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Decade lurker gets a w150 project

9K views 76 replies 9 participants last post by  slow600 
#1 ·
I joined this forum in 2011 after lurking for a while, but just yesterday 5/10/20, picked up a 4bt. I always thought they were cool, even after owning other diesels. Truck is a 1978 dodge w150 (79 grill) with a ve pumped 4bt, getrag g360, np205, and d44/d60 axles. Overall truck is rough, but does run and drive. Motor is a Cummins recon that sounds great, but leaks and I have no idea of internal condition. I will more than likely send an oil sample out just because. This will be a slow process of fixing lots and lots of minor issues, followed by either swapping Powertrain into a ramcharger or possibly leaving in truck and doing partial resto.

First up will be accessory drive. Currently has no radiator fan, and lower alternator bolt was broken off. Drilled out old bolt and slappped a new one in, but it’s not right. Lower bracket is slotted for adjustment...with a tensioner lol
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#28 ·
Hydroboost is on and plumbed. Re using the janky homemade brake lines for now. Just cut off and swapped fittings at master and bubble flared. Not pictured but there is a p/s cooler plumbed in now behind the grill.

Removed exhaust to knock out a freeze plug to add heater...and now will be making new downpipe. Noticed soot on the v band clamp, was hoping just a porous weld. Ended up being wrong size v band and what looks like burnt silicone.

Also made a new turbo oil feed line. Old was was 4ft long and kinked
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#30 ·
Got exhaust done and mounted, 4in downpipe reduced down to 3in the rest of the way to a 5in tip. Spent $45 on a walker tailpipe kit and $25 for a muffler, the rest is repurposed. Was straight pipe dumped under the bed before this. Hope it sounds decent!
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#31 ·
Not much to report, been using truck for errands and light towing (2500 lbs). Hydroboost is awesome, intercooler dropped boost from 30psi to approx 26, egts went from 1050 max to around 800, and even though this thing is a clunker...I literally smile every time I drive it:)

coming up soon will be a set of shocks and this throttle bracket going on, bought one for this truck and one for another. This will get rid of the factory ugly duckling and was cheap! $68 for two of them.
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#32 ·
Trouble in paradise today. After enjoying months of trouble free operation...today, in the rain, while moving houses...she decides to shit on me. Fuel psi gauge started doing funky things ie going from pegged to 0 and so forth. Truck then dies and won’t restart.

After having my gf come with my tools, I pull fuel filter and a pre filter installed by po and find this:/

Even after replacing both filters and bleeding injectors, truck will only run for a few minutes before dying again. Each time it will restart with a bleed, then die and repeat.

my next move when I get it towed to the new house is see if my new filters are full of rust again, if so I’ll be dropping the tank for a clean. if anyone has anything to add or other things I should check I’m all ears. Is it ok to have a pre filter on the inlet side of my low pressure pump or is that a no no?

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#33 ·
#34 ·
If that rust crap got past the filter you have even more woes. Could be in the injection pump or injectors. It is also possible the lift pump could have given up the ghost too. Not a terribly expensive item but those diaphragm pumps don't have a good reputation for longevity. Looks like it's time to do some serious cleaning of the fuel system. Appears you've had a lot of water in there at some time. Always wise to run a good diesel additive that will keep the water from building up.
 
#35 ·
My fuel tank is plastic, I really don’t think the rust could have manifested in it. I did get fuel from a place I don’t normally and I suspect that is the culprit.

I treat fuel year round, I really hope it didn’t get past both filter and into the pump 🤞

I’ll post follow up once/hopefully I get it figured out
 
#36 ·
Yeah, kind of hard for a plastic tank to rust. LOL. Sure sounds like you got contaminated fuel. Believe I'd send that station a bill. Years ago a friend and I were traveling west on vacation. I was driving my Ford diesel and he a Chevy gas. We both fueled up at the same time but at two different stations. I went to the truck stop and he to the cheaper gas station across the street. About a mile or so down the road his shut down in the middle of the interstate. I took him to a place to get it towed and they found he had gotten about a half a tank of muddy water. Delayed us about 2 hours getting him towed and the mess cleaned out of his tank and a new fuel filter. I always learned on diesel to buy where the pump a lot of it.
 
#39 ·
In my area mfa is my preferred spot, but of course in a pinch/hurry I stopped elsewhere and payed for it! got it home and possibly “fixed“ for now, will still drop the tank and flush it out along w the lines.

I pulled the pre filter off in anticipation of running it on a jug to load on the trailer. no visible trash was in it, but when I tried to blow through it it was almost impossible...and this was the brand new one. The old and crusty one I could still blow through. Low and behold once putting straight section of hose in its place and priming/ bleeding it fired right up. I also have more psi on the gauge than ever before (9-10 vs 6-7 normally). it also idles higher and smoother than since I have owned it.

