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Amphibious HEMTT

Elwenil said:
I'd be cutting out that crumple zone in the frame and replacing it with some tubing. You have a lot of weight hanging off the front of that frame and it was only supposed to support a bumper. Plus it just looks like shit, and I wouldn't trust Ford engineering for shit.
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I thought about that along time ago. But I had a "structure guy" run some numbers on it. He said that it is actually stronger in certain ways. He said you will never collapse that slinky unless your in a terrible front end collision. If you did collapse it, you would have allready bent a straight frame. In this case, I have two additional tubes that "triangulate" the front bumper. I have zero fear of it bending under normal conditions. As far as high speed frontal impact, indeed, I have defeated the purpose of the corrugation.
 
WaterH said:
I thought about that along time ago. But I had a "structure guy" run some numbers on it. He said that it is actually stronger in certain ways. He said you will never collapse that slinky unless your in a terrible front end collision. If you did collapse it, you would have allready bent a straight frame. In this case, I have two additional tubes that "triangulate" the front bumper. I have zero fear of it bending under normal conditions. As far as high speed frontal impact, indeed, I have defeated the purpose of the corrugation.
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I think he's talking about it bending down vs collapsing. At least plate it in, with those kinks plus the weight it could start to sag or bend upward if the bumper take a hit. I bent a similar ford frame breaking through ice crossing a river, it didn't take much.
 
AK_F250 said:
I think he's talking about it bending down vs collapsing. At least plate it in, with those kinks plus the weight it could start to sag or bend upward if the bumper take a hit. I bent a similar ford frame breaking through ice crossing a river, it didn't take much.
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Like I said, I have triangulation on the bumper back to the straight part of the frame. (With straight tube) I've seen Fords with heavy plows hanging off them for years and never Sagged. In any case, if it gives me a problem, I can always change it.
 
Been working a lot and not getting much done. I did get two push-pull cables installed next to the console. The top one is to kill the engine. This engine has a electric fuel selinoid. I didn't like that because the rest of the engine requires no electric. So I eliminated it. The bottom push-pull is for heat.

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I riveted these corner supports. This turned out to be an all day job. I had them right against the door frame. But that wasn't going to work because the door is built from the same channel that the frame is. So the door was right against this corner piece when shut. I knew I needed a little space to put some weather strip. So I cut an 1/8" off. Of course, then I had to make new corners to put in there and the holes are closer than I like. Then I put an 1/8" strip between the corner and the door frame.


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I installed this cool cigarette lighter light. From where it sits, I can light up my switch panel.


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I've been chasing leaks in my air bag system and the AC system. The air bag system is leak free from the valves to the bags, so the truck is no sitting on the stops when I come out in the morning. But I can't seal the compressor side. It's very irritating because the compressor has a fancy stainless line coming off it that leaks. There's nothing to tighten, it's a swivel nut that leaks.

The AC has also been a pita. I don't know if any of you remember this part I modified by cutting off the fittings and welding them on the other side. I put plugs in the original holes.

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Well the plugs leaked. I installed them with more Teflon tape. Still leaked. I installed them with pipe dope. They still leaked. I installed them with loctite. They still leaked. To day I cut the top of the plug off and welded the plug in. Ground down the aluminum and welded again. It looked like a smooth piece of aluminum. Bolted it on and put 50 psi to it. Sprayed it with glass cleaner and I got bubbles. I don't know what I'm going to do.
 
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The saga,

So I mentioned my AC fitting block was leaking. I finally decided I'm to shitty of a welder in aluminum. So the answer was make it out of steel. I found a chunk of steel and carved it up on the mill. Then I bought two steel fittings to weld on it. I'm not bad at welding steel. (Or so I thought)

I welded the fittings to the block with my tig welder. The welding went poorly. It seemed like I had contaminants in the weld. And, of course, it leaked. I ground the weld all off and welded again with stainless rod. This worked pretty good on the big fitting, but still the small fitting was shit. I ground the weld off and rewelded again about six times. (No exaggeration) Every time it looked like shit. The metal was smooth and beautiful when molten, but as it cooled, it turned to the surface of the moon. I didn't care how it looked, but of course, it leaked. I even tried to silver solder it. (No luck)

After doing some thinking, I noticed the the chunk of metal I carved the block out of was cast. I don't know why I used it. I guess it was closest to the size I needed. Anyways, I convinced myself that was the reason I couldn't weld it. So I got another chunk of steel. This one was of known good quality. Carved it up on the mill. Here you can see all my attempts.

