Author Topic: 78 Ramcharger w/ 91 Cummins Swap (Read 33763 times)

ram-it · « **Reply #50 on:** February 17, 2012, 03:59:29 pm »

So after a long hiatus i've picked up the project once again. Started on the body work around the wheel wells. Decided to say screw it, i didn't want to repair all that rust and its hard to find patch panels here in canada so i just cut out the wheel well out like i did on the 87 in my first post, and have started welding it all back together.

I started by welding the patch panel i made in.

I then cut out the wheel well along the body line, split the inner well like a grape, bent it up and in trimmed it to length and welded it along the edge. Sorry don't have during of this because i misplaced my camera at the time.

Now i'm making small patch peices to fill the gaps and welding those in so i have a nice solid inner fender.

RamChargerCentral

mopar65pa · « **Reply #51 on:** February 17, 2012, 08:48:34 pm »

Quote from: becdino on February 17, 2012, 08:46:41 pm

sdmark · « **Reply #52 on:** March 20, 2012, 12:06:32 am »

Have you worked out the wiring? I am in the teardown process of my CTD Cummins Ramcharger build and trying to get ahead.

Great work on the thread!!!

ram-it · « **Reply #53 on:** March 23, 2012, 10:40:11 pm »

I started to but never finished it, so sadly no. I got as far as printing off the wiring diagrams, and ripping both the harnesses out to compare them. The past 6 months i've been working away from home quite a lot, and my shop has no heat in it so i haven't had much time or motivation to work on it in -30C weather, but that should change in a month or so. Word on the street has it i'll be home every night for the next year or so, i'm looking forward to that! I bought a second house last month and it needs a bunch of reno's, so once those are all done and out of the way its all ramcharger and I'll finally be able to get some more progress done to show you guys.

As far as i could tell though it was going to be extremely simple to get the wiring all done up if that helps at all. When i get the wiring finished i'll try and draw up a diagram or something explaining how i did it. But i imagine that won't be in the schedule until this summer and you will have already finished it, so good luck!

moparmuscle1 · « **Reply #54 on:** April 12, 2012, 10:55:10 am »

Still sitting on the edge of my seat waiting , Your doing a great job by the way .

mopar65pa · « **Reply #55 on:** June 24, 2012, 12:16:17 am »

Anything new to report?

ram-it · « **Reply #56 on:** July 14, 2012, 08:48:54 pm »

Absolutly nothing sorry guys

Things didn't turn out as i hoped because i only just started to work from home about a month ago and really haven't had the time since i've been playing catch up around the house. I tried to go work on it yesterday and my mig was out of gas, so maybe sometime after monday i'll be able to tinker some more. I suppose that's what i get for forgetting to turn off the valve 6 months ago.

I did manage to buy my next project a couple weeks ago though. 1960 dodge fargo that's going to get that old 400 i pulled out of the rammie. So now i have even more motivation to get the 78 out of the shop and running. Probably won't get it hauled home for about 2-4 weeks, so no pics of that beauty yet. But I have developed a really bad habit of drooling on stroker kits for that 400 on the 440source website.

mopar65pa · « **Reply #57 on:** July 15, 2012, 01:33:23 am »

Quote from: ram-it on July 14, 2012, 08:48:54 pm

I did manage to buy my next project a couple weeks ago though. 1960 dodge fargo that's going to get that old 400 i pulled out of the rammie.

Cool!

ram-it · « **Reply #58 on:** July 29, 2012, 11:47:24 pm »

So who likes shitty cell phone pictures?

This tire is a 35. I just wanted to see what she would look like with some rubber in there. I'm probably going to go another 2" of lift, and see if i can stuff a 37 in there.

