2002 Dip, first MH to cut our teeth on

[JDCrow]

In between wrenching on my buds 6.0, finishing up the entry 

Edited September 20, 2021 by JDCrow
Added a stair end pic

[JDCrow]

Awesome wife helped pull the wires. Also made good progress on the entry 

[Rikadoo]

Hey JD, so i read you weee working on one of your buds 6.0 

as in Ford powerstroke 6.0? 

i been watching you working on your rv, an frankly i dont know how you do it. It seems like alot of what i have had to do on my rv has been a HUGE learning curve as well as having to go on to you tube to become cerified… being a retired mechanic i have many of the needed tools however not having a ground crew to do my running leaves me in the weeds in no time.

[JDCrow]

8 minutes ago, Rikadoo said:

Hey JD, so i read you weee working on one of your buds 6.0 

as in Ford powerstroke 6.0? 

i been watching you working on your rv, an frankly i dont know how you do it. It seems like alot of what i have had to do on my rv has been a HUGE learning curve as well as having to go on to you tube to become cerified… being a retired mechanic i have many of the needed tools however not having a ground crew to do my running leaves me in the weeds in no time.

Yeah a 6.0 Powerstroke. My buddy has been looking for a new to him truck for a couple of years. This one popped up on CL. 1 owner, ordered direct from local dealer, every option Harley Davidson edition. It’s a 2005 with only 80k on the Odometer. 
 

Well it had been sitting to long and no amount of flushing would break through that Ford Gold coolant sludge. He did most the heavy stuff for the oil cooler change. We went from 40+ degree EOT vs ECT to 8-9 degree. 
 

He is on his way home to Yuma as we speak. 
 

While I had done a lot of work in my former 6.4 powerstroke (I have a 6.7 now), I’ll say the late great Diesel Tech Ron was our inspiration to tackle the job. His videos were nothing short of amazing. His down to earth style and the ability to speak to us, the common man, made him transcend his own death. 

I also have amazing staff at work that allows me to take a few days off to work on my projects. Without them I’d be a slave to our biz. 

Thanks for the kind words. 

[JDCrow]

Here’s Ron teaching us a 6.0 oil cooler change, in the driveway and not the service bay at his job

 

 

[Rikadoo]

Mornin JD, so in my prior life (before retirement) i used to be a ford diesel tech, 7.3, 6.0, 6.4 and 6.7 , it was kinda wierd watching the vidio of Ron replacing the coolers, espesially in his cut off shorts😂 he didnt miss much when performing that dirty task, and in fact showed me a trick to use… that is if i want to get dirty like that again😂
So if you find yourself with ever needing Ford PN’s let me know i carry all them still in my phone. 

As far as the coolant, usually unless you have a cracked head around a injector cup its just drain an refill.

However if the coolant stinks like old varnish, and you have a swollen coolant recovery tank, then its going to need cylinder heads.

Again your doing great work on the DP, an keep up the great work.

[JDCrow]

40 minutes ago, Rikadoo said:

Mornin JD, so in my prior life (before retirement) i used to be a ford diesel tech, 7.3, 6.0, 6.4 and 6.7 , it was kinda wierd watching the vidio of Ron replacing the coolers, espesially in his cut off shorts😂 he didnt miss much when performing that dirty task, and in fact showed me a trick to use… that is if i want to get dirty like that again😂
So if you find yourself with ever needing Ford PN’s let me know i carry all them still in my phone. 

As far as the coolant, usually unless you have a cracked head around a injector cup its just drain an refill.

However if the coolant stinks like old varnish, and you have a swollen coolant recovery tank, then its going to need cylinder heads.

Again your doing great work on the DP, an keep up the great work.

Awesome thanks very much.  This truck is “de**leted”. But as I mentioned, it’s been sitting. The owner had moved on to a 6.4 450, but went and ordered a new 6.7 after our conversations. He had a super hard time parting with this truck. 
 

We just couldn’t get the oil temp down with flushes. Here’s the oil cooler opened up, it explains it all. 

