M1010 expo build. The Mountain Turtle

[mp_tx]

Fantistic build so far. I have a fromer military 1991 F350 4x4 ambulance that was in Antarctica. It was lifted for 44 inch tires, but I want to bring it back down to earth. I plan on running 37 H1's, and really interested in your heater exchange--I already pulled and spliced the heater hoses for the back cube and would like to install a heat exchange for an outside shower. I am more concerned with heat then cold, and have already installed a 5000btu window AC unit in the old engine driven AC spot.

Keep it up. Can't wait to see what you do in the back.

 

[CLynn85]

Nice build, wish you were here to get more work done on it! I've been hunting for a M1010 box for our next build but they're hard to come by.

 

[stevo-mt]

I'll just have to keep my eyes open and on the look out for a donar. I think alot of the time if a guy doesn't get into a big hurry those things kind of find them selves. My friend building his jeep had been keeping his eyes open for the parts he was wanting and after about a year he acquired new portal axles and a semi-used hemi at less than half of what the previous owners had paid. So patience might be the winning factor on a 6BT! There is a company in Kalispell MT that pretty much puts Cummins into anything so I might give them a call. There are quite a few threads where it was done on other Chevy's.

@ Larry. I ended up with the H1 wheels for a couple of different reasons. One was tire and wheel cost. The other was performance and being able to repair it on the side of the road. I picked up a set of 37" MT/R that were 95% for ~$900 delivered to my house. A decent. And the wheels were about $75 a piece. One of my friends has a set on his 90' F350 and I was pretty amazed at what they could do for a pretty low cost set up. Not that it would be a super big issue at least now, but every dollar I could save would go towards another gallon of fuel I guess. A set of comparable bead locks would run be a couple thousand I suppose, then another couple of thousand for toyo's or MT/R tires. Which would be a good investment for sure. The other good selling point of the H1 wheels is their capability for weight. I added up a kentucky windage guess of this truck would be "wet" and its coming in around 10k lbs. Which is crazy! The truck itself weighs 7400 lbs originally, then you add an extra 30-40 gallons of diesel, 40 gallons of water and before I knew it I would have exceeded the stock rims/tires weight rating. The H1's and the MT/R's are capable of supporting somewhere around 3800 lbs per tire if I remember right. There is a little safety factor in there, but I could imagine there is a high degree of stress going through that drive system when its chained up, bouncing around through the snow/ruts, locked up, and hopefully an elk or a moose in the back! I probably should have looked into it more, because they are heavy!!! I learned why my friend that used to work at the tire shop was such a tough person for his size wrestling those things on! The H1 wheels didn't seem too bad, but then you add this big tire and a pvc beadlock insert now all of sudden this thing weighs almost 90 lbs! x it by 4!!! So in short, the military surplus wheels and tires are relatively cheap! That question shows that I need to revisit the total weight of the vehicle, so thank you!

@ mp tx. I found a pretty good setup from Surplus center for a heat exchanger. (http://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?item=28-1824&catname=engines) My brother and I had set up a "home made" version of one of these in back of his truck to keep his hunting dogs, or us warm in winter with the camping shell/topper on. The thing would roast us out in no time. Then we found out that they sell things like this! I'm going to wire in a thermostat into the circuit to prevent that. The water heater I'm planning on using is a marine heat exchanger style with a 6 gallon tank and also has a 120v 1500w element. For being an aluminum tank and a simple heat exchanger they don't give those away! They are about $300. In theory I can heat water with the engine or the Espar, which ever happens to be more efficient. Another alternative could be a tank-less LP water heater. I was fortunate enough to have an old school Paloma that was installed at this cabin I stayed at and it worked pretty slick. (after I soldered a busted pipe shut since it froze over the winter) It was self igniting with a pilot light and required no batteries. I could see myself going either way on one of those options, but since the engine is running alot of the time or the heater will be going it kind of makes sense to use the Seaward water heater. My coworker from Fairbanks keeps reminding me if I'm going to be up there in the winter LP doesn't always work and then he rambles on about 40 below or something for weeks on end...

I still need to test the A/C unit for the vehicle. The previous owner said it had pressure and it doesn't seem to have leaked but was not that cold. It is an old R12 system. I found a thread where folks were discussing on changing one of these over to R134a. I need to verify this with an actual mechanic or someone that does HVAC, but one idea that the post had talked about was pulling a vacuum and then adding some R134a oil to the system that was compatible with R12 residue. Pretty removing all of the R12 and essentially just replacing it with R134a and the new style fittings. My father has part of an old tank of R12 squirreled away but I don't think that is the proper way to go if it ever would need serviced on the road. And the whole environmental issue, I kind of like the ozone and such... If the A/C unit turns out to be a bust then I will need to figure out something else or live without it. Plan B, I'll just have to plan my trips to Moab in the fall, winter, or spring!