I did pull the spin on filter and couldn’t see any debris on it. I’m torn on adding one of those glass serviceable pre filters or just carrying a spare spin on filter and wrench with me at all times.
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#40 ·
.... I’m torn on adding one of those glass serviceable pre filters or just carrying a spare spin on filter and wrench with me at all times.
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I do NOT use this type of glass filter any more - Had one crack from cap to cap. Maybe try a semi-transparent plastic filter - It should darken as it begins to fill up with trash?

Russ
 
#41 ·
Thanks for the heads up. I wondered about vibrations killing it, didn’t have any first hand experience though.

ive been trying to search for filters but all Amazon searches lead me to those “sediment filters“ aka almost illegal Chinese silencers lol. I will browse summit racing and see if I can find a high micron type of filter.
 
#44 ·
No dice.

Fired up and ran fine today while loading up gear and a mtn bike. As soon as I took off I watched the fuel psi drop. Popped the hood and clear plastic filter was empty. I can see it pulling fuel/air bubbles. Looking more and more like a pick up issue vs the crap fuel. 😐
 
#46 ·
No dice.

Fired up and ran fine today while loading up gear and a mtn bike. As soon as I took off I watched the fuel psi drop. Popped the hood and clear plastic filter was empty. I can see it pulling fuel/air bubbles. Looking more and more like a pick up issue vs the crap fuel. 😐
if you work on enough crap you get to see a lot of weird thing... like a hose that looks good on the outside and has a tear in the inside acting like a valve.. or a chip of rust floating in the tank that covers the pick up or in the line and it turns closing the line off.. ... easiest diagnoisis is always working backwards... disconnect at the inlet side of the filter.. run a new hose into a couple of gallon tank with new fuel and run for an hour.. if it will.. if it does.. you move back to where the line connects with the tank and connect there and then try again... but if your tank wasn't perfectly clean.. a flake can cover the inlet and act like a valve... i saw this on a tractor in the hydraulics.. a guy blew a hose on his John Deere.. and when he replaced it the hydraulics lost power... he took it in.. they diagnoised a bad pump and rebuilt the pump for $5,000... including labor.. and when it got home it did it again... so he took it to a dealer 150 miles away.. and they said the pump was improperly rebuilt and $5,000 later it came home and the same thing happened... so he brought it to us... and told us his sad tale.. so we replaced the new hose he had replaced with a different new hose... and it worked fine.. the new hose was split inside and under pressure the inside rubber acted like a flap valve and lost hydraulic pressure to that stream... and so we called him and told him to come get his tractor and he asked if we had given up that quickly.. ( he was about 15 minutes from the shop).. and we told him no.. its fixed..
 
#45 ·
Is the rubber hose from the tank to the hard line new? The rubber hose gets old and cracks. Another possibility is rust pin holes in the hard life from the fuel tank to the fuel pump.
 
#47 ·
Messiest job on this truck to date, and no smoking gun failure point. Had to dig bolts out of the dirt/crud, fuel pick up looks good and no restriction. Will replace the short pieces of rubber hose just because, my best guess now is the lift pump failed. I have a 14psi piston lift pump or another factory Carter to swap in. I was going to try that first, opted to drop the tank and now I regret it lol. Hindsight is 20/20 i suppose.
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#49 ·
Diesel tends to clog up the in-tank pickup filters.
 
#50 ·
Pulled the aluminum fuel line and ran rubber hose all the way. Didn’t see any holes but it was kinked up pretty bad. Will be converting to a draw straw and using one line on the fuel module for the return only. Sadly I will also have to do some plastic welding to undo some botchery:(
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#51 ·
Back up and running for now. Got Vulcan draw straw in, and installed piston lift pump. Since I was robbing parts off another truck I went ahead and swapped the fluidamper over too. A weeks worth of work has netted me 14psi of fuel pressure and a noticeable smoother idle. Didn’t have time for an actual test drive, but had it fixed at 2k rpm for at least 30 min with no issues.

need to order the appropriate fuel feed line for this pump, made the original one work after re bending it but I do not like it.

also ended up with another dodge roller. Went for the kp d60 for this truck, left with it all. Lots of good spares
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#53 ·
Truck ran great on first test drive, held 9-10 psi wide open pulling a fairly steep grade. Only bummer is amount of rust dust in the pre filter. In 10 miles it was enough to effect the fuel level inside the filter indicating some level of blockage. I’ll just keep popping new ones on till it cleared up I suppose.

super pumped about my new lift that got installed yesterday. Would have really been nice to have during fuel tank drop
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#55 ·
Did that fluid damper actually help with the vibration?
 
#57 ·
This took way too long!

New oil pan to replace smashed/cracked one, jb weld wasn’t holding back the oil and it was quickly rust proofing entire underside of truck.

braced up the previous owners mounts and crossmember. Ended up having to cut middle out and make room to keep from smashing new pan. I should have just started from scratch on the mounts but I didn’t. Lots of cleaning up of flame cut edges

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