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Nice work!
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2 steps fwd n one step back ... never fails.
got the tunnel and floor sealed/cut last night, that went well. i decided there was no reason to go too crazy and throw sparks under the dash, so i made the tunnel patch semi-permanent and removable. could go back to the factory trans easier/ patch was easier / it's sealed in place and the new carpet will make it look pretty. then the NP205. the single stick running 2 shift rails deal wasn't good when new, let alone after 30 years. if i'm making a custom shifter for the 5600, it's going to be a twin stick, if it's a twin stick it has to be capable of FWD. easy enough, just pop out the main shift rail and grind out for the interlocks. sure enough i now have FWD-high, and FWD-low! :rock: i also now have rear-high and fwd-low at the same time :james: ... and since it's the direction that a passenger could just kick one stick one notch and get there, i'm going to have to re-pull the stick and add some metal back. oh well. https://i.imgur.com/lGOjoM5.jpg https://i.imgur.com/iXrJ7Vd.jpg https://i.imgur.com/k4CqUKR.jpg |
fixed it! no more NP205 cross ratio! mod all the 205's though, that only took me 35min to pull the rail, weld, re-grind, and totally reassemble/test.
twin stick kit should be here today, hoping the lateness wasn't cuz UPS destroyed the box and it's missing parts ... https://i.imgur.com/pCPSR71.jpg |
Twin sticks in the tow pig. That is sweet :pimp:.
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twin sticks complete and functional! not only that, they fit thru the hole ever so nicely.
started with a GM shifter kit from JB Custom Fabrications and started cutting them up. crazy enough the offset was too much and i had to section 1-1/4" out (1-3/8" on the angle) to get the center of the sticks 7" from the center of the 5600 shifter. 1/4" plate and angle mount bolted to the trans was good spacing, but better with the little spacer that came in the kit. the fwd boss already had a thru-hole and i just tapped the angle for the bolt, while the rearward boss needed to be drilled and tapped. i drilled and tapped the center of that boss, and the shifter pivot is 2" up from that rear bolt, and 2-5/8" forward of it. the shifter connectors aren't as nice as i wanted, but i can fix them later. instead of buying new heims or threaded sleeves and such, i welded a bolt to one end of a 5/16" rod for the female heims to adjust, while i just welded the male heims right to the rod. if i ever need to replace a heim I'll redo them better ... till then this was all i had laying around. i moved the mounting hole in the bottom of the shifters for better misalignment clearance and i didn't need the extra length like the GM kit required. the adapters bolted to the 205 shift rails are swapped from what the GM application called for. the one on the fwd stick is unmodified while the other i had to cut the sleeve shorter and drill a new hole for the bolt thru the rail. real happy how those came out, and were easy. i now have the transmission bolted into the truck for good! while still missing the crossmember, i had to see how the shifters felt. this is a short-throw shifter with a factory 3rd gen stick screwed to it and the EATON shift knob. pictured is 2nd gear, talk about an easier reach than the factory setup! depending on how you hold the shifter you can hit your hand on the steering wheel in the 1-2 shift, but I'm going to drive it before i start modifying that. i think the t-case shifter hole is good to go, the new twin boot covers and seals it great. i MIGHT have gotten the 5600 shifter hole a little small :lol: https://i.imgur.com/up9TRvP.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Hn80xn3.jpg https://i.imgur.com/NLlkfoz.jpg https://i.imgur.com/URBsIIG.jpg https://i.imgur.com/djXCIhg.jpg https://i.imgur.com/AIda7zv.jpg |
wow, decent weekend of work! wife actually left me alone and i was productive.