 

[CUCV GRV]

Awesome build. Glad to see another M1010 camper. I just did some service work to get mine ready for burning man again. The camp chef over rocks. Gf bought me one and at first I was like I dont need a suit case, but having a stove, grill, and over in one unit has been fantastic. Fresh chocolate chip cookies after a steak dinner while camping is priceless. Keep up the good work.

 

[NevadaLover]

I still need to test the A/C unit for the vehicle. The previous owner said it had pressure and it doesn't seem to have leaked but was not that cold. It is an old R12 system. I found a thread where folks were discussing on changing one of these over to R134a. I need to verify this with an actual mechanic or someone that does HVAC, but one idea that the post had talked about was pulling a vacuum and then adding some R134a oil to the system that was compatible with R12 residue. Pretty removing all of the R12 and essentially just replacing it with R134a and the new style fittings. My father has part of an old tank of R12 squirreled away but I don't think that is the proper way to go if it ever would need serviced on the road. And the whole environmental issue, I kind of like the ozone and such... If the A/C unit turns out to be a bust then I will need to figure out something else or live without it. Plan B, I'll just have to plan my trips to Moab in the fall, winter, or spring![/QUOTE]

I have converted probably a dozen vehicles including my own '91 V3500 and it is pretty easy, if You get a retrofit kit it will have o-rings, fittings, and PAG oil,
Have the existing R12 recovered, then drain and measure the oil in the compressor or just replace the compressor if it looks like it leaks, if You reuse the old compressor
add the same amount of PAG oil as old oil you removed, if You get a new compressor, follow the instructions in the box, replace all the o-rings You can, install the new R134 fittings on the existing R12 fittings and use the heat shrink in the kit to cover them, I always use a LITTLE green loctite on the new fittings because I did have a couple loosen up and leak, You will need to replace the orifice tube and receiver/dryer as they are old and probably pretty nasty, pour about two ounces of PAG oil in the receiver/dryer, then vacuum test for leaks and refill the system with R134, it should take approximately 75% of the R12 capacity, if You spend a little time and replace all the o-rings it will pay off later, don't worry about residual oil since most of the oil is in the compressor and receiver/dryer and the little left will NOT affect the a/c, it's alot easier to do than it seems and is well worth the hassle since R134 is soo much cheaper than R12, plus there is nothing better than a/c that works when its hot outside!!
Good luck with the ride and keep up the good work.

 

[stevo-mt]

Thank You NevadaLover, that is why I love this place! There is a pretty large steam of knowledge that flows through this website. And everyone has a super positive attitude! I didn't even know there was a green loctite! Since the tide turned and the salmon have kind of slowed down for the day I have some time to catch up expo portal on my day off.

In my late night expo search I came across this thread.

http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...t-table-system?highlight=army+surplus+drawers

A military surplus medicine cabinet with drawers and two tables! That would save me quite a bit of fabrication time and work if I can buy an aluminum drawer setup that is relatively useful for what I'm planning on doing. It looks like it weights ~100 lbs, which I'm already pushing the whole weight issue. I'm trying to figure out what building something similar out of plywood would weight. To try and justify being able to pack it! The other option is to take the holesaw to it and lighten it up a bit. An aluminum cabinet with a bunch of holes is still probably as strong as a plywood one. I think I could use part of the drawers for tools and such, since it looks pretty heavy duty and eliminating a couple of my steel tool box ammo cans perhaps? I would put some hinges so the door can open up like a regular cabinet and also some quick detach pins of some sort so it can be more easily removed and set up outside with the two tables.



This is what I have in mind for the rear passenger side of the box. The very front area by the sliding door to the cab is reserved for batteries, fuse panels, and camping gear storage. I still have to figure out how the dynamics with the sailboat table bracket is going to work. My goal is to have be able to stow above the cushion at that seating area or over the top of the stove. I think once it shows up I will be able to make better judgement on that.

I've been keeping track of all my costs and weights for every item that I have purchased and installed on the truck. It's pushing 10k lbs wet. Needless to say I am going to have to spend some time removing what material I can without compromising structural strength to the build. I have a couple sheets of plywood accounted for and I'm going to take the hole saw to it and remove about 30% of the weight from the sheets. The big ticket items are the extra diesel, batteries, and having 46 gallons of water. I found a 30 gallon tank that should fit in back of the box in one of the existing compartments (need to verify that a 60" long tank will fit) so by cutting down 10 gallons it saves 80 lbs. I can always pack extra jerry cans or something I need more, but for 90% of the time that should suffice. The wheels and tires are all un-sprung weight but there is 300 lbs increased when your off the highway with the H1 rims and tires. I guess thats the price you pay to have the big rubber. This truck is going to be pretty heavy, but dang is it stout!

