89 GMC Cummins conversion

[Dieselwrencher]

Originally Posted by COS399

Alignment is scheduled for Monday. I was going to put the wheels on and post some pics but the weather hasn't been cooperating. Cold, wet and snowy up here.

Sorry to hear that. Just please, keep that crap up there.

[COS399]

From what I was told the farmers almanac had predicted a cold wet winter and they seemed to have been right. Of course nothing surprises me when it comes to the weather up here. In about a month or so we will be complaining about the large mosquito population. Time to find the electric fly swatter and put some fresh batteries in it.

[68gmcdually]

Great job, I wanted to do the same conversion to my '68 (its running a 92 3500 chassis though), my late father had a complete running truck but the truck got sold off with the estate.

[COS399]

Originally Posted by 68gmcdually

Great job, I wanted to do the same conversion to my '68 (its running a 92 3500 chassis though), my late father had a complete running truck but the truck got sold off with the estate.

Sorry to hear about your father. I just read your build thread and love the truck and congrats on the wife and kids . Looks like your starting them off right. As for the diesel conversion, it can be done. We would love to have you show the conversion in this section. I must warn you though, we can be a little goofy. I blame it on the diesel.

[ryanroo]

Originally Posted by COS399

Sorry to hear about your father. I just read your build thread and love the truck and congrats on the wife and kids . Looks like your starting them off right. As for the diesel conversion, it can be done. We would love to have you show the conversion in this section.

agreed! always ready to window lick another swap thread!

Originally Posted by COS399

I must warn you though, we can be a little goofy. I blame it on the diesel.

[COS399]

Good News and Bad News. The good news is that I got the tires and wheels mounted on the truck and took a few snap shots.

The bad news is that the guy at the alignment shop couldn't do the alignment with the new tires and wheels but in the end it didn't matter because he found where there was a some play in the kingpins and suggested I rebuild them first. So, now the parts are on order and will be here on Friday. The truck ran great but the engine coolant got a little over 210 degrees after running down the interstate for about 15 miles or so. I took off the grill cover off and she cooled off to normal operating temperature. As for the transmission temperature it never got over 150 degrees.

[COS399]

CarbonCrew does this place look familiar???

[Dieselwrencher]

Sorry to hear about your king pins. The truck looks great with those wheels!

[carboncrew]

Lol...noticed right away where that is. Spent years with that view. Pickup is looking good. I like the look of the wheel and tire. It looks ready to work or tow whatever it feels like.

[COS399]

Thanks for the compliments on the wheels and tires. I was pretty happy with the look as well. I need to do a rubbing compound and wax job on it for the time being. A new paint job will have to wait until I can sell some stuff. I need to build my nerf bars and bumpers because I was laughing so hard trying to get in the bed of the truck, while it was on the lift at the tire shop, that it made it that much harder to do. I had to use the tire as a step in order to get in.

[ryanroo]

looks really sharp! i'd love to have one like it! definitely good to have some help getting in the bed of a tall truck!

i am not sure what your experience with d60 kingpins is, but if dont already have one, i suggest getting a 7/8" hex key or hex key socket. ive tried to use homemade tools before, and for the 21 bucks i spent on the hex i think i would have paid double that for the trouble it saved. also, heat the pin itself with a torch if it is sticky. and use a cheater bar. for some reason i enjoy rebuilding d60 kingpins. better than ball joints any day!

[carboncrew]

Big cheater bar!

[COS399]

Originally Posted by ryanroo

looks really sharp! i'd love to have one like it! definitely good to have some help getting in the bed of a tall truck!

i am not sure what your experience with d60 kingpins is, but if dont already have one, i suggest getting a 7/8" hex key or hex key socket. ive tried to use homemade tools before, and for the 21 bucks i spent on the hex i think i would have paid double that for the trouble it saved. also, heat the pin itself with a torch if it is sticky. and use a cheater bar. for some reason i enjoy rebuilding d60 kingpins. better than ball joints any day!

Thanks for the info Ryan. This will be a first for me. Of course doing this conversion was a first as well.

[COS399]

Originally Posted by carboncrew

Big cheater bar!

Thanks. I will remember that.

[6BT 56]

Yep truck looks great . Agreed on rebuilding D60 king pin vs. ball joint . I did cheat on mine tho . Did the bearing and stuff in the bottom but did not actually remove the top pin with the 7/8 as Ryan suggested . Just did the big bushing and a new spring . Was going to do the pin tho. I bought a 7/8 coupling nut and planned to use it in the pin and a big bar on the other end . Chickined out tho as mine was in there good . Made it easy to decide the pin was good enuf and just install the big bushing and call it a day . It was Beer :30 by then anyways .

