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Hacksters Crew Cab first gen Cummins

232K views 353 replies 82 participants last post by  Adamants 
#1 ·
So my tow rig for the last three years has been a 1993 w250 that has racked up 249,000 miles on it. It has been hands downt the most dependable, hadest working truck I have ever owned by a long shot....even better than the 07 cummins I bought off the lot brand new in late 06.

Truck is all turned up with timing bump, denny t fuel pin wh1c with 14 cm housing, leveling kit and 35's with 2" dom tube bumpers. Its a standard cab long bed and I love it.

Here is the dirty old girl in all her glory, doing what she usually does, towing the car trailer around with some project on the trailer.



Well, have sold off a few cool cars in the past few months in order to build the rig that I have wanted for the last few years. A crew cab short bed cummins 5 speed with some one tons under it.

So the search began for the right truck......well more like trucks right? After lots of searching I found a 1993 extra cab long bed w250 with a cummins and a 5 speed 4 wheel drive. The truck had was in an accident but I really was not interested in much of the body. Not to mention I got it for a good price. So I loaded up the trailer and headed up into the sticks to pick it up.

Two first gens...happy times.







Not much to look at but good running gear with pod's denny t fuel pin kdp fixed and a rebuit getrag.

So this will be the donor drivetrain...

I brought it home on Friday afternon and could not get the tools out fast enough.



Had a little help from a friend but we made pretty quik work, the cab was entirely stripped of everything, harness was all unplugged and removed in one piece, it was in great shape with just a little bit of hackery to clean up but nothing too bad.







Cut out a bunch of the firewall so that I would hopefully be able to weld in the right opening for the heater box and the firewall harness plug.
 
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#294 ·
Love this build, Sean. Great looking truck and nice small touches. The HIDs look right on there, and I really like how the front bumper ties in with the bed design.
 
#295 · (Edited)
Thanks,

To me its all about the small stuff that makes something come together in the end.

The HID's are actually so bright that I find them almost useless 99% of the time. I hope that I get some open roads under my belt on the way to Moab so I can see how well they work.

Truck is getting there. Has to be loaded up and ready to go for 2,500 miles of fun on Saturday..... still have lots left to do.

Sean
 
#296 · (Edited)
So I got back from Texas, loaded up all my crap, and headed for Moab Utah. Made it all the way to Pendleton with zero issues.

Once at the top of Cabbage hill I was greeted with a pretty hefty amount of snow, chains required on vehicles towing and lots of semis pulled over and chaining up.

Locked in the hubs and got after it. Boy was I suprised how well the old girl did when the roads turned bad. Truck turned stopped and drove great.




We made it to SLC in a fair bit of snow, there and temps well below freezing and woke up to a couple of fresh inches of snow in SLC. Made the rest of the drive fairly easily over another pass.

I snapped this shot on the side of the highway in Green River Utah as my buddy was repairing a blowout on his car trailer.




As you can see the roads were not kind.

However with that said the truck rocked. Two really turned up second gens and one mildly turned up third gen and the old crew cab only lost them on the longest steepest climbs.

Towed very hapily between 75-80 and all three trucks were knocking down the same kind of mileage, we were getting around 250 miles in between stops and all putting in right around the same amount of fuel.

Only thing holding me back was EGT on the big climbs going up. Looks like some peeps on here might just be right, that the exhaust housing might be a little bit too small building up heat in the exhaust.

Wondering if I should try and get an he351 or just get something aftermarket.
 
#298 ·
So how does it drive? Like an old tow rig with squeaks, rattles, air leaks and wind noise? Or was it not too bad. I love the idea of building an old truck like this, but I can only think a newer truck would be better suited and more comfy for highway miles.

Love the truck though!

Kevo
 
#300 ·
I worked a ton to get rid of all the squeaks and rattles or weirdness. Truck was very comfortable to drive here. It is not as quiet as a stock third gen truck, I know it never will be. But it had no squeaks or rattles except one random noise from the hood cowl area but I got rid of that.

Very little if any wind noise, I have replaced most of the seals and shimmed the wing windows too. Also installed 40 sq feet of hush mat in the front end to keep the noise down.

All in all I would say it is very much a comfortable driver at this point.

Has a great stereo with rear speakers, blue tooth hookup, pandora, satelite radio the works.

I also built a really cool center console out of an old oil pan flipped upside down. so I had an armrest, cupholders and all the creature comforts too.

Sean
 
#299 · (Edited)
An old truck that squeaks and rattles is an old truck needing maintenance. There is no reason an old truck can't be at least as quiet as it was the day it rolled off the assembly line or much more so using modern sound deadening. Tracking down and fixing squeaks and rattles can be time consuming but I've found that replacing all the door weatherstrip, window channels and felts seems to bring back about 90% of that "new/solid" truck feel.

The one thing you can't do much about is wind noise as the old mirrors, door designs and rain gutters tend to make a lot of noise. I wouldn't give up my rain gutters for anything though, lol.
 
#301 · (Edited)
sounds like you had a great drive there Sean - right on. It's an awesome feeling to make a trip like that in a 'fresh' machine and have it do exactly what you wanted it to do - good job :smokin:

On your uphill EGTs, a 3-piece exhaust manifold can really help get the heat out of the head, and it'd spool the turbo a bit faster too. I've got one of these on my tug boat - really like it - http://shop.dieseltuff.com/ATS-12v-1989-98-Three-Piece-Exhaust-Manifold-204-930-2164.htm
 
#303 ·
I never gave a second thought to the exhaust manifold. Maybe that's worth a shot.