finished getting a lot of little things like the trans adapter covers, starter bolted in, clutch master on, etc. shoot, i had already converted my g360 slave cyl to use a braided stainless -3an hose (very worth it) so i just tossed the 5600 slave on that line. low and behold it was too short :james: had a 36" line in the truck, needed a 48". set about searching thru my "inventory" (the parts hord) and found a 48! :rock: hooked up, re-bled, much win. cut down the rear DS and ended up with this stubby thing, not impressed but will function. the carrier is even basically trashed but together. i have about 68" yoke to yoke, so when i re-do the rear suspension later this spring I'll get a new 1pc shaft for back there. you ever paint stuff and keep working hoping it'll be dry by the time you need them? doesn't always work ... almost as bad as forgetting to power wash the fluid film off before major work and cleaning eeeevvverything. cross member came out nicer and easier than i ever thought it would. i was finishing up taking all my measurements to go CAD up a nice custom tube cross member, when i looked at the factory unit, had to at least see how it lined up. well after the g360 riser had been un-riveted, it slid in there against the frame without hitting anything, no other modification! even the clocked down np205 was still above it! in order to clear the front shaft, the crossmember is about 9.5" back while the t-case only moved just over 6" back. by moving the factory 5600 trans mount back by 1.25" on it's trans plate, i got the mount centered on the crossmember even. the new 4" c-channel riser is 1-1/8" tall. my front drive shaft was 19deg different from the pinion before this, now it's only 9. should be WAY less chatter with the hubs locked now. hopefully i can make that a few deg better this spring when i mess with the front suspension too. the twin stick feels AMAZING to shift in the truck. 10,000x more positive feel and smoother than the wallered out factory BS. highly recommended. no more trying to find what feels like half a detent move between 2wd and 4wd high. https://i.imgur.com/RxcTlhX.jpg https://i.imgur.com/xtEXg5F.jpg https://i.imgur.com/OxGM876.jpg https://i.imgur.com/rlb5m4N.jpg https://i.imgur.com/mtREnoL.jpg https://i.imgur.com/yKGK14p.jpg https://i.imgur.com/I5PjYSD.jpg |
last night started out pretty satisfying, the shifters are all in and ready to drive!
the factory boot might not be the ideal, but i think it's going to work good. the square shifter of the 5600 doesn't fit as well in the round boot though. first thing was to cut out the inner boot since the shifter sticks up much further thru the floor. actually fixed most of my ripped boot issue. then since i got the short throw shifter it uses this 1" spacer for the longer stick below the pivot. to gain some clearance for shakin back n forth i had to round the corners more. 2 cut, 2 aren't in the pictures for demo, but i did all 4. shoved it on the tower, marked my hole locations, and made a template to mark out what i could cut and still seal. i actually forgot to grab a picture of the final clearance, but we should be ok. might shorten or re-bend the shifter later after driving we'll see, but the twin sticks are just awesome to shift thru. https://i.imgur.com/oj1AlMT.jpg https://i.imgur.com/g7yZttr.jpg https://i.imgur.com/weLjTjK.jpg https://i.imgur.com/cX8Qv3f.jpg |
after the shifters i started in on the exhaust. since it was apart i just can't leave well enough alone!
almost a complete re-do of the down pipe, then adding in a BD Diesel exhaust brake and FTE resonator before the t-case. still have some tweaks to make tonight before i burn it all home, but it's all guna fit! https://i.imgur.com/0ehow85.jpg |
Exhaust brakes are sweet :pimp:
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i drove it!! holy sh!t it's better!
got the exhaust welded, painted, and installed back to the t-case and couldn't wait any longer, i had to test drive it. worth it. even with it dumping right under the passenger seat up in the frame, it's quieter. that FTE muffler/resonator thing is really good. i'll finish out the exhaust tonight and be done with this conversion. new clutch feels 1000x better, i just need to adjust my pedal down to make sure i don't over travel this thing. Chinese short throw shifter is a little sloppy but ok, i might take it apart some time to see if i can tighten it up. no vibrations at all, trans is way quieter, and every synchro works. i guess i need basically a full tank of fuel city driving to break in the clutch before i start playing games or towing. debating if i do that now or start into something else on it first. - front suspension recombobulation - rear suspension re-do from scratch - floor clean/seal/sound deadener + new carpet - new seat mounts ... wire new seats - 1000 other little things |
What are the details on what the suspension needs?
