Project Screamer - '72 GMC K2500 + DD 4-53T

[ryanroo]

Nice! i dig the shroud. that is in my enormous pile of to do's as well

[burnitg]

Happy New Year! It has been a good one for me so far. We had a great time with family and friends over the holidays. The Alabama Crimson Tide won the college football national championship. Roll Tide! The Broncos are in the playoffs. Life is good!

I've made some progress on the GMC. I mocked up the upper radiator hose. It looks a lot better with the new water neck.



I am planning to fabricate the top pipe, including the elbow and reducer, from aluminum. I purchased the tubing and fittings for the radiator hoses and intercooler from Columbia River Mandrel Bending.



I ordered the intercooler. Unfortunately, it looks like someone dropped it before it arrived. The UPS man came and picked it up for return.



The replacement arrived and I fabricated brackets to support it and the condenser. Here's the top view:



Here's the driver's side view.



This is only the first pass, I know that the top of the condenser interferes with the hood latch so the brackets will have to be modified or I will have to purchase a shorter condenser. Two steps forward, one step back...

[Dieselwrencher]

It's always something! Great work. That upper hose looks really nice with the new housing.

[1972RedNeck]

Subscribed

[burnitg]

The intercooler is in! I have modified the brackets to bring the intercooler closer to the radiator and to move the condenser down a couple of inches. After the modifications, the hood latch clears the condenser.

First, I had to make some cutouts in the core support. I was going to have to do this anyway to make a pass through for the tubing from the turbo and to the blower. Since I needed to move the intercooler back, the nozzles interfered with the core support.



I had to cut some of the structure of the core support out. I will reinforce it later.

Here are the completed brackets on the table:



Here is a front view of the intercooler installed:



Here is a rear view:



Here's a view of the intercooler, condenser and hood latch:



The elbows for my intercooler tubing are on back order, so I will be working on the brace for the hood latch and reinforcing the core support next.

[burnitg]

I finished the brace for the hood latch. I had to cut so much out of it to fit the intercooler, that I decided to box it. Here are the pieces on the workbench:



Here they are welded up:



Here it is installed (I had to fit the fenders and grille to make sure that everything still fit):



I made an upper radiator pipe of aluminum. Here it is on the bench:



Here it is installed (temporarily):



Next is the lower radiator pipe. It is larger, shorter and has some odd angles. Should be fun...

[nsulacountry]

Fabricated aluminum water piping!! This build is getting real!

CT

[burnitg]

The intercooler piping saga begins...

I didn't have the parts that I needed to complete the bottom radiator piping, so I decided to start the intercooler piping.

One major problem, the blower inlet points up. Here it is in the center of this photo (with the Gorilla tape around the inlet). I need it to point forward to meet the piping from the intercooler.



Here it is in the vise awaiting major surgery:



There's no turning back now!



Welding cast aluminum - no problem - right? Well it was for me. This casting was full of inclusions. It was the devil to weld.



I made a test apparatus to test the welds. Here it is in the apparatus for the first time. I obviously didn't have the clamps tight enough since there are bubbles around the gasket.



By the time I got the two pinholes welded up, I had lots of practice in putting the housing in the test fixture. The pinholes were caused by two nasty inclusions. I would weld, test, grind, weld, test, grind, etc., etc., etc. I am not proud of the looks of the weld only that it doesn't leak.

Between the fitting, welding, testing and re-flattening the sealing surface, I must have 30 hours in this part. Good thing I'm retired - I would starve to death trying to make a living this way!

[nsulacountry]

I'm impressed! I would have tried to hose the IC in somehow.

Welding porous cast aluminum, you're my hero!

CT

[burnitg]

The radio is back! I had it serviced and the speaker re-coned by Crockett Sound Labs. It looks great, it will be a while before I know how it sounds.

Word of advice, if you are planning to have an old radio restored, plan ahead. The radio guys are really busy! I sent this radio to them 8 months ago.



I had considered just installing the radio without having it serviced; but, decided against it when I saw how much of the interior I would have to remove if it didn't work. It's a good thing I sent it in, the output transistor was blown (common with these radios) and I would have been pulling it out again.

I got the blower inlet housing cleaned up and back on the engine:



Now that both of the endpoints are set, I started working on the tubing for the intercooler. Here is the turbo to intercooler portion tacked and mocked into place:

[nsulacountry]

Looking good! Before long you will be dripping oil all over town! LOL.

