1984 Dodge W350 Crew Cab
- Thread starter Kmehr
- Start date
chilliwak
Expedition Leader
Looks like you are ready to rock Kmehr. You got all points covered!:victory:
Sock Puppet
Adventurer
Sweet! Now it has Uber low mileage, too!
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Kmehr
Adventurer
hahaha if it wouldn't take 270 hrs with my drill at 100mph, I'd put it at the 27,XXX that are actually on the engine!
Have 80% of the rewire done. What's left: tail harness, electric fan, grid heaters, wipers (need to find a new wiper motor), wiring looming to make everything pretty, and A/C (which is a whole new chapter).
I repainted the gauge panel today, added turn signal indicators, a springloaded switch for the grid heater (prevents the possibility of forgetting its one!), and added a switch panel with 5 rocker switches for accessories. Other than not getting the turn signal indicators level (damn drill walked on me), I'm thrilled with how it turned out:
I've also been hunting around for that crank position sensor (my motor came from a Ford Bus)- this is what is under the injection pump and above the vacuum pump on the firewall side of the timing case, ideas?:
Have 80% of the rewire done. What's left: tail harness, electric fan, grid heaters, wipers (need to find a new wiper motor), wiring looming to make everything pretty, and A/C (which is a whole new chapter).
I repainted the gauge panel today, added turn signal indicators, a springloaded switch for the grid heater (prevents the possibility of forgetting its one!), and added a switch panel with 5 rocker switches for accessories. Other than not getting the turn signal indicators level (damn drill walked on me), I'm thrilled with how it turned out:
I've also been hunting around for that crank position sensor (my motor came from a Ford Bus)- this is what is under the injection pump and above the vacuum pump on the firewall side of the timing case, ideas?:
shortbus4x4
Expedition Leader
That is your pin for finding and locking in TDC on your engine. Slowly bar your engine over while pushing in on that pin, there is a corresponding hole in the IP gear that it will push into when you hit TDC.
shortbus4x4
Expedition Leader
Did it have a crank sensor at the front of the engine running off the balancer? The other place I can think of is on the left side of the engine kind of behind the starter. I looked at your engine pictures but didn't really see any good ones of the left side of engine.
If that engine had a CPS from the factory it would be mounted on the right (passenger) side of the balancer. The wires would have came up in front of #1 valve cover. If you try to use one from a 1st or 2nd gen Dodge. It is a low voltage switch. The Dodge PCM only supplies 8 volts to it. The return signal is 5 volts for the tach feed. Isspro does make a tach to read the 5 volt signal. AutoMeter does not have a tack for that signal voltage.
Isspro makes a CPS sensor kit for universal hookup. It uses a 12 volt input and supplies 12 volt output type of sensor. I have not checked AutoMeter. I bet they do also.
That Ford bus would not have had a CPS on it. There was no reason for one. The trans was a 545 Allision most likely. It would not have needed a engine RPM signal being a non-electric trans. Nothing else on the bus needed a RPM signal eather.
Isspro makes a CPS sensor kit for universal hookup. It uses a 12 volt input and supplies 12 volt output type of sensor. I have not checked AutoMeter. I bet they do also.
That Ford bus would not have had a CPS on it. There was no reason for one. The trans was a 545 Allision most likely. It would not have needed a engine RPM signal being a non-electric trans. Nothing else on the bus needed a RPM signal eather.
Kmehr
Adventurer
Good to know! I doubt I'll ever mess with timing, but now I know. This motor definitely had the Allison automatic behind it, so sounds like no crank position sensor. There's nothing up front by the balancer either. I've got an email into autometer, if they don't have the right setup I'll go with that Isspro pickup.
Kmehr
Adventurer
Wiring is pretty much complete, just in the working out the bugs stage now.
Having a pretty big problem now though. I've got my alternator hooked up now and it's squeeling and gets fiery hot. Melted a connector, and was starting to melt my intake hose. This is the first time I've had it hooked up, so I don't have anything to compare it to. I have a leece neville 8LHA2050VBS. I was told that it operated pretty much the same as a GM 1 wire alternator. HEre is how I have it wired:
Positive output> 1 battery cable linked directly to my passenger side battery; 1 wire to the fuse block; 1 wire to a 70 amp maxi fuse in my harness. I have a positive cable from this battery post directly hooked to the positive post on the driver side battery.
Negative output> ground cable directly to the same battery as the positive output. Then I have a cable grounding the neg side of that battery directly to the frame.
I then have the tach signal wire hooked to the stator pickup on the alternator (the Leece Neville site says this is how it should be hooked up).
