1936 Diamond T with 6BT cummins

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This a challenge that Daimler hasn't sorted out either. At least not before I retired. Maybe some well hidden behind the pipes little ugly mounts just high enough off the frame? Something that looks like a headache rack perhaps? If you add rubber vibration dampers of some sort to the mounts, it will cut down on a few issues. Since you are not likely to be taking it long-haul, is should hold up fine with smaller supports.

yes, rubber on the mounts for sure. I do think a headache rack/cab guard is the way to go if we don't mount to the cab. Brian is worried about the drone caused by the exhaust. He drives a newer Western Star for work - and even the new trucks are noisy inside. He gets a brand new WS to drive in about a week (we have been workiing on it Saturdays for a month now, so less work we have been getting done on the DT!)
20180602_082310 by Karin Vail, on Flickr
 
Our company drives International trucks and I hate them, but they use no cab mounts on the stacks and they are very solid. Instead they use a schedule 40 elbow that makes the turn to vertical, then build a mount off the frame to welded to the heavy elbow to support the whole works.
 
yes, rubber on the mounts for sure. I do think a headache rack/cab guard is the way to go if we don't mount to the cab. Brian is worried about the drone caused by the exhaust. He drives a newer Western Star for work - and even the new trucks are noisy inside. He gets a brand new WS to drive in about a week (we have been workiing on it Saturdays for a month now, so less work we have been getting done on the DT!)
20180602_082310 by Karin Vail, on Flickr
Nice. Keep buyin' those WS's and Freightliners. My retirement check ain't big, but it still helps. :D[cl
 
I saw a simple setup today that might work for you. Geat a piece of channel a little wider than your stacks, make it into a flat U. You want it to sit inside your stacks and the bottom flat on the frame. The uprights need to to about the bottom of the rear window. Drill holes and use chrome u bolts to attach the stacks to the channel uprights. You will probably want a cross brace at the top of the uprights, and you can do an X brace also to keep it from flexing. You could bolt the channel to the frame or use u bolts on it too.

If you are worried about a drone, put one of the small resonator mufflers inline under the truck.
 
OK, it's been too long since I have updated this, sorry. We did end up making cab mounts for the stacks. It was the least invasive looking. I think we might have to do a muffler, hoping I can eventually talk Brian into it - I think he is kinda leaning that way too though. He was a little bummed about how loud it is inside - but we don't have all the sound deadener in and no carpet/padding yet, so those things should help.
For the cab mount, we made brackets that bolt to the cab (with a big backer plate that has nuts welded to it, and it is tacked to the inside of the cab). Then there is a piece of conveyor belting bolted between the cab bracket and the stack bracket.



The exhaust is 'done' though - and we can move onto other things.

We also got the fender supports done, which meant we could install headlights!



Headlights make it look like a totally different rig!



Here is a short video of Brian driving it - he put a few miles on it driving it around and around the block. Click on the pic of the new log truck and it will take you to the video. Doesn't the DT look TINY next to the log truck?!!!

It needs regeared before it goes highway speeds. At 2000rpm, it is only 48mph and he doesn't want to run it more than 2000rpm.



Mini car show at our house! Haha. Brian's friend dropped by with his little what-used-to-be-a-fastback VW.



The 1'' body lift blocks gave us pretty much enough tire clearance. We have a TINY bit of rubbing on the back half of the right wheel - only when turning to the left sharply. We might be able to flatten the inside of the fender roll enough to completely take care of that though - it has like a 1'' fender roll, very thick. Otherwise, it drives straight and true and there is zero wobble in the steering (up to 48mph anyhow, that is as fast as we have taken it).