Before and After

As an aside, the reason for the green electrical tape is because i was using it to mark out the line to cut. I've found its a best tape to use since it will stretch and you can make smooth corners. any other tape and you have to saw your way through ripping off pieces constantly and resetting, but that might be just me. After my line is formed i go along the edge with a black sharpie.

ram-it · « **Reply #59 on:** July 29, 2012, 11:55:27 pm »

Can't find my camera so i'm stuck using my cell phone for all the pics. They're not too bad i suppose, good enough for what we're after. On the plus side you guys can't see how truely horrendous my welding skills are.

So that one corner is 95% complete now. Just needs a few more finishing touches but those can wait until later when it comes time for the bondo etc. I started on the other side today, but of course my cell phone died and i don't have any pics of that progress so far.

Got my fargo last night! Here is ole ugly...

She is getting a the 400 i pulled out of the ramcharger. Should be a fun little toy when i'm done. Haven't yet decided yet but i might not even paint her, i kind of like the faded old paint look she has going on.

mopar65pa · « **Reply #60 on:** July 30, 2012, 12:19:52 pm »

Nice Fargo!

moparmuscle1 · « **Reply #61 on:** July 30, 2012, 04:26:21 pm »

It is a nice Fargo , it will be nice with a 400 stroker . But , then again

....... hmmmm . What if you had another Cummins Diesel ,

could always turn it into a 4X4 ,

6 inch lift , 35 inch tires .......hmmmm. How much more did you say you had left to do on your old RC

ram-it · « **Reply #62 on:** July 31, 2012, 12:05:46 am »

Hrrmmmm... cummins fargo you say?.... haha tempting, maybe down the road i can pull the 400 out and toss in a cummins but for now its going to be a gasser. Mostly because i have all the parts laying around so it shouldn't cost a fortune to assemble, just time which i'm short on. I have an old 80 long box frame i'm thinking of tossing under it and the guy who i got the fargo from is even going to hook me up with a dana 60 for the front of it *freebie!*, just need to find myself a rear diff and matching gears. Oh and maybe an A518 to toss behind the BB instead of the tf727. I should have 90% of all the parts i need just laying around waiting for install.

The only thing i'm not sure of is if the 80 frame is long enough. The Fargo has a 9' box, so its actually really long.

mopar65pa · « **Reply #63 on:** July 31, 2012, 12:13:04 am »

Quote from: ram-it on July 31, 2012, 12:05:46 am

The Fargo has a 9' box, so its actually really long.

Cool.

ram-it · « **Reply #64 on:** October 9, 2012, 06:51:14 pm »

So the summer is over for me, and so is this years work on the RC. Here is some pics of the rear completed and in zinc primer to prevent it re-rusting until i can work on it again.

Bit of bondo and it all should clean up nice.

ram-it · « **Reply #65 on:** October 9, 2012, 07:12:37 pm »

And this is where i'll pick it back up. You can see the inner well doesn't line up nearly as nicely as the rears did.

Just a quick note, the door edge was spray painted black (and then tagged by my gf) to make lining up the door and fender easier by having them the same colour. The body lines were hard to match up when it was black on white.

mopar65pa · « **Reply #66 on:** October 9, 2012, 07:51:34 pm »

ram-it · « **Reply #67 on:** April 7, 2013, 10:04:35 pm »

"Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 120 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic."

Ha, yes i would in fact like to bump my archaic old thread. More progress has commenced!

So as you can see in my last post the front inner doesn't line up well at all. I cut it back around 6-8 inches to remove all of the curvature and bring it back to flat steel and then started placing my patches starting from the back.

This part actually went fairly quickly all things considered.

The front is a bit more challenging. It actually now sits back a few inches from the new cut out, so i can't just patch flat steel straight across. Sorry for the blurry photo, still looking for that damn camera a year later.

So seems simple enough right? Cut it straight across the bottom on the front, push it up to where it needs to be, patch across, and then put in a new peice at the bottom where you lost length. (if that made sense). The problem of course is the battery box. It bolts up to the fender, so i can't push the backside of the fender up and in. Well i could, but then i would be opening a whole new bucket of worms relocating the battery and fab'ing up a new home for it. Thought about it.. and said **** it, too much work. So my solution was to cut a strip, weld across to the fender, and then just put in the 2-3" patch necessary to fill the gap left over. A picture says a thousand words.