Spendylittle fellas.

Headed home tonight. Stopped for some food and rest in Ogden. Truck did awesome coming over soldier summitt. Pulled that grade between 58 and 60 with egt around 1100.

Pretty happy wih that out of an old ass Ve truck.

Headlight switch decided it was tired of life and started to die on the way down. I picked one up in Moab but never swapped it out.

Of course it died on the highway in the dark so I swapped that out in a Walmart parking lot.

Good old truck so far.

Sean
 
#304 ·
right on Sean. I'll never sell either of my 1st gens - I'll just keep rebuilding them until parts literally are no longer available....and then I'll make my own :smokin:
 
#305 ·
Well..... No exciting updates on this truck, its doing exactly what I built it for. Have towed a ton of crap around with it, VW Rabbit that is getting an AWD conversion, 67 ford drag truck, my buggy and our new travel trailer.

Been getting lots of miles on it too, probably close to 6k since I built it.

We are getting ready to head north to Homer Alaska towing our newly built trailer.



Here it is with us out on our first weekend in the camper. We were out wheeling for the weekend and used out Trailblazer ss to tow it up to Goldendale for the weekend.

Trailer worked great and we are looking forward to our 3 week adventure in Alaska and all 6,000 miles of it.

Beyond happy that I decided to do the crew cab conversion, especially the manual trans. So much happier with the manual for a tow rig.

Sean
 
#306 ·
my wife and I loved fishing out on Homer Spit - breathtaking scenery and views. Like that little trailer - looks very handy. Glad to hear the rig is working good for you - enjoy the trip north.
- Sam
 
#308 ·
Enjoy your trip. I drove my first gen all the way to Prudhoe in '08 with my pop-up truck camper on it. Great trip, and zero worries or issues with the truck. Hopefully your trip goes as well :)
Travis..
 
#311 ·
Nice! I opened it up and said "That is a build on Pirate I've been following". My wife was even impressed! Especially since you are doing a road trip to Alaska. She wants to do one too and said "our old Suburban will be fine for the trip won't it?" I assured her with the right stuff it would. Great excuse to find a front 60 for it.
 
#317 ·
I went out and bought the newest issue of Petersons 4WOR today just for your truck. Reading the article now.
Boy those are both huge compliments. I recall you mentioning that a the start of the build.

Thanks a ton.

Thanks everyone for the kind words, glad to see the old first gens getting some big magazine coverage.

Drove the old girl out to the beach for some RC adventures today and I just really like this truck. Got some new brakes and bearings all around the last couple weeks and it's just a wonderful truck to drive.

If you see it on the road say hi or give me a wave.

Sean
 
#318 ·
Are you still running 3.54s with the 37s, or did you swap to 4.10s like the article says? I couldn't imagine towing with 37s and 3.54s. Seems like you'd be stuck in 4th gear unless you were going ungodly fast.
Travis..
 
#319 ·
I am still running the 3.54's and the 37's. To be honest it pulls just fine, but it does like to go a bit fast. I can easily pull 5th at any freeway speeds 50mph and up) and only have to drop out of 5th when climbing something steepish when I am pulling the buggy but with some lighter trailers it is 5th gear all the time.

The truck is pretty powerful though so I think that helps to mask the bad gearing and big tires.

If I did not have the buggy, I would leave it alone but I tow alot with the truck, its what I built it for.

Sean
 
#320 ·
you going to to go with 4.10s or 3.73s? I'd think the 4.10s would be a little too much if you feel like you have good pull on everything but the steepest of hills.
 
#321 ·
I would not say its good pull on anything but the steepest of hills, but anything minor I can leave in 5th, if its a big hill, ill drop into fourth but can still pull pretty much any hill at 58-59 mph.

The jump to 3.73 just doesnt seem like it would be worth the work involved for such little change in gearing.

I will probably end up with some 4.10's ARB's and 40's after Alaska and that should be about perfect.

Sean
 
#322 ·
What's your rpm at 65? My biggest worry would be killing the trans by cruising at too low an rpm. I know my engine is super smooth and happy at 1800 rpm and everyone seems to agree that you shouldn't run at less than 1700 rpm or so to keep the trans from fragging over time due to torsional vibrations. My Getrag is factory original to my truck with almost 190k on it and I try to keep my rpms up where the engine runs smooth. Just some food for thought.
Travis..
 
#324 ·
I've been running 38-39s and 3.55s for years now. It works better than I thought it would. Start in 1st, tow in the mountains in 4th, and 5th makes a great interstate gear. I haven't killed the Getrag yet and the truck has over 300K on it now. The transmission is overfilled with synthetic.

One of these days I will have to swap in a 6spd, change the axle gears, add more power, and whatever BUT it just keeps chugging along.
 
#325 ·
I just jumped to 38.5 swampers (actually 36.5) and I have to say the truck feels really driveable with the 3.55s. No longer have to use 4th in town, cruise around in 3rd. Also 1st gear is actually usable. Was going to gear to 4.56 but with the 38s not actually being 38s I'm looking at 4.10s now, will give me room to jump up to 40s like you were thinking.

Congrats on the Peterson's centrefold
 
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