AS for battery wiring, just to be clear, its: positive directly to positive. One negative cable to the frame from the passenger battery, and the negative from the driver battery directly to the engine. I have a negative cable going straight from the block to the frame. I use my test light on all of these connections, and they all light up with the slightest touch.
One other thing to note, my batteries are slightly different sizes, passenger is 720 CCA/910 CA Optima red top; driver is 750/935 Autolite. The Autolite is several years old (was in the truck when I bought it), and the red top is brand new. The Autolite starts the truck on its own, no problem.
Having a pretty big problem now though. I've got my alternator hooked up now and it's squeeling and gets fiery hot. Melted a connector, and was starting to melt my intake hose. This is the first time I've had it hooked up, so I don't have anything to compare it to. I have a leece neville 8LHA2050VBS. I was told that it operated pretty much the same as a GM 1 wire alternator. HEre is how I have it wired:
Positive output> 1 battery cable linked directly to my passenger side battery; 1 wire to the fuse block; 1 wire to a 70 amp maxi fuse in my harness. I have a positive cable from this battery post directly hooked to the positive post on the driver side battery.
Negative output> ground cable directly to the same battery as the positive output. Then I have a cable grounding the neg side of that battery directly to the frame.
I then have the tach signal wire hooked to the stator pickup on the alternator (the Leece Neville site says this is how it should be hooked up).
AS for battery wiring, just to be clear, its: positive directly to positive. One negative cable to the frame from the passenger battery, and the negative from the driver battery directly to the engine. I have a negative cable going straight from the block to the frame. I use my test light on all of these connections, and they all light up with the slightest touch.
One other thing to note, my batteries are slightly different sizes, passenger is 720 CCA/910 CA Optima red top; driver is 750/935 Autolite. The Autolite is several years old (was in the truck when I bought it), and the red top is brand new. The Autolite starts the truck on its own, no problem.
Kmehr
Adventurer
Figured it out. Thought it might be the direct cable from the alternator to the battery. So I unhooked that and problem persisted. The culprit is the stator pickup. It lost some hardware along the way, particularly the isolator that kept it from grounding to the case. So it was shorting out on the case of the alternator and getting realllllly hot! Not sure if its fixable or not.
Kmehr
Adventurer
We'll I sorta fixed it. I jammed some rubber from a push button connector down alongside the stator post, and then used a rubber grommet I had laying around as a sort of washer. The post still gets hot, but not quite as hot as it was getting, the problem is that that particular post is really jammed to the side by my air filter boot. I'm running the ASA modifieds intake, but its looking like its just a little too tight because I'm using the Ford Bus alternator. I'm wondering if I did permanent damage to the post.
My speedo isn't working, maybe it's the wrong cable size. My EGT gauge isn't working at all, headlights aren't working (I attempted to replace the dimmer switch with a toggle and a relay), tach gauge is all over the place including "off the map," the boost gauge is barely registering (might be the hose connection point being loose), the fuel pressure gauge is all over the place and really low (might need to add a snubber, think I have one laying around somewhere). Guess I need to pull the gauge panel out again and figure out where I went wrong. Then I still have to find a wiper motor and wire than up, figure out how A/C works and get some custom lines made because of the Ford Bus accessories I'm running.
At this point I've touched just about every piece on this truck. It totally drives ************. That being said, I'm getting a little sick of it. It's always something. I start longing for a tacoma or silverado or modern cummins or hell even a stock first gen, you know something that you just replace things that break instead of constantly replacing things because they don't work with something else! I'm ready to start camping and wheeling this thing, not working in my driveway, and who knows how long that will be, much less how long it will be before I have any sort of confidence in the thing!
My speedo isn't working, maybe it's the wrong cable size. My EGT gauge isn't working at all, headlights aren't working (I attempted to replace the dimmer switch with a toggle and a relay), tach gauge is all over the place including "off the map," the boost gauge is barely registering (might be the hose connection point being loose), the fuel pressure gauge is all over the place and really low (might need to add a snubber, think I have one laying around somewhere). Guess I need to pull the gauge panel out again and figure out where I went wrong. Then I still have to find a wiper motor and wire than up, figure out how A/C works and get some custom lines made because of the Ford Bus accessories I'm running.
At this point I've touched just about every piece on this truck. It totally drives ************. That being said, I'm getting a little sick of it. It's always something. I start longing for a tacoma or silverado or modern cummins or hell even a stock first gen, you know something that you just replace things that break instead of constantly replacing things because they don't work with something else! I'm ready to start camping and wheeling this thing, not working in my driveway, and who knows how long that will be, much less how long it will be before I have any sort of confidence in the thing!