One of the first things I need to do was change the gears in the truck Almost since I bought the truck, my Dad and I had always talked about finding a taller set of gears to see if it would help the truck move along a little better. Right now the truck has 6.71/9.13’s and based on several 155W specs sheets I have collected, 5.43/7.39’s and 6.14/8.36’s were also available. So I put a quick spreadsheet together a numbers of years ago to compare the ratios and 5.43’s would lower my RPM’s from about 2150 to 1800 at 55 mph.

When I started looking for gears a while back, I hit a number of roadblocks since I didn’t have enough information. To make matters worse, the specs list the rears as both 20501 and 20503 and I was not able to find these numbers anywhere in any of Eaton’s older literature. A few guys asked for the casting number (28656) and I was able to find a set in Toledo OH but they wanted $1500... ouch... Then about 3 years ago I found a rear out of a 257 that came with a 180 Cummins. The casting number matched my rear (28656) so I bought the rear and set if off to the side. On a side note, I do have a spec sheet for the H257T and it only list the only available rear ratio as 5.43/7.39 but they call the rear an R454.

When I decided on the Cummins upgrade a few months ago, I figured I would change the gears first just to see how they worked with the Continental. If I remember correctly, I talked to the owner of the Green Apple Express 257 a few years ago and he said he replaced his gears with 5.43’s and it made a world of difference driving the truck with the 572 Continental. So I decided to pull the pumpkin from the rear and get it ready to install in the truck. But that was easier said than done... I had the rear sitting on a drop deck trailer on the far side of yard and at the time I wasn’t able to bring the trailer over to the garage to lift the pumpkin out with the fork lift.

So we wound up using the cherry picker and my 4 wheeler along with a utility cart, in the rain I might add, to get the pumpkin in the garage...

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More to follow...

 

Then using some 2x6’s and some extra heavy duty casters I had, I made a quick ‘box’ to be able to move the pumpkin around. Besides, I would need something to move or store the 6.71’s when I removed them...

Then with some ‘help’ from my daughter I was able to roll the pumpkin outside...

And get everything cleaned up...

More to follow...

 

After everything was cleaned up, I realized the ratio was actually stamped on the carrier. Before I thought the only way to identify the ration was by looking at the head if the pinion when the number of ring and pinion teeth were stamped. Here is a quick sketch of where the numbers are on the carrier... When I called around everyone asked for the casting number, 28656, which refers to a ribbed carrier.



The following day was supposed to be warm so I dug out all of the paint supplies and figured I would shoot the rear outside. But I wanted to clean the inside one more time before paint. Also, when I originally pulled the carrier, the back lash felt good and the ring gear looked good. So I lifted it up in the air one more time to check the back lash with a dial indicator. As I was rotating the ring gear I was looking up towards the pinion (which is sort of buried in the carrier) and caught a glimpse of something that looked BAD. At that point I decided to pull the pinion cage to get a closer look...

Damn... I still can’t believe that I didn’t feel this in the back lash but these things happen. I also didn’t see any chuck in the bottom of the housing (and I wasn’t really looking either...) since it was raining pretty good and we were trying to get out of the weather. Should I have looked at it better before I cleaned it? Sure, but hey these things happen...

So at that point I started looking for another set of gears. But at least this time I had more information, like the Eaton number on the ring gear, 41962. After a quick Google search of this number, I found a set of gears in Toledo OH (same place that had the carrier years back). They listed the ring gear as 41962 and the pinion as 48820. This is when I posted a wanted ad on the message board hear and well as on a few groups on FB.

More to follow...

 

After a further Google search I found the ring and pinion number listed on Weller’s Truck website. They have a great catalog online...

http://www.wellertruck.com/lit/Weller_Diff_Catalog_2011.pdf

But for the ring gear I had, it was listed for an Eaton 19201 rear (and 19501 if its locked in low range...) The only difference here is that my carrier has 16 spine axles instead of 22. Weller did not have 5.43’s in their inventory but they were very helpful when I talked to them.