A couple different angles for perspective.

Stay tuned, next week i hope to finish this corner up!

ram-it · « **Reply #68 on:** April 13, 2013, 10:36:23 pm »

Managed to finish this corner today. Started on the next but ran out of gas for my mig, so that's on hold until i get more, they were sold out when i went to get some today.

So here is a whole schwack of pictures

ram-it · « **Reply #69 on:** June 10, 2013, 09:04:37 pm »

Mostly finished up on the front now. Still trying to decide on what i want to do with the front rad support. I would love to keep the old style grill but where the turn signals are inset it interferes with the intercooler. I'm thinking it might be a **** around to get it to work. Trying to hold off and get my hands on a powerstroke intercooler and see how that all lines up. I haven't had a chance to meet up but i found a guy who has one, only problem is it has plastic ends... heard that was a bad thing for some reason or another. So i might be better off finding the old style grill that doesn't have the turn signal right in it but trying to find that one in this neck of the woods in good condition would be a needle in a haystack. At this point the rad support may or may not require cutting and welding to work with the old lights unless i go with a newer grill. Seems like 6 of one and half dozen of the other. Any suggestions?

This is the grill i have:

And the one i'd like to have:

Skwerly · « **Reply #70 on:** June 11, 2013, 12:16:48 pm »

subscribed.

very nice work!

ram-it · « **Reply #71 on:** June 12, 2013, 10:19:49 pm »

Thx man

cragdweller · « **Reply #72 on:** June 12, 2013, 10:29:32 pm »

The grill you're looking for was found from late '73 til '76. And you're right, they are very difficult to find in mint condition!

ram-it · « **Reply #73 on:** June 21, 2013, 12:29:48 pm »

So close! An old farmer pulled into the bar the other day, first thing I said to him was wanna sell your grill? Lol of course he said no, have the feeling the old timer bought that truck new. It was rusted a bit and warn lookin but the pride in his eye was evident. Needle in a haystack. Got some more pictures but for some reason windows 8 doesn't want to cooperate with my phone to pull them off, so once I figure that out I'll up them.

I got the paint the other day so I'm so close I can feel it. If I'm lucky it will be in primer next days off. For any Canadians reading this I highly recommend trying to get your paint shipped out of the states. Canada just recently passed a new law on paint and it has to be VOC complient... Long story short cost me $1000 for a gallon of primer paint and clear. Rediculous.

ram-it · « **Reply #74 on:** June 9, 2016, 09:12:01 pm »

The battle continues...

It's been a while since i've updated this thread. Truth be told the progress never stopped but it was infrequent enough to not warrant this. i decided i would wait until a had a stock pile of photos to make it worthwhile. Sadly lost a phone which i was taking pictures with during the process so i ended up losing half of them but I think i have enough photo's now to make it worth while.

I left off with the welding on the fenders and wheel wells predominently completed.

My next step if i remember correctly was to start laying bondo. I removed the front fenders, and focused on getting the cab done first. All of the bondo work was lost on the phone so i only have it after it was primered

Once that was done i was inspecting the truck over and realised i had missed a spot on the rocker. Turns out it was toast so out came the zip cuts and grinder and i replaced it. This is actually the only body part i actually purchased instead of fabricating.

Of course as with anything i tried to repair the problem always grew. The entire corner portion of the door jamb was rotted, so i ended up have to cut that all out and smash and weld a new peice in to replace that portion

After two steps forward and my recent step back i layed a new batch of my best friend bondo, and reshot the truck in primer. You would think after laying the primer you would be good to go but it's at this stage you notice all the imperfections in your sanding job. Sand, bondo, glaze, prime... swear and curse... sand, bondo, rinse repeat. Repeatedly. Eventually you say "Good enough". Takes a while though.

