The wife also complained about the lack of A/C this weekend, and it wasn't even that hot! I definitely want to add it in the future, but no one makes a direct fit kit, so I'll have to figure that out. It's going to have to be pieced together with a menagerie of parts.
Saw this from earlier in your thread, and figured I'd chime in. I have a 93 D250, and I'm just in the process of updating the AC on it. It was an AC truck but wasn't working and I couldn't find a source for new lines and hoses. We have a local shop that took my old ones, brazed on new fittings for o-ringed AN hoses and R134 service ports, and made new barrier hoses to match.
I was able to buy every other part including the compressor, dryer and condenser. If you can find a junk yard truck to get the under dash parts from, you could do something similar.
If you want a brand new condenser for a gas engine D250, I'll give you one; I bought the wrong one from Rock Auto and waited too long until the install and noticing it was incorrect. I can't return it so it's sitting around in my shop.
In reply to Kendall Frederick :
For A/C, the issue with converting to a factory-style setup in the Tin Grilles like mine is you not only have to change the box under the dash, you also have to change the dash itself! My dash has zero dash vents, while the A/C trucks have a few of them. This is why an under-dash unit would be easier. Seeing these trucks in the Northeast at all, let alone an A/C truck in the junkyard, is a very rare occurrence.
And I'd take you up on the condenser, but I'm on the opposite end of the country. 
I can't believe it, but today marks 5 YEARS since I added this truck to the fleet.
It's come such a long way since then. Hoping 2024 lets me wrench on it more than I did last year. Big items on my to do list this year are replacing the last two original U-Joints, replacing the rear springs, fixing an exhaust leak, welding in new floor pans, and making the interior less gross. No guarantee that I will get any of those things done since we are still going to be doing house renovation projects all year, but we'll see! All that said, it's become a mostly reliable rig, and I have used it for Truck Stuff a ton in the past year, and it's performed admirably. Still love this stupid truck.
While I haven't had much time so far in 2024 to fix anything on the truck, we've been putting it to use. We've started to move out of our temporary living accommodations and back into our house, and we've also gotten some furniture and other items along the way.
The scary part is that we've had to hit the highway in the truck a number of times, which in the past has sketched me out.
I definitely have some trust issues regarding this thing and highway driving ever since I burned part of the wiring harness up on the highway a few years back. Even though I fixed all that, I've been super weary of getting on the highway with it. That said, after two lengthy highway trips, it does pretty well now. The taller tires, refreshed front end, and (most of) the replaced U-joints have helped. I'm turning about 2700RPM at 65mph, so I try to keep it around 60-65 max. That's not awful considering it has 3.91's and a 727. There are all sorts of NVH, noise, etc. but the engine seems really happy. 50PSI oil pressure, coolant temp at 190 degrees, and AFR of about 14-14.5 during cruising. It really doesn't get better than that, honestly. I want to pull some cruising logs the next time I go on the highway.
Other than that, it's been a little cold-blooded with the current tune. It wants to be warmed up, or else the EFI still acts like a carb. I really need to create a separate "winter" tune for it to accommodate for colder temps. I think it has an exhaust leak, and I have a set of remflex header gaskets to swap in when I have some time which should fix that.
Can't wait to finish the house stuff so I can get back to wrenching!
I wonder if the exhaust leak and the cold-bloodedness are related.
In reply to Jerry From LA :
It's entirely possible. With an OEM EFI system, I would think that a leak would trip a CEL and the ECU would go into a different mode to compensate, but for all its sophistication, the Atomic 2 is still kinda dumb with this kind of thing. It will react to lean conditions by adding more fuel after it stalls or comes close to stalling.
In reply to Recon1342 :
Just visited your thread, and I will definitely be following along! Looks like a cool project!
Not much else to update on the ol' Power Wagon, except it keeps doing Truck Stuff when called upon. Getting to the point where I'm trusting it more, and that's both scary and cool. We are getting close to moving back into our house from a year-long renovation, so we're ferrying stuff back and forth every week from not only the temporary living space, but from storage, stores, and more. Truck is just doing it, even though that squeak still hasn't gone away, the rear springs need replacement, and the floor is swiss cheese. Engine, aside from that cold tip-in thing, is as happy as can be. It will definitely be getting a much needed break with lots of overdue maintenance and repairs performed soon.
I was driving the truck a few days ago, and noticed an extra-annoying rattle coming from the passenger side front. Now, rattles are part of 40+ year old truck ownership, but this one was extra bad. I crawled under the truck and started banging around, listening to where the rattle was coming from, and it was clearly on the passenger side... somewhere. Some more well-placed smacks brought my attention to the fender, and that's when I noticed that the "150" part of the Power Wagon emblem was VERY loose.