I do recall when I test drove a 1st gen Cummins, the thing rode like a damn hay wagon. |
yeah, factory they are known for being the worst riding of the era ... mine however has the stiffest aftermarket lift spring available and is basically a hard tail. if i jack it up by the hitch, the rear axle has maybe 1" of droop, and that includes bushing slop. it's just wrong. i'm pretty sure the PO wrapped up the rear springs doing torque stuff and thought these would help, then added traction bars anyways.
currently i have the 4" spring and the factory 4" block, the factory rear spring is 54". i bought 1998 GMC 1500 3" lift springs that are 64" long. while having to relocate both front and rear spring hangers, i'll do a shackle flip as well. the GMC lift spring should actually be more like a 6" lift for this truck, so with the shackle flip i will get to ditch the block. just lots more betterer. most of my miles are unloaded so this setup should ride/flex WAY better, then i have airride load bags for towing capacity. i'll also have to re-mount the traction bars well under the axle to keep my "link separation" the front is just a whole lot of tweaking. front shackle is super short factory, so the 6" lift spring is longer to keep that from being inverted. under a good bump the spring eye actually hits the frame (infinite spring rate FTL). longer shackle, easy enough. however this points the pinion down and adds more lift. so i plan to remove the shortest leaf and add 2deg shims. with any luck i'll end up about 1/2deg up more on the pinon and about 1/2" lower ride in the front, all with a softer spring that won't bottom on the frame any more. all that would also help my front DS angles that already got way better with the trans swap. i need to do the front first so i can set the rear height where i want to match it best. just in case i drop like 1-2" taking out a mid spring or something. TBD while in the front i'll also re-do the steering stops to maximize turning. that might require some clearance on the shaft yokes, and maybe re-drilling the TRE hole in the high steer arm. you know, just little things ... :lol: |
https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2...x8hc/giphy.gif
holy crap on a cracker, it's not even the same truck any more. i didn't even have time to notice the ride cuz i already had to shift again :lol: seriously though, there is stuff i never expected to change that's just better. like it smokes way less daily driving it now, i just don't have to lug into turbo lag. i can even turn up the fuel more if i wanted. less lag, sh!t is faster more fuel for the smoke, sh!t is faster better gear splits, sh!t is faster smother faster shifting, sh!t is faster no more front drive shaft rattle, t-case is quieter new spline coupler on the 205 input, t-case is quieter new twin sticks don't rattle, t-case is quieter entire transmission is just quieter, there's basically no gear noise FTE resonator made the exhaust HUGELY quieter inside, but still sounds great outside. clutch mid-plate does make more noise when released ... i didn't get the quite one, should have paid the extra new engine mounts with the new trans mount smoothed it out new clutch that isn't coming apart smoothed it out alignment in the rear DS apparently was needed to smooth it out no more front shaft vibes PLUS! i can get it into 2nd from a stop without putting it in 3rd first. i can put it into any gear i want without grinding. just don't miss 5th n hit reverse, that makes some noise. it rev's smoother and better even while riding the governor, even more reason for less turbo lag, it's just smoother and quieter and more proper in every metric and every area. it's crazy, i still don't believe it, but i'm freakin thilled. i don't even have carpet or floor insulation in there yet, it's still bare steel! i just bought 2 gal of lizard skin to spray it all down with and new carpet with extra heavy bat. motivation is HIGH to knock out more of the list to really keep dialing this truck in. |
I remember the getrag in my old first gen was a noisy, finicky bitch. The 5600 is much more refined.
