I'm not sure. Certain angles it looks good, others, the all white looks better. Just my opinion tho, so if you like it

 

Thanks for the honesty man, and I know exactly how you feel. I'm always doing things and have no idea how they will turn out, but I think that is some of the fun of having a truck like this to always work on!

 

Ended up in a fender bender last week, and just got the new one in the mail. Spent the morning painting it, now I need to look into either a new door or a way to fix the damage done to it.

Other than that, not much work done, just putting miles on her and camping out.

 

ugh, definitely need to wait for a door, this one is so out of wack that it conflicts with the new fender. sooooo new fender off, and back on with the old one.

got some offroad camping planned, so maybe i should just leave her beat up. maybe i should take the drop blocks out too...

 

Id drive it lowered fck it.

 

new door coming, so I will get to put the new fender on, and then can continue trying to get the outside nice! in the meantime, I am sewing up a new headliner.

 

just another day workin on m'lady

 

Well, I've been putting in some hours lately. I'm planning a couple month trip camping from Cali, through Oregon, and up to Washington. I'm going to be camping off of back roads and in the woods, so I've been converting the bed into a decked out camper. I also went ahead with "The Big 3" upgrade, and will be installing an inverter in the cabin.

Here is where I will be mounting the inverter. I'm going to disconnect the cigarette lighter and wire the inverter directly into that. I'm then thinking of putting a little volt readout in place of where the cigarette lighter is.


As for the big 3 deal, I went ahead and replaced the main positive wires with 2 gauge AWG, and the secondary ones with 4 gauge. I used the 4 gauge for all of the new grounds as well. here is the new wire bundle coming off of the alternator. It is beefy, but I routed it under the cold tube going into the turbo, and then nicely tucked under the front crossmember.



for the terminal connectors, on the positive side I got one that was supposed to have a volt readout (though it doesn't work), it also had screw terminal locations (sweet!).





^not picture is the replacement fuse/circuit breaker device I installed in front of the batter for the positive 12. That is why the red wire is coming out of a funny place.


For the camper, I made a couple compartments that I can lock closed, and also have enough room for my inflatable camping pad.




Also, removing the passenger seat and installing a spare tire on the rear wall inside. There is no clearance or room where it should go under the bed with the drop she has and exhaust routing.

 

I was drivin up the side of a mountain last week in triple digit degree weather, and after having to stop for overheating issuea a few times, blew out the hose coming off of the water pump.
Spent the past couple days working on the new setup.

The old radiator was NOT a turbo radiator! Turns out it was just a two core that had a bung soldered in for the turbo. So the new radiator is all aluminum tri core. It came with the cowl and 2 smaller fans each with 1250 cfm as opposed to the one large one with only 1750 cfm.



I decided to do something a little less black rubber hose with the new setup.

 

I like the replacement with the copper pipes instead of the long rubber hose. Have to keep that in mind when I redo my cooling system.

 

yeah man! I was actually talking to my friend about it on the hill I blew the hose on and took it as a sign. I saw it on some old school rad rods long before I ever picked up a wrench and loved it.
I am worried about the copper conducting the heat instead of insulating it. I will have to see how it goes.

 

That's the thing that made me walk away from the 22rte. It always seemed to be struggling to keep up and constantly on boost (around 5psi) when cruising over 65 mph. I had gauges monitoring everything on the motor including exhaust gas temperature. When underload for more than 1 minute, EGT's would shoot up from 700-800 to around 1200 degrees. I would have to back off / slow down to get the temps to drop. Never had an overheating issue but extremely high EGT's can kill damage the motor also. Hope the new radiator and plumbing (no pun intended) fixes your issues.

 

i was talking to some 4x4ers with the 22rtes the other day because i noticed they had like 2 dozen gauges all over. One said pyrometer was pribably the mos important on these turbo engines but when i mentioned I had a 2.5" exhaust they all kind figured that was good enough.

Yotarip, did that hood vent help at all? i was thinking of maybe that with some aluminum fins on the hot pipe would cool intake air temps without blowing my CARB mandates with an intercooler.

I can do a full day of rad fitting, copper fabricating, and water pump replacing, but an hour of trying to figure out how to get my fan controller to work and I am so done haha.

 

The vent didn't help much as it lead directly to the upper tank on the radiator. My cooling system was already very efficient with the turbo radiator and ford taurus e-fan.

The intercooler had a dramatically positive effect on the EGT's I believe. EGT's where much less tempermental after installing it. The pipe just after the intercooler was always cool enough to hold no matter how hard it was run. The oem factory hard pipe could not be touched after light runs. Cooler air in seems to lead to less hot gases out.

 

I've gotta replace the oil seals on top of my valve cover because a couple are cracking, and I figured while I had the valve cover off I should go ahead and adjust the lash. I've done this quite a few times over the years with my trucks, always did it after a run to the grocery store, then adjusted it to 8 and 12. I have heard a lot these days about heating the engine up not affecting anything beforehand, and also a lot of people adjusting to 7 and 11. for the 7 and 11, some say they do it cold, some say it doesn't matter. So does anyone have any strong opinions one way or the other? any bad experiences adjusting cold or going down to 7 and 11? cheers.

Past few days I have been working on relocating the F.A.S.T ignition box, rerouting the wiring, replacing all fluids, and working out some kinks with the fabbing and wiring on the new cooling system. I tried to push the engine a few times in the heat, and everything seems to be working really well. I've got just over a week until I leave on a month long backwoods camping trip, so I have to be sure everything is working juuuust right.

 

Man, I could use a break like that!

 

Not really a "strong opinion" but as you know, there are no specs for adjusting them cold. So it will have to be trial-and-error and then recording the results for possible future use when you finally get it right. Having said that, I tried adjusting them cold once and I figured I could get by if I "just tighten them up a little more". It sounded like a diesel engine until I finally had it done at the dealer while I was getting a whole crap load of work done to my truck.

 

ouch, I don't want to be in that situation. I just always figured that by the time I got to all of the valves things will have cooled down signifigantly, so to recheck, what? cover back on, warm it up, and receck?

 

Fred, i lost my job and house, and am taking a month to move to montana, so not exactly a "vacation" but I'm hoping to have some lemonade from these life lemons.

 

Justin, sorry to hear about those challenges. Good approach, looking to make lemonade. I enjoy mine with a little Absolut