I did get several suggestions on locating gears. I called a few local places along with Pat at Demo’s but he only had 6.14’s. Then a guy on FB referred me to Tommy John’s Truck Parts in Wortsburo, NY . John didn’t have any gears but he referred me to A&A Truck Parts in Freehold, NJ and sure enough he had a set in an International pumpkin. For some reason International used 10 hole pumpkins instead of the 12 hole, but the gears are the same. So after a handful of conversations, I made a trip to Freehold which I was able to do during one of my New Brunswick trips for work. I did get some strange looks when I pulled in the yard with a rental car and popped the truck open

The first thing I noticed was that the companion flange (yoke) was different. It’s actually a Rockwell yoke for a wing bearing, 72N series. But after I removed the flange from pinion, I realized that the splined parts of the pinions were different diameters.

Damn (again...)

The inner and outer bearings were the same for both yokes and the shims and spacers were the same, but the original pinion was 10 spline with 1.750” major diameter while the new one was also 10 splines but with a 1.964” major diameter. So this added another level to my companion flange dilemma...

Before I realized there was a difference in the pinions, I figured I would re-use the companion flange from the 6.71 pinion. My original driveshaft used Spicer 1500 series U joints. These have been obsolete for some time but I was able to locate an NOS pair on eBay a number of years ago. On a side note, Neapco has started making these joints again. The Spicer number was 5-115X and the new Neapco number is 3-0055.

Then I considered using the Rockewell 72N flange. One of my International buddies (Kevin L) had a driveshaft I could use but that would mean I would have to have the driveshaft cut and have new yoke welded on, and then buy a new wing u joint. But before I went down that path, I figured I would try to locate a companion flange to match my Spicer 1500 joint. Besides, both u joints were new (well from 2008...) and the flange the u joint goes into was also new.

After searching online with no luck, I remember Jack Alt have given me a vintage Spicer book years ago. So I dug that out and was able to find a number that matched was I needed, Spicer #4-1-3841.

Although the flange was listed for a 1480 or 1550 joint, the dimensions matched my 1500 series flange, with a ground flange diameter of 2 5/8” and a length through the hole at 2 1/4". Of course this flange has been obsolete for some time, I after a quick Google search I found that Weller had one in stock in Grand Rapids Michigan. I called the next day and it was the last one they had, still covered in cosmoline and wrapped in wax paper. It cost a few bucks but was still cheaper than having the drive shaft cut...

And now I had a nice assortment of companion flanges... On a side note, the round flange was from the 257 rear. This took (8) 3/8” bolts and a Spicer 1610 series joint, Spicer number 5-279X.

More to follow...

 

Just a quick follow up on the difference in the pinions...

When I removed the driveshaft from the 6.71 rear in the truck, I was able to read the pinion number which was 41967. This was one digit higher than the ring gear, 41966. So I can assume that the pinion for the 5.43’s was 41961. But the head of the pinion on original 5.43 was really pitted. You could make out ‘Eaton’ and 7 and 38 (38/7=5.43) but that was about it. So when I googled the ring gear number and found Weller’s site, I just assumed the pinion was 48820. Regardless, it all worked out at the end of the day...

Just for comparison, the new pinion vs. the old...

In the mean time I decided to make a ‘jig’ to help remove the pumpkin from the truck using my 4 wheeler jack. I’ve used this jack a 1000 times for different things (like installed the fuel tanks, etc.) but never on a 4 wheeler. So using some flat stock and angle on hand I made something to support the base and the pinion so that I could roll the pumpkin out...

After that was done we drained the oil and then made a few dowels out of some old bolts...

And then we removed the pumpkin...

The jack actually worked pretty well...

To help work on the rear I cut a few other pieces of angle...

And then set the pumpkin on the bench...

More to follow....

 

Once the pumpkin was on the bench I noticed a few things. First of all the ring gear had some rust pits and second there was no back lash (at all!) So we started taking everything apart...

And as luck would have it turns out the carrier bearings were in rough shape...

So I decided to cut the cage off to find this...

Yep, these bearings were in sad shape, but they did make it to Cortland 8 times!

So we started taking everything further apart...

And after a lot of cleaning we had everything laid out and ready to go back together...

In the meantime I tried to find new carrier bearings locally but could not find Timkens, so I had to order them online and they were dropped shipped direct from Timken. While waiting for the bearings we started reassembling the differential...

