BIG_RED
New member
- 385
- 0
- 0
- Location
- Winnipeg, Manitoba
Hey guys! Thanks a ton for the warm welcome! I guess I'm not really a new member because I signed up quite a while ago, but this is my first post. I guess I oughta share a bit about myself and my truck.
As my name implies, my truck is red. It was leased to a fire department Marionville Missouri, where it received "Fire Rescue" decals. It was then sold at auction to a guy named Cory while he was down south.
Cory lives about 40 minutes away from me and is likely a member here on SS himself. He had a fullsize blazer a few years ago with a sbc 400 that was rusting out on him, and bought a M1009 just for the body through a friend. He liked the diesel so much, he kept it. His friends liked it, so he brought up a few more for them. I guess it's sort of a sideline job for him, cause now he brings up a few every year.
So Cory brought up the truck and it sat on his yard for quite a while. I guess nobody wanted one dressed up like a fire truck. I came across it online while looking for my first car. I've always been a Chevy boy, and wanted a pre-87 truck or muscle car with a small block. The truck caught my eye, but i wasn't too sure about the diesel engine. I knew my way around a gasser pretty well, but had no work on a diesel under my belt.
Once I went out and saw how little rust it had, I was pretty much sold. I did some research as to what I should look for in a diesel, and the truck didn't look bad. I spent nearly an hour going over everything except the engine. For $4000, I figured that even if the engine blew and I swapped it to an old small block, with no rust and in such good shape - I'd still be ahead.
I still think I did alright, but it turns out Cory took the glow plugs out of the truck, either cause they were toast or cause he wanted them for his trucks, and put in crappy ones with a different size metal tang. He then went through the effort of grinding each tang down to fit the stock blade connectors on the trucks wires. So, after driving my truck for a week, all the plugs burned out. It was 30 below. Obviously - she didn't start. Took me an awful long time to figure out what was up - cause they were totally the wrong plugs and gave seemingly correct resistance measurements when I tested them with a meter. I didn't want to pull them out, because I didn't know how tight in there they should be and I heard sometimes they break off in their holes. In hindsight, I should've asked on SS. I just don't like to bother people for help, I'm strange that way.
So I put in new glow plugs. That was not terribly hard. I also installed a frost plug block heater, the truck had never had one. I say frost plug because the truck had some kind of inline heater on the lower rad hose. I've heard people call that a block heater. That one didn't do it's job very well. Next, my fuel filter sprung a leak. The "spider spring" (stamped steel round thing with 7 or 8 legs) that kept the vacuum sensor (tan colored thing, 2 wires, has a sponge lookin thing stuck on it, hidden behind rectangular fuel filter) in it's hole. After bending the spring back a few times, siliconing it in, securing it with wire, cutting a hockey puck into a disc to stick in the hole, drilling tapping and plugging the hole with a brass plug, (yes i tried ALL of those things) it started leaking elsewhere (I think from the heat element, but at that point I really didn't care anymore). I looked into other filter systems and decided to go with one from Stanadyne, the manufacturer of the original filter system. (original was called "model 80") I bought an FM100 filter head, 3 filters and a sight bowl (to check water level) from Midwest Fuel Injection for about $150. Hooked it up with pipe parts and fuel hose from the local hardware store, and I'm good to go again. I should've done that in the first place.
Now I'm basically good to go.. except that somebody put in crappy heater hoses that were leaking. So now I have footlong hoses and a 3" piece of copper pipe where my heater core should be. I didn't think I'd need my heater in the summer, so even though I have all the stuff to fix it, it wasn't a big priority. Today I realized that the heat makes a big difference in keeping the windshield clear.. cause if it's raining hard or you've got friendly company.. that windshield is impossible to see through.
Anyways, thanks again for the warm welcome. I look forward to begging for help from, and providing whatever humble advice I've learned in my experiences to you guys. Good luck on all your projects!
- Big Red's (aka Diesel Tank, Diesel Beast, Fire Tank, THE Beast, etc..) driver
As my name implies, my truck is red. It was leased to a fire department Marionville Missouri, where it received "Fire Rescue" decals. It was then sold at auction to a guy named Cory while he was down south.
Cory lives about 40 minutes away from me and is likely a member here on SS himself. He had a fullsize blazer a few years ago with a sbc 400 that was rusting out on him, and bought a M1009 just for the body through a friend. He liked the diesel so much, he kept it. His friends liked it, so he brought up a few more for them. I guess it's sort of a sideline job for him, cause now he brings up a few every year.
So Cory brought up the truck and it sat on his yard for quite a while. I guess nobody wanted one dressed up like a fire truck. I came across it online while looking for my first car. I've always been a Chevy boy, and wanted a pre-87 truck or muscle car with a small block. The truck caught my eye, but i wasn't too sure about the diesel engine. I knew my way around a gasser pretty well, but had no work on a diesel under my belt.
Once I went out and saw how little rust it had, I was pretty much sold. I did some research as to what I should look for in a diesel, and the truck didn't look bad. I spent nearly an hour going over everything except the engine. For $4000, I figured that even if the engine blew and I swapped it to an old small block, with no rust and in such good shape - I'd still be ahead.
I still think I did alright, but it turns out Cory took the glow plugs out of the truck, either cause they were toast or cause he wanted them for his trucks, and put in crappy ones with a different size metal tang. He then went through the effort of grinding each tang down to fit the stock blade connectors on the trucks wires. So, after driving my truck for a week, all the plugs burned out. It was 30 below. Obviously - she didn't start. Took me an awful long time to figure out what was up - cause they were totally the wrong plugs and gave seemingly correct resistance measurements when I tested them with a meter. I didn't want to pull them out, because I didn't know how tight in there they should be and I heard sometimes they break off in their holes. In hindsight, I should've asked on SS. I just don't like to bother people for help, I'm strange that way.
So I put in new glow plugs. That was not terribly hard. I also installed a frost plug block heater, the truck had never had one. I say frost plug because the truck had some kind of inline heater on the lower rad hose. I've heard people call that a block heater. That one didn't do it's job very well. Next, my fuel filter sprung a leak. The "spider spring" (stamped steel round thing with 7 or 8 legs) that kept the vacuum sensor (tan colored thing, 2 wires, has a sponge lookin thing stuck on it, hidden behind rectangular fuel filter) in it's hole. After bending the spring back a few times, siliconing it in, securing it with wire, cutting a hockey puck into a disc to stick in the hole, drilling tapping and plugging the hole with a brass plug, (yes i tried ALL of those things) it started leaking elsewhere (I think from the heat element, but at that point I really didn't care anymore). I looked into other filter systems and decided to go with one from Stanadyne, the manufacturer of the original filter system. (original was called "model 80") I bought an FM100 filter head, 3 filters and a sight bowl (to check water level) from Midwest Fuel Injection for about $150. Hooked it up with pipe parts and fuel hose from the local hardware store, and I'm good to go again. I should've done that in the first place.
Now I'm basically good to go.. except that somebody put in crappy heater hoses that were leaking. So now I have footlong hoses and a 3" piece of copper pipe where my heater core should be. I didn't think I'd need my heater in the summer, so even though I have all the stuff to fix it, it wasn't a big priority. Today I realized that the heat makes a big difference in keeping the windshield clear.. cause if it's raining hard or you've got friendly company.. that windshield is impossible to see through.
Anyways, thanks again for the warm welcome. I look forward to begging for help from, and providing whatever humble advice I've learned in my experiences to you guys. Good luck on all your projects!
- Big Red's (aka Diesel Tank, Diesel Beast, Fire Tank, THE Beast, etc..) driver
