Modifications I should do to my 1009?

Ok, I just got a 1009 with 91k miles on it. I plan to keep it forever and drive it semi-regularly and as cost-effectively as possible. With that in mind, here's a few things I thought I'd bounce of you guys:

1A. Fuel mixing. 50/50 waste veg oil (thoroughly cleaned first, of course!) with pump diesel
1B. Adding a secondary, finer fuel filter in series with the stock fuel filtration.

2. Pre-heat fuel lines? I'm not really sure if this one is really necessary since I don't plan on using more than 50% veg oil, but I do want to make things as easy as possible on the injector pump.

3. Cold air intake on front of vehicle. Hidden, if possible, to maintain as stock a look as possible.

4. Coolant filter.

5. Cab air conditioning. This isn't really a performance mod, but I live in South Texas. It's practically a necessity between March through October.

What else should I look at as far as easy performance/longevity mods go?

I've already done the doghead starter relay mod.

Strongly consider changing out the harmonic balancer. Congrats on your purchase!

Recovry4x4 said:

Strongly consider changing out the harmonic balancer. Congrats on your purchase!

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Thanks, that's on the list of things to inspect and possibly replace if it needs it.

Is there an improved version or were you just talking about preventative maintenance? If it needs it, I'm just going to go with the 62 dollar one at Oreilleys.

Those seem to work fine. Just need to check that rubber. They can be a source of broken cranks.

Stock is fine on the harmonic damper, the rubber ring ages and that kills damping. Running alternative fuels is a gamble on long term reliability as it cokes up combustion chambers. Filtered waste motor oil from gasoline engines can be run at 10% once every other fillup with normal diesel.
Air conditioning for all that glass and cab will require a lot more compressor than what I have in my 1031, adding another crank pulley and driving the compressor on the right hand side below the alternator would be best. It needs 180 degrees of wrap around the compressor pulley to draw 6+ HP, even then belt life will be short. It needs to be around 18,000 BTU/hour for that size cab.

Coked up combustion chambers with Waste veg oil or with waste motor oil? Or similar problem with both?

I'm aware of the study the army did with waste motor oil and not too keen on using it in this for that reason. But waste veg oil seems like a pretty common thing in diesels.

For the A/C, I'm thinking I'd like to get a look at someone's truck who installed the Nostalgic Air kit and see what I can do to replicate it with alternatively sourced parts. I'd especially like to get a look at the compressor bracket and see if I can make one.

TexAndy said:

For the A/C, I'm thinking I'd like to get a look at someone's truck who installed the Nostalgic Air kit and see what I can do to replicate it with alternatively sourced parts. I'd especially like to get a look at the compressor bracket and see if I can make one.

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You might see if you can just purchase the Nostalgic Air compressor bracket. I would think that'd be one of the cheaper parts of the kit and a lot easier than trying to spec it out yourself. Everything else is easy enough to get elsewhere.

If not, I'll probably be getting one of these kits for the new 1028 but it might be after the 1st of the year depending on finances, so you can get your hands on one to look at then.

Cool, if I can come look at it and take measurements before we install it, that'd be great.

Even though installing A/C on could run upwards of $1000 if you are not sourcing civy K5 parts and possibly converting to 12v to get the oem bracketry to fit, I think it is a wise investment. Especially if your Cuck is pretty clean, I think it adds value and comfort which are good resell points.

As far as everything else goes, I would hesitate to convert the truck to some type of veggie oil system. Unless you have huge sources and log tons of miles, I don't see the benefit. If anything you are out the cost of the system and the extra wear and tear on the injection system. I think you would be better just running normal diesel. I do agree with secondary filtration. I would install a secondary 2 micron filter all day long on any diesel. I would recommend doing some numbers to see if veggie oil would be a good investment with your usage.

Coolant filter, don't see a need on this class of truck. I think if you are changing plain jane green antifreeze once a year (maybe twice if you don't drive it everyday) you are ahead of the curve in the coolant department.

Highly recommend doing all the normal Cuck Vee stuff...replace all rubber, clean all electrical, install AC60 glow plugs, rebuild the GENs as preventative measures, replace fuel lines, drop tank and replace filter sock, install some type of spin on mod (unless your box filter is in awesome shape), and pop the cover off your rearend to make sure it isn't going into self destruct mode. Once you do a thorough evaluation and cleap for any lack of maintenance, it will probably serve you just fine with very little issue.

Get rid of box style fuel filter add spin on,do a compression check,add oil pressure and coolant temp gauge.

steering box brace if you are going off-road. Dog Head relay mod, switch glow plugs to 12v. head light mod.

TexAndy said:

Coked up combustion chambers with Waste veg oil or with waste motor oil? Or similar problem with both?

I'm aware of the study the army did with waste motor oil and not too keen on using it in this for that reason. But waste veg oil seems like a pretty common thing in diesels.

For the A/C, I'm thinking I'd like to get a look at someone's truck who installed the Nostalgic Air kit and see what I can do to replicate it with alternatively sourced parts. I'd especially like to get a look at the compressor bracket and see if I can make one.

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The waste motor oil tests were done with waste diesel motor oil. Modern gasoline engine oils have much less ash due to decreases in ZDDP and other ash producing chemicals as they poison catalytic converters. And gasoline engine oils are lower viscosity and have less soot.

vegetable oils and any edible oil are triglycerides, meaning three fatty acids chemically joined to a glycerin molecule by ester bonds. That is a carboxylic acid reacted with an alcohol, glycerine is a triple alcohol. The glycerine partially decomposes to acrolein which itself is highly reactive a polymerization agent.
Biodiesel is made by breaking the glycerin from triglycerides, replacing it with three methanol equivalents. This lowers the viscosity and removes the issue of acrolein coking the combustion chambers of both direct and indirect injected diesels.