Chevy1925 (James) Truck/motor build

[Chevy1925]

Well 85-90mph all the way there and 80 on the way home. This old girl has some short legs for that speed lol. 2550-2650 rpm at 85-90. On top of that, I forgot I had pilot injection shut off above 2500. Wife says "why did the truck get so loud" so my response was "that's horse power baby". Got an eye roll and cranked the tunes up. I was too lazy to play with the tune as well.

These body mounts are no fix for the bounce issue. In fact, the polys rode better in that aspect but in every other aspect of driving, the dormans won hands down for me. The truck ride pretty well over the nasty section of Vegas freeway but those bumps are large enough to go through the few inches of rear spring travel and make you slap the overloads. If I was under 80, she bounced bad. Above that, smooth as glass. Like hitting a whoop section off road lmao

 

[Chevy1925]

Summit order for trans line parts showed up yesterday, thermostat housing was been rotated and just need to pick up a van rad hose. Radiator install will commence Saturday morning.

Going to smooth some edges down and throw a little silver paint on this bad boy. Hopefully this works out as cleanly as the idea in my head lol

 

[Chevy1925]

Mmmmm love the way she looks. Too bad it's gunna get covered

 

[WVRigrat05]

That is a sharp radiator.

 

[Chevy1925]

Had to end early today. Got to the point of mocking up trans lines and building them. Also had to redo the belt routing to the style Shane ran (may still run) since lb7s can't be like every other year.

This is at rest. As the truck runs, clearance increases

Belt route, curious if I start launching belts again

Mock up. Spliced two trans lines together to let me pull it in for the night.

Only one trans line built so far. Cleaned my intercooler along with all this. Wasn't too bad but damn I forgot how much it weighs!

 

[lutzjk913]

Making some good progress on her.

 

[moparkxracer]

Ya need another pulley in there, the belt would go on the other side of the tensioner. I have pics but can't upload to the sight. Pm me your number and I'll text it.

 

[Chevy1925]

I know but the location of the 3rd idler is in a different location than yours. I do not have that option. I'm going to try this route. If it does not work, I'll get a longer belt and do it the way I want to. I can run it a different way that uses all the idlers but I need a shorter belt or another larger pulley like the one Ppe supplies in their dual fueler kit as the belt is too loose with the two small ones but the belt will be extremely close to its self in the way I would run it and the a/c compressor will only have 1/4 of the pulley in contact with the belt. Not enough imho. I do not want that part slipping lol

 

[moparkxracer]

I hear ya, you can also drill one of the holes in the thermostat housing to allow it to bleed the air out. Then get a copper washer (injector) and bolt to seal it. One of the holes goes to the coolant flow the other does not.

Looks like you are getting a lot done in it

 

[Chevy1925]

Trans lines done and ran, trimmed up the fan shroud to fit, set everything back in the truck and started slowly buttoning things up. Upper rad hose from the van is too long so I'll sleeve it and clamp it with some slick clamps I'll show when I get them. Trans lines clear the tcm and wiring nicely.

Just need to finish the upper hose, add the in the turbo coolant hose to the thermostat housing, elongate the vent tube to the other side of the radiator from the degas bottle and put the front end back together

Trans lines, they have not been tucked up nicely yet here. Just tied together to make them lay nice then get tucked up along the frame/crossmember

Fan shroud done up

Tcm and trans lines. I'll add some heat tape to the lines to keep heat away from the wires. I found some good stuff I used on the samurai that kept things from getting hot next to the turbo

Upper rad hose

 

[malibu795]

Looks good

 

[Chevy1925]

i have enough braided line left over, im going to cut the rubber hose off the one trans line i didnt need to extend and add it to it as well. wont be at this time but down the road. These are the original lines from 01.5, none of them were leaking at the crimps . almost felt bad cutting them off..... almost . when i do that other trans line, ill change my oil cooler lines to steel braided as well. make it all match and look purdy

 

[Burn Down]

James, maybe I missed it. Was this a custom built rad? Turned out awesome bud:thumb: super interested in your cooling results.

 

[Chevy1925]

Sort of. Joe at coolertowing.com (engineer something something on DP) has Ron make these radiators in a single pass so they drop right in, also offers a second engine oil cooler heat exchanger in the driver side where my trans heat exchanger is. He and I talked quite a bit. He really wanted me to run the aux radiator he sells but I have no place to mount it. I talked with Ron directly and he suggested the dual pass. I went through Joe since he worked with me so much already. He had Ron draw the radiator with the changes to joes normal rad and I double checked measurements, then it was off to be built. So it's semi custom.

