mr.mindless

friend just shared this link with me. little light on details for my taste - I'd love to know engine, trans, and rearend teardown history - but if he drives light enough to get 20mpg pulling maybe it's more original parts than I'd expect? http://www.thefordstory.com/our-articles/trucks/f-350%20super%20duty/1020000-plus-miles-on-this-road-trip-truck/

That doesn't follow with the outside duals sticking 1" past the stock Dodge dually flares on my friend's converted '01 SRW 2500 with its original rear axle...

SRW axle is about 3-4" wider than the DRW axle. Your outer duals will stick past the fender flares.2500s only had a D80 with the manual transmission. If your donor started life as a slushbox, you'll be stepping down in axle size/strength/capacity. It may also have a shorter pinion snout and therefore possibly involve a driveshaft retube if you don't have adequate slip. Both should run 1410 ujoints. If the axle tube diameters don't match you'll need different spring plates to match the correct size ubolts. I'm not certain of the tube diameter and pinion yoke offset differences between a 70 and an 80.EDIT:quick search turned up 4" tube versus 3.5" tube. Didn't find a quick pinion snout length comparison.

I might have to give this two stroke stuff a shot. I need to keep some around for my saw anyway. Howes bumps my mileage - and did in my ALH TDI too - but not enough to pay for itself. 2 stroke might just be cheap enough.... I have no worries about the P7100 and my injectors are "cheap" so all I care about is the economy aspect.

That differs state to state. in NY if you're out of state when it expires they'll still renew and you just have to get it inspected when you return.CA isn't going to ticket you for an expired MO inspection

Will you be a CA resident or MO resident?

There are a lot of good units out there, but nothing can hold a candle to the whisper quiet of a Honda. You pay for that peace and reliability though.

sounds like the answer right there. you're a MO resident. It's registered to you in MO. If you move to CA, the federal emissions on it are just fine. It's when you're buying something in CA that CA emissions matter. That said, have fun with the emissions tests.

Well it turns out I was wrong on the heater controls - not fixed. The kinked cable was a symptom not a cause :banghead:I bandaided that for my trip by putting in a shutoff valve on the heater hose where I'd had a flush port. So at least I can have cool air.Other than that, another smooth Virginia turnaround. 2100 miles in 2 weeks. I'm no Caj, but I'll be catching my buddy's 311k near-twin of my truck quick at this rate. He made the same Virginia trip with me - on the way down his NV4500 started making bad noises in everything but 4th. On the way back, in Selinsgrove PA after we were in city traffic, he said it sounded like something fell through the gears. Made an awful noise and we stopped. It still had all gears, and apparently after that the noise got better No issues the rest of the way home.The third of 5 Cummins trucks in our little group (along with a Chev 6.0 gasser and a PowerStroke 6.0) had his tcase start popping out of gear when running through the gears. bungee cord took care of it well enough but the splines are probably shot now. I'm blaming a loose trans mount but tough to say.I wish we'd had a picture of all of us at once, it was a huge group.'96 Ford F Series box truck, B5.9 175, 5sp with a TJ Rubicon on 35s in the box6.0 Superduty with a brand new 36' deck Vintage enclosed tri-axle +2' height with two CJ buggies inside6.0 Chevy with tube chassis on 40s on an open trailer'01 5.9/6sp with a 24' deck enclosed with the race buggy I codrive insidemy '97 with my 36' open goose with a Toyota truggy on 38s and a Jeep Comanche truggy on 37s'97 "dump bus Jr" 5.9/5sp/Gear Vendors with a Grand Cherokee ZJ on 35s and a TJ Rubicon on 33s on a 25' equipment trailer.'04 Common Rail/6sp with a wrapped 26' enclosed tag trailer with a moon buggy inside.

the last time I was thinking of doing my rockers and fender, it got a motor instead.I was really about ready to practice on the bad spots on my doors last summer when I got to do a trans again.I think it's skeered of being pretty!