CT

[Dieselwrencher]

Nice work! It's coming a long nicely. I almost went the route you went on the factory am/fm but never found one reasonably priced I could talk myself into buying. Do they offer an option to add an input jack to these old radios by chance/

[burnitg]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Nice work! It's coming a long nicely. I almost went the route you went on the factory am/fm but never found one reasonably priced I could talk myself into buying. Do they offer an option to add an input jack to these old radios by chance/

Thanks for the compliment. After paying for the service and replacing the output transistor, mine is not reasonably priced either. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound...

They do offer to add a line in input to our old radios. I considered having one added; but, decided that it was not worth the additional expense. After all, I may not even be able to hear the radio over the music of the engine. I once put a nice stereo in a '91 Dodge Cummins. It sounded great until I started the engine...

[ryanroo]

Nice progress! the piping looks great.

[j_cst_10]

Subscribed. Looks awesome.

[burnitg]

Intercooler piping - done!

I had to cut a couple of big holes in the core support to pass the piping from the turbo to intercooler and intercooler to blower. Here's a close-up look at the passenger side opening:



I reinforced the openings on both sides. I believe the core support is now as strong as it once was:



Here's a front view of the intercooler installed:



Here's the turbo to intercooler piping welded and pressure tested:



Here's the intercooler to blower piping welded and pressure tested:



I need a longer coupling between the intercooler piping and the blower. I'll take care of that in my next Summit Racing order.

[ryanroo]

Lookin good, as always!

[Dieselwrencher]

Great work!

[burnitg]

I found some time to work on the old GMC today. I finally finished the lower radiator pipe.

Here it is on the bench:



Here it is installed:



The cooling system is now complete.

I purchased a hydro boost master cylinder since the vacuum pumps available for the Detroit Diesel look terrible. Next, I'll start on the plumbing for the power steering and brakes.

[ryanroo]

How goes the struggle? The piping continues to please the eye

[burnitg]

Originally Posted by ryanroo

How goes the struggle? The piping continues to please the eye

Thanks for the compliment, Ryan. I haven't made much progress lately. I have been busy plowing snow (it stops being fun after plowing 2X/day for 3 days), working on my outside project (a shed to store my equipment :-)) and family trips.

I'm working on the hydro boost brake master cylinder now. The brackets supplied in the "kit" left it at a very odd angle and attaching it to the OEM brackets doesn't look good either. It will take some time to get it looking good and functioning correctly. For this spring and summer, I will be concentrating on the shed...

[chosn 1]

WOW, just came across this thread and gotta say it's like a dejavu, this is alot like the route I wanted to go! Awesome build man!

[burnitg]

I'm baaacccckkkkk! I finally finished a building to store my equipment and projects; both completed and in the works. It's not a truck; but, I am posting a photo of it anyway. It took me a year to build.



To get back into my project, I decided to get the gear shift lever right. Here it is before I started. It is straight and quite a reach from the driver's seat.



Here it is after some heat and force was applied. I welded on a bolt at the top and added the shift knob.



Rear view:



It is now ergonomically correct.

I admit to sitting in the seat and going through the gears making engine noises. I had forgotten how much fun it is for me to work on this truck.

Maybe I'll install the clutch pedal and linkage next so I can practice my double clutching...

[nsulacountry]

We thought you died!! Like people thought Detroit Drippers died!!

Moving on... Like the custom, ergonomic shifting device...

Nothing wrong (In my mind) with sitting in a no running vehicle, pretending to drive and make engine noises. Really, it's OK!

I understand the pain, built a 70x60x16 this past year. Time and money!!

Looking good. Get back on the DripTroit!!

CT

[burnitg]

Brake master cylinder mounting problem - solved.

Before I started working on my shed project, I purchased a hydroboost "kit" for the truck. The bracket that they supplied in the "kit" left me disgusted. As an engineer, I would be ashamed of the way it looked and fit. Here's a photo of it mocked in place.



Needless to say, I was looking for a better way. I found a mounting plate on this forum made by CaptainFab. In my opinion, it is the perfect solution. Here's a photo of it mocked in place.



While I was working on the master cylinder, I also worked on the clutch. I needed a switch on the clutch to disengage the Jacobs brakes and the cruise control. I made this little bracket and installed a double switch in it.



I also noticed that the hole in the clutch arm (the one at the end of the clutch pedal shaft) had been wallowed out after many thousands of strokes.



A little welding, grinding and drilling later. Here's what it looks like.



I used 70ksi rod so it should last a long time. Also, I plan to float the gears so the clutch won't get a lot of use.