It actually fell off in my hand when I touched it!
The pins that hold it onto the fender have these little plastic sleeves. One, as you can see, is completely missing. The other is sorta there, but cracked. I went over to the other side, and yup, same deal. I don't know if they make these little sleeves, but I removed both emblems for now. One less rattle, 10,000 to go!
I also realized that I put about 2k miles on the truck last year. It seemed like a lot more, but that's all I did. But still, 2k is a decent amount for something that gets occasional use, and it really hasn't complained much.
That little plastic sleeve pushes into the hole in the sheet metal, and then the emblem presses into that. Very common method for mounting emblems back in the day, you should have no problem finding a suitable replacement.
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
"I'm having a problem finding a suitable replacement."
Seriously. LMC doesn't sell them, and although I see a ton of these for BMW's for some reason, nothing for older 'Merican vehicles. I think I am using the Googles wrong.
Tony Sestito said:
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
"I'm having a problem finding a suitable replacement."
Seriously. LMC doesn't sell them, and although I see a ton of these for BMW's for some reason, nothing for older 'Merican vehicles. I think I am using the Googles wrong.
Just buy some plastic tubing in the right diameter...
Mr_Asa
MegaDork
5/3/24 12:38 p.m.
Tony Sestito said:
My biggest fear is digging into the floors and finding all sorts of other stuff that needs to be addressed; opening a "can of worms" is not ideal right now, since I not only need the truck for Truck Stuff, I have no place to really work on it. And winter is coming.
The plan already on the agenda was to pull the seat, replace the floors, modify the seat frame to sit lower (been meaning to do this since summer 2022), seam seal/paint/undercoat, and fix the D/S seat belt mounting area. I also wanted to do sound deadening and installing a rubber floor instead of carpet (already have the flooring from ACC and most of the sound deadener). That's a lot to cover in a weekend, even without finding other unknown issues. If I can line up time with some friends to do a weekend thrash session, I can probably get it done.
If I can slap a patch on it for now, even if it's screwed in, that would be better than nothing. I'm just not sure there's anything to "slap a patch" onto without replacing everything.
Was rereading the thread over the past few days.
You're worried about a can of worms, so why not inspect the can first? See if it has a worm label on it?
Pulling the seat and the carpet should be an hour or two. From there you can get a better idea of what you're looking at?
Mr_Asa said:
Tony Sestito said:
My biggest fear is digging into the floors and finding all sorts of other stuff that needs to be addressed; opening a "can of worms" is not ideal right now, since I not only need the truck for Truck Stuff, I have no place to really work on it. And winter is coming.
The plan already on the agenda was to pull the seat, replace the floors, modify the seat frame to sit lower (been meaning to do this since summer 2022), seam seal/paint/undercoat, and fix the D/S seat belt mounting area. I also wanted to do sound deadening and installing a rubber floor instead of carpet (already have the flooring from ACC and most of the sound deadener). That's a lot to cover in a weekend, even without finding other unknown issues. If I can line up time with some friends to do a weekend thrash session, I can probably get it done.
If I can slap a patch on it for now, even if it's screwed in, that would be better than nothing. I'm just not sure there's anything to "slap a patch" onto without replacing everything.
Was rereading the thread over the past few days.
You're worried about a can of worms, so why not inspect the can first? See if it has a worm label on it?
Pulling the seat and the carpet should be an hour or two. From there you can get a better idea of what you're looking at?
Oh, I know what I am looking at. It's bad.
I wasn't able to dive into a major welding project at that time. This past year, I have been living in a temporary apartment while my house was essentially torn down and rebuilt. I needed the truck as intact as possible to do Truck Stuff during that time, and working on vehicles at the apartment would result in a visit from the local PD so I wasn't able to dive into it. I was trying to schedule some time at my friend's shop to tackle it in a weekend, but we deemed it would probably take longer, and he had his own project vehicles laid up in the shop, so it was a no-go.
We are back in the house now, but all car work is on hiatus while we finish up the yard, patio, and repairs to the garage. Later this summer, I'm hoping to tear into the floors.
The driver's and passenger's side pans are pretty shot, and the seatbelt anchor point needs to be replaced on the driver's side (already did the passenger side). While that's happening, I also need to devise a way for the seat to get lowered a couple inches; I have some ideas for that as well. Then, I'll refresh the interior when I put things back in. I have some door panels that need paint and a brand new rubber floor for the truck to replace the stinky decrepit carpet.
It'll get there. Eventually.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
If it didn't have holes in the floor, it wouldn't be a Dodge.
