On episode 25 of HOT ROD Garage
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MotorTranscript
00:00 Welcome back to Hi-Rod Garage presented by Lincoln Tech.
00:02 In this episode we're going to do something new, something you guys have asked for.
00:05 We're going to do a diesel swap.
00:27 Now I've got this old D200 that Fryberger bought to yank the big block out and put in
00:30 the General Mayhem originally, but it turns out this 400 has an imbalance problem so he
00:35 couldn't use it.
00:36 So I wound up with this old clean truck that needs a new heart and I wound up digging up
00:39 this 1995 beat up 12 valve Dodge automatic.
00:43 We're going to take the engine trans out of this, jam it in here and this thing is going
00:47 to run like a champ.
00:48 But first, take your shirts off and get ready because Clarence Barnes is about to hose you
00:53 down with some knowledge with this quick tech tip from Lincoln Tech.
01:02 Ever wonder why there are so many different types of sealants for sale at your local parts
01:05 house?
01:06 Well it's because they all have different applications.
01:09 Some cure faster than others, some work in high heat areas, and others never fully cure
01:14 so you can take your engine apart again and again.
01:17 You can choose the right sealant based on a few simple criteria.
01:20 First, what liquid do you want to keep from leaking?
01:23 Second, what is the gasket made of and how hot will the surface of the part get?
01:28 And third, will you ever need to surface this part again?
01:32 Well in general, thin paper gaskets don't like exposure to chemicals and can be sealed
01:36 with a low temperature sealant such as Permatex Indian head sealant.
01:40 Copper sealants dry fast and contain metal in the formula to seal metal surfaces found
01:45 in exhaust manifolds and cylinder heads.
01:48 RTV stands for room temperature volatile silicone.
01:52 Now RTV can be used without a gasket to seal surfaces up to 750 degrees Fahrenheit depending
01:58 on which tube you grab off the shelf.
02:00 In a pinch, you can use anaerobic type sealants for a quick roadside repair to an area where
02:05 air isn't present to help cure the sealant.
02:09 Lincoln Tech can teach you how to have a career working with cars.
02:13 See LincolnTech.edu.
02:16 So our donor vehicle today is this 1995 Ram 2500 that I just dug out of a junkyard.
02:22 It's all banged up, it's half stripped inside and it's got a bad title.
02:26 But inside, what we need is great.
02:28 I picked a 12 valve with a 47RH automatic because it's a super simple swap.
02:33 There's almost no wiring to it.
02:35 These motors are rad, they last forever, they get killer mileage.
02:38 Right now gas prices in California are like $4.50, diesel is under $3.00 so that's going
02:42 to be great every week.
02:44 These things are super responsive to basic modifications.
02:47 Later on once we get it running, I'm going to do a turbo upgrade, some injectors and
02:50 stuff, try to make about 800 foot pounds of torque.
02:52 This thing is going to rip.
02:53 First, we have to take all the parts we need out of this thing and then we can trash this
02:57 old truck.
02:58 All right, we're going to start tearing this donor Dodge apart.
03:07 I brought my buddy Colin here who is a master fabricator.
03:09 He used to work on my race team.
03:12 He helped build my last pro drift car.
03:14 But he's here today to turn some wrenches and then apply his magical fabrication skills
03:18 when we build all these mounts and linkages and stuff like that.
03:21 So let's tear this hood off, Colin.
03:26 You ready?
03:28 All right, the nice part about a junk donor truck is we don't really care about it.
03:33 We're only here to get the good stuff out and everything else we can just rip out of
03:36 the way.
03:40 So we're going to try to use the stock radiator, intercooler, trans cooler, all this stuff,
03:46 get a totally stock setup running in the other truck first, then start to upgrade it with
03:50 like a bigger intercooler, higher flooding turbo, stuff like that so we can see stock
03:55 to modified power levels.
03:58 These engines are great because the fully mechanical fuel system is super responsive
04:02 to modifications.
