1st gen Cummins/W250 and FWC Grandby revival

RichardSkinner

New member
As I progress on this project I figure I’d start a build/refurb/revival thread. It works two fold, I get to keep track of my progress and hopefully someone can gain some ideas or motivation to start their project.

This first post is going to be a teaser until I can get to my PC to upload a more thorough recap of where I’m at.


Where the truck started for me: a buddy’s “junk” (treasure) yard. 1990 W250. 12 valve Cummins engine with auto trans. This is March of 2018.
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Now the tease:
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Updates to come!
 
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RichardSkinner

New member
Reserved - Getting the truck road worthy and short term projects.

So the truck has been sitting idle in my buddy’s yard for around 11 years. It hadn’t been started in that time. I didn’t get a picture of it(dammit), but there was a small fig tree growing up between the cab and the bed. He wasn’t aware of any issues when it was abandoned, so I figured, why not give it some love? It’d be a shame to let a first gen Cummins rot away.

First step: front axle swap. The truck has a 3 speed auto and Dodge compensated with a Dana 61 in the front and Dana 71 in the rear. They have a slightly larger center section to accommodate 3.07 gears instead of the 4.10 in 60/70 axles. The previous owner swapped a Dana60(4.10 gears) onto the front for some reason and the original axle is MIA.

The picture in the post above is swapping a donor Dana 61 from the truck on the left to my truck on the right. Yeah... he has a couple of Dodges laying around that he’s generous enough to let me buy parts from. That will come in handy later.

I checked the coolant. It was empty - must be a leak somewhere. Topped it off with hose water to get the truck started to see where this was going to go and what needs to be replaced. Threw in a new battery and began to turn it over. It sputtered a bit and threw a ton of white smoke. A bit more cranking and the old Cummins rumbled to life! I was so excited! After idling for a little and lots of blue/white smoke later, we noticed coolant leaking and power steering fluid dripping. Both were shot. Back to the donor truck. Swapped both parts in as well as stock front and rear bumpers and the truck was ready to roll to the DMV.

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Basically our deal was that if there were not massive back fees, I’d buy the truck from him. I was nervous for sure. After putting some time into the truck and driving it around, I was pretty attached to getting it. In the end, registration went well, the title was in my name, and the cash in his hand!

I get home and the donor radiator is leaking a little also. I found an aluminum rad on eBay for a good price, but it’s for an intercooled truck. From ‘89-91.5 these trucks were non intercooled(future project). Anyways, after a bit of work with the cut off wheel, I made room for the new aluminum rad to fit.
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Over the next week or so I tracked down smaller problems such as a bad voltage regulator that was screwing up charging. I found a parasitic drain to be somewhere in the tape deck. Dammit. I just picked up an old Ford branded mix tape with old hits on it. It was a cool nostalgic feeling riding around in the old truck listening to cassette tapes. Pulled the fuse for now so I don’t kill my battery.

Other small stuff done:
  • valve lash readjusted
  • new diff fluid in the rear
  • got the front drive shaft extended so it fit
  • new fluid in the transfer case
  • new transmission fluid
  • made trans pan drain plug
  • rebuild the turbo
  • new front brake rotors, pads, and bearings(remember this one for later).
When I pulled the intake off for a new air filter, I noticed soot all over the compressor of the turbo. The bearings were bad and this was oil blow by. I’m new to diesels and fearing the risk of the engine running away on oil blow by from the turbo this became a high priority.
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That 11 year old diesel fuel in the tanks had grown a science project. If you’re not aware of this, diesel fuel is susceptible to microbial growth. That’s not a mixed drink. That’s the fuel that was in the fuel filter.... new filter, added an unhealthy amount of biocide to the tank, and ran it for a few tanks. Repeat process. It’s been clean now, so I haven’t pulled the tank to scrub. Pretty amazing the truck could even run with this crap fuel, but then again people run these engines on everything from veggie oil to automatic transmission fluid.505919


Quick shot of the transmission pan plug I made. No idea why Chrysler didn’t put a plug in. It’s a mess to drain without one, so I welded, drilled, and taped a plate for an old plug I had laying around.
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Somewhere in there I helped my brother swap the transmission in his Ford. Reverse was slipping on him, so he got a nice built model. The Grandby in the picture is my future rig. It’s somewhere from a 1994-1996. The label plate is worn off, but I later found Jan 1994 written on the water tank during another project.505921

More to come!
 