I also took the old carrier bearings and using a stone wheel on my Dremel, I ground the inside diameter so that I could use the old bearings to press the new ones on. The two carrier bearings are different so I did each side and then pressed the new ones on...

Then we installed the new ring gear and reinstalled the spiders...

And then the carrier was finally done...

More to follow...

 

One thing I forgot to mention was that a year or so ago, Steve S. gave me a nice Brockway manual, the typical 3 hole punch style that had a ton of technical information in it. After thumbing through it I found a complete set of instructions on how to rebuild the Eaton 2 speed rears. This manual was very helpful and included all of the torque settings, etc... And is also list the elusive model numbers 20501 and 20503!!!

Once the carrier was done we started working on the pinion. Both the upper and lower bearings and races appeared to be in excellent shape so I decided to reuse them. To get the correct pinion preload of between 15 and 35 inch lbs, the pinion nut had to be torqued to 500 ft lbs. I bought a Mac torque wrench for torqueing the bolt on the damper of the 671 and it went up to 600 ft lbs so I was in good shape there. So I would up cutting a 2 3/4" hole in a piece of 4” x 1/4" flat stock and drilling holes to mount it to the companion flange. The I could mount the pinion in the vice and torque the nut properly...

Don’t laugh at the orange strap... That was my contingency plan in case for some reason it came out of the vice. Hey, stuff happens right?

So at this point I had a total of 3 pinions, and ironically they all had the same (2) size shims or spacers in each. Except the International pinion, that had one extra paper thin shim at .005”. So after torqueing the pinion nut, we discovered we could not get enough preload on the bearings. It would basically free wheel with hardly any resistance. After calling the local shops, I found out that no one had any different sized shims. In fact one guy told me to grind one of the shims down, and if I went too far just use a coffee can lid as a spacer. So after scratching my head for a second I decided to buy (2) new bearings. Maybe I should retitle this tread as the “Million Dollar Rear...”

And 3 days later (2) new American made Timken bearings and races arrived. Again using one of the old races I pressed in the new races...

I didn’t have a piece of pipe the correct diameter to press the bottom bearing on, but I did discover the ‘sliding clutch gear’ was the right diameter. So I grabbed the one from the 257 rear and pressed the bearing on...

I installed the 2 original shims and found out I now had too much preload! So I then I added the .005” from the International pinion and wound up with 25 inch lbs. Now we were in good shape!!!

I also discovered that the slots in the castle nut didn’t line up with the hole for the cotter pin so I turned a washer in the lathe to fit. I went back and forth a few times with this but it worked out fine...

After the preload was good, we installed a new felt seal and a lip seal. The felt seal I found on eBay and the lip seal was a local buy.

The felt seal is Federal Mogul 5M 867 and the lip seal is NG 99262.

More to follow...

 

When we last left off I had just finished installed the felt and lip seal for the pinion. I was able to get some paint matched at our local Napa store and they put it in an aerosol can. This is pretty handy for small stull like this. I used it to paint the new yoke. Ironically the slinger from the Rockwell (International) yoke fit the new yoke I reused that as well...

After the pinion was reassembled and final torqued, we made another jig, this time with some 1 1/2” box tubing and some eye hooks. We used this jig to lift the differential into place...

It would up being too difficult to set the pattern, adjust the backlash, etc. on the bench so we wound up setting it back on the floor...

Using the original set of shims under the pinion cage, the pinion wound up being way too close to the ring gear. So working in small increments, we finally wound up with what I felt was a good pattern...

More to follow...

 

And on a side note, Desitin does not work well for gear marking compound. I read somewhere online that it worked well. Nope... Years ago I set up a handful of rears for my 79 Cutlass, 84 Check truck, etc and had a small amount left. It turns out it was just enough for this gear set.

When we were done torqueing the differential bolts we safety wire everything and set it back on the 4 wheeler jack...

In the mean time I had cleaned the pumpkin housing out really well and fixed a mistake I made years ago. I forgot to installed a bulkhead fitting for the rear axle temp gauge so I wound up installing it in the full plug hole. That really didn’t work well (for obvious reasons..._) so I drilled a hole low in the rear cover and reinstalled the sending unit... That’s my new LED light “Big Larry” lighting up the inside of the housing...