04:04 All you do is add a couple of hard parts here and there and it starts to make a ton of power.
04:08 Yeah, that'll just blend right in.
04:18 We're a little worried that there was no coolant in the radiator, so this is a great sign.
04:21 The drain was clogged up, so when I opened it, nothing came out, so we had to drain it
04:24 out of the hose and made a little bit of a mess.
04:25 We'll just push it back and clean it up in a minute.
04:26 Not that fun.
04:27 That's good.
04:28 We're just going to get underneath it real quick and disconnect the last few things that
04:46 are connected, the drive shaft, transmission linkage, fuel lines, probably loosen up the
04:52 transmission mount while we have good access to it, put it back down, connect the hoist,
04:56 take the rest of the mounts out, yank it out.
05:11 We have pulled everything that connects this engine to the truck off.
05:15 All we got to do is get this chain on it, disconnect the mounts, yank it out.
05:26 This is like a cab forward early truck, so the cowl comes over the back two cylinders
05:32 and there's only about this much room to lift the engine and trans up and out, and we just
05:35 could not squeeze it out, so it took like two minutes and pulled all the body mounts
05:38 out, jacked the cab up, and now there's a bunch more room which should come right out.
05:52 Body back down on the frame.
05:53 All right, we finally got this beast of an engine and transmission out of that Dodge.
05:57 It's a tighter fit than I thought it would be, but it's now clear.
06:01 It weighs a lot.
06:02 It's hard to whirl around and handle, but it's out and we can start cleaning it up and
06:06 getting it ready to go into truck number two.
06:09 Yeah, I don't think that's ever been out of there.
06:18 We got the 12 valve out of the 95 truck.
06:21 We're about to pull the 400 big block and 727 out of the D200, the old truck, but before
06:26 we do that, we're going to take as much body parts off as we can.
06:30 We need to get a lot of access to the cross member and to the frame of this truck because
06:33 we're going to be welding up and fabricating engine mounts, so we're going to need to be
06:36 able to crawl in there and measure everything, make sure everything is perfectly.
06:40 So we're going to take off as much as we can.
06:56 After we tore the whole front end off the old D200, we've got the 440 all disconnected
07:02 and we're about to yank it out.
07:03 See if I can clear these mount studs.
07:10 Normally in a truck this size, you've got fenders up here, the engine is like two feet
07:16 in, it's almost impossible to access anything, so we spent the time to pull the entire front
07:20 clip off and now we have all this access, which is nice for pulling this 400 out, but
07:26 it's going to be crucial when we're in there measuring and welding with the 12 valves going
07:31 in.
07:32 We've got headers on this engine and it's making it a tight squeeze.
07:35 We're going to just pull the motor mounts off the frame and it should squeeze out.
07:40 If not, we'll just pull the headers off.
07:43 Shouldn't be a big deal.
07:49 All right, we have got the 400 and 727 yanked out of the D200.
08:06 We said before we pulled the whole front end apart so we have good access here and now
08:11 my man Colin is going to go to work.
08:14 We've got to get that 12 valve mounted in here.
08:16 There's a bunch of stuff to consider, what do you have to figure out first Colin?
08:20 First we're going to have to put the engine in there, see where it fits, just give us
08:25 a better idea of what we need to prep.
08:28 What we're dealing with just right off the bat, it's just going to be put it in there,
08:32 take it right back out and then start cleaning everything up.
08:34 After that's all cleaned we can start making some mounts for that.
08:38 We have to be wary of stuff like frame width, where the oil pan is going to sit and the
08:43 cross member, we want to get it, we measured earlier, we want to get the engine as far
08:47 back as we can because the overall depth of the engine bay is a couple of inches shorter.
08:52 We've got some stuff to figure out.
08:54 Looks like there's a ton of room but it's actually going to have to be placed exactly
08:57 right.
08:59 But first shove it in there and take some measurements.
09:02 Exactly.
