Category: Vehicles

My vehicle lineup has been pretty stable for the past few years. The women are driving new Jettas, and I’m like the neighborhood truck guy who keeps a radical BMW hidden in his garage.

The ’91 is about done, for the time being. I still need to put some more time in on that door to get the lock working correctly and it needs a trim moulding after painting, but that stuff can wait. I think I will prioritize work on the Chrysler going into 2019. It needs the electrics gone through to get the windows working again and a few more things sorted. The rear axle will get a 3.91 Richmond locker and new set of Caltracs. Then I’ll finish it up with frame connectors and seal the underbody. The factory paint will stay for now and no fancy interior work – it is and always will be just a driver. I did find and remove a broken sway bar link after taking it for a warm-up yesterday, so I guess that project is now officially underway…

It’s pretty amazing to me just how far cars have come in the last 50 years. An engine and 4 tires wrapped in glass, plastic and metal is the only real comparison.

So I was left with a 80lb, seemingly useless ’91 Dodge truck bench seat in near-new condition after the interior upgrade. I offered it for free on the truck forum sell/trade pages, but nobody wanted it. So I scrapped it. In the process, I noticed that with a bit of cutting, bending and welding the large back frame piece might be a good candidate for a headache rack. I had more steel tube from some other scrapped furniture, so another fabrication project took shape.

The main front section is 1 1/8″ O.D, the sides are 1″ and the braces 3/4″, all assembled and contoured to match the cab shape(s). I spent a week putting it together with most of the time invested in grinding and going over the welds for a smooth, 1-piece look. The headache rack is nice for carrying long pieces of pipe or lumber more securely. But the two really cool things about it is how it works with the toolbox and being the mount for a new LED light bar. Every rack I’ve seen for sale involves some sort of compromise with the toolbox, either needing it moved back or just won’t work at all, depending on the design. Custom was really the only acceptable answer, to me. The light is a 150-watt Cree spot/flood combo and really lights things up well.

The light cost $49.99 off Amazon, bringing total project cost to 30 hours of my time and $80, including maybe $30 worth of welding wire, gas, sandpaper and paint. The truck now only just fits in kissing the weatherstrip under the 8-foot garage door after another rear spring adjustment. The skyjacker springs held up well in front, but the rears sagged quite a bit over the years, requiring several adjustments. So it is staying outside from now on while Phoebe’s new Jetta gets the CTD’s old garage spot.

It was the 1st car I ever bought new, back in 2002. Made it to 195k miles including a tough last few years with the girls driving it. It was a fairly good car and I intended to keep it going for as long as possible, but finally got to the point of being plagued by too many issues to make further repairs palatable to me. So we donated it to the Colorado Make-A-Wish charity for children yesterday, with a cracked windshield, weeping water pump seal and the last straw appeared to be either a serious transmission issue or possibly a wheel bearing. They evaluate them for possible repair and then either re-distribute to a needy family, or sell them at auction donating the proceeds.

It took us to the Grand Canyon and many other places over the years. I felt like we should have had a retirement ceremony or something while I performed the annual ritual of swapping out wheels for the near-new Blizzak snows. Those American Racing wheels are for sale cheap, if anybody wants them:

I still want a winch under the front bumper and there are a couple miscellaneous upgrades like a front diff locker and a new dual steering stabilizer I’ve had sitting in the corner of the garage for probably almost ten years now. The old “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mantra will start getting overruled if time ever gets on my side. But the console/cupholder was the last thing I think it really needed. It was put together with just metal scraps I had laying around (never throw anything out!). The lock and cupholders were the only parts purchased for the project:

The lock-box is not exactly vault-grade high security, but definitely alot tougher to get into than the plastic junk adorning most vehicles. It was tricky getting things positioned to not interfere with the shifters. I was not even sure how the sub was going to be in that respect until I got it in there and started mocking things up. Good thing I did not get the 12″ model, because the 10″ only just barely fits.

Took me a few days to get around to the pics I took at the RMSRN 2018 car show last Sunday. My favorite was the 1970 Charger. The interior in this car was the nicest I have ever seen. Pics from the day are in the 4th, 5th and 6th row of this page.

It’s been almost three years since my 1st Gen Dodge Cummins was victimized by car thieves. That was a real bad day, but every cloud has a silver-lining, as they say. Now the (C)ummins (T)urbo (D)eisel is rocking an upgraded interior like no other.

Here’s a link to the CumminsForum post announcing the newly finished project, with all the details.

There’s just two things left to do: Finish coating the floor and put it back together. The floor had 5 coats of bedliner on it in the 1st row pic. It had 10 before the last 2 pics in the 2nd row. Installing the new stereo equipment was the last of the hardware work, with the subwoofer install still remaining. Two mounting brackets needed to be fabricated to mate up with mounting studs already in place on the floor. (Later June update) The sub showed up on June 5th and it just barely fits between the seats with room to clear the stick shift in all gears.