[Rikadoo]

Its funny how the 6.4 taught us sooooo much about cooling system issues… that said Mostly everyone is guilty of out of sight out of mind. That is once the hood is shut an the engine starts most people just drive with no regaurd to maintenance intervals. NOTHING would help the 6.4’s! However due to the amount of 6.0’s i have repaired, rather than think repeated flushing to be the answer, my belief would rather be to add a coolant filter perhaps be a more long term resolve. Many people believe that the 6.0 could be made to be bulletproof with just a few modifications… egr cooler or deleate(non-california), remote mounted aftermarket oil cooler, stud kit, free flowing exhaust, cold air intake, or worse yet the cleanable style air filters🤦‍♂️Different type oil, thinking it would solve the stiction problem with injectors. We saw them all, dont get me wrong the 6.0 is a GREAT hiway engine high revs, good HP, the torque only a diesel can give. An matched to the torqueshift automatic transmission was a awsome combination!!!

In the end, it came down to design flaws that couldnt be changed, like lack of headbolts, unlike its big brother the 7.3 which had more bolts per cylinder. 

Sorry didnt mean to rattle on…

Being retired i find i do that more than i ever used to😒

For now my learning is centered around the 8.3, i really enjoy pulling with that engine, getting to know more about it has been fun and rewarding, as well with learning more about the DP in general an doing many of the repairs myself, however what i find is im needing a level surface with more room in which to work on it, bigger truck bigger space😂.

 

[JDCrow]

25 minutes ago, Rikadoo said:

Its funny how the 6.4 taught us sooooo much about cooling system issues… that said Mostly everyone is guilty of out of sight out of mind. That is once the hood is shut an the engine starts most people just drive with no regaurd to maintenance intervals. NOTHING would help the 6.4’s! However due to the amount of 6.0’s i have repaired, rather than think repeated flushing to be the answer, my belief would rather be to add a coolant filter perhaps be a more long term resolve. Many people believe that the 6.0 could be made to be bulletproof with just a few modifications… egr cooler or deleate(non-california), remote mounted aftermarket oil cooler, stud kit, free flowing exhaust, cold air intake, or worse yet the cleanable style air filters🤦‍♂️Different type oil, thinking it would solve the stiction problem with injectors. We saw them all, dont get me wrong the 6.0 is a GREAT hiway engine high revs, good HP, the torque only a diesel can give. An matched to the torqueshift automatic transmission was a awsome combination!!!

In the end, it came down to design flaws that couldnt be changed, like lack of headbolts, unlike its big brother the 7.3 which had more bolts per cylinder. 

Sorry didnt mean to rattle on…

Being retired i find i do that more than i ever used to😒

For now my learning is centered around the 8.3, i really enjoy pulling with that engine, getting to know more about it has been fun and rewarding, as well with learning more about the DP in general an doing many of the repairs myself, however what i find is im needing a level surface with more room in which to work on it, bigger truck bigger space😂.

 

Agree, I love the 8.3. This DP loves to pull hard and run and 65mph. Granted it’s short, but it’s very smooth. Only thing I’ve done is the FASS upgrade. Would love to find a used Banks system, but that’s a needle in the preverbal haystack.

I ran 3406B cats in older dump trucks, and loved the low end. It was hard for me not to get a coach with a he 3126, but I did have an 8.3 in an FL80 that was a good truck, though the 9 Speed behind sucked for freeway travel. 

I really loved my 6.4, but always knew I was walking the line heading towards a $15k engine or fuel system bill. That engine pulled hard and was flat kick butt fast. 
 

My 6.7 pulls great, but is very quiet. I miss the rattle and turbo whine. I run Schaffer oil in it, and pull analysis on it every 5000 miles. Kinda jazzed at its design, side mounted oil cooler, short topside down pipes, etc. 

Diesels are a lot of fun, it is sad that they are getting choked with emissions, but it seems that the tech is getting better, though I heard a guy Talk the other day that the def regen is now spitting out an undesirable gas, that has some concerned.  I have looked it up yet. 

[Rikadoo]

I got to say the “truck” part of the 6.4 was AWSOME, if i lived somewhere other than Ca i would throw that 6.4 in a melting pot!!! Then i would install a 6.7 cummins in it an drive it till the wheels rolled off it!

[JDCrow]

On 9/22/2021 at 5:42 PM, Rikadoo said:

I got to say the “truck” part of the 6.4 was AWSOME, if i lived somewhere other than Ca i would throw that 6.4 in a melting pot!!! Then i would install a 6.7 cummins in it an drive it till the wheels rolled off it!

That crossed my mind a few years back. Many blown 6.4 trucks laying around and the wreaking yard in Reno has lots of 6.7 or even 24v. The place in MT that makes the adaptors is willing to take as much of my as I can afford 

So we are very much alive with the circuits in the coach.