Using the dowels we made earlier, I slide the diff backing into the housing and filled it up with 2 1/2 gallons of Napa’s finest 80W90. We did this on November 29th, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I was really trying to finish this up and drive the truck before the snow flew. Who would have guessed that the weather would have held off so long. After buttoning everything up we took the truck for a ride and re-calibrated the speedometer... 7300 miles since 2008 isn’t too bad. 1000 miles over the summer of 2015 alone...

Fortunately you can calibrate this speedo with dip switches. I dug out the original instructions which had of the different settings. 5.43/6.71 is .8 so I re-set the switches and then checked the speedometer against a GPS...

So how does the truck work with the taller gears? 4th gear is now like 5th gear was in the past. We didn’t have a change to get it on the highway and run it up to 55-60. But for the most part it seems to work well.

So that finishes things up on the rear axle... So I had the opportunity to take one more pic before putting the truck away for the winter. This one was taken the second week of December...

More to follow...

 

Before I continue, I want to mention one other thing about the rear. If I had to do it over again, Timken makes a complete kit (through DT Components) for this rear, including bearings, races, seals, etc. It is cheaper to buy the kit than purchase everything individually...

Here is the link to the catalog...

http://www.dtcomponents.com/files/DT2008.pdf

And this is the kit specifically for this rear...

When I finally decided to go with a 5.9 Cummins I started looking at all the obvious places for a running motor. I did find a few locally but these were out of pickup trucks and I would still need to find the correct air compressor, bell housing, etc. Through several listings on eBay I found a guy in Ohio who specialized in both the 4BT (3.9L) and 6BT (5.9L) Cummins. I explained what I was looking for (94-98 12 valve motor with the P7100 Bosch fuel pump) and discussed my Brockway project. After two phone calls I was able to buy one with everything I needed, an SAE #2 bellhousing and flywheel, an air compressor, a bracket for a future AC compressor, a power steering pump, and an oil pick up tube from a Dodge pickup. Basically it was everything a Freightliner FL70 had but the oil pan was a front sump instead of a rear. Since the oil pans are reversible (front to back), all I needed to rotate the pan was a pickup truck ‘pickup’.

A week later the motor showed up at my local Fastenal store... This was actually the first week of October, during the Million Dollar Rear adventure...

After we unloading off the truck and into my garage my Dad quickly went to work up-wrapping and un-strapping it...

And this is what we wound up with...

It turns out this was from a 1995 Ford F800 which is very similar to the Freightliner. Both trucks have the accessories mounted tight to the block so this should work great in the 155W with narrow frame rails...

The original turbo had a failed bearing so an additional turbo was included with the motor. In the process of trying to remove the turbo one of the studs broke and then of course one of the manifold bolts broke as well. The manifold bolts get pretty thin due to rust so we blasted them with penetrating oil over a few days. It turns out the best way to remove these was to whack the heads of them with a large punch several times and then use the impact gun on the LOWEST setting. The jarring of the impact gun removed 9 of the 12 bolts. 2 came out with welding a nut to the broken off stud portion and of course the last one had to be drilled. After the manifold was removed we fixed the broken turbo stud and then ordered studs from McMaster Carr.

In the meantime we also set the motor on a pallet with the intention of trying to start it... We also made block off plates for the exhaust manifold so that we could pressure wash the engine as well...

I also decided to remove the power steering pump so that we could test fire the engine The pump was mounted on the back side of the air compressor...

And using the old gasket as a pattern I made a block off plate...

After that was done and installed we turned our attention over to the fuel system. This motor has a pre-filter screen that had seen better days...

So we cleaned that out, installed a new fuel filter and connected the filter housing to the lift pump with some #8 AN hose I had. The motor had to shipped dry so we also picked up a few gallons of Rotella along with a new oil filter as well. After make some temporary battery cables and hooking up an oil pressure gauge, we moved the motor outside to try to fire it...

After a few attempts fighting with an air bound pump it started right up and idled fine...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1GdoK7fhc0

More to follow...