 

[chilliwak]

Still loving that old military rig. Nice ride Stevo-mt. I cant wait to see more pics and upgrades...

 

[ExpoMike]

stevo-mt I actually have an aluminum military medicine cabinet that I originally was going to use in my M1010 but never did and sold the rig. I can get you a pic and some dimensions and if interested, try to get a deal that works for both of us.

It's not as deep as the ones you linked to, about half that deep. They originally went into the newer plastic mil cases that you see used now.

 

[stevo-mt]

Well thank you for the offer ExpoMike. I just bought one the other day, DOH! Just out of curiosity if you did have the specs? If it would work better than the one that I found then I have no problem re-purposing the one that I bought. I'm not committed to anything just yet and there is a spot that it might work well! I'm becoming a fan of buying parts simple parts that will expedite the completion of the truck! Plus it matches the vintage of the truck!

And thank you Chilliwak, I noticed you have dual shocks on the back of your truck. It was a while ago when I read it, but did that improve the handling going down the road?

I've been contemplating a few ideas to get a full size spare somewhere on my truck since a 37 will not really fit in the old spot under the truck. I'm realizing that I'm am probably stuck with it hanging off the back somewhere. Somewhere along the line my truck had some 3" square tubing welded on the back underneath the rear bumper. It serves its purpose pretty well by extending out further than any point in the back, protecting the box somewhat, and it keeps you from tearing off your license plate off road! I thought I could incorporate it a little bit since its just kind of there...



I was trying to figure out the geometry to give the truck a place on the drivers side rear to be strong enough to support a 37" tire when it was swung out all the way. I built a couple of these bumpers for my old jeep and bronco so that's were my brain was focused. I'm fairly confident that could be accomplished and it would probably work fairly well. But with the amount of steel that it would take I started thinking of some different idea's that are a little non-traditional. Since its going to take a lot of steel therefor a lot of weight to make some kind of tire rack I came up with an idea to utilize the square tubing on the back of my truck and design a "slide" out tire rack. I spent a few hours crunching numbers and calculating moment's of inertia because I'm a nerd and came to the conclusion that it should probably hold up.? Especially if you added a second area to pin the rack higher up on the truck for when your oscar mike. I was thinking that a piece of 1.5" x 2.5" square tubing could be inserted into the lower square tubing and ride on a set of rollers that you would whip out in the lathe. The entire assembly would then slide out 40 or so inches so your spare tire can clear the rear drivers door. Once again terrible free handed drawings... I forgot how helpless I am without a computer!


At first I was contemplating use PTFE (teflon) or something like that and having it slide through it like a boom on a crane. But since its located at a mud gathering spot I didn't think that would be a terrific idea. So I came to the conclusion of some kind of roller set up. My dad has a light plant that just has a square tubing boom that they cut out slots and just welded a shaft with bearings to provide a telescoping bearing setup. So that can be tweaked as needed. But the general idea is to just unpin the thing and have it slide out to the point where it clears. The important thing to this design is when it is in the "go down the road, or off the road " position it be secured higher up on the rear bumper somewhere. That way it is pinned in two places and should have no issue with being able to handle anything the rest of the truck is capable of experiencing.

One other idea I had, since either of the two require 75 pounds of steel, is to make a pivoting rack that swings out side ways and an ATV winch would raise and lower it.

You can buy a decent winch for $100 and it would have more than enough strength to lift it. With this sketch it takes about 800 lbs of force to pull up a 200 lb tire. The atv winch would weigh about 26 lbs. Utilizing a similar Pin or locking device you wouldn't worry about it going down the road since there would be no tension on the winch. The only time the winch see's strain is lifting and lowering. I think it would be pretty easy to hide compared to a big old swing out tire rack. Just a thought. I think it would take the same amount of time and weight with any of the ideas. So if anyone has inp

 

[chilliwak]

Hey Steve, I have dual Bilstein front shocks, and heavy duty Bilstein rear shocks. The real differance came from using a rear sway bar to control the actions of a big canopy. I hope this helps. Let me know if you need any other details. Cheers, Chilli...

 

[ExpoMike]

Here are the specs of the one I have.

30" tall x 18" wide x 10" deep. Each drawer comes out 10". All aluminum and weighs in about 25 lbs.