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I didn't want any chance of bringing contamination over to the new block, so I got two new fittings. The fittings were plated with cadmium. I didn't think that would make any differnce, but I wasn't taking any chances. I heated both of them up cherry red to burn off the cadmium. If that wasn't enough, I sanded the very edge I was going to weld just to make sure cadmium can't survive the torch.

Tiged it up and I can say it looked much better than my previous attempts. Would you believe it leaked? Now I'm ready to kill babies. I ground the weld off and rewelded about six more times. Every time I test this I have to bolt it on the compressor, hook up the lines and charge the system with argon. It's a real pita.

I was really at Witt's end when a friend of mine called from Texas to shoot the shit. I told him of my problem and he said "why don't you stick weld it"? He told me he has stick welded AC fittings before and they didn't leak. This guy doesn't own a TIG, so I kind of dismissed the idea. I mean really, a tig is made for this kind of thing. After getting off the phone, I started scratching my head again and figured, what do I have to lose? Ground off the weld and stick welded it. Installed it and checked for leaks. I had one small leak. I removed it one more time and welded at that one spot and it sealed! Unbelievable!


In other news, I've been securing brake lines and air lines installing nut plates on interior parts. Doing some priming too. Got a few more parts riveted on the cab.

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The fittings are probably cast or made from pot metal and that is why you are getting bad welds and leaks.

Make your own fittings out of good steel and you will not have any more problems.
 
SLOWPOKE693 said:
The fittings are probably cast or made from pot metal and that is why you are getting bad welds and leaks.

Make your own fittings out of good steel and you will not have any more problems.
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:lmao: The irony of telling him to make something from scratch!

Good idea, though.
 
SLOWPOKE693 said:
The fittings are probably cast or made from pot metal and that is why you are getting bad welds and leaks.

Make your own fittings out of good steel and you will not have any more problems.
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It's possible. I tried to get stainless fittings, but couldn't find them anywhere. They would be tough to make because I don't really know how to set up the lathe for threads. (It's old and I don't have any instructions) What writing that is on it is French or Spanish. It's been 30 years since I cut threads on a lathe. Maybe I could get a bolt with those threads and just cut the o-ring seats. I'm hoping it is good now. I pressured it up and left it. We'll see in a couple days.
 
You got a truckload more patience than me, that's for sure. I should outsource the panel work on my rig to you.

Loving this thing :beer:
 
The saga continued

So I installed the AC block and it didn't leak over nite at 50 psi. I thought all was good removed it, painted it and reinstalled. I pressured it up to 100 psi of argon just to make sure. A couple days later, it's down to 65 psi. A lot better than before (leak down to zero over nite) But still it wasn't going to work. So I pressured it back to 100 psi and sprayed it down with glass cleaner. No bubbles. WTF?

Today I decided I have to find the leak. I removed the whole compressor because it was to hard to see. I hooked it back to the lines while hanging down under the truck. My plan was to try one more time with the glass cleaner. If that didn't work, I would put the whole compressor in a five gallon bucket of water.

Sprayed it down and i couldnt see any bubbles. I was just about to put it in the water when I noticed some bubbles on the side of the compressor. SOB, the compressor splits right there and obviously it has a bad seal. This was a reman that I bought off of EBay a few years ago and never hooked to anything till now. Of course there's no warrantee.

Anyways, my welding didn't leak, so a trip to the auto parts store and $200 later, I think I've got it. It's all back in and pressured up to 100 psi. I see what a couple days does. I sure am glad I used argon instead of freeon for all these tests. (Cheaper) I should have used nitrogen, but I have that tank filled with argon for back up for the tig.