 

After we were comfortable that the motor ran we decided to take it outside and power wash it before going any further. It wasn’t too dirty but I wanted to go over it one more time. I also decided to clean a spare 5A430 trans that I pulled from the ’54 148W Primo Marianelli parts truck.

We did this 2 days after Christmas while it was still in the high 40’s! It cleaned up pretty well but both my Dad and I were pretty soggy...

For the rest of the holiday we worked on fabricating the exhaust for the turbo install on my Dad’s 361.

And now we are finally caught up to last weekend!

At the start of the project my intent was to by a running motor. If everything looked ok internally, I was going to take the accessories off, strip the paint, flip the oil pan, re-gasket it and detail everything. If I didn’t like what I saw once I dropped the pan, then I would cross that bridge when I came to it. The first thing we did was raise the motor with the cherry picker and drain the oil out of it...

Then we started the disassembly process and I took about 1000+ pictures (big surprise, right?) Keep in mind all the fasteners are metric so I measure everything and made a list of which bolts went where, size, length, head size, diameter etc. Then we started stacking all of the parts on pallet, a little at a time...

I probably didn’t need to write anything down, I’m sure my Dad remembers where everything goes

We finally worked our way along to the front of the motor, specifically the timing gear cover. I realized this had been replaced before since it was not painted and the CPL tag was missing. The holes are there for the tag and it appears they were never used. Inside this cover is where the “killer dowel pin” or KDP is. Brandon had mentioned this in one of his first replies to my thread. These dowel pins are known for working their way loose and falling out. If you’re lucky, they fall right into the oil pan. If you’re not so lucky, they chew up the gears and create all kinds of grief on their way to the oil pan.

Here is a pic that shows the location of the dowel pin...

There are a number of ways to correct this problem and each method places something over the dowel pin so it can’t fall out. Some are as simple as a thin piece of aluminum under the adjacent bolt (like a washer) that is large enough to cover the dowel pin. Others are elaborate pieces of CNC’s aluminum that cover the down pin but a longer bolt is required.

In my case it looks like the timing cover is a later improvement, Cummins 3936256. The dowel pin hole is not drilled all the way through (the same diameter as the pin) so the dowel pin cannot fall out. One thing I did notice is that a most of the bolts holding the cover to the block were loose.

Doug R also mentioned that these aluminum timing covers are known to crack. I believe this is because the air compressors become loose or someone forgets to install the rear support bracket. In either case the compressors are fairly heavy and can create problems if the bolts become loose.

More to follow...

 

We have made a little more progress on the project so it’s time for another update. When we last left off we were disassembling the motor. I had removed two of the main bearings and two rod bearings to inspect them. The mains looks good although there were some scratches from dirt in the oil...

The mains were also marked .25mm so it was cut .010” at one time. Then we moved on to the rods. They looked ok at first but one of then was wore to the copper in one spot, from being slightly out of round...

The rod bearings were also marked .25mm. At that point I decided to keep going with the disassembly...

And the ‘pallet of parts’ continued to grow...

More to follow...

 

Once the block was fairly stripped, we sent it on the legs of the cherry picker so that I could use the hoist to remove the head...

I wanted to pull the injectors before I removed the head so I did a quick Google search on what the tool looked like to remove the injector. There were several threads on homemade tools so I decided to make one. I used a piece of 5/8”-18 threaded rod (cut off from the new brake cans on the rear of the 761) and a metric lug nut (M12x1.5).

I turned the end of the threaded rod and then welded the rod to the lug nut. I used two nuts as jam nuts, a flat washer and then another nut. I also used a piece of 1-1/2” pipe to ‘pull’ against...

After the injector retaining nut is removed, the pipe is slid over the injector and then the lug nut then gets threaded to the top of the injector. Holding the top nut, you can tighten the bottom nut against the flat washer / pipe and the injector comes right out...

One of the retaining nuts was froze to the injector so I struggled removing that one. I would up sharing the alignment ball off of the injector but fortunately it didn’t damage the threads in the head. I had to clamp it in the vice and use some PB blaster to help free it up...

More to follow...

 

After all of the accessories were stripped, we removed the head from the block...