09:03 All right, let's do that.
09:04 It's a pretty tight fit as far as the transmission.
09:22 We're trying to come in pretty level so we can lift it easily up and down into place.
09:26 It's got a deep sump and big transmission so there's not a ton of room.
09:30 We're going to flatten the lip on the sheet metal of the cab where it is on the transmission
09:36 hump, fold it up, give us a little bit more room and then I'm going to change the angle
09:40 of the chain so we come in a little more angle.
09:42 It'll be harder to deal with and lift back up but it should go into place easier.
10:01 So there's just about enough room to squeeze that in but it looks like it's going to be
10:06 miserable like everything's touching.
10:09 So we're going to probably notch the crossmember just a little bit to let the engine, the oil
10:13 sump in the pan kind of scoot into it and then we can drop the whole thing down and
10:18 it'll go into where we want it.
10:19 So pull it out, fire up the plasma cutter, make some room.
10:32 Okay, we've got the engine in finally and sort of in place.
10:57 Transmission's up as high as it can go.
10:58 It's running into the floor already so that means it's pretty much where it's going to
11:03 stay.
11:04 We've got to make some moves now to get the front of the engine down to get everything
11:06 leveled out.
11:07 Colin's going to cut the stock mount plates off of the frame so he can make his own.
11:12 He's going to start boxing that in for strength and figure it out.
11:15 If we can get those mounts out of our way, drop this thing where it needs to sit and
11:19 we're happy with everything then we can start mounting it in.
11:20 If we run into any more issues we may have to start talking about other options like
11:23 a body lift, something like that to get the floor out of the way of the engine so it can
11:27 sit level but that has its own bunch of issues that come with it as far as we have to extend
11:31 the steering shaft and the radiator starts to co-up with the body and the engine stays
11:36 down and it's kind of its own mess of problems.
11:39 So right now we're going to try to keep it simple, leave the body where it is, make some
11:43 room in the crossmember for this engine to go down.
11:52 So we cut the stock motor mounts out of the crossmember here and it should give us enough
12:14 room to get the engine where we think we want it.
12:15 Hopefully this is the last thing we have to cut out of the car and we can start making
12:18 parts and Colin can start welding up mounts.
12:22 Got it?
12:24 Yeah now we can get it where it's got to go.
12:29 That looks better.
12:30 Alright after a bunch of hammering, pulling this giant engine in and out about 10 times
12:34 we have it sitting where we want it and Colin's going to go ahead and start making the mounts
12:38 which means he's going to box off part of the frame, make cradles for these modern mounts
12:42 and go back and make a transmission mount.
12:44 Once that's done there's about a million other problems to figure out so we're going to get
12:48 started.
12:49 Colin you ready?
12:55 Alright so I'm figuring out the transmission shifter linkage now and it looks like the
13:08 727 that was in here and the 47RH must be related because everything is in just about
13:13 the same place.
13:14 The 47RH just has a little bit beefier shifting components so I don't think it's going to
13:18 be hard to make something.
13:20 Kind of mix and match these parts to make something work.
13:22 I'm just about done actually.
13:25 Colin!
13:27 Shift it?
13:29 It works?
13:31 Hell yeah!
13:33 Alright it's noon on the third day of this swap.
13:41 The 12 valve is sitting in the D200, Colin has one engine mount mocked up already and
13:46 he's going to keep working on the other mount and the transmission mount.
13:49 I'm going to drag this engine out and go clean it up because it's disgusting and every time
13:52 we touch it it gets grease everywhere.
13:53 Alright you ready Colin?
13:54 Alright let's go.
13:55 Here's one of the engine mounts we made yesterday.
14:22 We had the engine in, verified the position was correct and then we went ahead and we
14:25 pulled the engine out and broke the tack welds off of this to remove it so we can weld it
14:29 on the bench which is much easier than welding it out of position in the chassis.
