K30 Crew cab wrecker

[red EOD]

Well wasn't planning to deal with the bed build until at least the spring but, when something pops up for the right price.........



















Both of those booms pivot and with some sheet metal mods the bed can be flat. Which makes it easy to self load heavy stuff on the truck. Plenty of rear winch strength and room for lots of cable on the drum. As for pulling a gooseneck trailer, the booms can be separated from each other and laid down flat on the bed.

Going to part out the rest of the donor regular cab pickup as quickly as I can.

 

[78K30]

I’m infinitely jealous of that, nice score!

 

[red EOD]

Haha thanks. Got spoiled having a crane with the old military wrecker I used to have so when I found this and realized it could be modified to pull a gooseneck trailer as well, decided to go for it.

Loaded it up and brought it home today. 6.2 maintained 60mph well enough for most of the trips but could smell a hill from a mile away hahaha.

One thing that's I've been thinking about was whether to convert the wrecker bed to hydraulics, or just run the single tcase PTO to the bed and forget about other systems. When I got a closer look at the PTO drive for the wrecker I found out that it won't be a problem to power both the hydraulic pump and the wrecker bed. Without having to change the bed drive components.

Considering using it's front springs as well. Either that or the rear 56"s from a 3/4 ton I picked up awhile ago.

 

[stockk5]

damn that is so cool

 

[Truckman4life]

Pretty sure I might have seen you headed north on I15 in Utah county on Friday. Not with this in tow but I saw the top of a yellow crew cab with a service bed on it while I was headed south on the other side of the center wall.

 

[red EOD]

Pretty sure I might have seen you headed north on I15 in Utah county on Friday. Not with this in tow but I saw the top of a yellow crew cab with a service bed on it while I was headed south on the other side of the center wall.

Friday around noon? Yep I was headed north to go pick up the wrecker at that time. Can't miss that ugly yellow with a rusty bed slowly puttin along at 60mph hahaha

 

[red EOD]

Ah the best laid plans.

So today I was planning to swap out the wiring harness outside of the cab and tear apart the front clip for some paint prep. Then a friend of mine mentioned that "hey your almost at the point of swapping the engine at that point......."

Only things keeping the 6.2 in right now are the engine mounts, trans crossmember, shifter linkage, and fuel lines. Hopefully will have the 4BD1T sitting in the engine bay by the end of tomorrow.

 

[red EOD]

Disassembly is complete. Next is to finish cleaning followed by paint and then getting the Isuzu 4bd1t/th400/np205 into the truck.

 

[red EOD]

Run down to the local car wash after scraping most of the grease off the frame/firewall. Planning to paint those tomorrow

 

[obijuank5]

Bravo on a bit of cleaning.

 

[red EOD]

It needed it, some of that oil/grime was about 1/4" thick. But, with the 6.2 leaking oil like it had been served as a great rust inhibitor hahaha.


Redneck engine bay paint booth assembled, used, and torn down. I think that 'hammered copper' color will turn out well. Frame is the usual glossy black (painted after the pic along with second coat of copper).

 

[red EOD]

Reassembly has begun!!

Bellhousing adapter first followed by the trans/tcase.



Followed by some wiggling to get the drivetrain into the chassis. Used the original trans/tcase crossmember location as a reference mount. The Isuzu mounts sit about 4" forward of the stock GM mounts, and the chassis side of the GM mounts are in the way of the starter as well as the bypass oil filter. Could rotate the starter and switch to the single oil filter setup from the newer 4BD2T engine. Or just remove the original GM mounts and build some new ones out of plate steel which fixes the starter/oil filter issues as well. So I'm going with the latter option.









And the factory Isuzu air cleaner assembly arrived today.

 

[red EOD]

Well didn't quite work out how I wanted. To get the engine down where I want it to be required removing the engine crossmember completely, and had to rotate the starter. The dual oil filter setup is all set and I'll build the new crossmember in the next day or 2. Have to do the suspension lift soon since the oil pan and front diff are close. Will clear if the axle moves straight up but if flexed out with the passenger side up it could hit the pan right now.