Next thing i wanted to do was paint the interior black. You wouldn't think it going into it but just the masking portion takes a good chunk of time to make sure you've got it just how you want it.

Then i shot it with some base/clear. One word of advice would be make sure you have proper lighting. I did not. Lighting is not so great in my shop and i was painting during the evening so there wasn't any sunlight coming through the window. In hind sight i should have taken my halogens and given the paint a walk around when i was laying the base coat. There are a few spots that went on thin and i'm hoping isn't too noticable once out in direct sunlight.

But overall it didn't turn out too badly.

After the black base/clear was done i masked it all off again to lay the monstaliner on the floor of the cab.

This stuff is a HUUUuuuuge pain the ass if it's been sitting for a while. It had been sitting on the counter for a couple of years at this point so all of the solids had of course collected at the bottom of the can and to top it off monstaliner gives you plastic stir sticks to put in your drill for mixing/stirring. Obviously they broke after a while. I spent a good amount of time, at least an hour trying to mix this crap if not longer. Eventually i got it to the point i thought it was going to be good and filled the paint canister they provided and tried to install the shutz gun.

I was getting really annoyed at this point so at the time i didn't think this was very funny. Kind of is now thinking back on it. Like icing on the cake of that evening.

So once i shortened the straw monstaliner provided for thier gun i started spraying. I'm missing the photo of the finished product so i will have to come back and edit it into this part. I hate to say i had not mixed it enough even after spending an hour plus and the Shutz gun would clog every 30 seconds or so and when i was all finished it did not turn out nearly as well as i hoped. in fact i was pretty pissed at this point with monstaliners shitty plastic stirring sticks. If i could go back in time i would have fired them into the trash and bought a metal one from a hardware store. instead i fought with it. The constant clogging was slowing the whole process down to the point that by the end the liner was getting too thick to flow nevermind the bit of shit clogging it. At the end of the night i fired the shutz gun out the door of my shop in the alley somewhere in a rage.

*insert cab floor photo here*

Next was doing the exterior. i decided to go white and black for two reasons. White hides imperfections better than any other colour. i initially wanted to do a charcoal silver or something similar to that effect but i justifiably didn't have confidence it wouldn't make any welding/sanding problems glow like a noen sign. Second i was initially planning on monstalining the bottom portion. after my experience spraying the cab floor with that stuff i bought some rattle can rock gaurd. turns out its not chemical resistant so i'll have to top coat it. i bought some black endura the other day to do that but haven't sprayed it yet. i'll get to why in a bit.

now here is where i made another mistake. i should have sprayed the white and then the rock gaurd. instead i spray the rock gaurd and then did the white.

Turned out pretty good

Then masked for white

and sprayed the white

*sigh* so when buying 3x as much tape as what you need don't use green for the paint line. get vinyl pin striping tape, and then green off of that. the paint attacked the glue and the tape lifted. this is why i was saying i should have sprayed the white and then the rock gaurd.

I've decided that i will wait until after i have the fenders and doors at the rock gaurd stage to correct this problem and coat it with the endura.

And now the cab is 99% done except for the fucked paint line that i'll have to figure out how i'm fixing.

ram-it · « **Reply #75 on:** June 9, 2016, 09:12:17 pm »

Next are the fenders.

Technically most of the work on the fenders was happening at the same time as the cab. while i was waiting for bondo/primer to dry on one, i would switch over to the other. one thing i learned quick is watching paint dry is about as boring as watching paint dry. It's very beneficially to have an equally slow tedious project on the go at the same time so you can bounce between the two.