First a 17mpg tank while towing (total flatland slow speed fluke, but I'll take what I can get), the only issues were really simple (exhaust brake linkage lost a C clip; broken fuel tank strap with no damage done at all), and now.....I was prepared to tear my dash out to get at the top of the heater box to deal with a stuck blend door. I pulled the heater controls first and found a kinked control cable. Detached it, straightened it out, and all seems well. Door moves, not sticky, not jammed, nothing. Hope it stays that way!SCORE! :thumb1:Maybe it's getting ready to treat me better. Maybe it'll treat me well enough that it will get some body work out of me

if you look at the ratios, the top 2 gears likely match your 5 or 6 speed - assuming it has as much OD. It seems more common than not to have a truck OD be .83 rather than .73. Trucks pick up the gears on the low end. but it's really nice down there. Low and Reverse are about the same as low range 1st and R in the old setup with my RTOO. They're 7.something. So really not much gain in the hills in a 7, 9 or 10sp. When you get to split gears in a 13 or 18 is when you gain some advantage since you can essentially drop half a gear. Honestly not a necessary advantage. I use the splits and such more often in town with low speed limits than for hills. I run the steepest stuff in the NE pretty much any time I go anywhere and rarely need to grab a gear on interstates unless I'm grossing 23-24+. Just let 'er eat.... That said, for a non-daily driver, I'd do it again every time. I LOVE towing heavy with it and not having to worry about beating my light duty trans to death if I lug the motor. I don't care around town. but I'll loose a drag race every time and if I commuted much, I might get tired of it.

I think a case could be made since the odometer breaks! LOL I've got to say that's a minor nightmare! Hope you have the overhead dohickey with 2 more trip meters so maintenance intervals don't become trip mete math sagas. Congrats.

Nice!!

It's got some life left in her!Where's the event taking place? I'm running back up from Virginia Beach myself now, stopped for the night at the Allentown plaza on 476. I hate this road... Rolled over all of 275k today - and somehow got 17.3mpg! Wish I ran coastal flatland at 55 more often. Had to make sure my trailer was still back there....

They're cast aluminum.

Thanks VERY much for this video Mike! :thumb1:I've got a blend door issue that I'll probably need to access the top of the box to deal with, if not remove the box, so it's very good news to see it's really not a 37 hour job entailing complete dash and cluster removal. My only pain point will be that I didn't make my shifter stick removable, I've got to pull my cover plate and pull it off the trans. Maybe a good excuse to fix that. Anyway, thanks again!

I just swapped the module from a '99 Grand Cherokee into the housing in my Ram. Managed to do so with battery still installed without wasting more time than it would have taken to disconnect everything and pull the tray :thumb1:All the plungers moved smoothly. I tried to bench test it but didn't look at the pinout first and blew up the diode on the PCB Not a big deal though since the apply piston seemed to have a dead coil. I gave 12v both directions across where it's soldered to the board and it never moved. The other two moved many times before I blew it up too, so I'm pretty confident a bad coil on the apply piston was the root of my issue.

wiring diagram

deactivation from "depressing the clutch pedal" has to be from RPM flare. The wiring diagram for '97 has my back on this one, as does my experience with a rewired clutch safety. Wiring diagram shows the trigger power for the solenoid going directly through the clutch safety from the ignition switch, and no other contacts in the switch and no other involvement in that circuit. Only the starter knows when the clutch switch is actuated (no ECM involvement). I'd assume that's true on at least 94-97, and I'd bet a small sum it's true on 98-03 as well.

And why the oil change interval change? 20k I assume you had a bypass, did you remove it with the 450k issues and go to the shorter interval?

Definitely a new one for me! If they notice when you turn it in, that's definitely scrap - not a core....

That mesh ramp may as well be solid at speed. So much turbulence that air really can't pass through it. I don't notice any change in mileage once I hitch up regardless of load. Empty 4500 or with 12k on the deck has less than a 1mpg impact. With such a light trailer in your case it HAS to be that big ramp though. You're probably only towing 1000#, but it's a big wall too.

Thoroughly blown. Doesn't stop airflow at all. Ran 70psi through it and the rod didn't move at all. Definitely shot. Just need to scare up a replacement now and hope it doesn't cost the $150 of the Banks stuff that a quick Google gave me, and that I can set it to a happy 30-32psi again. Oh, and figure out how to get it off. Hoping I don't have to pull the turbo.