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My bro's 90 International 7100 (It's pretty big!!!!!)

Kay86K5

Kay86K5

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So I am going to drag my brother's build thread over here from pirate4x4 because I know lots of guys on here are interested in it. He isn't a paying member here so he can't post in this section. Anywho here goes:

Aight, here comes a new build thread. Here is some background on me and why I went the way I did.

I always hear and read about guys who wonder how a MDT/HDT would tow, or if they could do it themselves. Well I pretty much had the opinion (only about 6 months ago) that they were too cumbersome, slow, hard to store, hard to find parts, uncomfortable etc. And while I still think that they are uncomfortable (at least mine is) they have a lot of up side, and if you can, you have the ability to score some really awesome trucks for a fraction of the price of a used light duty diesel.

So I have 4 kids, and I want more. Ideally I will end up with 6 or 7. So that means when I go wheeling I will need to have 2 rigs, and a way to haul them to the trail as well as somewhere for all those little twerps to sleep. So there are a few ways I could accomplish this...

1. 2 tow rigs, and 2 trailers, hauling 2 rigs, one with a camper/travel trailer on top for everyone to camp in.

2. A 3/4-1 ton truck with a 2 rig gooseneck trailer hauling 2 rigs and a second truck hauling a travel trailer.

3. Skippedlink style with a big rig that has a flatbed hauling a toy hauler with a second rig on top.

I already have a 2000 3/4 ton burb (seats 9) that I have made some changes to for better towing and I have been really happy with how it works. My wife daily drives it and we tow crap around with it about every other weekend.

So I started hitting craigslist pretty hard and like every thread in this section says... light duty diesel's are super inflated right now. $13k for a 15 year old piece of crap with 300k on the odometer... NO THANK YOU!!! I have the income to be able to go buy a brand new diesel without really feeling it, but that just isn't me, and I personally find buying a brand new vehicle to be one of the most foolish financial decisions anyone could make. Anywho, on with the boraphil.

So instead I bought this hunk of scrap...



Specs: 1990 International 7100. DT466 all mechanical (250hp). Eaton fuller 6 speed manual. 25k rearend with 4.44 ratio. 12k front axle. Shorter wheel base (tractor). 22.5 wheels, air brakes. And it only has 50k miles on it. At least that's what the working odometor says.

Yes, it is a daycab, so it will at best be able to haul 3 people, but no matter what I was going to have to bring two tow rigs. So now the International will be hauling the 2 trail rigs, and my wife will be toting the kids in the burb as a chase truck. This way my wife doesn't have to tow anything, and the kids can ride in comfort (quiet, movies, etc). Also we will have a comfortable rig to drive around town in wherever we travel to. Plus it will act as a backup tow rig if the semi ever bites the dust.

Also I often go wheeling by myself for the day at a local park. This way the International can just haul my Jimmy without a trailer, and do it without feeling it. Frankly, the International just gave me so much more options than a crew cab 1 ton did, and I picked it up for probably 1/3rd the price.

Before starting my search I pretty much knew nothing about mdt/hdt trucks other than what I passively saw in this forum section. I would like to thank all those guys who post up their builds, and their experience with these trucks because I learned a lot about makes/models/motors on here. And thanks to everyone who responded to this thread:

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/tow-rigs-trailers/2097393-calling-all-mdt-owners.html

I still consider myself to be a rookie when it comes to these big rigs, so I am looking for everyone to school me a bit in this thread as well. If you think I am doing something stupid, or have criticism, feel free. This is pirate after all.
 
So first on the list was to take the dump bed off. The history on this truck was that it was originally owned by Oak Harbor Freight Lines, just hauled shorter semi trailers around town, and sold off at a certain age. A farmer bought it, removed the 5th wheel, and slapped this non working dump bed on. I bought it from said farmer because he just wasn't using it.

I don't have a good crane/hoist so this is my nigga riggin







This is what it looks like as a cab and chassis. Man does it ride rough like this :D


The pintle hitch is air assisted and it is setup with trailer airbrake lines. That is 1" plate that the hitch is mounted to.
 
So onto the flatbed. I wanted as low as possible, as simple as possible, but it had to fit my ridiculously big full size rig on it. If it fit that, then it will fit anything else I want to put on it. If this design looks familiar, I took a few pages out of skippedlink's, and chestonscout's book.

For material I used 2x4 rectangular tubing. .188 wall for the weight bearing areas, and .120 wall for the rest. I want to keep this truck as light as possible so that I can legally register it and not be overweight, but still be stout enough.