We need to get some more sound deadener before I can finish upholstering the back 'wall'. So, on our list to get done before insurance/renew registration is:

1)regear rear end - we have another carrier we got from a guy who works at Randy's Ring & Pinion for the 3.73 gears, we just need the gears and install kit. We are unsure if we should try this ourselves - it is a ''corporate'' 14-bolt and it has 5.13 gears now. Should we try it ourselves?
2)mudflaps - we will probably go with something very simple because they will be temporary. Brian wants to do a fender ''pod'' on the back - the rear of the frame will end up getting cut shorter at some point in time. He wants swooping fenders similar to the fronts. I want aluminum semi-truck fenders. It is a give-and-take on this project though, haha.
3)front blinkers (we have temporary brake/turn lights installed/working in rear). We just have to come to a decision on WHAT to get for lights there.

on our wish list is a park brake for air brakes somehow. I think Brian has it in his head how he wants to do it, but hasn't conveyed to me how he wants to do it (well enough for me to look for parts anyhow!)
Oh, and a Jake brake. Gotta have one of those. So expensive though. :eek:
 
Cool lookin rig :cool:
Love the sound of it :D
The rear diff isn't too bad, if you have the dial indicators to set pinion depth and ring gear backlash.
Make sure you don't need a different carrier for the 3.73's. Some have carriers in groups like, 3.73 to 4.10 then 4.56 to 5.13 and so on.
 
Cool lookin rig :cool:
Love the sound of it :D
The rear diff isn't too bad, if you have the dial indicators to set pinion depth and ring gear backlash.
Make sure you don't need a different carrier for the 3.73's. Some have carriers in groups like, 3.73 to 4.10 then 4.56 to 5.13 and so on.

yes, we have the carrier for the 3.73s - we got it from a guy who updated his rear end on his gmc dually pickup (and he also works at Randy's Ring and Pinion, so he verified it is what we need). I think maybe he put posi in his? I can't remember, I was just excited to find the carrier locally! And, only $75.
We have a friend who has the dial indicators who already offered to loan them to us. I think we might be able to resell the 5.13 carrier to recoup some of our money too - my son said someone building a wheeler/rock crawler would probably want it.
 
We sold a couple things to finally buy the gears, master install kit, and solid pinion spacers for our 14-bolt. We got the rear out of an 83 GMC step van - and it was 5.13s and top speed at 2000rpm was 48mph in 5th gear.
We got all the supplies in last week, but Brian's boss was taking him on a tuna fishing trip on Sunday and I was going to a memorial on Saturday. So, gears weren't supposed to happen quite yet. But, when I was at the memorial, Brian got notice that the weather cancelled the tuna trip. So, Saturday evening, this is what I came home to:
20180916_094218 by Karin Vail, on Flickr

20180916_094236 by Karin Vail, on Flickr


OLD gears - someone had been in here before because the bearing caps had already been marked.
20180916_100026 by Karin Vail, on Flickr

We ended up borrowing a dial indicator and an inch pounds torque wrench (we have a foot pounds one). So, Sunday morning we got started and finished well after dark Sunday night putting everything back together. The most difficult part was the spacing for the pinion bearing preload. Not difficult actually, just tedious. The rear pinion bearing came off and on I think 8 times before we decided on a spacer combo (we did solid spacers instead of a crush sleeve). We only had the pinion carrier off the main housing 2 more times for spacers for pinion depth though haha. It's probably not perfect, I think maybe the pinion needed a TITCH more spacer, but we figured the sealer would add that titch more space and we sealed it up with these markings. Our first gear swap complete and it doesn't howl/grind/clunk/whine. WHEW. And, it will go over 60 (we just hit 5th gear at 60mph, so it should go 70 now, but we won't test that out until we get insurance/registration renewed).

20180916_180824 by Karin Vail, on Flickr

20180916_180834 by Karin Vail, on Flickr
 
Just read your entire build front to back and back to front! (Didn’t wanna miss nothin) awesome work!!! Great motivation to all of us. :cool:
 
Just read your entire build front to back and back to front! (Didn’t wanna miss nothin) awesome work!!! Great motivation to all of us. :cool:

Thanks Abasham! I am not great at updating, but I do try when something major has been accomplished :)
 

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