It took better part of a day to get the wires pulled, especially one back down for the GFCI circuit. But it’s all knitted back up and flipped on the new inverter, viola.

 

 

[JDCrow]

Got off work an hour early. Worked on the step cover 

[JDCrow]

Honey wants new fans….new fans she shall

get 

[JDCrow]

Also fired up the DC/DC charger and some new chassis batteries. The ones in it were 6 years old and we are headed out in a week. 

Edited October 3, 2021 by JDCrow
Spelling

[JDCrow]

Started in on modding the taillights and had an employee call in sick, dang 

 

 

[JDCrow]

Oil showed up for a change maybe tomorrow 

Edited October 6, 2021 by JDCrow
Added a pic

[JDCrow]

Finished up the taillights and did upper clearance lights, all LED

One the clearance lights, I cannot recommend them enough. You’ll see in one pic the difference. 
 

On to wiring the new toad tomorrow, and leave for trip Sunday 

Edited October 9, 2021 by JDCrow

[Rikadoo]

Mornin JD, hey i have been one of your biggest fans watching you thru this entire process, you have trulley tranformed many aspects of your projects into works of art, an have made it all look so easy, like i should be able to replicate many of your ideas on to my coach, which by the way almost identical to yours only with a HR badge on it. Im not sure if this was your entire vision or if you just paused long enough to take your vacation? 
I have one question though, it concerns your tail lights, did you leave the original bulbs (or at least the sockets) still connected? I saw you used those krimp on connectors onto the existing wires was that just for testing? 
I like how much brighter the LED bulbs are in the marker lights, espesially with the new lenses, when using a led light i really get excited when i know how much it saves the entire lighting circuits from the load they used to have to carry, as well as the amount of work the charging system had to do to just to “keep the lights on”! 
For me when i had just purchased my coach and was bringing it home i had the headlights on i noticed the longer the lights were on the HOTTER my headlight switch was getting and the dimmer the lights were, by back probing the head light wiring to monitor the voltage that when i first turned on the lights to 30 min later the voltage dropped significantly. At first i was going to upgrade the circuits, then decided to just change the load by installing LED headlights, the difference was INSTANT! Not only did the lights stay bright but my headlight switch temp dropped to near 0. Thats when i changed out everything to led!

Im lookin forward to here how your trip goes, keep us posted an safe travels.

[JDCrow]

25 minutes ago, Rikadoo said:

Mornin JD, hey i have been one of your biggest fans watching you thru this entire process, you have trulley tranformed many aspects of your projects into works of art, an have made it all look so easy, like i should be able to replicate many of your ideas on to my coach, which by the way almost identical to yours only with a HR badge on it. Im not sure if this was your entire vision or if you just paused long enough to take your vacation? 
I have one question though, it concerns your tail lights, did you leave the original bulbs (or at least the sockets) still connected? I saw you used those krimp on connectors onto the existing wires was that just for testing? 
I like how much brighter the LED bulbs are in the marker lights, espesially with the new lenses, when using a led light i really get excited when i know how much it saves the entire lighting circuits from the load they used to have to carry, as well as the amount of work the charging system had to do to just to “keep the lights on”! 
For me when i had just purchased my coach and was bringing it home i had the headlights on i noticed the longer the lights were on the HOTTER my headlight switch was getting and the dimmer the lights were, by back probing the head light wiring to monitor the voltage that when i first turned on the lights to 30 min later the voltage dropped significantly. At first i was going to upgrade the circuits, then decided to just change the load by installing LED headlights, the difference was INSTANT! Not only did the lights stay bright but my headlight switch temp dropped to near 0. Thats when i changed out everything to led!

Im lookin forward to here how your trip goes, keep us posted an safe travels.

Yeah I should have explained what I did there, got in a hurry to get the pics on and get to bed. 
 

So the new housings have holes for 3 lights, top and bottom. 
 

In the upper lenses on the original housing, just the turn signal was used. I decided to run Up the small park lamp and reverse lamp as well. So I used the taps and ordered some sockets off Amazon to run those up. 
 

Especially with the reverse lamp, in the new housing is all chrome so a big hole would he there and it looked bad. 