So when i bought the monstaliner it came with a free quart of chassis saver high build silver paint stuff. i figured the weld lines on the fenders might be a good place to seal with the stuff. i'm regretting it now because at this point i have been less than impressed with the chassis saver i sprayed a couple of years ago on the frame and fire wall. It's been flaking off all over the place. terrible adhesion. i've never actually experienced anything as bad as this stuff has been. i can understand a spot here and there, but it's been peeling/flaking/falling off all over the place. would not reccomend it at this point.

regardless i did the welds. Finally got a heater for the shop btw. works pretty good too. as a heater and a paint drying excellerator.

a dash or two of bondo and it was coming along

like i said i was working on this at the same time as the cab so i still thought spraying the rock gaurd first was a good idea. back to sanding, sanding and more sanding

primed in the wheel well

i used some tremclad black first. the purpose of tremclad was just to ensure all the nooks and crannies ended up being black

and then finally the rock gaurd

then i masked off all the rock gaurd. this took like an hour. it was a real pain with all the curves

then painted the inside

then primed the outside

and some paint

And as mentioned i'll return to the fenders to rock gaurd the bottom when the doors are painted and do the doors/cab/fenders at once.

ram-it · « **Reply #76 on:** June 9, 2016, 09:12:42 pm »

The hood

Not much to say on the hood. Didn't run into too many pit falls. Just required sanding, sanding, filling, sanding and more sanding. Mostly a bit of a pain. It had a few dents that needed to be filled. honestly would have been quicker and probably easier to just go buy a used hood with no dents for $50 bucks somewhere than trying to get it all perfectly flat.

Did the underside first.

sprayed it with tremclad. not too concerned with the paint on this side. i've got a insulation liner dealie that will be stuck on there and it will be covering 90% of it so i didn't see the point.

Then flipped it and started on the top. i guess this was the only minor issue. i should have wrapped the saw horses in foam. with all the sanding on the top it screwed up the paint on the underside a little so i'll have to go back and touch it up.

just when you think it's ready you always find more to fix

i started to paint it but ended up running out of black after only 1 coat. thought i had enough to complete it but i was wrong. the goal is to make the center parts black and the outer edging white just like how in the first photo of the top you can see its black with dark green edging. in the mean time its on hold for more black paint. should be showing up in the mail tomorrow.

Completed hood

And the dash

ram-it · « **Reply #77 on:** June 9, 2016, 10:26:09 pm »

Rad support

Before i start on the rad support i thought i would bring up this pit fall i noticed while i was working on it. The voltage regulator mounting spot on the firewall is directly above the exhaust manifold of the cummins. Doubt it would last long in that spot. Wish i noticed that before i painted everything and now need to drill new holes through my new paint job.

So the rad support is a bit of a project depending on what route you go. Easy mode is use the stock intercooler, grill and headlights from your cummins donor. I apparently don't know how to do things the easy way.

I managed to snag a Ford Powerjoke intercooler off Kijiji for a decent price after a several months of searching. According to the internetz it fits better (all things considered) than most other make/model non-stock units. Unless you want to fork out 1500 for an aftermarket. But that would be too easy.

In case your not in the loop if i remember correctly you want one out of a 2000ish. The newer ones have plastic ends but the 2000's are all aluminim and are less prone to cracking like the pastic units. That's the hardest part about finding one.

Lets start with the un-modified donor rad support

Grind out the holes with your trusty angle grinder for the inlet/outlet.

Now here is where it's user preference. There are several factors that affect how to mount it. One is the style of grill you use. Since i'm using the 72-76 grill i need to get the intercooler as close to the surface of the rad support as i can since it doesn't stick out as far as some of the other styles and has less room behind it so i had to cut out some supporting bracing on the bottom. Some people might not want to do this. Second some of the tutorials i've seen on how to install it are a bit vague on the details.... here is the intercooler and voila it's installed.... thx guy. But one thing i did notice was lots of them were trying to retain their hood latch. Would not be my first truck with hood pins so i decided to tuck it as high as possible because i think it looks stupid hanging out the bottom of your grill. So if you don't want hood pins and want to retain your hood latch don't follow my directions. And thirdly... i forget what thirdly was. It might come to me later.

Step 1: Cut out the hood latch bracket dealie. It's in the way and has to go.

I took a zip disk to it and then ground it all completely flat. i don't have a photo of it flat but you get the idea on what to take out.

