International L122 B Binder Rat Build

[Dr Crankenstein]

Much better!

Lookin' at your last pic... what's up with your pickup axle?

.

 

[jmlcolorado]

Much better!

Lookin' at your last pic... what's up with your pickup axle?

.

Pardon me if I'm missing something blatantly obvious Dr.
But what do you mean?
What are you seeing that I'm not?

 

[jmlcolorado]

Got the radiator mounted. I needed it to be mounted to order the fan. Good thing I waited to order the fan because I thought I would have about 4" to work with. Turns out I only have about 2 1/2" between the radiator and nose of the crank shaft :/

Used rubber isolators for the bottom mounts for vibration resistance.


This thing is healthy heavy. I'd say about 50 lbs with no water in the radiator.



Hose routing is going to be tricky.
At the top of this picture, you can see my dirty finger on the water inlet. The far side you can see the outlet of the radiator. The hose has a pretty short run. But will need to snake under the belt tensioner in between.



At the top, there is about 1/4" between the radiator cap neck and the water inlet neck in the engine.
At the bottom down there you can see the inlet for the radiator. It only has 1/4" between the bottom of it and the drag link for the steering. Not good.




I left 1/2" between the top of the radiator and the top of the grill shell.
I feel like I'm going to have to pull the whole she'll forward on the frame to gain me 1 more inch for fan clearance as well as room between the engine and radiator cap neck. Might need to take out that 1/2" between the top and dimple the shell top for clearance to gain room for the bottom hose too. Really using up all the room quick.
You think that without fenders and a hood, you have all the room in the world. Except you don't if you are trying to keep it all in proportion I guess.

Oh well, I'll figure it out.

 

[endicott_jb]

You could move the radiator to the rear of the truck and run it like a trophy truck. That'll give you a bit more room up front.

 

[jmlcolorado]

You could move the radiator to the rear of the truck and run it like a trophy truck. That'll give you a bit more room up front.

That was a thought at one point, but I've been doing everything possible to keep the bed floor clear so it's flat and useable. I plan to use the truck for.......truck stuff, so I want the floor totally clear.

 

[jmlcolorado]

The aluminum intercooler piping requires beads to keep the boots from blowing off. I don't have my tig welder setup yet and learned this trick somewhere.
Channel lock 909 wir crimpers.


Grind off the nose


And crimp away.


In about 5 minutes you have a full bead completed, and I didn't even burn myself


I didn't bother to deburr this inside of this tube before I started so the finish product will look much cleaner.

 

[smallfoot]

That's a cool trick![cl

 

[DJ3100]

X2 on the cool trick. That's aluminum tube? Wonder if it would work on steel?

Symmetry came out great. Intercooler tubes are killer.

Dr. Crank is looking at the angle of the wheel on the pick-up parked in the driveway. I never even saw it. Passenger side must be sitting in a hole?

I can't believe how often projects end up without enough room at the front of the engine - my 3100 included. Of course, by the time it is discovered it's difficult to deal with. Looks like you could cut about 3/4" out of the radiator filler extension and get some clearance there.

I always end up buying angled water necks to get the hoses on somewhat friendly terms. It doesn't look like yours is even removable?

 

[CORPO]

looks to be the same radiator I put in mine, my lower line was a pain to get right.. well right enough.. its still could be better...

Keep at it

 

[akatao]

intercooler

nice job! I believe the doctor was commenting on the camber on the tuck in the background

 

[Dr Crankenstein]

Pardon me if I'm missing something blatantly obvious Dr.
But what do you mean?
What are you seeing that I'm not?

Dr. Crank is looking at the angle of the wheel on the pick-up parked in the driveway. I never even saw it. Passenger side must be sitting in a hole?

What DJ said. (Sorry to sidetrack your thread!)

This is what I see... axle tube fairly flat and level, wheel and tire, not so much...

... that aside, I'm an avid follower of your build. Keep up the good work!

.

 

[jmlcolorado]

The rear end of the pickup, yeah that's the only thing I could see you were questioning.
The drive is slightly twisted and I thing the front passangers wheel is in the dirt at the end of the drive, and the drivers side is on the concrete.


I'm Pretty happy with the tubes.......Except they're awfully shinny!

 

[DJ3100]

The good thing about aluminum is that they won't be shiny for long or is that a bad thing?

 

[jmlcolorado]

The good thing about aluminum is that they won't be shiny for long or is that a bad thing?

Good in this case, bad in other cases

 

[jmlcolorado]

I wanted some tail lights for the rat and wanted something different.
A buddy has been looking for a steering gear for his 69 roadrunner, but didn't want to spend the $500+ everywhere online was asking. He'd looked everywhere for the dang thing. I mentioned a scrap yard an hour north of us and we decided to take a day to head up. He found his gear box for $50, and I found me some tail lights.
These came off a 1973 Mercury Colony station wagon, whatever the heck that is.