I mounted the flatbed to the frame in the same spot as the dump bed.



The start of the raised wheel wells. Just cut a 45 degree, and slapped it on top and brace it up a bit. The diamond plate is 1/8".
 
Onto the dove. The dimensions of my bed are 10.5' flat, and 3.5' dove. 14 ft total. The dove is at 24 degrees. High school trigonometry came in handy to see what angle I had to put the dove at for the hitch height I wanted.



this thing has a big A$$!


Don't freak out about this pic, it gets bracing.


The deck is 100" wide
 
I cut a notch into the back for the hitch, gave it some bracing with a flat piece of 2x4 and then tied it into the pintle plate.


But before I could burn them in I had to finish my welding.


For the deck, I had some left over crappy 2x6's that I sanded down and stained with an oil stain. That should help them last another few rainy winters.

Unstained


Sanded and stained. Props to my wife for doing the sanding.
 
For trailer wiring I had to do some finangling.

Semi uses a 7 prong, round pin, whereas recreational uses 7 prong, flat pin. Semi's have brake lights, and turn signals on different circuits. So I had to combine them to work with my trailer. Here is my adapter with a circuit converter that you can find in the trailer wiring section of any autoparts store.



I used some LED trailer lights.


And tried my best to keep water out of the tubing


The decking was screwed down to some angle, and even added to the dove. Also a long piece of 1" angle was added to hold ramps in place.


If you look close at that picture, I put some 2x4 vertical braces between the deck and the flat dove tie-ins.




Wired up the lights (notice the original lights still work)


And permanent mounting for the trailer lights
 
Now it was time for fitment. I'd say it fits. :flipoff2:





It looks tail heavy, but keep in mind that the heavier front axle, motor and trans are in front of the axle. The doubler is roughly centered over the axle. It drives pretty nice like this and isn't unstable in the least. The wheelwell sags about 1", and the hitch drops about 2" with no notice lift at the front bumper. The dove doesn't flex at all during loading. I have yet to weigh it like this. My guess is 20k with about 11k on the rear axle.
 
Onto the interior.

The interior definitely is not done, and is a work in progress. Sorry I don't have before pics. Just imagine that a dog was riding shotgun, and ripped up the mat/insulation to make his own nest, and then shot diarrhea all over the cab. Now you know what it looked like when I bought it. But I saw through that and imagined what it would look like cleaned up. So these are the cleaned up shots... well I guess 2 months after I cleaned it up.

So all it came with was a driver air seat. No passenger seat. There is no reclining, no arm rests, you just sit like an erected penis and adjust the air base. The air ride works perfect, however after 3 hours strait in this seat I have to stop because my back starts screaming at me.



here is a shot of the floor. I ripped out the mat and floor insulation and was happy to only see pitting on the floor. There were no soft spots or rusted holes. So I wire wheeled it, encapsulated it, and then painted it black. I also replaced the weather stripping on that engine tunnel since the old stuff was ripped up. Sorry no pics of that.



Also found a replacement shifter boot on amazon, the old one was pretty tore up, and I snagged a cheap walmart cup holder to keep track of the registration papers and my brewsky's (or a spray bottle of washer fluid because my washer fluid pump is broke :shaking:).



The truck don't have A/C so a trucker fan was in order. Found it on amazon. Boy does it make a big difference when sitting at a stop light in the summer sun. It doesn't help my swamp A$$ though.



Since the old shifter looked like it had 20 years worth of someone's gizz built up on it, i snagged this biohazard knob from diy4x.com. I was surprised they had one in this thread pattern.



And since I didn't like the ability to keep an eye on my load/trailer i also ordered this cheap standard rearview mirror. Placed it in the middle of the windshield so the visors are still useable and that's right at eye level for the average sized driver.

 
The dash was a diarrhea brown, so I took it apart and panted some stuff. The dash is now flat olive green and the panels are black. I am thinking I will paint the cab that same flat olive green.



There also was no radio, so a little cutting and a standard deck was in order. There were already mounts for 5" round speakers behind the heads of both passengers so I just picked up some budget speakers and a jvc deck. It ain't fancy, but it plays music, and that's all I care about.