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RichardSkinner

New member
Reserved 2 - SNAFU 1, SNAFU 1.5, and a shake down trip.

The project started in March 2018. Spring came and I wanted some fun. Time for a quick spring thaw camp run to the Rubicon!
I couldn’t make this slope. My buddy’s rig crawls the snow so well that he could tow me up it. That’s humbling.505932

I got side hilled and had to slide along a log that was paralell to me. It jammed wood debris between my bead(running about 9psi). I would hiss air every time the sidewalk flexed in the debris area. Air down more, box tube, and ratchet strap was the solution to clear the debris. Air’d back up from my trucks onboard air - AC compressor converted to fill a 2.5 gal tank.
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Well here comes SNAFU 1. I had taken the tires on and off the Dodge so many times during all the previous work that I must not have torqued the lugs fully one of the times... that’s embarrassing. Basically I had just got off the freeway on the way to work and was turning at a light when I felt a “caaa thunk thunk thunk” I immediately pulled into a side street as soon as the jerk off beside me let me over. Yep... lugs backed off and I sheared 6/8 lug studs!! So lucky this didn’t happen on the interstate.
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Flat bed ride home and time for new rotors, pads, wheel bearings. I needed them anyways. You can bet that I used the torque wrench this time...
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We will call this SNAFU 1.5 -
Not a big deal, but lumbering down the road on the way home from work and the truck just goes dead. I coast off the road and start thinking. The engine is completely manually ran aside from a solenoid that keeps the fuel line open to the injection pump. Ok that makes it easy. It must be a wiring issue to ignition. After wiggling wires I found the ignition relay coil wire had an intermittent open. Of course I had no tools with me... but I remembered a screw I saw in the truck bed and I had a couple bread twist ties and a zip tie in my backpack... so I closed my eyes, thought of McGyver, and came up with a solution to get home! Screwed the screw into the relay to make contact with the coil wire, wrapped the rest of the wire around the screw and used the ties to fasten it all up.
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After getting home, I soldered up new wires and considered that a shake down win. One less problem to happen in the boonies.

Time for another fun break! My brother almost spilling it on the soup bowl, Rubicon trail.
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Camp at Spyder lake, Rubicon trail.
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Another shake down trip for the Dodge. Spent a couple of days at Salt Point campground. Caught a few Monkey Face Eel poke holing the tide pools.

No big issues on this trip except some play in my front axle... that was a good confidence builder. Just enough to make me make my next trip further. You know, so when something goes wrong I am really far from home.
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There was a decent amount of play between the axle and leaf springs. I didn’t get any good pics, but I ended up dropping the front axle down so I could make sure the leaf spring centering pin hadn’t sheared. It was good so I put it all together and torqued it up.
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Out of pic limit. Continued on next post.
 
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RichardSkinner

New member
Reserved 3 - SNAFU 2 and the outcome.

My brother let me borrow his FWC Grandby to see if it’s something I’d want. He recently got a Revel Van and was selling the FWC. I was stoked for the opportunity. Threw it on, and headed south for a week trip to the Central Coast area and Santa Barbara with the wife. I bought a harbor freight hitch rack and cut/welded a 4” drop to carry some more gear. The trip was a blast, but nerve racking. On the way down the truck began over heating... I knew it wasn’t good, but it was ok at highway speed so I kept pushing it... that wasn’t a good choice, but I was stubborn and wanted to trip to work out. I really wanted to get the wife on board for the FWC and have an awesome first maiden trip.

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I did some freediving in Santa Barbara and caught a couple of lobster.
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The ride home was painful. At highway speed I was good, but pulling off for food or gas would over heat us and we would have to wait...

Long story short, I pretty much knew I had blown the head gasket. We will come back to that. I left the truck abandoned in my drive way for 2-3 months while I saved up money for some parts.