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well fukk ...
below picture was a clean dry floor, truck driven 1hour on the highway and parked there. we'll call it excessive ... 1) the hand-ground seal surface for the np205 coupler is 100% not functional. i think i got it a tad small, probably not perfectly round, and i know the striations were going the wrong direction so probably pumping fluid out. i thought maybe worst case it would be a slow enough leak that it would just keep the truck from rusting, but no ... i'm going to have to pull the seal and glue the t-case on like most suggest. i might have a machinist buddy machine the opposite end of the coupler, but i might not be patient enough for that. 2) Rear Main Seal ... nothing more fun than doing preventative maintenance and replacing a non-leaking seal with a bad leaker. turns out, most likely installation error! i hadn't seen the specific Cummins instructions before and just installed it like a normal seal by making sure everything was well oiled. turns out the seal has some Teflon transfer or break-in period and requires a 100% oil free crank to work. oiled, will never seal, time to pull the transmission ... AGAIN https://i.imgur.com/6xo4rmW.jpg |
I wonder if it is that (reason you mentioned) is why there are so many leaky rear main seals on Cummins engines. That sucks!
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driving the truck around til the new seals show up, and i love it. the 6spd was worth every cent and all the work. now i really want to get the interior finished up and the suspension smoothed out!
built a new WMO set up last week. hose is nice n secure on the barrel for wheeling it around, and the air-over pump is awesome. little meter on the handle to know how much i put in, and no more filling jugs! the pump and hose came from a local auction site too, so they were super cheap. then started stripping the door panels to re-cover them with the headliner material. one piece was proper, but why was the carpet hot glued and stapled on!?!? both will be christmas tree installed. https://i.imgur.com/zf9UNLW.jpg https://i.imgur.com/BdxdSKu.jpg https://i.imgur.com/0ZlZGpb.jpg https://i.imgur.com/hVA98ft.jpg |
minor freak-out today ... i'm going nutz!
last night i got the 205 all glued up, even installed a housing drain plug for that void. new rear main installed DRY, but was a little bit notchy at the transition from the install tool to the crank surface and my automotive-ocd is pulling out my hair wondering if it is straight or has a folded under lip. clutch is all back on with the starter ... i just want to break it in before installing the transmission to find out :cry: my exhaust was also kind of coming apart when i got under there to start, so i need to redo a bit while the trans is out of the way. while in there i also got a picture i forgot to take, how i beat the pinch seam up against the floor for bell clearance. https://i.imgur.com/YJPE0RR.jpg https://i.imgur.com/yww3iCN.jpg https://i.imgur.com/mkSocEm.jpg |
it's all back together, new rear main seal in place! got it together Friday evening right after work and went to town to pick up dinner for the wife n i. about 15 miles, stop n go, plus idling 3 laps around the damn Chick-fil-a building ... after dinner was able to confirm that i made the seal worse! but further confirmed that i freaking love driving the 5600 in this truck. worth every penny and the extra work.
got to talking with a buddy and realized that the PO had put a crank wear sleeve on my engine. big question, is a wear sleeve seal different than standard for the extra dia!?! also, the standard installation tool doesn't quite reach the sleeve and i had to bump it past "the ditch" between. figure there's a decent chance it folded under at that. i've been pulling the crank housing to do this (i won't ever do that again once this is totally fixed) but there's a chance that the oil pan and gasket recombobulation biased the housing up as well. SO ... i have to pull the oil pan this time to be sure, and that requires lifting the freakin engine off the mounts. https://media.tenor.com/p5EophHk1ksA...wing-board.gif |
Hmmmm sounds very fun :lol:.
Sucks, but you'll sort it out and then you'll have a very desirable truck on your hands. |
Don’t the 5.9s have a cam plug that can also leak? Feel like I have repaired that before
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big thing with the cam plug is if you try and tap on the cam/gear for removal or install, you can punch that plug out the back of the motor!