After the pics I got the driveshafts, starter, parking brake cable, fuel lines, and the air lines for the front bags all hooked up. So all remaining work is just in the engine bay. The new 3 gallon reservoir and Isuzu power steering pump arrived over the weekend as well.

Things that are left:
-Paint the rest of the front clip pieces
-Engine crossmember welded together and bolted on
-Wiring harness and glowplug harness (staying with manual on that)
-Plumb in heater core and coolant filter
-Plumb in external transmission filter and rest of system
-Install new power steering pump
-Plumb hydroboost system with new tank/filter/pump
-Rebuild the injectors
-Exhaust
-Air intake
-Mount and plumb intercooler
-Turbo oil lines
-Install new electric vacuum pump and find a way to make the transmission controller work with the new engine
-Throttle linkage
-Engine shutdown

 

[Truckman4life]

Nice progress! Where did you get the adapter from?

 

[red EOD]

Nice progress! Where did you get the adapter from?

http://www.dieseladapters.com/TRANSMISSION_ADAPTERS.html

Got one of his kits used from another guy. The kit is good quality, but the manufacturer can take forever to get it shipped out

 

[red EOD]

Got around to doing some more to the truck today. Mostly paint prep for the engine bay stuff and building the new engine crossmember. Drill it's holes tomorrow to secure it to the underside of the frame and setup the engine mounts. Moving the mounts so they sit vertically instead of angled at 45 degrees.

New front spring hangers are painted as well. Don't have all the parts for the suspension lift but these mounts replace the bracket for the core support.

Mounted the cover for the cowl (filter? cover? whatever the hell it is haha). That grey color is what the bed/front bumper will be painted as well. Matches the planned seats.

 

[red EOD]

Not much of a visual change but the worst of this project is now complete. Engine crossmember is secured and the new engine mounts are complete (painted after the pics).

The new front leaf spring hangers are attached as well. Need the suspension lift for the axle to comfortably clear the engine oil pan and it's much easier to install these mounts before the core support goes back into place. Swaybar is now removed.

 

[red EOD]

Looking more like a truck once again.




Installed the injectors followed by the oil feed line for the hx35 turbo. Haven't setup the oil drain hose for the turbo yet. Setup all the plumbing on the engine for the cooling system. Spent some time cleaning up the ouside of the radiator where stuff had gotten stuck between the radiator and AC condenser. Need to take it to a car wash for a better cleaning and to get the last of the green antifreeze out of it.

Routing and wrapping the new wiring harness (well 1 year old new) took most of the time today.






Once I pick up some things to tie up the wiring harness/plumbing it will look more organized. With the exception of the driver side airbag hose and the turbo oil feed line, all the plumbing is getting routed along the passenger side. So for now ignore the mess of vacuum and transmission hoses that are draped all over the engine.





Wires for the engine are being routed along 2 paths. Starter wires are going under the column directly to the starter which keeps it away from the exhaust. The sensor, injection pump, AC compressor, and alternator wires will run along the valve cover.

 

[red EOD]

Pulled the service bed. Have a friend that will be painting the truck as his project for the spring semester at the university. Figured get the bed out of his way so the rear of the cab can be painted. Means the truck project will be on hold for a few months. There's really not a hell of a lot left to do with the engine swap project besides plumbing and connecting the wiring.

Radiator was dropped off today, couple leaks to deal with.





Old service bed say hello to Holmes 500 wrecker bed haha.






While the crew cab is getting painted the blue donor truck will start getting stripped down and the gooseneck service trailer will be getting some work as well.

 

[red EOD]

New urethane bushings installed in the replacement front leaf springs today. Springs are 1900 lb rated rear 56" from a mid 80's 3/4 ton. Also removed the bottom overload leaf. Should net 3-4" of lift along with a much smoother ride and more axle articulation. Some people have mentioned that rears springs up front can cause issues when driving around town because of how soft they are, but with the airbags up front they should provide the extra firmness when on the pavement and air them down when offroad to soften them up.

Mag drill chewed through the rubber fairly quick, then cut a slot in the outer sleeve followed by pounding the sleeve out with a hammer/chisel. Hardest part was removing the remains of the inner sleeve out of the annular cutter on the drill hahaha. 1 7/16" cutter that's 3" deep.