The cylinder walls looked ok with only a slight buildup of carbon on the top. One of the walls looked like it had some light pitting on top. I also noticed the deck was stamped 020. The pistons did not appear to be factory Cummins pistons either. I did Google the BC301E part number but wasn’t able to find anything...



At this point I decided it only made sense to go through the motor. So we decided to keep going and fully disassemble the motor. To help with both the disassembly and reassembly, I bought a 2000lb engine stand from Jegs. All of the ones I had were 1,200 lbs or less and I didn’t want to take a chance. Within a few days it arrived, we put it together and set the motor on it. I am going to make some changes to it. The motor overhangs the front legs farther than I would like so stayed tuned for that project...



In the meantime my Dad started cleaning the paint off of the block...



While my Dad was working on the paint, I found a place on eBay that sold ‘lifting hooks’ to help remove the crank. So I decided to make my own out of some 1/4" plate I had. I started with these two pieces...



And wound up with these...



More to follow...

 

Then we spun the block upside, removed the pistons, and used my hooks to pull the crank. Sure beats lifting it out by hand!!!



While my Dad kept working on cleaning the block, I set the head on the bench and removed all of the valves...




There was an odd water fitting on the head that was like a long 5/8” pipe extension. It was pretty tired and thin and sure enough it broke right off...



I wrestled with it for some time but was able to get the broken piece out with an easy out.

A friend of mine from high school was going to check the block and the crank for me so we loaded everything up and headed over to his garage...



That’s it for now!

 

My friend Jeff mic’d the bore and it turns out it was bored out .020 over. So that’s what 020 stamped on the deck meant! But all joking aside, Cummins makes (3) different head gaskets for this motor, standard thickness, .010” thicker and .020” thicker. At first I thought the deck may have been cut and they used a thicker gasket. The crank does appear to be in good shape and will just need to be polished and a new wear sleeve installed on the front.

We were supposed to head to Lowville NY for our yearly snowmobile trip but the owner of the house we rent said the trails were thin and he had grass in his front hard. So we decided to cancel (hopefully just postpone) our trip. So on the Saturday morning we were supposed to leave, I decided to start working on the bell housing motor mounts.

For reference I pulled the bell housing and trans out of the Marianelli 148W parts truck. I had already pulled the motor years ago when I needed the crankshaft for my 42BD. I spent about 15 minutes cleaning it up...

Then I cut 4 pieces of 3/8” threaded rod, about an 1 1/2" long, and then turned the treads of half of the length. I turned just enough off so that they slid into the threaded hole of the new bell housing...

Then I screwed the studs into the original bell housing...

And then set the new bell right on top of the original bell, using the studs / dowels to keep everything lined up. And it does hurt when you pinch your finger between the two!

For reference, here are the mounts that originally came on the bell housing that were used in the Ford F800. One mount is taller than the other since they bolted the hood support cable to it (when you tilt the hood open). Notice how these mounts have an angle built into them. On the Brockway, they mounted the frame motor mounts at an angle, so my mounts will be straight...

More to follow...

 

Since the Ford mounts were built from 1/2" plate, I picked up a 2’ piece of 1/2" x 6” plate. My Dad then cut several pieces with the hydraulic saw. These included (2) plates to bolt to the bellhousing, (2) mounting plates and (4) gussets. My intention was to building something similar to the Ford mount...

And then I drilled the 4 mounting holes in the larger plates...

Then I quickly realized that I would not be able to put bolts in the bottom holes since the base plate would be sitting right at the bottom of the hole...

More to follow...

 

I couldn’t really lower the base plate because I wanted to retain the original rubber mount and didn’t want to raise the engine. I didn’t want to raise the base plate either. So after some thought I remembered I had a 2” piece of square steel that I sitting on my shop press for a number of years. This has been kicking around my garage for some time so I’m glad to be able to put it to use...

So we started off with cutting (2) 4” pieces...

I needed to come off of the 1/2" mounting plate 2 1/8” with the block so I also cuts so spacers out of 1/8” flat stock...

And the 5/8” hole to bolt the bell housing to the frame engine mount needed to be 3 1/16” off the mounting face of the trans...

So after drilling 6 more holes with the Bridgeport we were able to trial fit one of the mounts...