In other news, santa came early,

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The green is slightly darker than the "383" green. It suits me.

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Started wiring some of the console.
 
Glad to hear you finally figured it out then. Now get to work! :flipoff2:
 
Well, lots of work, but not much to show. Bunch of sheet metal that doesn't show like deburring and filing. Also, lots of wiring. It doesn't show (except the tangled mess), but tonite I got to see this.

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That has to add 40hp and 80 ft/lbs.
 
After the Collapse, I'll pay you 10 tons of silver for that contraption :flipoff2:

Nah this is an exciting moment, congrats.:beer:
 
Man this thing has come a long way since last I saw back on the old board! Too cool that you're gettung to these bigger milestones as well, I'm going to have to go through every page and fully catch up, but good stuff.
 
evernoob said:
After the Collapse, I'll pay you 10 tons of silver for that contraption :flipoff2:

Nah this is an exciting moment, congrats.:beer:
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Flatbed said:
Nice! :beer:
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AgitatedPancake said:
Man this thing has come a long way since last I saw back on the old board! Too cool that you're gettung to these bigger milestones as well, I'm going to have to go through every page and fully catch up, but good stuff.
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Thank you all,

I always say, I don't build to the exacting standards of some of the people on this board, but you have to admit the subject matter is cool. I'm shooting for a springtime conclusion to this project. Not sure if that is optimistic. Paint is the biggest holdup because the temperature is not very good for paint right now.
 
So I got all the guages hooked up and working except the speedometer. I had some of these guages rigged to work before, but now they are hooked to the harness. I started it and let it idle while I fooled with the AC. I'm having some issues with my AC equipment, so it took a long time to put freon in. After about 20-25 minutes, I checked the water temp and it was 180. I turned the heat on and it works good.

The oil pressure was like 75 psi when I started, but went down to just under 50 after warm up. When I rev the motor, it goes to alittle over 60. I guess that's good.

I checked the pyro meter and it was real low. (Like 350-400) I guess that doesn't go up at idle. I did have that working before and it went up over 1200 on the road.

The boost gauge was basicly at 0, but I could get it to go up to a couple psi if I reved it. (It worked before on the road.)

The volt meter worked fine. (14 volts)

The fuel gauge showed 1/3 of a tank with 10 gallons on a 50 gallon tank. The shape of the tank is probably responsible for this. (Small at the bottom)

The tach needle finally moved. I had tried several things in the past and couldn't get it to move. This time I had the tach wire from my new alternator to a Decoda digital interface box and then on to the tach. The needle read 1600 at idle. My motor is running at a fast idle, but I don't think it's that fast. There is adjustment on the interface box and tach, but I don't have any number to adjust to. I'll figure out something on that.

So back to the water temp. While fooling around with the AC, the radiator fans never came on. I have two fans set to come on at 190 and 200. (Seperate switches) At one point I looked at the guages and it was at 210. I wondered why the fans were not on. So I checked power to the relays and it was good. Just for fun I grounded the sensor on each fan and they came on as they should and blew lots of hot air. I only did this for a few seconds and then checked the guage again. (180)

After lunch, I started it again and ran it for about 20 minutes. (Playing with AC again) I noticed one of the fans come on for a few seconds. (Maybe ten) I checked the guage and it was back at 180. I have several conclusions. The sensor for the guage is at the rear of the block. It is suppose to be the hottest spot. The fan switches are in the tube exiting the rad. So it might be that the guage will indicate 220 or more before the fans come on. Maybe I should put lower temp switches in. Of course it has a 190 thermostat, so if I put lower switches in, it's possible to have the fan come on before the thermostat opens. I got some questions on the diesel forum.

Anyways, I guess this is a win. Even the AC was blowing cold even though I don't believe I have it charged. My high pressure hose would not hook to the truck, so I don't have good readings. The low pressure would suck down whenever the compressor kicked on. My other issue was everytime the condenser fans kicked on my belt started chirping. Not sure if it was just the starting inrush of power because they didn't run long. Could be my belt tensioner is weak. Of course it's new. Is there a way to measure a tensioner?
 
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