In the mean time, we picked the nastiest storm in February to head out for a snow camp

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It was about 2 feet of fresh snow over 3 days.
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Fast forward a month and back to the Dodge! I had a new head gasket, 60lb valve springs, engine hoist, etc. pulled the head and....
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It had cracked on 4 of 6 cylinders from the injector bore to the intake valve seat! Dammmmmmmmit!!! Oh well, what can you do except know you made a bad call and learn from it. A little background, the non intercooled trucks had 9mm injector bores. After 1991.5, the intercooled trucks had a head with 7mm injector bores - a little more material on the head because cracking was common in this location.

To be continued!
 
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RichardSkinner

New member
I was feeling on a roll so I also updated post #3 and #4!

We aren’t caught up to present day yet. More updates coming and I’ll throw up my project list. That way I can keep on track.
 

RichardSkinner

New member
I have a few people to witness my journey and screw ups! Fantastic! Haha. You guys can hold me accountable when I start bogging down on the project.

Here’s the deal on the head:
In hindsight, when reviving this thing from such neglect, I should have gone for the head gasket off the bat. It’s a relatively easy job. Oh well. Live and learn.

The original gasket was corroded, soggy, and began blocking some coolant ports. It took a lot of scraping to clean up. I never was able to check well if the deck was warped on the block... crossing my fingers on that. 506124

The head bolts were in rough shape, so I ordered new ones. Man, head bolts are surprisingly expensive!

The 6BT is a pleasure to work on. It’s extremely simple and easily accessible.
Quick pic of keeping everything organized since this is going to take a few weeks.506121

I called my buddy Wyatt up and was able to score a head off him. He saved me big time and I had a new(to me)in hand the next day. I dropped it off a local machine shop to get cleaned up. They had to surface off 0.010” due to slight warp, but otherwise it was in good shape. I had them do a valve job and also assemble the valves with the new 60lb springs. I don’t have a spring compressor and the O’rielly’s rental I used to get the valves out was junk. I didn’t want to deal with that again.

The “new” head before clean up.
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Here’s a cool side note; notice the International symbol on the head. It’s in the lower left, just above the lift hook. IH was contracted by Cummins to make blocks and heads for them at various times. This is one.
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Good and bad about the new head - it’s a intercooled head, so it has 7mm injector bores. It’s a better (stronger) head where my original cracked, so that’s great. This also means my original 9mm injectors won’t fit. This makes the project about $600 more expensive, but I took the opportunity to order some 5x12SAC injectors. I should get a nice power bump from these. People report a little MPG bump if you can resist driving harder as well.

The head went in two weeks ago.506123

In the mean time, I ordered a couple more goodies.

Some military take off 37x16.5x12.5 MTRs
These arrived and I’ll put them on at a buddy’s shop soon.
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And I also ordered a TruckFridge TF65. It arrives tomorrow. I’m very excited for that. Time to graduate from the cooler life to refrigeration. My brother installed a single 100W solar panel and controller on the truck when he had it. He also put in a 100AH deep cycle in. I’ll have to see how that performs, but I’m thinking I’m going to have to add another 100W panel soon.

We still aren’t up to date yet - more updates to come.
 
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IPA

Observer
Oh man, this is the coolest project I've seen in some time. I'm salivating over the thought of this truck all freshened up with a FWC on it…..
 

RichardSkinner

New member
Thanks, IPA. I’m very excited at chance to restore and customize the combo.

I have to give a huge thanks and shout out to the poster above “Uncle_T”. He’s my brother. We grew up camping and riding dirt bikes out of two different campers exactly like this:
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#VanLife before it was popular(my second hipster-ish comment in this thread... I gotta knock it off). Uncle_T purchased a beautiful Revel van recently and gave me a very generous deal on the FWC. Thanks, Uncle_T! Can’t wait for our first excursion in the rigs! It’s coming soon.
 

Cayuse

Observer
Looks good! If you add more solar you'll probably want another battery as well. On my Grandby I have 2x100W on the roof and 2X115Ah batteries and it works well.

Subscribing to follow.
 

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