After I was happy with the fit, I radiused the edges and cleaned everything up...

More to follow...

 

At that point I decided I wanted to use cap screws in the 2” block so that the bolt heads wouldn’t bump the frame when I was setting the motor in place. I ordered some grade 8 metric cap screws from McMaster Carr and then used a 3/4" end mill to recess the heads...

And one more trial fit...

Instead of mig welding them, I had a friend tig weld them for me...

And that’s it for now...

 

It’s been a while but we have made some progress. Now that the motor is at the shop I decided to cross the point of no return! We took some time to carefully remove the front end off of the truck and carefully pack everything away in my car trailer. With the help of my Dad, Brother and my neighbors we started with the hood, grill shell, radiator and then the fenders...

After the front end was off I slid the 4 wheeler jack under the trans for support. I was able to use the adapter I built for the pumpkin to support the companion flange on the back of the trans. We also used a ratchet strap around the trans as well, to keep it from rotating or sliding off the jack.

After the trans was disconnected I quickly realized I would not be able to pull the motor forward without the bellhousing hitting the steering box. At that point I remembered we set the motor in the frame BEFORE the cab was on and it sure made life easy. Since my Ross box and steering column were one piece, I had no choice but to pull the steering wheel and pull the entire box and column out from under the truck. No fun... But my ’58 155W parts truck has the exact same Ross box but they used a universal joint at right at the box. So I may wind up changing the box and column out before all is said and done.

At that point we were able to use the cherry picker to lift the motor and pull it forward...

And slowly but surely we were about to remove the motor from the truck...

More to follow...

 

Now that the motor was out we spent some cleaning oil off of the fire wall and frame. When the T fitting going to the oil pressure sending unit cracked, it really made a mess. I also had some oil mist coming out of the breather which didn’t help things. In hindsight, we will install PCV on our next gas job Brockway

The following night I decided to drain the fuel from each of the tanks. I have separate sending units in each tank with a DPDT switch for the fuel level gauge, and each tank supposedly had less than a quarter tank of gas. But after filling (5) 5 gallon containers full and no end in sight, I really had a little over 30 gallons... So now I will have plenty of gas for the lawnmower for the next 10 plus years

Now that the motor was out and my motor mounts were done, I decided to make a cardboard pattern of the back of the block. The pattern would then help me figure out if and where I needed to trim the fire wall. I started with marking the bell housing holes first and then tracing the rear of the block... (it’s a little hard to see here...)

After I finished cutting the pattern out I set the bell housing in the frame with the new mounts but without the rubber isolaters. At that time I realized I was going to have an issue with the passenger side mount due to the starter location. It turns out the mount I used for reference, the one from the Marianelli 148W parts truck, was entirely different that the one I had. The trucks are only a year apart, but the 148W did not have any isolation between the bell housing and the mount. It was metal to metal... But on my 155W, there was a 7/8" rubber isolator and a 1/8” metal plate on top of it. On a side note, the isolators were marked “H.A. King 3820” and H.A. King is still in business...

Here you can see the bell housing sitting on the mount without the isolator...

And the bell housing needed to be raised 1” for the isolators... I studied this for a while and realized I would not be able to trim enough of the existing mount away without taking the structural integrity out of it.

Here is a better pic of the problem...

And here is the mount from the 148W...

So of course it’s a lesson learned...

More to follow...

 

So now I started looking at different options, like using a different bell housing. Cummins made numerous bell housings for these motors but I have only been able to identify 2 different ones that were SAE #2. 3931716 has the starter on the pass side at 9:00 and 3931713 has the starter on the driver side with the starter at 3:00. The driver side option wouldn’t work because the starter would interfere with the steering box...

So it was back to the drawing board... At this point I realized I had to make a complete new set of motor mounts. So I started looking for a rectangular polyurethane mount similar to what I had. When I couldn’t find anything similar I stumbled on Atro’s web site. http://www.atrobushing.com/ Atro has numerous mounts available (motor, car, spring, etc.) but even better they list all the dimensions of their mounts as well. I scanned through all of their mounts I settled on MM75-62372-HT, which were for a 379 Pete with a CAT. One of the reason I chose these was that they are only 2 9/16” in diameter...

