upgraded....every thing

[Diesel Gunner]

Thanks for sharing this. I like what you are doing and I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that you are going to keep the truck? Yea, I know. I have no intention of buying a new one either. LOL I will fix the one I have till I take the dirt nap.

 

[RWherley]

Lol, yeah I've had it for 10 years now and no plans of getting rid of her.

 

[RWherley]

A quick test fit to make sure the front sheet metal and my new core support all fit together

 

[RWherley]

Then a test fit of the coolers them selfs

 

[EDankievitch]

Your work looks awesome. Nice improvements. I kick my self almost every day that I sold my 89. But I like how quiet the new trucks are and having Cruise and Satellite radio… It’s tough to go back in time. Your project brings back fond memories. Keep up the good work.

 

[RWherley]

Thanks for the kind words, I kind of agree with your like of newer trucks, but as you can see if i get to not liking something, out comes the welder and things start to change.

 

[bcbender]

Awesome work!!...

I love to see when people are doing FAB work and making / improving on the OEM... That CORE support is going to last a 4ell of alot longer than the OEM and take a beating better.. The REPOP stuff is junk, I got one for my 95 bronco when I was doing the "OHIO" rust removal and it was tin and about 1/2 the beef of the OEM. I ended up selling it and getting a junkyard one and referbing it like you have done (but not as nice!)

Keep up the good work, I look forward to following it.

 

[RWherley]

One change demands another, my custom made core support dropped the intercooler just low enough that the boost boot was sitting on the power steering pressure line. Time to get creative with the fix

 

[RWherley]

The only way I could find to get the power steering line low enough to clear the boot was to throw out the factory line and replace it with a 90° O-rings boss to male JIC hydraulic fitting, so now it's time for full custom power steering lines

 

[RWherley]

But before I get to that, I had a though and I didn't let it go, wanting to put a towing cam in, turned into putting a aftermarket performance cylinder head on, turned into new pistons, turned into full rebuild

 

[RWherley]

 

[RWherley]

But then I had another idea, the seals for the factory tapit plate are a known leak issue but the design of the plate forces you to use that seal. So I'll make my own plate that's flat instead of curved in and just seal it with "right stuff" RTV, My new plate started as 1/8" plate steel cut to size then I made a baffled breather can with vent pipe and welded to the plate and drilled holes in the back side of the breather can

 

[RWherley]

The final product installed on the engine

 

[RWherley]

The next issue was caused by the Fluid damper and the crank sensor relocation bracket that came with. The issue being that the bracket is completely stupid and a waste of metal as it only works with the crank sensor for 2nd gens and even then it requires you to remove the bracket to change the belt, so it went straight to the junk pile and I made a better one

 

[RWherley]

This picture was taken while still in the fitment stage but I was able to reuse the 1st gen sensor and move it to a place when it both clears the larger damper and doesn't get in the way to the belt or anything else and allows the wires for the crank sensor to stay more less in the factory location

 

[RWherley]

Some of you might have noticed that there's a 2nd gen fan support on my engine in the last few pictures, that was done to fix the other issue caused by the Fluid damper, that being that with the 1st gen fan support the fan blades hit the damper, I did mess around with making a fan spacer but decided that swaping supports was easier and safer as it maintained full fan hub thread contact unlike the spacer

 

[RWherley]

I still need to change the water pump and AC compressor but other then that the front of the engine is pretty much done now

 

[RWherley]

The next kind of issue was that the Hamilton head doesn't have a fuel filter head on it like the factory one dose but that was ok as I always thought the factory fuel filter was to small. So I got a remote mount head for a fleet guard FF5814 and made a mounting bracket to put it close to the factory location

 

[RWherley]

That brings it back to the power steering lines, with the decision to use JIC fittings instead of the factory style I had to modify the power steering pump to use JIC fittings for the returns instead of the hose barb and clamp of the factory set up

 

[AnonEd]

All looks nice. I'm jealous...and thinking you and RSchwarzli are distant cousins with the same "while I'm at it..." approach.