There was an option to go triple pass and keep outlets as they were but radiator holds up so much water that water pressure greatly increases (not air pressure like the rad cap opens for). I would be afraid of breaking the water pump or blowing hoses or something else letting loose.

 

[Chevy1925]

Well shes done. Pulled a late night last night and finished her up. No pics as things didnt go as planned (go figure). Ill get some today though.

started thinning down a piece of 1.75" tube to use to join the two hoses together. Then realized i dont have a boring bar long enough for the little 3" piece. So i dicked around and just had some fun cutting metal for no reason . I threw a bead around the edge of a different piece of 1.75" tube and used it to join the two hoses without thinning it down. I pretty much decided im going to get a piece of stainless and make my own tube with rubber connections at each end. its going to look the best. Filled it up and started getting leaks. the stock clamps were not tight enough to seal up the hose at the radiator. put some new worm clamps on and good to go. pressure tested to 15-16psi (what my cap is good for) and fixed any other tiny leaks (loose turbo coolant hose and loose radiator drain). Then it was time for a drive

took it for a spin to get it hot and see if any other leaks pop up. all seems well. i cant say for sure how much better the rad will be yet till i get a load on it. i may hook up to the flat bed with my tracker on it this weekend for a wheeling trip outside of town. depends on if i have time to load it all, its very convenient to have a wheeling rig that is still very road worthy lol. First impressions are good. did a few 3/4 throttle runs, temp would move up to 185*, thermostats crack open and it would then drop right back down. fan never came on. this was a 3-4 miles drive with a/c on, 90* outside temp, and lots of stop and go through city streets. i dont think this is a fair comparison though as its not the heat of the day, no traffic and no load. trans only got to 150* and oil temps were at 180* and wouldnt move. ill use it as a reference point though.

 

[Chevy1925]

Well things went well. Initially thought I didn't get the drop in temp I wanted till finally got to our camping location. Truck ran HOT the whole way but these hills are hell!! You are in a constant climb up and there are 5, 6-7% grades on top of that. It was 102* out on the way up at 9 in the morning. Held 45mph on most hills while getting down to 2nd and 35 on the last hill. Truck would run at 240* coolant and 260* oil.

Sounds like things didn't change but I had nothing to compare to. I have never gone this way with this much weight or this setup. Once I got to camp, I noticed a little leak. Popped the hood and saw I lost a belt rib and had no tention on the belt. Seems when the belt got hot, it loosened up enough to hit the alternator bolt. When that happen, she really loosen up. That explained why I had no power steering some times and I'm sure the fan wasn't turning as fast as it could. The leak was a trans line weeping some.

Threw my spare belt on, cut the alt bolt down and enjoyed the rest of the weekend up north tearing my tracker up lol

On the way down, things went better. There are 3 6% grades on the way back. I had passed a 6.4 ford with a trailer like mine but I doubt weighed as much. He always fell behind me on the hills. On the worse hill, I was down to 35mph again at 240* temps but a new 6.7 ford with a little larger trailer than mine behind me that had been hauling ass prior and couldn't pass me up the climb. That tickled me a bit. It dawned on me that pulling the other hills, how well it was doing in comparison to when I hauled Brian's shit box to and from abq. I took this same route way back when. I was hitting these hills at the same speed or faster with better egt's and a hell of a lot more weight. I'm really happy with that.

I was passing quite a few rigs up those hills so I think I was just flat out expecting too much from the truck.

The new rad loves rpm. When the water pump gets going and fan is running, temps come down till oil gets hot, then it climbs again. It takes much longer to heat up but I'm noticing a cycle. I'm back to the point where oil temps are causing the coolant to heat up. I'm using more power since things are cooler and the oil cooler can't keep up again. Till I do a run to flagstaff to see how things compare and try the solid fan hub, I don't want to change anything yet. It's nice being able to use 5th gear more now on climbs before it gets hot and I need to down shift to cool her down. It's a hoot watching boost pressure hit 45psi, feeling the truck just grunt and it cruise up the hills. It's just the loooooong grades the get the best of her.

 

[malibu795]

told you oil is the first to get hot... control EOT control ECT :hug:


glad its working out!:thumb:

 

[Chevy1925]

I can still get coolant hot without oil getting hot. That's how it was before the new radiator. Oil would hit 225ish, then coolant would start climbing to 240. Now I can keep coolant cool till oil hits 240 and coolant starts to climb. It's just a bad cycle...

 

[M.A.M.]

Subd... just read thru your whole thread, it's been a journey for you lol... sounds like you e got your truck pretty dialed in. really looking forward to getting my twin setup together after my engine gets back from the machine shop....


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[Chevy1925]

Thank you sir but this isn't even half of what this truck has seen through the years. She really did turn out just how I wanted though