Also that is a new bendix push pull valve for air control. The old one had a crack in the housing and was leaking air. An expensive little part, which for what I paid I was surprised that bendix didn't have the decency to put the knob on strait. :mad3:

Also as a temporary passenger seat I threw in my old GMC Jimmy seat and belt. Belt bolted into stock locations. Had to drill holes for the seat, and used some huge washers to ensure they don't pull out. I really want to get a better seat setup in there. Ideal would be air seats for 3 passengers, so if anyone has any air seats available... I am interested.

 
Okay so everything posted in this build was done in 6 weeks. In the process I legally registered it here in washington. I will post a few specifics for those interested. I do know that washington state CDL laws are similar to most western states except Commifornia.

I do not have a CDL, nor do I have the ability to get one right now. So I knew before I bought this truck that I was going to declassify a higher rated vehicle down to 26k gvw. This truck was registered at 60k :eek:.

So here are the basics for washington:

1. Anything used for private use only, with a GVW of 26K or less, can be registered as private/non commercial.
2. If the truck doesn't require a CDL and it has air brakes, you don't need the air brake endorsement on your license.
3. You also don't need a DOT number if you are private and under 26k.
4. Although not required by law, it was recommended to me by the highway patrol to ensure a not-for-hire sticker be on the truck so they don't chase me when I bypass the scales.

So it actually was very simple for me. I just told them to change the gvw when I title/registered it. That was it! No mile restrictions. It was about 50% more expensive than my 3/4 ton burb due to the higher GVW but it was substantially cheaper than what the previous owner was paying for his higher GVW.

Luckily I live at a non-emissioned address, booya.. nothing to worry about there.

Insurance was a snap as well. I have USAA insurance for all my cars, but they didn't offer a policy for this make/model and wanted to farm me out to progressive. I hate progressive because I think they are a bunch of homo/gay/obama/libtard supporters and their quote was unnecessarily high to me. So I went to my local state farm agent and he wrote me up with a great policy comparable to my other cars that day. It is a little more expensive than my other cars but only by about 20%.
 
So what do you do with a 25 year old truck, that you pretty much know nothing about and have no way to tow it if something goes wrong?





You drive it across the country by yourself of course. :D :laughing: :eek:




I took it to blazerbash in moab. I live in western Washington so it was a pretty good haul. It ended up being 2500 miles total on the International. I left on a Saturday and was gone for 10 days and 9 nights. I slept in the pop up on the flatbed every night including the drive there and back. That ended up saving lots of money I otherwise would have spent on a motel or something. And luckily gas prices dipped down right before I left so diesel was cheaper than I budgeted for. Pretty much the only maintenance I did was change the oil, and all the filters.

All that being said I did daily drive it for a whole month before I left, just to boost my confidence before leaving. I work on an Army base, and the gate attendants laugh at me every time I roll up with this big beast.

Anywho a pic of right as I rolled out.



I weighed it at a CAT scale (setup as above) and it weighed around 23.5K which is right where I assumed it would be. My best guess is 12k semi, 10k truck/trailer/camper, and about 1500lbs of gear. That should be perfect to fit my willy's on the semi like this and stay under 26k with less gear.

Some pics of our camp at AreaBFE.





Both my bro and I's rigs are not street legal and even if they were AreaBFE is miles from any other trail so we threw my rig on the semi, and towed his on his trailer. It was a fun time. This is a surprisingly short setup and was no biggie going in and out of parking lots. Every time I see pics of the International setup like this it gives me wood...



 
Alright so a review of how the International did.

#1: It is crazy stable.

Obviously. For the long distance driving I had the trail rig on the trailer. The trailer with the camper on the front does have a healthy amount of tongue weight, but the hitch doesn't even sag an inch with it. I ran on lots of windy 2 lane mountain passes and the International doesn't get pushed around by the trailer in the least. This was my first real trip with a mdt or hdt and I definitely see why guys love using them.

#2: The power was adequate.

I didn't feel like it had freight train power, but 0-30mph starts it only lagged a slight amount when compared to empty. Once in 5th it would definitely accelerate slower than empty but still had no problem going whatever speed I wanted in either 5th or 6th. It redlines at 2700 rpms and that was right at 70mph. So most of the time I was cruising at 65, which was right on par with all the 18 wheelers. 1-2% grades it didn't even feel. 3-4% foothill type grades and I was dropping down to 5th and holding 55 mph easily. 5-6% mountain grades I would rarely have to drop to 4th and it would hold 45mph up pretty much anything. All of this was much faster than the loaded 18 wheelers as I was able to pass them up pretty much any hill no problem. I am really glad I got the higher rated DT466. Even at 250hp I found myself wanting more (I guess when I think about it, nobody has ever said they want less power). I probably will do a few simple mods to squeak about 20% more power out of it. But realistically it does fine for how I will use it over the next few years.