Next is the bottom mounts. There is a bracket of some sort in the way. Been so long since i tore apart the donor truck i really have no idea what these brackets were originally for.

Get rid of it. While your at it grind the bottom of the intercooler feet flat. there is a bolt eye that needs to go.

Next i found that with my grill of choice the intercooler still didn't sit low enough.

So i notched it out so it would sit further into the support.

Next problem is the upper ears on the intercooler line up with a hole in the rad support. So i fabbed up some filler peices and welded them in.

Then drilled holes through the ears on the intercooler and through my filler peice and slide a long bolt through. I'm thinking eventually i'll build a spacer of some sort so there isn't undo stress on the aluminum ears. Just need to get my hands on some 1/2' pipe of some sort.

Then drill and bolt through the bottom.

And you are finished.

And it doesn't stick out the bottom.

Looks like i'll have to notch out the lower valence piece a little bit. I've put that on the backburner of the priority list to finish later.

Next step is build or buy a new 3" intake horn. I found one on kijiji for 20 bucks so i said screw building one. I believe its off a 3rd gen cummins. For the other side you have to build or buy a reducer of some sort to match the intercooler to the turbo outlet.

Then fab up your intercooler piping. I haven't done that part yet. I just got the intercooler installed last weekend and I need to find my boots for connecting the pipes. They are buried under a mountain of parts.

And then last but not least unless i'm forgetting something cut out and fab in your headlight holes.

Now this particular step i'm not going to finish just yet. I've heard conflicting reports that the headlight mounting depth is different on the newer style rad support. I tried to measure but it's kind of hard to get accurate measurements after you cut everything up... doh. So for now i'm just going to tack it in, and later on down the road i'll finish welding them in place and finish the paint on the support.

jungle · « **Reply #78 on:** June 10, 2016, 04:39:53 am »

Looks like some great progress!!
Jim

mttaff · « **Reply #79 on:** June 10, 2016, 07:57:45 am »

You have my luck, but you're making awesome progress!

ram-it · « **Reply #80 on:** January 21, 2017, 03:13:24 pm »

Hey guys

I'll post up more pictures later but in the meantime I've hit a snag. I'm reassembling my dash and can't find the pipe that goes from the heater box to the drivers side front dash vent (ac vent). Anyone have one kicking around? I've been looking locally for some time now and I'm having no luck so figure it's time to turn to the internet. Also i'm just assuming it a plastic pipe, the passenger side uses one. was cruising the backcountry and may have found one. Just need to catch the owner while he is home to sweet talk him into parting out his truck.

Got it. This is the piping i was referring to if anyone was wondering.

Freshly washed in the kitchen sink. Don't tell the girlfriend.

ram-it · « **Reply #81 on:** June 14, 2017, 10:48:25 pm »

I finished the intercooler plumbing.

Originally i had a 3-2.1/4" exhaust pipe reducer i was going to use on the hot side but stumbled onto the fact you can actually buy a 3" elbow off the turbo. Can't remember where i bought it. It was kind of hard to find online.

For the cold side the bolts to hold the horn on the intake were now too short so I picked up some redi-rod and cut them to length to make studs to hold it down. Second problem is the oil dipstick bracket won't bolt up. I had some spare ready rod left over so i bent it into shape so that i could hold the dipstick roughly in the original spot.

Also some of you may have noticed i upgraded the intake plate with one from http://www.crazycarlsturbos.com/. Also picked up a 3 peice exhaust manifold through them as well.

Could have swore i took pics of the pipes but i guess not. i'll come back and edit this at some point to include the pipes.

ram-it · « **Reply #82 on:** June 14, 2017, 10:57:11 pm »

On the body side of things i wrapped that up as well. I took some fine tape and carefully and tediously sanded the drip line where the white and black met. There was quite a ridge in some spots.