I decided to get started on the last landscaping project in the pipeline today. the north property line presently has a half-decent concrete block retaining wall I put in right after we moved here. But it doesn’t match the rest of the stonework around the house, so I’m finally getting around to upgrading it. First step was hauling a big load of retaining wall blocks from Home Depot. 100 of them comes to about 2,350 lbs. in the bed with 20 lbs. in the bag:

The last big haul with Francie’s party furniture demonstrated volume capacity, but was probably less than half this weight. Going down the road it looks and feels like it can handle more, but is technically overloaded at his point. Good enuf.

This part of the restoration was unexpected. When I discovered the factory speakers screwed into this space on an open-air piece of stamped sheet metal, the course of action was clear: New speakers:

The stockers sounded just OK with the Infinity sub I had behind the seat, but that went bye-bye along with the door a couple years ago. Paired up with a JL Audio HO-110 sub, these should take it into the realm of true Hi-Fi. Only two pieces of the old system remain, so a new head unit and amp for these speakers is apparently called for now.

The Bimmer continues to impress. This is in normal 70/30 highway/city localized driving. Not cross-country – me driving around Denver enjoying the diesel torque like the nutcase I am. I suspect the new injectors are recently settled in and MPG has, as well: 36mpg, average.

The big orange “27” in the middle is miles to empty. Added to the 566 already on the clock and we have a new record. It does mid 13 sec. 1/4 mile on street tires with a brake-effect traction-control open diff and I bet it passes smog with the exception of a snap smoke screen sans the emissions equipment as well. Here’s a suggestion for the auto industry and government on the air pollution and oil shortage issues: Build them like this and mandate owners keep them on the road for at least 10 years. Maybe a 4-banger with just one turbo for the smaller, inexpensive models. Why would anyone ever drive an electric car?

Finished fitting the seats last week. The bucket seat conversion mod was a bit more involved than I initially expected, but that’s typical with this type stuff. I don’t know how Dodge got the so-called “Captain’s Chairs” in the club cab models. They must have had a little different frame/chassis setup or additional bracing and brackets somewhere, because the standard cab floor is nothing but heavy stamped sheet metal between the frame rails. I suppose maybe they just fastened the inner mounts to the sheet steel somehow, but I doubt they did it anything like this:

The seats are 3rd row seats out of a new minivan from some guy on eBay who does van conversions. The bracketing is designed to allow easy removal with angle and height adjustment on any plane or axis. Positioning them correctly was the biggest challenge and a close 2nd priority to getting them properly installed with solid, safe mounting. Six assembly access plug holes still need welded shut, then I’ll smooth/level the floor stampings a bit. The last step before beginning the reassembly process will be applying bed liner to the floor. I’m not a big fan of carpet in a work vehicle.

The long road to restoring the 91 Dodge Cummins after thieves trashed it over 2 years ago is finally nearing an end. A replacement door has been reconditioned and the interior is pretty well gutted. At first glance it looks like the new bucket seats I found for it have room to recline a bit and will certainly be far more comfortable than the stock bench. Come to think of it, that was probably about the only thing I did not like about this truck. Next task will involve a fair amount of time and effort fabricating seat brackets. A new subwoofer to also serve as the center armrest remains the one part left to buy, but it will also be one of the last steps to finishing it, hopefully by next summer.

The car is performing phenomenally, as expected. Snapped a couple dash shots after last fill-up. That range number is accurate, and it had at least another 30 miles in the 15 gallon tank. Do the math. Yet at the same time it’s an honest mid-13s car with an open rear on street tires – that handles like it’s on Ohlins coilover rails.

Where’d the pics go???

I made this cargo extender for the ’07 Dodge several years ago. It was a fairly good-sized welding project, for me. I looked at some commercially available models, but the ones I found all had what I viewed as major compromises of one sort or another, along with too-high prices. So I decided to fabricate this one myself with about $40 worth of 1″ steel conduit and a few rubber furniture feet.

The design maximizes available space right out to the corners of the lowered tailgate. It enabled the truck to easily carry ten 8-foot tables and 100 chairs for the graduation party last week. That’s a real achievement, considering the bed holds a large toolbox and auxiliary fuel tank to start with. The really cool part you cannot see is how the ~half-ton load does not even begin to stress the 5Klb air bag under it with a minimal 10psi charge.