You back up to your 5th wheel trailer yet to see if you will be able hook to it ?

[COS399]

Originally Posted by 6BT 56

Yep truck looks great . Agreed on rebuilding D60 king pin vs. ball joint . I did cheat on mine tho . Did the bearing and stuff in the bottom but did not actually remove the top pin with the 7/8 as Ryan suggested . Just did the big bushing and a new spring . Was going to do the pin tho. I bought a 7/8 coupling nut and planned to use it in the pin and a big bar on the other end . Chickined out tho as mine was in there good . Made it easy to decide the pin was good enuf and just install the big bushing and call it a day . It was Beer :30 by then anyways .

You back up to your 5th wheel trailer yet to see if you will be able hook to it ?

I ordered up the parts to do both sides, but the more I research this the more I am leaning towards changing or at least checking everything that seals or moves so that I don't have anything to worry about for a while.

As for the trailer, well I measured it the other day and it was close with the original tires. It will definitely be on the high side with the new sneakers. I still need to install a GN hitch in the truck. I put a GN adapter on my trailer so that I didn't have to install a FW hitch on each of my trucks. I will definitely be looking into this further once I get front end fixed.

[Maxxd07]

Truck looks great, but with some need bars and some splash protection it will look awesome. X3 or 4 on a cheater bar. I had 6 ft on my ratchet (3/4) with heat and still heaved at it good to get it loose. A quality socket helps. I will agree with Ryan though they are more fun to do than ball joints.

[COS399]

Well after spending lots of money on parts that I thought I would need, it seems that all I really needed was a new spring. The new one is 2 5/16" tall and the old one is down to 2 1/16." Everything else looks good but I am going to have the rotors turned, new brake pads and replace the leaking brake master cylinder.

While I was waiting on parts and such I decided to start working on replacing the stereo, adding speakers and such. I mounted a pair of 3.5"s in the center of the dash where there was a 4x10 speaker opening.

[COS399]

[Dieselwrencher]

Nice work! Those new speakers should help out a bunch!

[y5mgisi]

Thats exactly what i plan on doing in my 90 suburban. How do you plan on wiring them up? Your going to have rear speakers also right? So 6 speakers total? Thats what im planning but not sure how to wire them!

[COS399]

I have a 5 channel amp, but haven't decided whether to run the outsides as a left and the inside as rights, or the two to the left as the lefts and two to the right as rights. I also have a set of tweeters that I plan on mounting at the top of the A pillar trim for the front. On the rear I am still on the fence as to what I want to do. I still have another set of tweeters, a set of 4x6 plates, 2 pairs of 6 1/2"s and a pair of Kicker subs/tweeters that belong to my kid. I don't know if he will care since he isn't old enough to drive yet anyway. He won them a few years ago when he won the Arena cross series in the Youth ATV class. I think I will have to experiment with it.

[MTCK]

Sweet build you have going here! You're right, that definitely looks like an old Alyeska Pipeline Service Company rig. They are all over the place up here - usually with about 60k miles and 12,000 hours

That tire and wheel size is exactly what I was thinking about for my crew, though I'm hoping to keep the lift to 4". On the rear lift it looks like a combination add a leaf and block? With the overloads removed? Let me know how that rides and how it hauls a load once you get rolling. I'm sure that cummins will beat those front springs into submission and they will settle a bit.

Keep up the good work! At this rate you will be done in no time!

[COS399]

MTCK - Thanks for the compliment. I think mine has about 52K on the clock. The lift kit is a 4" block and an add a leaf on the back. As for the overloads, they were not there when I bought it and neither were the stops. I have a 78 K35 that has the overloads but is missing the stops.?????

I thought I would be putting my front differential back together this weekend but I realized that there were two seals needed, a large one and a small one, near the axle shaft bearing. I have the small ones but will have to try and pick up the larger ones tomorrow.

Still working on the stereo, speaker and amp install.

[COS399]

Slow, or actually little progress on the truck. I believe I have all my front end parts, I just need to install the new U-joints on the axle shafts and remove and install the new axle shaft bearings. After that its just a matter of putting everything back together. Here is a picture of some of the holes and the radio plate that was left behind from the trucks previous occupation.



Not having a wrench long enough or wanting to remove the bed to remove the nuts that were used to secure this plate to the back of the cab I decided to zip-tie the wrench to a piece of flat metal I had laying around. It worked rather well.[ATTACH][ATTACH][/ATTACH][/ATTACH]

I am still pondering the design for the sub box behind the seat. Space is at a premium since the back seat is in a fixed position.