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so the fancy little tool kit from amazon showed up Friday and was actually really good. better have been for the money. decided not to pull the pan, and it looks like i got the sealed up quite well!
removing the old wear sleeve turned out to be a non-issue. the CAT chisel trick was right on. nice sharp chisel and beat a line across the sleeve without cutting it, expands it. do 2 or 3 lines and it slid right off by hand. actual no-fuss job. my crank turned out to have one hell of a groove in it, so a new sleeve was 100% necessary. installing the seal with the sleeve in it to the housing was a little sketch though. keeping the sleeve from falling out, keeping everything from getting dirty or oiled or anything from the rest of the shop, etc. then not touching it while trying to RTV the seal surfaces and get the gasket stuck was also a trick. but then installing the housing/seal together on the engine with the tool was surprisingly slick. for the oil pan seal, this is what i did ... in order to make sure the oil pan seal didn't bias the main seal at all, i cut the paper gasket out entirely. make sure you don't press down too hard on the pan or you'll start ot break the seal pan-to-block and she might leak later. i brake cleaned everything VERY well (without getting any in the pan), then primed the oil pan surface and the bottom of the seal housing with RTV. just a super thin layer to totally cover the entire surface, and a few globs in the corners at the block. i didn't do this, but nest time i would put a small line of RTV along the back side of the pan rail behind the holes for the housing to draw into/past. the primed surface should make it stick really well. i then installed the seal/housing and tightened the bolts to the block to make sure the seal was perfectly centered. once it wasn't going anywhere, i packed RTV between the pan/housing like i was packing bearings. that work better than i thought cuz it started to come out the bolt holes. at this point i left it for 24hours with the pan bolts only just touching, not even fully finger tight. this would give the RTV a chance to cure thick and be crushed by the pan bolts later to hopefully expand and seal better. (the package even recommended this) sure enough, it sealed up great! but had to RTV the head of the bolts since i didn't get any behind them. no chances this time, got the flywheel on and started that junk to run in my garage for an hour while i worked on other stuff. i tried to rev it up some here and there as i would walk past to keep things changing. 1h dry and back together she went ... again. vid: https://i.imgur.com/5I1bRwU.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/xJoUTBi.jpg https://i.imgur.com/95h5zSa.jpg https://i.imgur.com/YdL5nfT.jpg |
side note:
the NP205 input housing drain was clutch for not making a mess coming back apart. the crossmember has to be out of the way, but easy enough. |
while the RTV was cuing so i could torque the pan bolts, i started getting the door cards reupholstered. went out Sunday and was able to get them finished up. it's crazy, i already have a hard time picturing the factory bits.
pealed the carpet off the upper cardboard and just used the lower carpet as a stencil on some leftover floor underlayment. trimmed/sanded to fit, and used some tinny tech screws instead of the Christmas tree clips cuz i just hate those things. the PO installed a "nice" (now just old-ish) set of 6x9s and they were pushing out on the plastic grill in the door card, one was slightly broken. well enough of that junk, cut those grills out completely. used spray on headliner/fabric glue to attach the material. that stuff is on there. by the last one i had a pretty good cut pattern to eliminate too much extra bunching and allow the corners to be folded in nice. i folded the corners first, then the sides. hard to see in the pic, but the inside corners i did 3 cuts making 2 little pie shapes in there. glued all the faces to a full sheet, then cut them all out and slowly started to trim before spraying the back down with glue again and starting the folding. have to give the glue time to tack up (30sec to 15min work time) so i would spray one, trim one, fold one, spray one, trim one, etc. the wife had some e-6000 fabric glue, for the middle cover. she actually came out and helped thru a lot of the process from sanding edges for fit, to gluing everything up. the speaker mesh is just flat glued to the back, then the ridge on the door card then stretches it nice into the opening. next up ... seal the floors, lizard skin sound control, new carpet, new seats. https://i.imgur.com/cH3Emrb.jpg https://i.imgur.com/GLf8FBc.jpg https://i.imgur.com/2Imbs1U.jpg https://i.imgur.com/QtqW1YK.jpg https://i.imgur.com/YdbA8Nr.jpg https://i.imgur.com/ZZDXNdD.jpg https://i.imgur.com/zGy9QoR.jpg https://i.imgur.com/NMHjoK5.jpg |
That's looking really good. You're going to have an awesome truck when all is said and done.