14:33 You have to make sure that you make a spacer though because if you were to weld it on the
14:36 table without this there's a chance that weld shrinkage could occur and that this warps
14:40 and then it not fit back into your original piece.
15:09 So we're back at the shop, we've got this thing cleaned up.
15:12 Colin is still finishing up the engine and transmission mounts.
15:15 I'm going to go ahead and address a couple issues with this engine.
15:18 The Cummins is basically a bullet proof motor this 12 valve but there's one Achilles heel
15:22 and that's this thing called a killer dowel pin.
15:24 There's a dowel pin inside the timing cover that's not retained and over time with vibration
15:29 it can fall out, get lodged between some gears and cause major havoc.
15:33 So my buddies at DieselPerformance.com sent me this kit to fix that.
15:36 I'm going to go ahead and put that in there.
15:37 And while I'm there I'm going to do a front main seal, water pump, a couple other things
15:41 and this thing should run forever.
15:47 Alright I've got the timing cover off and as you can see everything in here is super
15:57 beefy.
15:58 It's all gear driven but here's that little Achilles heel I was telling you about, the
16:02 killer dowel pin.
16:03 There's nothing to retain this dowel pin so eventually it can fall out, fall between these
16:07 gears and then bad things happen.
16:09 So Diesel Performance sells this cool little plate that goes in behind this bolt and it
16:13 holds that dowel pin in place so you won't have any future problems.
16:17 Let me get this out.
16:21 I'm going to get a hammer and punch and tap it in just to make sure it's where it needs
16:31 to be.
16:32 Alright there you go.
16:35 So this dowel pin hadn't fallen out but it did move out quite a bit.
16:37 I was able to knock it back in flush with a hammer and punch.
16:40 So that's it. It's a cool little thing.
16:47 Alright it is very late on the third night of this swap.
17:16 Colin's welding in those motor mounts that he fabricated.
17:19 They look awesome.
17:20 Now we were thinking in our next weird swap we might get Colin to come in and give us
17:25 a little education on fabrication basics because if you know some fabrication it opens up a
17:29 lot of doors in the hot rod world to do all sorts of creative things to cars.
17:33 If that's something you guys want to see let me hear about it in the comments.
17:38 God damn right in the eyes.
17:40 Alright guys thanks for watching.
17:47 Alright now that I've got the engine and transmission permanently bolted into place
18:17 I'm going to hook up a couple of wires and a couple of fuel lines and get this thing
18:20 fired up just to show you exactly how simple and fully mechanical these engines are.
18:24 So the only major electrical component you actually have to wire up on this engine besides
18:28 the starter and the alternator to get it running is this fuel supply solenoid.
18:32 That controls fuel supply in and out of the injection pump.
18:36 It's what actually turns the engine off because if you didn't have it it would just keep running
18:39 forever.
18:40 So it's what basically controls the whole thing.
18:43 So I did have to wire that up.
18:45 Besides that it's just starter and alternator and I'm going to get this thing fired up.
18:48 It's probably going to make a mess because it doesn't have a power steering or a drive
18:51 shaft or transmission oil cooler or any of that stuff hooked up.
18:55 So we'll just run it for a minute and make sure everything is okay.
18:58 Alright there it is.
19:27 Sounds awesome.
19:28 Alright that's it for this episode of Hot Rod Garage presented by Lincoln Tech.
19:33 This episode you saw us take a good engine out of a bad truck, a bad engine out of a
19:36 good truck, put the good engine back in.
19:38 So we've got that 12 valve Cummins mounted in.
19:40 I got it fired up but as you can see there's lots left to do before I can drive this thing
19:44 around.
19:45 We're going to get into that next episode as well as adding on a bunch of performance
19:47 parts to make this thing really sing.
19:49 Alright remember to follow us on Facebook at Hot Rod Garage so you can find me on Instagram
19:53 Tangelo96.
19:54 We'll see you next time.
19:55 Hot Rod Garage.
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20:30 Bam!
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