Then sprayed it with some rock gaurd,

and top coated with some Endura. I've heard good things about Endura so we'll see how well it stacks up against the rocks and road rash on the bottom. Time will tell.

ram-it · « **Reply #83 on:** June 14, 2017, 11:19:36 pm »

So now i got almost all of the cosmetics and paint completed. I also knocked out a bunch of other misc small projects on the truck ie power steering brace, replaced the injectors with some 80HP's, installed the piston lift pump instead of the diaphragm as previously suggested, swapped the steering column for a manual column, borgesen shaft, 3 peice exhaust manifold, 4" exhaust (incomplete), replaced the door and ignition locks, etc etc.

The to-do list is getting shorter but it still seems as long as my arm.

Right now i'm working on the wiring and gauges. I decided to scrap the factory gauges and go full aftermarket with some speedhut units. The speedometer i chose is pretty cool because it also includes a fuel gauge, temp, oil pressure, and around the outer edge has turn signals, high beam and a bunch of other stuff. It also is a GPS unit so i don't need to worry about the speedo being incorrect due to tire size or what have you. You can check it out here:
http://www.speedhut.com/gauge/LEM5.5-REN-02/31/Legends---Metric-Renegade---4-in-1-Cluster
It even has a check engine light which i plan on wiring into the grid heater circuit.

Now the only issue with these guages is they don't fit. Yep. Especially that speedo. The factory speedo if i remember correctly is 4 1/4 and this guage is 5 1/2. So it requires just a little bit of trimming.

First i hacked off the back of the cluster surround cup things so they are some what flush.

The small gauges were pretty easy to make fit.

You will find the inner ring on the gauge hole will not quite let the gauges slide in. A little time with a dremel and some hand files to remove that inner rings lets them slide in perfectly.

You can see in this photo the side by side of the silver ring of plastic you need to carve out for clearance.

Next is the speedo and sadly i didn't take the intermediate photo. Basically it's too big. But we knew that. So what i did was carved out an inset into the top of the surround as seen here since the gauge is too tall:

Then carefully try and cut out a perfect circle. i used a cardboard template to try and keep me on base while i was trying to figure out how far into the top to inset it, and shape the new hole. You have to hog out quite a bit to get it in there. Take your time. I did a bit of a shit job, but luckily it's hard to tell. There are gaps in places around the gauge though where i trimmed out too much in spots.

Now here is where i'm missing a photo. Because it's inset you can't just plop the gauge down into it. What i actually had to do is cut the very bottom at 6pm on the surround so i could split it, then glued it back together using some scrap plastic. Hence why i can't take a photo of that phase after the fact.

In the far right you can see the peice of plastic where i glued it back together.

Here it is complete.

Takes a couple hours but it's not too difficult.

In the center of the four small gauges you can see i reamed out the old brake light hole and inserted a switch. That's going to be my grid heater button. I'll revisit how i'm tying those in later in a new post.

ram-it · « **Reply #84 on:** June 14, 2017, 11:36:08 pm »

Next was finding where to plug in all the new sensors the gauges came with. Surprisingly there was only one really big headache.

Oil pressure was easy. On top of the oil filter housing is a plug from the factory. Thanks Cummins. Spin it out and spin in the oil sensor.

Boost is just as easy. Right below the intake horn is another plug.

I can see how EGT might be a pain for some people. Since i was swapping the manifold i didn't have to worry about getting shavings in the turbo from drilling and tapping so it was quick and easy, but for others it might be a pain.

One thing to note in regards to the 3 piece manifold in the photo is the two hex head bolts that you can see. When you buy the manifold it will come with all new allen head bolts. The issue is you can't get an allen socket to insert into them because of the hump in front of the bolt hole. I had to go and purchase two hex heads to replace those two and even then you can't get a socket on those either. I had to use a wrench.

Last is the water temp, and that one is a pain sort of in comparison to the others. So the factory water temp sensor is right at the back of the engine close to the firewall. It has 3/4" threads and the new sensor is 1/8" and of course the cluster only came with a 1/8 - 1/4 adapter. After visiting 3 different stores i eventually found a 3/4-1/4 bushing. i couldn't find a 3/4-1/8 so that adapter the cluster came with was actually pretty useful.