#3: I love air brakes.

That is all... Ha ha. They are obviously touchy unloaded but with a load they grab wonderfly. Of course 23.5K isn't much for this truck.

#4: I need new seats.

Before I do another 5+ hour drive in this truck, there will be a more comfortable seat. I had to stop way too often just to move around so my back would quit hurting, and that's coming from someone who has driven 21 hours strait only stopping twice in my suburban with no problems. I can handle long drives but that erected penis seat just is punishment after 3 hours.

#5: It is loud.

I am used to old American iron and driving in loud trucks so this was no biggie for me. I just used ear plugs. The ear plugs actually seemed to make it easier to listen to the radio or for problematic noises. Obviously not much for making conversation. This was definitely accentuated by the lack of insulation. I will eventually insulate the entire thing, it just pains me how much good sound deadening insulation is.

#6: Air compressor cycles a little too much.

Even though I replaced the only noticed leak (push pull valve) the air compressor still cycled a bit faster than it should. It pisses out the evaporator every couple of minutes. Tank #2 leaks down overnight but doesn't have a noticeable air leak via the high tech soapy water test so I am going to have to do some more exploring to find the culprit.



Overall I don't regret picking this thing up. I have a lot more fun driving it than I would a light duty truck.
 
So once I got back from that trip I needed to get back to work on finishing the bed. No way would I be able to run a gooseneck or 5th wheel hitch with that long dove on there. So I had to make the dove removeable.

I ran down to the metal store to pick up some angle for loading ramps. While I was there I found this piece of channel in the scrap pile. 15" channel, 1/2" thick, with 1" webbing. Should be strong enough.



This is a 2 5/16" gooseball with 2" rise. It has a 1 1/2" shank and is rated for 30k. The square plates are some roll cage plates with indexing pins from diy4x.com. Their dimensions were just right for my use, which was nice because now I didn't have to build them. I just trimmed down the centering pin so I could slide them into place.



And this is how I did it. One plate at a time, just cut a 1/2" slit and welded it into place. Then I moved to the next one.


And eventually once all of the flanges were welded in, it could unbolt. The pintle hitch is now useable again.


I drilled some 5/8" holes and mocking up location of the goosehitch. This piece of channel will bolt to the frame, but be welded to the flatbed so that it all can be removed.


The 2" rise should make it easier to hook a gooseneck trailer up without as much hassle.


Sorry bad pic but it now is bolted to the frame and welded in. I just need to fill in those gaps.
 
I made some simple ramps out of the angle, and will make a booty fab holder for them on the underside of the bed. Dove and ramps getting some paint.



And that for the most part is up to date.
 
Pump, from what I understand this is a MW pump.




The turbo, there is no boost gauge, or pyrometer, so unfortunately I have not clue what pressure this thing is running at. It just seems pretty small to me. I am a bit of a rookie when it comes to big diesel turbos though.


Intercooler in front, radiator in back.


And a really crappy pic of the intercooler... and no nothing is leaking, it just has rained here for 3 freaking weeks strait.
 
So I figured I would post some finishing work I have done to the flatbed.

Under side picture of the gooseneck ball mount. I took a piece of leftover 4" channel and braced it perpendicular to the larger channel. Welded in place. Now it has 3/4" mounting hole thickness with the web helping support it. Will be strong enough for my use.


I cleaned and painted some stuff, including the pintle hitch and plate.


Some trailer safety chain/tie-down d-rings were in order.


Drilled a hole for another trailer wiring connection.




Lots of hours of the wire wheel, primer and paint.


I moved the center marking light to a spot where you could see it.


Permanently mounted the trailer air brake lines.


Reflective trailer tape gives it more of a finished touch.


Re-aligning the dove back in to place took a little massaging, but was overall pretty strait from how it came off. I guess my technique for getting those flanges on there worked.
 
And some walk around pics











For the ramps I just quickly built some hangers on 3 sides and ratchet strap them in there. I really don't like permanently attached tip up ramps on the rear, and I also don't like rattling ramps. I am hoping this works long term because they are easy to slide in there and strap in, we will see. It would always be easy to rework.

 
And that's where he sits right now. Fully upto date, I will try and drag over any updates he does. I think next will be some power upgrades, better seats, sound deadening in the cab, and to paint the cab.
 
was following this on other board, looks good all painted now.
 
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