And new feet as well I suppose, depending on how the analogy works for the wheels. It’s running 235/40 18s. That’s pretty close to the most tire it’ll fit the same size on all 4 corners with the Ohlins suspension. The M models and some Sportline options come with bigger rears, but I like to be able to rotate, because the rears definitely do wear ALOT faster, even with the electronic nannys engaged.

They are the cheapest, not stupid-looking wheel/tire combo I could find at this size – cast, all-season. Nuthin’ Fancy – from the Skynyrd album of that name:

For some reason(s), diesel vehicles offered to the average consumer over the past 40 years have arrived for sale at local dealerships either woefully engineered and/or seriously de-tuned. Fortunately manufacturers have recognized the value and profit potential in diesel technology and the engineering has caught up. Diesel builders have also been required to keep pace with ever-tightening emissions standards levied by governments. That has led to a combination of significantly de-tuned engines saddled with in some cases, ridiculous amounts of overly complex emissions control gear.

The real state of just how bad it is came to the fore last year with what’s being called “VW Dieselgate.” Volkswagen engineers forced to resolve meeting emissions standards against onerous bean counters in their own company simply decided to use software to cheat the government regulators in probably the biggest scandal that’s ever hit the automotive industry. Restitution to dealers and customers is running in the billions and it’s not over yet. Volkswagen’s survival as a company was even in question at one point. Here is a good synopsis of the VW fiaso, as of Thanksgiving, 2016. It’s not over yet.

Well, I’m not gonna take it anymore, and I’m far from alone in that sentiment. As usually happens in cases like this, 3rd party software engineers and fabricators have stepped up to address the issue. Enthusiasts who love their cars and are willing to pay the price, have options to modify or eliminate troublesome, power-sapping pollution control systems in their cars. Bimmertime is upon us. I just returned from a friend’s place who helped me get the car finally done right. He has some 1st hand experience with the 335D, and spent a day demonstrating how to eliminate the remaining two emissions systems from the car: DPF and DEF. These contraptions have the ability to stop the car in it’s tracks, entailing thousands of dollars in repair expense when they do break – and they are proven failure-prone. The $40/gal LL04 low SAPS oil required to support the DPF is a real kick in the wallet, too.  BMW took a beating in warranty outlays on this particular model here in the U.S. My car ended the extended warranty period last year with a total of a whopping $23k in warranty repairs – almost all emissions systems work.

We’ve seen in that previous post linked above how exhaust gas re-circulation and the crankcase vent combine to literally kill the engine by clogging the intake over time and what I did to correct those particular top-priority problems. That process was completed after we got the car back from BMW with an $8,000.00 bill (covered under warranty) for intake cleaning and new injectors. Finishing the job involved basically replacing the entire exhaust system along with an engine control computer coded to support a lack of the now-absent DPF and DEF systems. Here’s what came out and what went in:

Removing the DDE (Engine Control Computer) was probably the easiest part, despite involving quite a bit of disassembly to get to it. It’s hidden under two covers, and there are a few wires connected to it.

Old Exhaust New Exhaust

Installed

The car now returns even better fuel mileage, up by at least 2MPG, despite already being a star in that category. I snapped this dash readout upon arrival home after cruising the last 200 miles out of Kansas into Colorado, mostly gently upsloping terrain, no wind, 78mph (GPS-corrected) at 70F ~5,000 ft:

Last but not least, power is up nicely as well of course. Butt dyno says 350hp and 600 ft.lbs. It pulls HARD. I’ll guess mid 12’s properly setup for the quarter mile. I wanted to keep the exhaust sound on the quiet side of aftermarket, whatever that means to the listener. Some like it loud, I do not. This system suits my taste perfectly. The new mufflers are just slightly louder, producing a nice low growl at idle and a pleasing “woosh” under acceleration in normal driving. The only time I want to hear the engine note is during the wicked shriek it emits at full song on a highway kickdown – priceless!

The problem with diesel emissions technology is really quite simple: Fuel. The more fuel burned, the more emissions needing squelched. Gassers are similar in this respect, but to a lesser degree and for reasons involving the different types of emissions they produce. So the obvious, easiest and most effective means for manufacturers to start addressing the diesel emissions quandary is to limit fuel. Less fuel equals less power. My old Dodge truck is a perfect example. It’s Cummins 5.9 came from the factory rated at 165 horsepower and 425 foot-pounds of torque. Power output literally almost doubled overnight after a new set of bigger injectors and turbo with some injection pump mods. But it puffs black smoke on shift recovery and under heavy throttle until it gets up on the turbo. I suppose if everybody drove one all the time it might hasten the planet’s demise by some immeasurable amount. But they don’t, and it won’t.

Government regulators would do well to focus more on commercial and corporate entities that actually produce a lot of pollution. I want my diesels to pull like a train as they should, and not send me to the poorhouse paying repair bills in the process.

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