I bought new sockets and bulbs and fired them up. I was disappointed at how dim they were. Checked 3 times to make sure I wasn't hooked to the parking light wire. Ended up pulled them apart, scrubbed the crap,out of them, painted the reflectors back to white again and called it a day.
Left is as I pulled them form the livestock trailer at the scrap yard, right is after cleaned and painted.


Started working my way from the back up again with wiring and loose ends. I'm quickly running out of things to do. I want the cab back on, but want all systems go under the cab so I don't have to climb under it. This means no wiring can be on the firewall, it all has to pass under on the frame.

I want to be able to pull the cab easily if needed. So the only things connected to the cab are electrical (with 2 bulkheads), steering shaft, brake lines and power steering lines to the reseviour. That's all that's needed to disconnect the cab.

P.s. Wiring sucks.


Even though the trans is manual now, I still need the pigtails for electric lockup and overdrive controls.







This one looks like it's rubbing the frame, but it's got a half inch clear and is mounted ridged so no chance it'll work to the frame and cut wires.





The main bulkhead along with all the extra wires I need to terminate into it, and the supplement bulkhead.



Only thing I'm waiting for is 4 3/8" DOT air brake push tube bulkheads. Ill be using these to mount 2 water traps on the trans crossmember, after the tank to collect any moisture right before the air gets to the valves. After those get here Thursday, I should be good to install the bed.
And very possibly, a short joyride for the first time in the yard till I finish everything else up

 

[DJ3100]

It's amazing how many wires it takes for something without a lot of power accessories. Nice braided wire loom.

It will be interesting to see how those tail lights get incorporated. Swapping out the old bulbs for LEDs gets them a lot brighter.

 

[jmlcolorado]

It's amazing how many wires it takes for something without a lot of power accessories. Nice braided wire loom.

It will be interesting to see how those tail lights get incorporated. Swapping out the old bulbs for LEDs gets them a lot brighter.

The suspension system makes up for a lot of the wiring. I think if I didn't have that, it would be pretty minimal. Basiclly lights and a few wires for the transmission.

The tails will be in the rear fenders. Hopefully they look okay. I wanted something big to get attention. Not that this truck won't grab it's own fair share of attention on its own.

I've tried drop in LED bulbs before with mixed results. They are very bright at the bulb itself, but they don't tend to fill up the whole reflector with light in my experience. And the brightness level between parking and brake/turn seems minimal on those. I've seen a lot where you can't tell the difference between brakes on/off vs just parking lights, unless you actually watch them get brighter.

I might try my hand at building my own led board for them down the road.
Like I said, I'm a little apprehensive they will fit the truck okay as far as form goes.

It really needs the old school round lights (which come in a great led form) but they would need to be mounted down low. And I need lighting up higher for visibility sake. Bottom of the tailgate I feel would be too low for brakes.
I dunno. We'll see.

 

[jmlcolorado]

I really haven't made much progress the past week or so. So came out tonight determined to get something done.
I picked up a speedway cooling fan that is supposedly rated for 2700 CFM on its highest setting.
It's as thin as I could go and came with a shroud. I a,so wanted the biggest fan I possible could, just to maximize effectiveness.

The shroud was still quite a bit too big so some love was required.


Width is okay, but height needed changed.


Hacked off the top.



Marked to hack off the bottom.





Right before cutting, I decid d to add 1/2" so I could re mould th bottom back so the shroud was completely closed.
I'm not sure 1/2" of open space across the bottom would be that big of deal, but figured it came as close to sealed to the radiator as possible, might as well try to mimic the same theory.
I also found the shroud had a lot of flex, and there was basiclly zero clearance around the fan to the shroud so when it flexed, the fan would bind up. Figured assign this 90* edge back would provide much required suport.





I worked with ABS for the first time over the winter when I had to clearance my 2013 ram 3500 to fit 37's with 2.5" lift. I had to trim some fender lip and re mould the wheel well. Yeah d think bending and plastic welding ABS would be easy. HA! That suptuff is such a PITA to reshape its not even funny.
I know I have a nice pair of metal bending players somewhere, but the move to the new house has me in a funk still and can't p find the things I only use once in a while. Heat gun and Regular old players were used.





Looks like crap. I tried a hammer and angle iron to try to straighten it out and it helped some, but I'd bend in one place, and it would pop up in another no matter how hot I got the material.


I finally realized if I heated it up, placed it where I wanted then sprayed with water to cool, it would stay pretty well.
That's when I decided that more clamps, more heat and more angle iron where required.
Heated the whole thing till it was all jiggilly like santas belly the night after Christmas and clamped the heck Out of it and doused with water.

 

[jmlcolorado]

Tada!





Here it is sitting in place. Seems to fit nice and will hopefully pull loads of air through the radiator.


This whole assembally is pretty large and hefty. I weighed it with the fan sitting in place and it came in at 88 lbs dry.

 

[CORPO]

88 pounds dry.. wow man..