'55 Chevy 3800 Cummins

[6DoF]

Friday night i got out to the first cruise, had an absolute blast talking to everyone. no one really knew what it make of it! there was a huge parking lot behind where i'm taking the picture, i was "late" and in the overflow. ended up with a few rows of cars in the grass yet that evening.

Goal Achieved! grass shut in the door

[6DoF]

turbo drain seal fixed, no leak. the stupid o-ring wasn't thick enough for the groove they put in the part. i just cut a new paper gasket from a roll i had, left the oring, and tightened her back up. guess that worked.

catch can had an internal filter that was restrictive, ditched that. i also forgot to put the steel wool de-mister in the can, so added that. then added 2 more breathers off my 2 oil caps in the front of the engine, no more breather oil. just the front main and rear main leaking oil

added some firewall insulation, as you could imagine that was getting uncomfortably hot inside with the hot pipe basically touching. the wrap does a lot, but not quite that much. it's just warm now, so huge game on.

[6DoF]

the wife had a dream recently that i had 3D printed mounts for a Bluetooth speaker under the dash. she woke up and ordered me this little Bose unit. no way i wasn't going to then print mounts for it! so far no latch of any kind, just cradles it. the rubber like body seams to keep it from moving at all.

with a mount, seamed like a great place to put and hide my "AFC Live" fuel control. should work just like the production version from Power Driven Diesel, but was like 10x cheaper. one bypass valve, an orifice valve to slow the boost signal to the injection pump, and one pressure regulator to set max boost the pump sees. allows you to set the springs and screws in the pump for max power, then dial it back for no smoke and smoother daily driving. or if lazy, have the screws n springs set wrong, and dial in appropriate fueling. in my case, i need to keep the power in check as i should have enough turbo and fuel capacity to yeet the head gasket before i shift gears.

[6DoF]

finally the wife got bored and decided to see why i kept talking about washing the truck with CLR and a soft scotchbright pad. so far, so good! she wants to go over it again with the CLR, and i need to order some patina sauce ASAP.

a fair bit of brown reduction, not sure if it worked more or less than i was expecting haha. the nicest part is everything getting a TON smoother after the rub down. but now it almost looks weird with less blotch blue.

[xj_man_646]

Awesome to see it on the road .

[Cobound]

More gay by the day - guys sucking yer nipples at every stop and drop

[nblehm]

The comet wash with steel wool works great too.


Coming out rad!

[6DoF]

as of Friday, we are free! the driveway is awesome, so so much better. and yet, i got Lil' Blue stuck in the driveway

so after putting in a lot of work on the barn, it was time to circle back to the truck for a bit. getting some tuning taken care of but mainly went after getting the hitch and rear bumper location figured out. decided i really needed to have the hitch on before doing the bumper mounting.

i don't always take weld pictures, but these turned out particularly nice. this thing aint goin nowhere. a few extra gussets to the chassis, a few close out panels to clean up, and i'm really happy how it turned out. 2.5" receiver, CHECK! the power connection will be mounted to the bumper, so it's just zip-tied up for now.

but then since i have a hitch, must test it out! hitched up the airstream and went for a cruise. she towed perfectly, better than expected, barely even know it was back there. absolutely next level reactions on the road too. thumbs up out the window, waving, the smiles and nods, it was cool to see. until i got home. round the new corner, building boost, head up the gravel hill where the 2wd starts to spin. not enough weight on the rear end yet for the total rig weight. got RIGHT to the top and she stopped spinning and dug. had to back all the way down the driveway and around the corners back to the road where i could unhitch and run up to get the Grand Chero-car. booo i know the picture just a post or 2 ago doesn't look steep, but it's hard to walk on cuz the gravel just slips out from under you.

[xj_man_646]

Hell yeah!

[Dennis]

They are a great combo!
Looking good!

[Cobound]

I love that you've shared this and we've been able to follow - you should consider doing Back to the 50's in St Paul in the coming years - join James and me for a spin!

[Hoofmann]

That looks so rad!

Congratulations on a running project! I know it’s not done and probably never will be.

[6DoF]

fixed it! it's soooo much better now ... almost too smooth. pretty sure i'll be adding clicks to actually make it a little more responsive, and for a little more top RPM just cuz race truck things.

so first thing last night, lets try the cam plate. well, it's already fully to passenger side, crap. try mid, try full drivers, no change. time to pull the idle spring and see what's up for settings that way. feel like i'm going to drop stuff in the pump, and the wife offers to stop on her way home for a new pen magnet for me. she's awesome. in the mean time i watch the PDD gov spring install to see what i missed cuz none of the adjustment instructions make any sense on mine. see nothing i don't remember, go start pulling it all out just to make sure something stupid didn't happen like ... wait ... ffaaawwwwwkkkk ... i put the springs in upside down with the bottom seat on top.

throw it all back together with a conservative click count, now all the descriptions make sense and are super easy to set up. back to the cam plate, still little change, but obviously was full passenger for it's entire life, lock it down and send it. she now starts with no throttle input, idles at like 800 cold n 830 warm, brakes or steering don't affect it much, i can even get going in 2nd gear with no throttle. almost like that's how it was designed!

[nblehm]

Originally Posted by Hoofmann

That looks so rad!

Congratulations on a running project! I know it’s not done and probably never will be.

He is going to have to cut the whole front end out now because he got stuck in the driveway

[6DoF]

Originally Posted by nblehm

He is going to have to cut the whole front end out now because he got stuck in the driveway

no no no no ... still better to be able to set it on the ground, and when i got home Saturday i just unhitched in the road n got the GC to start with

[6DoF]

truck did great, but it needs AC freakin ASAP. speaking of AC, the airstream's worked great until the condensation started running out between the wall panels instead of the drain. tried a few things but i'll need to tear the covers off and that can wait til sweater weather.

5th gear, 65mph, 2300 R's, it just didn't care that the trailer was back there. on the way out was 93deg, high humidity, and some of the long up-hill runs into the mountains the engine would get to 208, once to 214, but right back down to 190s on the downhill. might need a little more cooling capacity to run AC and pull a 10k trailer. but that's a Future Matt problem.

the waves, thumbs up, camera's, was crazy. ppl at the campground were obviously talking about it cuz ppl would come by and know some of the details already

[xj_man_646]

How is it in the truck with the exhaust dumping right behind the cab?

[6DoF]

Originally Posted by xj_man_646

How is it in the truck with the exhaust dumping right behind the cab?

2 spiral mufflers and the FTE resonator ... you basically don't notice the exhaust next to the turbo whistle and general 12V noises.

the extra thick lizard skin on the valve covers, oil pan, and tappet cover i think made a really big difference worth the effort too. you'll never make that engine quiet, but the harshness is gone.

[nblehm]

Pretty sick man! Probably hard to relax at the camp ground having to answer questions the whole time.

[6DoF]

Originally Posted by nblehm

Pretty sick man! Probably hard to relax at the camp ground having to answer questions the whole time.

naw, it wasn't that bad, ppl were very nice about it. we also kept driving off to go help set up at the camp my wife is volunteering at this week. was just the other side of the beach.