Dimensions
Length: 2 9/16"
Small Outside Diameter: 1 1/2"
Large Outside Diameter: 2 9/16"
Misc.: Sleeve ID: 5/8"; Washer ID: 3/4"
Kit Components
(1) Upper Mount
(1) Lower Mount
High Temperature

Of course I went with their high temperature model since they were red!

So I ordered the mounts through Amazon and after they arrived I wasn’t exactly sure on where to locate the mounts in regards to the bolts, etc. To help clear things up I spent a few minutes and drew them up in CAD...

I stared by removing the mounts from the frame and cutting and drilling (2) new pieces from 1/2" plate. This 1 1/2" hole in the middle is to clear the spring hanger support bolt...

And then using 3” wide 1/2" flat stock I cut (4) more pieces , radiused the one side and drilled 1 5/8” holes in the upper plates..

This was a quick trial fit to make sure things were lining up...

I also had to cut 2 new pieces to bolt on the bell housing. But before we started cutting these pieces, I spent some time getting the oil feed to work on my Racine Hydraulic Saw. After an hour of cleaning 50 year old nasty cutting fluid out of it and re-filling it with new, we were back in business...

More to follow...

 

After all the pieces were cut, drill, blasted and sanded, I set the new bellhousing on the old and lined everything up...

After I was happy with everything I tacked all the pieces together, bolt the mounts to the frame and bell housing and set the bell back in the truck.

Everything fit well but I felt I was going to have a hard time sliding the mounts in place one the motor was set into the truck. The rubber piece was also tough to slide in place because it was touching the frame. Once the bolt was tightened it compresses enough where is looks like you have plenty of room, but in reality it’s too close.

So after sleeping on it I decided to flip the mounts. I cut the tack welds and swapped the pieces around and wound up with this. Although it’s hard to explain, I can set the poly pieces in the frame mounts, slide the bell housing on top and then drop the 5/8” bolt in place...

And here is another test fit of the bell with the mounts flipped...

And now I have plenty of room on the pass side by the starter...

Well that’s it for now!

 

Now that we finished the new motor mounts (for the most part...) and the bell housing was set in the frame, we decided to move on to the firewall. I trial fit the card board pattern I made to see exactly how much more room I needed...

The Continental motor is offset a bit since it’s a flathead, and that’s why the factory dog house is shifted towards the passenger side by about 2” or so. Of course the crank is centered but the valves are on the pass side. Based on my pattern I figured I needed about another 1 1/2" of clearance on the driver’s side. I couldn’t go much further because I would run out of room for the brake pedal (which you’ll see a little later...)

On the Continental there is also an additional 1” or so between where the bell housing bolts on and where the head starts. In this picture, the 1” is where the blue ratchet strap wraps around the motor.

On the Cummins, there is no offset between where the bell housing bolts on and where the head starts. So using a 2’ straight edge held again the bell housing, I realized I only had about 3/4" of clearance between the back of the head and the fire wall. So in addition to the 1 1/2" I needed on the driver’s side, I also needed to add another 3/4" on the rear of the dog house.

At that point I started working on removing the existing dog house. The factory had the flanged edges welded in addition to spot welding. I didn’t want to drill the spot welds out since I didn’t want to make swiss cheese out of the fire wall, so I ground the edge welds out with a cut off wheel and then cut most of the spot welds out. The spots welds were not very strong though and most of them broke with just a little force.

Then I slowly are carefully started bending the flange away from the fire wall... Fortunately the fire wall is 16 gauge and the dog house was 18 gauge, so it bent fairly easy...

After a little more persuasion it started to come out...

After it was out I stuck some card board in it’s place and started cleaning up the edge...

More to follow...

 

My next project was to make a new larger dog house. Using the existing dog house for reference I decided to make a cardboard template of the side pieces so I could understand how to make the bends with the box brake...

Using the pattern for guide, we sheared two pieces of new 16 gauge sheet metal...

And then started making the bends...

Once the side pieces were done, we cut a piece for the middle and then trimmed a portion of the edges with the 3” cutoff wheel...

And hopefully this pic will tie everything together...

More to follow...