Again, not a lot to update, outside of the truck still doing Truck Stuff, even with Swiss cheese floors:
I scrapped about 1000lbs worth of old heating system components and other trash from my home build over the weekend, and the truck didn't miss a beat, and that's with a collapsed leaf spring! I couldn't believe it. The thing just doesn't care. It's amazing.
And speaking of floor pan replacements, I bought this new toy to assist with that:
Home Depot had one of those deals where if you buy some batteries, they give you a free tool, and one of those was a portable Death Wheel. I ended up needing it to cut up some of the scrap bits, and it works as well as my trusty Porter-Cable plug-in Death Wheel. It should make things a bit easier with slicing the old floors out of the truck. Hoping to get to that project a little later this summer. I will have to fab up some of the inner rocker parts, as those have rotted and they don't make those, but they should be simple to make.
Only other issue to report is that the starter didn't want to do starter things a couple weeks back after running an errand. A couple wiggles of the starter wires fixed that, so I think I have a loose connection at the starter that I'll have to investigate.
A COUPLE MONTHS LATER...
I had been ignoring the starting issue, thinking it was just a bad ground, because I was always able to get it to start by wiggling the negative battery terminal. But yeah...
I was out doing Truck Stuff with the wife this weekend, and when I went to start the truck, the issue reared its ugly head again. Extra not good for happening when the wife is with me, because she doesn't particularly enjoy the "scuzzy" truck all the time.
Remembering back to when I swapped the engine, the smaller terminal on the starter's post seemed to be stripped a bit. I tightened it as much as possible, adding a few washers to make up for the stripped threads, and just sent it. I think at this point it may just be time for a new starter. It was a really sketchy $40 "new' unit I picked up right after I bought the truck, and it differs in some ways to what most of the "Magnum" starters look like, with the terminals sticking off the side on a platform rather than being integrated to the body. I think the latter will also help with header clearance a bit, since they are tucked up near the block. I think I even have some leftover DEI starter blanket material kicking around from my Trans Am starter fiasco a few years back to help it survive with the headers. I may be ordering one up in the next few days, because Truck Stuff never stops.
EDIT: Well, that escalated quickly... found an open box new AC Delco Gold unit on the "Jungle Website" for $55 shipped. Still weird that AC Delco makes stuff for things that aren't GM, but they have for quite some time. Seemed like a step up in quality over the no-name stuff, but we'll see. Should be here by the weekend.
Last Friday, with a new starter in hand, I decided to tackle the starter.
The two of them are similar, however, the old one has a terminal extender for some reason. I haven't been able to figure out what application needed this, but the new one doesn't have it and I didn't bother to transfer it over since having the wires directly on the starter will provide a little more clearance between them and the headers. Still feels weird installing an AC Delco starter on a Mopar. And that gamble paid off, because it really was brand new and uninstalled. Sometimes you win!
Another thing I've suspected that was likely a cause of the intermittent starting problems were the decrepit original relay-to-starter cables. These things have been suspect since day one.
)
Sure enough, these were corroding and had some cracks, and I'm sure the cripsy arcing sounds I had been hearing sometimes when I was going to start the truck were these wires arcing out on the frame. Not great.
There, that's better. Truth is, I had bought a new relay-to-starter wire for the main pole, but I had to make the smaller one. Either way, this will help.
And everything buttoned up. The truck turns over twice as fast as the old mini starter, and 4x as fast as the OG "dying dolphin" Mopar starter. Onto the next thing, and it's not great.
When I was crawling under the truck to remove the starter, I caught a drop of something on my forehead. And that something was raw fuel.
Oh, that's awesome.
This chunk of fuel hose came with the fuel pump kit that I got from Holley. Instead of using the good Earl's hose I used everywhere else, I used this chunk instead. Every once in a while for the past few months, I would catch a whiff of fuel while driving the truck. I did check the lines at the throttle body, and those were fine, so I chalked it up to old V8 smells and moved on. This had been marinating the underside of the truck in raw fuel for a little while. Not ideal, considering the starter and/or starter wiring had been arcing out on things. Big YIKES.
This line is 3 years old. Not sure whether it's due to not being able to hold up to ethanol in modern fuel or not being able to withstand EFI fuel pressure, but Holley should be ashamed to put this in a box with their logo on it. Scary stuff.
All fixed. I had some leftover Earl's hose from the rest of the EFI install, so I cut off a chunk and used that. It seems to be holding up well everywhere else on the truck, but I'll be keeping an eye on this.
