Big Blue's refresh

[Oliver Closehauf]

I've gone off the deep end. What started as a fuel system refresh, has turned into everything forward of the firewall except for the block, the turbo, the AC (only 2 years old) and I'm still on the fence about the alternator. I'm justifying it this way, I can't afford 100 grand for a new truck, but I can replace all of the 20 year old parts with new parts that will last longer than I will, and I won't have to live with the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head, which is a real thing for me. My friend asked me to borrow my truck to go get a load of railroad ties and I told him no, because I was worried that something would go wrong while he had it. And it turns out, had I let him take it, my rotten fuel lines would have failed while he had it instead of me.
Fixing those lines was an education. Everywhere I looked, things were getting "old". My starter wasn't as crisp as it was 5 years ago. The engine wasn't firing immediately anymore. I started watching more and more youtube videos and realized I was suffering from a lot of age related issues, and so was my truck.
That got me thinking about the work involved in doing a fuel system refresh. It would be a lot easier to replace the fuel pump if say the radiator and shroud were out of the way, and it's been at least 5 years since the coolant has been replaced, sooo pulling the radiator wouldn't be that much extra work if it was empty already. And I do have this trans fluid drip that I think is coming from the trans cooler that is just a drip, but a drip is a leak, so WTF just take it all out. My hydroboost is "weepy" inside the cab, not leaking, but you can see fluid, and my pedal feel has always been stiff and I'm getting the shhhh shhhhh when I turn the wheel and I have to regularly top off the power steering reservoir, so something is leaking there. So, not only fuel, but now I'm replacing ALL power steering components. And I know what you are thinking, my trans fluid leak is probably the power steering. I think it's both.
Then I see the video on the trans fluid heat exchanger. Ok that has to be replaced. I'm not messing with a bypass. OEM got 3 owners this far, but if I'm replacing that heat exchanger(Mishimoto), I need to replace the rusty coolant pipe that's not too bad, but I don't ever want to work on this ever again so it's on the list along with a new water pump, thermostat, and serpentine belt tensioner kit.
And if I'm doing all of this work, why would I NOT replace the ball joints which I've wanted to do for a long time even though I don't feel like they are a problem as long as I keep the greased up. I'm going with EMF. But I heard about the left side knuckle issue and even though I have no reason to suspect my truck is affected by it, I went ahead and got a new unobtanium left knuckle when I saw that Torque King had them (one) in stock. And well, I'm not pulling axels without replacing 20 year old u-joints, that's just stupid. We'll see how the almost new rotors and hubs look when I pull things apart.
At this point I have about half of the parts sitting in my back hallway or in transit. All trans and steering lines will be new, along with trans and steering coolers. I'm still trying to get a new Denso starter. The place I ordered it from couldn't get it. I'll try again after Christmas. Worst comes to worst, I'll rebuild it myself. Everything else will be "new".


SO, if you've made it this far, this is an excruciating amount of work for a lazy POS like myself. I'm trying to put together a plan to make things as efficient as possible, but I also don't want to miss anything. At this point in the plan (none of the actual work starts until spring), all of the "accessory" components are removed, I've cleaned the engine compartment and replaced the hydroboost unit but not hooked any lines up yet. I'm ready to move to the fuel system (finally). The CP3, all associated lines, rail and injectors are being replaced. Rail and lines would be removed first. But what would you do next? Replace the CP3? Or replace the injectors, or remove the injectors, and if you removed the injectors, would you do anything while they were out? Like a compression test? I know NOTHING about diesel engines, but I can read and follow directions. If I should run a compression test while I'm at this point (and you can tell by now that anally, if I should, I will) I want to run the test. I have no indication that I have a problem with compression and I have zero blow by. The engine runs fantastic and gets great milage. This is all preventative. I have an endoscope and planned to take pictures of the pistons just for posterity. But the engine does have 275k miles on it. I'm replacing injectors. If there is something I should do while they are out before I remove the CP3 and before I remove the starter, I want to get it in the plan in the correct order.

I'm open to suggestions (maybe too open?) so let me know if you have any.

 

[Units]

I’m of the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it“ crowd. If it needs replacing, replace it. If it works fine, leave it alone. My.02.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

I'm going to use this thread to document by truck's refresh. What was supposed to just be a replacement bed has turned into a full refresh. New fuel system, new coolers and lines, new Bosch hydroboost and new steering gear and pump. water pump, Idler, etc. I'm trying to stick to as close to stock as possible. For example, it took me 6 months to get a new Denso Starter. My CP3 and injectors are Stock Bosch units. Ok, I did get a Banks intake, because why not.
Anyway, a couple rotten fuel lines, turned into a tired 20 year old starter, leaking injectors, rotten rockers and eff that noise, I'm not letting this nickel and dime me to death. I'm doing it all in one go. After dealing with the fuel lines last year, I realized that it's getting to the broken part that takes all of the time and effort. So the 20 year old stuff I know is waiting to f**k me is getting replaced. Basically, I'm going to start at the front bumper and work my way in to the firewall and transmission and remove on my way in, and replace on my way out.
I've been setting this up for years. I think I posted bringing the "new" bed home a few years ago. I finally pulled the old bed off today, in the feels like 105 degree heat. I'll post the pictures after I get them off my phone. The frame needs attention for sure. It's solid still thankfully, but rust has been attacking it and it's intervention time.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

So here is the replacement bed with the bedsides removed and the bed primered and ready for Raptor liner paint. It's been so hot and muggy here I keep putting it off. I wanted to get the liner painted on before moving to the next phase, but my OCD be damned I couldn't let another week slip by. This was a white bed, I've got the tail end in the body color. Just waiting for cooler weather now. You can see Big Blue's grill behind the tarp up by the gate.