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man, felt so good to have the door cards back on and and this rear main saga behind me. confirmed she's doing great ... so i tore it apart again!
with the nice doors, the wife started hounding me to finish the floor n seats too. need to seal the surface rust, i'm a chassis saver guy for that. then 2gal of lizard skin to spray down with new carpet. to top it all off, new seat belts and some used Audi S5 seats for full power/heat and complete the transition to all black soft materials. all plastics will stay the factory grey. oh the up-side though, i'm pretty happy with no metal work and "minimal" surface rust for a 30yr old truck. outside the pass floor i already fixed last year. https://i.imgur.com/YpW9INr.jpg https://i.imgur.com/6oj3HPM.jpg https://i.imgur.com/B0aic1U.jpg |
Are you buying pre-fit carpet for it or doing it from scratch?
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bought a cab specific pre-formed/cut kit. hopefully it's just cutting the shifter hole, bolt holes, and screwing the trim back down.
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That's what I would assume. Nice! Give any thought to a Vinyl floor vs carpet? Just curious.
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nope, its a carpet kinda truck. if not id have just left the painted lizard skin. plus extra sound control.
whole kit was only like $180 with extra weighted backing |
got the fixed drivers seat mount together before starting on the tilting passenger seat mounts. i used the factory floor hinge for the tilt, then it worked so well i have ordered a new hinge to make the drivers site tilt too. the seats are from a 2-door car, so they have a great latch to fold the back forward built in. will be 1000x easier to access tools n BS behind the seat if both tilt!
so the seat belt doesn't have to hold the occupant and the seat from tilting, i ordered some bear claw latches from Amazon. hopefully easy enough of an install, we'll see. https://i.imgur.com/uaC0Nj0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/zrpP9Su.jpg |
Holy baby Jesus, this is so bad ass.
Family affair, nice work!!! :rock: |
Yeah that is pretty cool
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been grinding away at it, slower than i would like. got the Audi seat mounts built up and they came out pretty nice. the driver's tilt's up now, tool access FTW. i have not made latches yet.
got all the rusty bits ground n sealed really well, hopefully won't need to mess with the floor again for a long time. i even found a crack in the rear wall above the drivers rear body mount i had to weld. that was unexpected. sanded everything good, taped it up (i hate taping/masking) and got the LizardSkin sound control sprayed. 2gal total. i sprayed it all with the full thickness, let i dry for 24h, then came back and finished off the 2gal by doing a second full depth on the back wall, tunnel, and foot wells. messing with it once before i tried this dual coat and got awesome results, it made a huge difference in sound control. https://i.imgur.com/78jmw9U.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Vlz9hxD.jpg https://i.imgur.com/lUiDd7j.jpg https://i.imgur.com/LKMOFWV.jpg https://i.imgur.com/M5n7gja.jpg https://i.imgur.com/8sSWhQj.jpg |
The lizard skin looks really good. Gives a very nice finished look to all the work you've done!
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i'm excited, it makes such a HUGE difference in the sound just tapping on the cab. no ring at all, just a dull thud. should be real noticeable on the street.
the texture came out nice and even, i took special care on the back wall since it'll be exposed. factory had carpet glued to the back and side walls, but the new carpet kit only has the floor. the exposed will get sprayed black to match. |
ceiling got some stick-on sound mat, my first time using it. stuff made a big difference in the tap test, we'll see how it is on the road. was a pain in the junk rolling it out over head though.
the exposed LizardSkin got painted black to match the new carpet since that kit didn't come with back wall pieces. i kind of wish i had bought flat vs semi-gloss, but not enough to change it. :lol: https://i.imgur.com/hZGUcuv.jpg |
What do they call that light that you have hanging through the interior?
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Quote:
https://www.dewalt.com/product/dcl04...ess-hood-light if you check out the Amazon listing, there's a jeep in one of the pictures. totally my buddies jeep i helped him build :rock: https://www.amazon.com/DEWALT-DCL045.../dp/B09DRDZF75 https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/..._AC_SX679_.jpg |
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