Motorhome Conversion 1964 Diesel Pusher

[johnmcdn]

I just joined TDR and thought I would post my motorhome that I have been working on and off for the last 7 years. It used to have a 1964 Cummins C160 supercharged engine. It ran good but parts were hard to find so two years ago I put a 99 CTD and an ATS 47re with a triple lock torque converter. I had to custom build a lot of the wiring harness, engine and transmission mounts, driveline, air compressor mount and drive systems. I have both digital and analog gauges. Also have a laptop on the dash running Alex Peper's monitoring software. Very fun project.

 

[av8r]

Driveline

How is the driveline laid out on this? I thought busses used a transaxle of some sort with a rear engine. Does it use a marine type "V" drive?



Does anyone have any links to a good informative website on the subject?

 

[Forrest Nearing]

I got two words for ya...



TOO COOL!!!!!!

 

[johnmcdn]

How is the driveline laid out on this? I thought busses used a transaxle of some sort with a rear engine. Does it use a marine type "V" drive?



Does anyone have any links to a good informative website on the subject?

The engine faces to the rear and the driveline is about 15 inches long. The Axle is a Rockwell L48 with a 5. 31 ratio. Engine and transmission are behind the rear wheels.

 

[av8r]

Sorry, not that quick...

So, the drive-line functions the same(nothing reversed), the ring gear is just on the "wrong" side of the pinion to give forward movement? Got any other pics of the powertrain?



Does all cooling air get moved by the fan or is there an airscoop for the radiator/intercooler?



Thanks, this stuff fascinates me.

 

[johnmcdn]

More Info on Motorhome

The cooling fan blows backward from the stock fan... through the intercooler first (from a 2000 powerstroke) and then through a 1973 freightliner radiator. The radiator is one I found in the junk yard that fits the rear opening perfectly. the other thing I liked about this radiator is it has bolt on tanks which allowed me to clean and refurbish it myself. The backwards fan I found in the junk yard and adapted it to fit the stock CTD hub. I posted some more pictures... I guess I need to take some more.

 

[HCanales]

NICE!! I like it . How does it run and how fast can it cruise? If you had to do a power comparison, 5. 9 24v vs. c160 how would you compare them? I'm just curious, thanks.

HCanales

 

[michigandon]

Excellent job johnmcdn! Welcome to the TDR.



Take a look at my rig and you'll see that I can appreciate the effort that goes into bringing something like that all together:



http://groups.msn.com/michigandonstravco



I'd like to do one similar to yours someday. I'd love to have an early 50's Flxible Clipper or Visacoach.



Again, kudos on getting all the stuff to work!



Don

 

[johnmcdn]

Thanks michigandon. Yours looks like a fun project too. Lots of work but very satisfying. One if my favorite things about these is mine gets 10. 9 MPG at 70 MPH. what kind of mileage are you getting?



John

 

[Glen Pratt]

John, Way cool. The first picture with the doors open, I'm waiting for the chain gang to start marching out. The colors kind of make it look like a prison bus. Definitely sweet, and I'm just kidding about the prison bus.

 

[johnmcdn]

John, Way cool. The first picture with the doors open, I'm waiting for the chain gang to start marching out. The colors kind of make it look like a prison bus. Definitely sweet, and I'm just kidding about the prison bus.

I just painted it last fall. It used to be silver but it faded and turned gray. My brother said it looked like a battleship before. Thanks John

 

[michigandon]

Thanks michigandon. Yours looks like a fun project too. Lots of work but very satisfying. One if my favorite things about these is mine gets 10. 9 MPG at 70 MPH. what kind of mileage are you getting?

I haven't tried to check it very accurately, but I believe I'm getting somewhere around 13 MPG @ 65 MPH. Going to try and get a more accurate figure this summer.



Don

 

[johnmcdn]

NICE!! I like it . How does it run and how fast can it cruise? If you had to do a power comparison, 5. 9 24v vs. c160 how would you compare them? I'm just curious, thanks.

HCanales

70 MPH is about as fast as I like to cruise. 70 is 2000 RPM in overdrive. The old c160 would only run 2500 rpm max which gave the MH a top speed of 60MPH which was the other reason I did the conversion. The old transmission was a Dana 5 speed with no overdrive. The mileage from the c160/5 speed was 5-7 MPG. The c160 was rated @160HP @2500 RPM the 1999 CTD is rated @235 HP @2900 I believe (no bombs). I am using the engine controller from a manual transmission engine. John

 

[boaterdan]

monitoring software

John,



I’m converting two 24v engines to marine use for my boat. My engines are 2001 & 2002 and I would like to be able to use monitoring software such as Alex Peper’s software but I am having trouble trying to find out how to get the signal from the stock wiring harness into the software. I have searched the forums here and other places and I haven’t been able to figure it out.



I’m interested in how you connected your laptop up to be able to use the monitoring software. I’m assuming you don’t have the OBD II connector that is found in the truck cabs. My 2001 & 2002 have a three pin connector in the engine wiring harness, did you use that or did you wire your own 16 pin OBD II connector? If so how did it wire into the engine wiring harness.



Thanks,

 

[johnmcdn]

Dan



I used a wiring harness from a 1999 wrecked 2500 CTD as a starting point and then built my own harness to fit the chassis of the bus. The diagram in the factory manual is very good to show how to wire every thing up. On a marine application I can see where you might have a problem since you are not using the chassis computer. In this case it might be worth wiring up the chassis computer in your system to allow the OBDII interface to work. On my system I used an engine from a manual transmission truck and the chassis controller from an automatic truck. You might want to use the chassis controller from a manual truck because I believe it would be easier to fool it with jumpers into thinking it is in a normal application. On my system I had to disconnect the two wire com link (violet/white and white/violet twisted pair) between the engine and chassis computer or the engine wouldn't start. The system throws a communication error code but otherwise works great. Building a wiring harness is not a small task. Use solder and heat shrink tubing to make a moisture tight, trouble free system. The computers you can get from the wrecking yards for $150-$200 each.



John

 

[johnmcdn]

Dan



One more thing. The 3 pin connector on the engine is a can bus connector that you use to interface to the Quick Check system that Cummins sells. Cummins also sells a really cool monitoring system that sells for about $1000 that may be of interest to you.



John

 

[boaterdan]

John,



Thanks for the reply. I’ve got some more research to do, but I expect the 3 pin connector on the engine is where I’ll wind up getting my data from. I’ll let you know how it turns out.



Daniel.

 

[johnmcdn]

Daniel



If I can help you with more specific info let me know. Make sure you post some pics of this conversion... sounds really interesting.



John

 

[KBennett]

Very Cool! I better not show this to the wife or she'll want one :-laf

 

[johnmcdn]

Killed two birds with one stone on this one... keeps the wife happy (camping) and gives me a fun toy to play with at the same time.



John