Edited October 9, 2021 by JDCrow

[JDCrow]

33 minutes ago, Rikadoo said:

Mornin JD, hey i have been one of your biggest fans watching you thru this entire process, you have trulley tranformed many aspects of your projects into works of art, an have made it all look so easy, like i should be able to replicate many of your ideas on to my coach, which by the way almost identical to yours only with a HR badge on it. Im not sure if this was your entire vision or if you just paused long enough to take your vacation? 
I have one question though, it concerns your tail lights, did you leave the original bulbs (or at least the sockets) still connected? I saw you used those krimp on connectors onto the existing wires was that just for testing? 
I like how much brighter the LED bulbs are in the marker lights, espesially with the new lenses, when using a led light i really get excited when i know how much it saves the entire lighting circuits from the load they used to have to carry, as well as the amount of work the charging system had to do to just to “keep the lights on”! 
For me when i had just purchased my coach and was bringing it home i had the headlights on i noticed the longer the lights were on the HOTTER my headlight switch was getting and the dimmer the lights were, by back probing the head light wiring to monitor the voltage that when i first turned on the lights to 30 min later the voltage dropped significantly. At first i was going to upgrade the circuits, then decided to just change the load by installing LED headlights, the difference was INSTANT! Not only did the lights stay bright but my headlight switch temp dropped to near 0. Thats when i changed out everything to led!

Im lookin forward to here how your trip goes, keep us posted an safe travels.

And, there isn’t a whole lot left to do on the coach. I have to wire the truck up today, and make sure it will tow. Leave tomorrow. 
 

I have a new roller shade to install today as well and If it works well, and wife likes it we will add more of them. 
 

Captain chairs will be on the list. Still haven’t got my catch can on yet.

Hopefully Starlink will have a mobile dish ready early next year.

New vinyl on the sides are on tap. I have new LED driving lights, but ran out of time this trip. TMPS didn’t make it for this trip so really bummed. Lots of stuff is backordered for everyone 

[Guest Ray Davis]

So, just drop down to Long Beach and see if they'll let you go thru those ships anchored off shore and find your stuff.

I know, it ain't funny, but it seems like one person can almost stop the world,  I won't say who I'm thinking of, & your person may be different.  It just shows how fragile all the pieces of industry are today.   I saw that some companies are considering hiring their own ships,  but who's unloading those suckers?   I guess they could go back to docking off shore and ferry the goods to the beach.   Yeah,  place your order and go pick it up,  at the beach.    

We have got to get this country back on track, this insanity can't be allowed to continue no matter your politics.

Sorry JD ..... I'm done.... for now  ☕  I could go on but   TX-OU is on

[JDCrow]

12 minutes ago, Ray Davis said:

So, just drop down to Long Beach and see if they'll let you go thru those ships anchored off shore and find your stuff.

I know, it ain't funny, but it seems like one person can almost stop the world,  I won't say who I'm thinking of, & your person may be different.  It just shows how fragile all the pieces of industry are today.   I saw that some companies are considering hiring their own ships,  but who's unloading those suckers?   I guess they could go back to docking off shore and ferry the goods to the beach.   Yeah,  place your order and go pick it up,  at the beach.    

We have got to get this country back on track, this insanity can't be allowed to continue no matter your politics.

Sorry JD ..... I'm done.... for now  ☕  I could go on but   TX-OU is on

Who you routing for? My Ducks as usual decided that Stanford needed and win and just handed the game over to them. 

[Guest Ray Davis]

1 hour ago, JDCrow said:

Who you routing for? My Ducks as usual decided that Stanford needed and win and just handed the game over to them. 

Longhorns,   but they lost in a wild exciting come from behind win by the Sooners.  Ain't college ball excitin tho.

[JDCrow]

5 minutes ago, Ray Davis said:

Longhorns,   but they lost in a wild exciting come from behind win by the Sooners.  Ain't college ball excitin tho.

Yeah way better than pros. Though I’m liking watching Herbert with the Chargers 

[tomevansfl]

On 4/14/2021 at 3:36 PM, JDCrow said:

TRW box and pitman arm are in the mail. Well UPS. 
 

I am going to sub out next week the Monaco Watts, cross bars, shocks, and TRW to a shop that has done some work for me in the past. I need to jump on irrigation and getting our property rolling for work. 
 

I’ll get some pics of those items, and current ones I’m doing after work. 
 

 

I have a 2001 Diplomat and I may need to replace my steering gear box or at least adjust it.  I bounce from side to side, but stay in my lane, it takes work sometimes though.  Also considering a Safe T Plus Steer stabilizer and Monaco Watts sway bar systems.

I live in Orlando so I have a great shop nearby.  Any other suggestions to help driving my RV.