With all that fixed, I took the truck out to run some errands. It fires up easier and fuel pressure is steadier than it was before. After driving it for a while, I did notice that I was getting random lean pops, even at idle. I am going to try logging it later today, and I also finally broke down and got a data cable and splitter ordered so I can do some live tuning with a laptop.
I also noticed that Holley discontinued the Atomic 2 recently with no announcement or reason why, and it doesn't seem like they are supporting it anymore. I figured they would do this when the Sniper 2 came out. If anything goes sideways with this setup, I'll switch over to factory-style EFI. I still have the "kegger" intake that came with the 360 tucked away, as well as the factory distributor. I will need to get an ECU and harness, but they are still plentiful in the junkyard around here. The biggest thing will be fuel delivery and switching to an in-tank pump and likely a different fuel tank, but I'll cross that bridge if I ever have to do that.
On the lean weirdness...
I just got back from a 50+ mile impromptu tour of the South Coast of MA with my wife. Truck ran much better than it has for a while. Still has some lean pops on decel, but that's been doing it since the 318 was in the truck, and as long as it's not going lean under load, it's probably fine. Maybe it just needed some time to learn what it's like to get the appropriate amount of fuel again. Still excited to get the data cable to do some on-the-fly tuning to tweak a few things.
Tony Sestito said:
Last Friday, with a new starter in hand, I decided to tackle the starter.
The two of them are similar, however, the old one has a terminal extender for some reason. I haven't been able to figure out what application needed this, but the new one doesn't have it and I didn't bother to transfer it over since having the wires directly on the starter will provide a little more clearance between them and the headers. Still feels weird installing an AC Delco starter on a Mopar. And that gamble paid off, because it really was brand new and uninstalled. Sometimes you win!
Would it make you feel better or worse knowing that that's a Denso starter design, common on Toyota products (also Harley-Davidsons, various forklifts, lots of things) for decades, and that it says, "manufactured for AC Delco" rather than, "manufactured by AC Delco"?
Forgive me if I'm repeating myself, but failure mode on those is typically a click rather than a crank when you key it. There are two copper contact ears underneath the little tin cover plate. One connects to the battery cable and the other to the starter motor; when the solenoid engages, it makes contact with both, and subsequently powers the starter motor. After years of service the copper ears wear away and you get solenoid engagement but no cranking. You can replace just those contacts rather than the whole starter and keep going for several years.
I wish there was a Denso starter that fit my J20. It has the old Ford lever-style starter that is prone to spinning without engaging. I keep a hammer handy.
In reply to DarkMonohue :
Good point! It is of course a Denso design, made by who-knows-who, with an AC Delco sticker on it. I will say that it even sounds different than the old one. It sounds nearly identical to the starters that come on the Cummins trucks, if that makes any sense. It turns over way faster than the old one, so whatever's going on inside is way more robust than the random $40 Ebay starter I bought 5 years ago.
Over the weekend, in a continuous effort to clear things out of my garage and driveway, I FINALLY performed an autopsy on the 318. I wanted to keep the intake and LA-series front dress in case I decide to make the Magnum engine look like a LA, but the rest would be scrapped or sold off. I mean, who wants a smog-era 145hp 318 anyway?
It's been 2 years and a few months since I yanked it, and boy, I was not prepared for what I found.
Valvetrain still looked clean and not sludgy. I cleaned in here when I did the timing set and push rods in 2021.
Same deal in the lifter valley. All looked very clean. Cam and lifters had very little wear for such an old engine. Hmm....
Oh, this is interesting. This head gasket is not original. That's 100% a Fel-Pro.
Uhh... that IS an original head gasket. So someone was in here and changed a single head gasket. Who does that?
Ok, are you all sitting down? This is about to get weird.
I pulled the pan off, and was greeted with this. I'm not sure if it's a mouse house or a shop towel, but I found bits and pieces of whatever this is sucked into the pickup tube and under some of the pistons. My guess is that when I was doing the timing chain, a critter decided to use whatever this is to try and make a nest in the oil pan. The front of the pan was wide open for a couple of days when I was doing the job out in my yard, where the incident occurred. That would explain the zero oil pressure and eventual knocking.
At that point, it was getting late in the day on Saturday, but I needed to see at least one rod bearing, so I pulled the #1. Down to copper with bad spinny marks. Great!
This is not what you want to see on a rod journal.
And this is what leads me to believe this engine had been apart before, maybe even a few times. The oil pan gasket surface had all these letter stampings on it that corresponded to different pistons. I've seen stampings from the factory, but not as much as this thing had.
Each rod cap also had a variety of symbols stamped in them to match them to each other, again, usually seen when something is rebuilt. There were hearts, iron crosses, and more on each rod assembly.
