a few years in a White tilt cab at the utility I worked for. Huge water tank, boom with pea shooter and a bucket. 2ground guns on the back. Washed one hell of a lot of insulators with it.
Engine mounts are half done. The Cummins now has most of its weight on the White. I cut the old engine mounts out of the Dodge, the welds were starting to crack on the passenger side of the Dodge frame. I took the old beefy front engine mount crossmember in the White and moved it back to where the Cummins engine mounts were. Forgot to get a complete picture of it but it was basically a big U. I cut it apart to make room for the front driveshaft... The Dodge engine mounts slotted into the crossmember nicely, plenty of room to weld the two together... and there just so happened to be some holes that were in the perfect position for the crossmember to bolt into already on the frame. From the other direction with the front driveshaft in the vaguely correct location. After that I put the cab back down to see how everything clears. Only clearance issue will be a heat shield on the turbo. Engine looks lost in there with the cab up. Room for days!
Great build thread! The 1950 thru mid '50's White COE's look outstanding. The art deco look is killer. You and your family are going to have a lot of fun with this. I will be following this build. I stumbled upon this photo a few years ago, so rad. Who wouldn't want one!!
Anyone have a suggestion on a airbag setup for the rear cab mount? Is it even worth it or should I just hard mount it with a latch like it was from the factory? Would it mess up the front cab hinge if the rear of the cab is bouncing around? I dont really have a clue how it works on a full size semi, just an idea at this point. My buddy brought an exhaust elbow by, I thought it was hilarious to mount the whole thing just for the laugh.
With the bags, I'd be concerned about side motion causing issues with the hinges. Unless you make some sort of channel to locate the cab to prevent the possible side motion.
Lots of fun parts are starting to show up. After tons of research, the radiator I settled on was from a 69 Camaro. Perfect width, good height, 3 row all aluminum... the inlet and outlets neck down compared to the dodge radiator but we'll see how it works. Just doing mock up for now. Probably move it closer to the engine and up in height a little. I've got about 2 feet forward and back to work with so it's a little bizarre having to decide where to put it. The steering arm will be going through that area too. Also ordered an intercooler. The factory Dodge intercooler was about a foot too long and the inlet and outlet were 3.5" which doesn't really exist in the universal fitment world. Interestingly the turbo cold side is a 2.5" out and then necks up to 3" tubes so I figured the 3.5" inlet/outlet was probably overkill and would also cause boost lag. I was able to find a nice thick 3" inlet/out intercooler that fit between the rails and has the in/out at the top for simple pipe routing. Lots of couplers are on the way and I need to start on the steering before I hard mount anything in front of the engine.
Wow , what a great build. I'm amazed at the progress. I know there has to be many 1 step forward, 2 steps back along the way. I'm sure there are many hours involved of just sitting , thinking and planning. Looking over the pics I saw a 65 Nova lurking in the garage. I have a Nickey straight axle subframe ready to go on my 65 SS Nova. Regarding the bed ......jmo , but I think a ramp would really lend to the look of the cab.....I'm envisioning a sort of rounded edge on the sides as the bed would go from a straight platform where your winch would be located to the ramp drop. The rounded look would carry rear ward look of the nostalgic cab. Just a thought . My friend is building a 55 Chevy 3100 cab ramp . I will be showing your build to him this weekend. Thanks for taking time to share your work.
If you went with air ride on the cab, you'd still need some kind of mechanical lock to keep the cab from going over forward in a quick stop.
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