 

[Islander39er]

Nice going!

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

Here is a shot of my rolling gantry in place. As you can see, I live in the land of the infidel, AKA the ghetto, AKA Cincinnati.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

Here is the bed all rigged up for removal. I used straps at all wheels to keep the legs from spreading.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

My driveway back to the garage is only one lane (and a walkway) wide, so I had to move the replacement bed up behind the house to make room to pull the truck forward. Driveway Tetris.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

I just used ratchet straps to lift the bed off the fame high enough to drive out from under it.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

What you can't see is the yellow jacket nest in the front driver's corner of the bed. Amazingly I did not get stung.

Also, when I put the new bed on, I will be getting some more 2x4s to go across the top of the gantry so the ratchet straps can go straight up and down. They are at an angle and that made things more difficult, but still a one man job.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

And here are a few shots of rust. These are before I started working on anything. That gooseneck hitch is a cancerous tumor and I'm afraid of what I will find under those mounting brackets. I did buy a welder for Christmas, so if I need to patch, I patch. The wet spots are water. It rained last night and the tarp filled up in pockets.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

I did work on trying to get that hitch off this morning. Not much to show. I spent at least 2 hours breaking off bolts, cutting through bolts, cutting through steel, used a sawsall with Milwaukee Torch blades, a Dremel with a cutoff wheel and it is still on there. If only frames and body panels were as strong as those nuts and bolts, cars and trucks would last forever. I'll take a picture of the pile of scrap I turn that hitch into once it's in a pile on the ground.

I went to harbor freight and got some sale items, one of those welding pick hammers for knocking of the big chunks of rust, a needle scaler, a blow gun set that came with extension nozzles that I can get way up inside the frame rails, and a sand blaster.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

Hitch is off. I chipped as much of the big rust off as I could and then hit the big patches with some phosphoric acid rust converter just as a stop gap until I can get everything scraped, scrubbed and blasted. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so won't get much of anything done. probably spend that time organizing the garage that has gotten way out of hand.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

It looks like I'll be welding in some fishplates on the outsides of the frame there above the axel. Passenger side could probably get away without it, but the driver's side is pretty bad. I was looking inside the frame with my borescope and it didn't look too bad, but I plan to run a steel chimney brush to knock off any scale inside there once I cut out the thin stuff and create an access, then after the frame is all back together, the inside from front to back will get fluid filmed. I keep having to remind myself, this doesn't have to last forever, just until I'm dead.

I tested the needler out today for a few minutes. Definitely a Saturday during the day kind of job just because of the noise I'll be making. Although I do have a neighbor 2 doors down that likes to blast their bass canon party speaker all the way up, I can make use of that window if they do it any time soon.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

Today was supposed to be a big day, and it was. I was sort of bequeathed an air compressor from my neighbor that passed away last year. When his kids came and cleaned his place out, they gave me that compressor and some other tools they didn't want. Anyway, I wanted to used that compressor to do the scaling and painting because its a 1 1/2 horse, and my big compressor is only a 3/4 horse but with a bigger tank. I had not had an opportunity put it through its paces to see if it was any good so today I started scaling with it. After 20 minutes of it running pretty much non stop, these were the results.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

So had to do a little rewiring. New outlet, new plug on the compressor, and..... it's raining. Rain lasted all of about 5 minutes and then magically cleared up. Exactly as the forecast had predicted.

1 hour later.

Forecast said no more rain...OK I'm going for it. Bedliner is going in. I go out and get set up, sun glaring down, I get the bed positioned out of the sun and WTF, where did the sun go? Where did all these clouds come from? Sunofa.... I deliberate for the next 30 minutes and said it's go time. Here's the results. Pretty happy with it.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

Here is a couple more shots of the bedliner. The Raptor Liner kit with the spray gun really is pretty awesome. I'd never sprayed this stuff before and the results were great.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

So now I have to report what I can only describe as a "what the f**k what are you doing moment".
When I pulled the bed off, there was a bolt I couldn't get out of the frame. It was a bed mounting bolt but it had a larger washer on it. It was not a standard bed mounting bolt, and no matter how I positioned it I could not get it out of the end of the frame. I don't know if part of my brain was pre-occupied with the scale of this work, heat stroke-dehydration, or I'm too focused, or too focused on the wrong things or what, but I ended up ordering more Dremel cut off disks and cutting off the bolt so I could remove it.
And then I "saw it". I'd seen it over and over since removing the bed, but it never registered. I could have just reached in there the whole freaking time.

 

[Rustbelt Bob]

Ollie,I'm Loving This Thread..!! Trust Yourself..!! You're knockin' it right outta' da' park..!! Keep clawing your way through it..!! With me living in the N.E. Ohio,the "Ceremonial Chasing Of The Dreaded Ohio Salt & Brine Monster" has always been a damned obsession..!! You're doing this right..!! Stay Loose,Brother..!!

 

[Rustbelt Bob]

Ollie,I'm glad I found this thread after diving into you "Bed Replacement" one.. Phew..!! Sounds like the "Aging Truck Octopus" has firmly wrapped its' tentacles around your brain..!! Eh,these things happen..!! The way my Old Keyster sees this,you're trading cash,time and talent for truck reliability,and avoiding the baloney and outrageous cost of a new replacement rig.. Money out is money out,so pick your poison.. Me?,I'd choose what you're path taken is..!! I'm rather disappointed in myself for not finding this until now.. I'm feeling the same way in that more Gen 3 Guys haven't latched on to this thread and thrown in on it.. It's truly "Meat & Potatoes" for keeping this Ol' Girl alive and dependable,especially through the Winter..!! Carry On,My Friend..!!