The next day, I blasted out all the pistons and removed the main caps. And with all that, the "builder" bolted the mains, which DO have factory numbers cast right into them, in the wrong order. Guessing the Wire Nut Bandit was in here too!
Every rod and main journal on this crank is FUBAR. Lots of deep gouges and spinny marks to the point that machine work might not be enough to save it.
All of the rod bearings were bad. A lot of them had these little spots on them, probably from oil starvation. All were down to copper.
The Big Winner was Rod Bearing #5. This one caught something and had the spots AND a deep gouge that went almost all the way through it! Yikes.
All the cylinders had evidence of fuel washing on them, likely from decades of poorly running carbs and then me trying to fuel inject the thing. More than one bore had a noticeable ridge up top as well. These were standard bore, as far as I can tell. Also note the main bearings looking a bit worn.
And the last kicker: see that valve mark on the top left? EVERY PISTON had a mark like this. To my knowledge, the stock pistons that come in these are true flat top pistons. None should have a valve relief. And these ARE stock pistons. Also, valve reliefs don't typically look like they were made with a hammer and a spoon. This was mechanical damage. Stuff definitely hit each other at one point in time on every single piston.
So, what did I learn?
-The engine may have been refreshed, at least partially, at one point in time.
-The Wire Nut Bandit likes to change head gaskets one at a time
-Every single cam, rod, and main bearing was bad, yet somehow the cam and lifters looked fine
-Oil starvation killed it due to something stuffed in the pickup
-Crank was junk due to oil starvation
-Every piston showed signs of mechanical damage/contact with valves
If one were to open their wallet very wide, this engine was rebuildable. But you are looking at machine work on the block and heads, a new crank, pistons, cam, and more. My guesstimate would be a $4-5K build just to do a basic build. And at that point, you would have a 318 that makes almost as much power as the $350 junkyard Magnum 360 in the truck. I feel more than ever that I made the right decision in going with the Magnum swap. This mess, minus the accessories and maybe a few more souvenirs, will be hitting the metal scrapper soon.
It's been a while since I've updated things in here. The truck has been doing Truck Stuff for the past few months, but it's starting to ask me to do some things. More or less, I'm using this thread as a place to write down some current needs:
-Replace header gaskets: The driver's side is definitely leaking big time. This is causing annoying ticking sounds and bad smells in the cab, in addition to potential weirdness with the EFI. I have new Remflex gaskets and new bolts. These shouldn't be as bad to do as the ones in my Trans Am.
-Fix the heater controls: The rod that goes to the heater control valve to the dash controls snapped a few years ago. As a result, I have to go under the hood and push the controls open by hand when I want heat. This is annoying. I haven't been able to source another rod locally, yet. There may be a chance I can rig something up with a wire coat hanger. That would be... something.
-Replace U-Joints: I still have two front axle-to-transfer case U-joints to replace. There's something squeaking at speed under the truck that squeaks under load, and it sounds like it's coming from those joints. I have replaced all the others, so I need to replace these.
-Replace Floors: This has been on my list for a while. I have the pans, but I need to fab up an inner rocker panel. Just need some time and space to do it. This will likely happen in the Spring at this point.
-Fix Seat Height: this will happen when I remove the seats to replace the floors. Right now, they sit WAY too high. Should be a simple fix.
-Spruce Up The Interior: I have new vinyl flooring, and I have some used door panels that aren't holey, but they need some vinyl paint. Those will obviously get installed once the floors are done.
-Get Cab Rust Under Control: The top of the roof has a pinhole, and the windshield is leaking at the gasket. I need to investigate how to seal these up. I may have to implement a janky fix here. Flex Seal may or may not be involved.
-Paint The Wheels: I want to paint the wheels the factory off-white color instead of the silver they are painted now. Again, I'll do this when it's warmer out.
-Install PC Interface Cable: I have a USB interface and a splitter for the Atomic 2 EFI. This will allow "live tuning" with a laptop instead of the handheld, and will help me make some changes to the existing tune. I'm still getting the occasional lean-out with tip-in here and there, and having the ability to watch when this is happening live on the map will definitely make a difference instead of guessing about what will fix it.
-Replace the Rear Leaf Springs: One side is sagging (as they do) and the other side's bindings broke (also, as they do). I need to source some and replace them.
Once all of that is done, I'm calling it good for a while until it's time to make it one color again. Also, while out and about recently, I ventured out to my favorite photo spot:
Warts and all, I still love this stupid truck. Happy Holidays, y'all!
Good and seasonally relevant Swamp Yankee location. Enjoy the season.