Attached are some pics.

 

[chilliwak]

Stevo here is a pic of the front shock set up...



As you can see I used the stock chevy location and munts but just used a heavy grade bolt to extend the system for dual shocks....



The rear has external resivoir bilsteins and a sway bar to control the canopy. I did have to extend the hardware so that the Helwig sway bar would work with 6 inches of lift...

 

[stevo-mt]

Thanks for the Pics. I appreciate it,I will look into the kit they had for jacked up trucks and see if I can find something that works. The camper was doing a bit of rocking when I was doing some testing, not bad though. So I will need to do a little more testing when I get it wet with the extra fuel and water. That drawer that ExpoMike has is going to make a perfect addition to the truck! Plus I won't even need to paint it! So thank you Mike!

I made another order to Offroad designs to get a couple of things that I noticed didn't function well before I took off for the summer. First the rear axle wasn't quite sitting centered to the wheel well so I have a set of the adjustable zero rate blocks that will let me slide the axle back an inch or whatever I want to move it. Then I will need to check my drive line lengths to make sure there won't be any issues with that. But I will address that when I get the axle moved. The other thing I ordered was a cross over steering kit and a 2wd steering box. I was going to have to replace a couple of the tie rod ends anyways so I might as well fix the whole steering geometry while I'm at it. Turning those 37's takes quite a bit of force! That seems to be a pretty standard mod for these trucks anyways. Then eventually I will finish it and do the high steer kit, but that can wait. Most of the parts that I ordered that had lead times had shown up so now its just a matter of getting the work done!

The thing that I probably should have not done is start reading about turbo's and all the different issues that come along with that. I was kind of consumed with this for a while. Obviously the 6.2 isn't a great powerhouse and I don't necessarily need a lot of power, but at the same time it would be nice to have a little bit more than what the J codes come with stock. I managed to find a Banks kit with pretty much everything minus the exhaust for pretty cheap so I bought it. Now my concern is that I will be fully loading that motor pretty much all of the time and it won't hold up. I know ton's of guys have put these kits on and as long as the EGT stays under 1100 your ok, but I just haven't seen one or talked to anyone who has put one of these on a 6.2 that either drags a trailer or packs a camper. Most of the folks have a daily driver pickup or something and I just haven't got the warm and fuzzie on slapping a turbo onto the 6.2 yet. The more I look into it more people have blown up their 6.2l than you hear about. Usually there is some excuse that it was due to something other than the turbo, but the whole diesel power pride thing tends to distort the true cause. One thing that I found to be intriguing was one chap put a 6.5l f code lower intake on the 6.2l with and utilized a peninsular upper intake with the banks kit. His theory was that he lowered his EGT by 50-100 degrees. Measuring temps before and after. I'm not quite sure how that worked but I would like to look into a few things like that a little deeper. I just seem to keep going in circles on this one. I also now have access to a '93 chevy with a 6.5td that blew a head gasket, so I will pretty much be able to rob any part i would need if I was to go down that path. I think that it will just have to go down lower on the priority list and if I get to it before the snow flies great if not oh well. Its a great truck without it. It is a little frustrating to have a 23K mile motor that is a bit underpowered. I can't justify doing much too it, it just runs too great! But in the meantime my friend is loaning me his old 4runner to cruise around AK once I get back to the road system, so I will just have to go have fun for a couple more weeks! It's kind of funny I'm typing this in a cabin out in the middle of the tundra. My cell phone works well too. Yep, not exactly what I expected, but its kind of cool, I can check email!

 

[chilliwak]

Stevo I will be interested in hearing about your experience with the Banks turbo kit. I recently purchased a 6.5 liter 94 Yukon. Also if you dont scream the diesel at high rpm I think you will be just fine...

 

[E.Roy]

I'm enjoying this build! Thanks for mentioning your plan on using the little generator in the winter to run the block heater, great method.

So have you considered mounting the spare on the rear doors? The hinges look beefy, but not sure how strong the door is. You could also make a bracket that gives extra support to that door by running over to the hinges. You could add an adjustable damper to slow the tire swingout say if you had the nose up hill and needed to open the door.

Lastly, I like that your making due with the 6.2. The 89-93 Cummins 12 valves are great but are 160hp so need a few mods to have a nice power band, they start defueling at 2300 rpm, so you'd want to swap the gov spring, and get a smaller turbine housing, for immediate torque. Their stock setup like my truck is aggravating with the poor combo of the turbine housing, gov, and high stall converter, it's hard to keep the truck in the narrow power band.

Regards, Eric