Pic later. Forgot to snap one.

ram-it · « **Reply #85 on:** June 14, 2017, 11:43:07 pm »

Remember that voltage regulator that i didn't like the location of? Found a solution that i hope lasts and works well. I converted the alternator to an internally regulated.

It's basically a little circuit board that you bolt on under the cover and run the wires out to the field terminals. Requires a little bit of filing on the cover to get the wires out of it but it's a pretty easy mod. Engine isn't running yet, but when i get it going i'll try and report back on how well it works.

ram-it · « **Reply #86 on:** June 14, 2017, 11:55:46 pm »

Almost forgot. Anyone know if the dash vents are different between a A/C and non-A/C truck? My truck originally had red vents, and quite a while ago i picked up some black ones in my travels. While reassembling the dash the defrost pipe on the passenger side doesn't seem to jive and of course i can't find the old red ones to compare.

So before i break it.. it has two tabs on the vent... is the pipe supposed to jam on here? or is it straight up wrong?

Mad Max · « **Reply #87 on:** June 15, 2017, 09:05:35 am »

Diggin' the build - reminds me a lot of a similar project I did a long time ago

- Sam

ram-it · « **Reply #88 on:** June 15, 2017, 11:13:30 am »

Thanks Sam

J10Mike · « **Reply #89 on:** June 15, 2017, 02:46:13 pm »

Looking good. Great work.

jungle · « **Reply #90 on:** August 17, 2017, 04:00:10 am »

Ryan
Customs called last night & they need your phone # to set up the delivery. Can I please PM me your phone # ASAP ?
Jim

ram-it · « **Reply #91 on:** November 3, 2020, 12:48:24 pm »

Here are some completed photos if anyone was curious how this project ended up

RXT · « **Reply #92 on:** November 3, 2020, 02:50:27 pm »

No money shots of the motor??

Ed

fenrir · « **Reply #93 on:** November 3, 2020, 02:57:49 pm »

What seats are those? What seats are those in the back? I'm with RXT - let's see the motor!

jungle · « **Reply #94 on:** November 4, 2020, 04:30:20 am »

Lets here all the details!!!!
Jim

snowfighter10 · « **Reply #95 on:** November 4, 2020, 05:16:03 am »

Those front seats look awesome! What are they out of?

ram-it · « **Reply #96 on:** November 4, 2020, 10:44:55 pm »

The front and rear seats are out of a 2001 Dodge Durango. Fully functional power and heat too. Should I do an install write up?

I'll get a motor money shot when I get home. Out of town at the moment. Didn't think anyone would care so much to see that.

jungle · « **Reply #97 on:** November 5, 2020, 04:26:44 am »

We all love to see & read about the results & it helps other people on doing swaps.
Thanks
Jim

ram-it · « **Reply #98 on:** November 5, 2020, 11:30:35 am »

I tried to spend a lot of time taking progress pictures to update this thread so I had hundreds of photos to pull from to do each update and really the interaction and feedback was... Lackluster for the amount of behind the scenes effort. My last update had 2 comments. I got demotivated to be honest. Figured people weren't very interested in yet another build thread. But there seems to be interest in the seats so I'll do a write up with the usual detail next week.

fenrir · « **Reply #99 on:** November 5, 2020, 12:11:04 pm »

I'm interested in the entire build - since I have one at the early stages it's always nice to see what problems came up and what people did as workarounds. It's also cool to see the oilburner sitting behind the radiator in a Ramcharger!

Don't get discouraged if you don't get a ton of replies...there are so many people that lurk here but don't reply (me being one of them most of the time!) but replies aren't a good gauge of interest - or appreciation!

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Author Topic: 78 Ramcharger w/ 91 Cummins Swap (Read 33763 times)