New M37 owner

[jmacqueen]

Well the drip is slowed down to about 1 every 5 minutes, I guess I'll give it a day or two and see what happens. I may just forget it and get started mounting a PS box sooner than I wanted to.

I have to reorganize the whole garage tomorrow anyway, get setup for room to handle the engine. Just crossing my fingers it's a good engine, $2800 delivered and a decent chance to get burned.

A set of NOS springs should be arriving next week as well, and I'll be taking them down to have a couple of leaves added and get some longer u-bolts.

Transmission next week or week after, and I'll hopefully have the engine cleaned up and ready to bolt the trans on and start seeing what the fabrication on mounts and exhaust is going to look like.

Looks like exhaust is going to have to squeeze in behind the passenger upper shock mount and then run down under the step like stock, and I'll have to get some heat shielding to go on the firewall there.

[jmacqueen]

Finished the day by bleeding out the new 4 wheel disk brakes. Only had one leak which I guess is pretty good for flaring up all the lines and whatnot, about 20 flares in all.

Turned out after a bit if looking I had cross threaded one fitting that was in a spot that's hard to see the angle clearly. I was able to get it threaded in straight and fixed that. Nice solid brake pedal now.

The drip from the steering box is dripping even slower now, looks like it might seal up of it's own accord. I suspect the NOS box has a leather seal that's soaking up the gear oil. We'll see in a couple of days and if it hasn't stopped I guess I'll pull the bottom cover off and have a peek inside.

[Charles Talbert]

Typical issues with this

A couple of issues, obviously the lower seal isn't sealing, cause, rust pits on the shaft, very likely, original leather seal, also very likely, will it swell & stop, highly unlikely. The seal isn't individually replaceable without much labor as it is permanently attached to the bottom plate. Unless you have a very early style box that had a press out seal, which caused problems that lead to the seal being permanently attached in later style boxes. The horn wire installation may or may not stop the leak from the hole, either way it's a bad situation because the oil will swell & ruin the wire insulation in short order causing the horn to short out & never get tired of blowing as long as battery power is available. I'm sure you have figured out by now that this is just not a good design especially if oil gets to the wire. If you use the box successfully with any amount of longivity, a tear down of the box to repair the leak is inevitable. This is a pretty good explanation already of why running the wire down the core of the steering shaft isn't exactly a good design, it was done on a number of M series trucks, all having the same troublesome result. Jeep had the better idea of using a solid rod rather than a wire, the rod activated a switch at the bottom end eliminating the wire rubbing & shorting issue. Even if all is sealed tight on the NOS box there is the issue of constant rubbing wear on the insulation, long life just doesn't happen on a truck that is frequently driven. This is a great time for you to consider installing a power steering set up if you ever want that.

[jmacqueen]

Yup I think your right on.

I think I'll do a power steering upgrade instead of trying to tear into the box and fix it. I really just got it so I would have a stone stock setup and a new non hacked to bits column.

The column that was in it was only about a foot long, hacked up and installed very poorly. Just long enough to get through the firewall a bit with the wheel crammed up against the dash. I could barely even drive it.

Now that I have a good stock column, I can see the proper placement and geometry. I can fab up a mount to the firewall to preserve the right placement and geometry and have a good base to work from on a PS upgrade.

That was really the only reason I got the whole NOS setup. I had decided to go ahead and run with it for little while, but if it's going to drip everywhere that thought is straight out the window.

I also noticed this morning that it isn't just the lower seal leaking. I filled it to the top seal, and now the lower seems to have stopped leaking but the upper is leaking as well... If it stops dripping in the next few days it may get to stay in for a few months.

That and a worm sector steering box is a primitive beast and there's a good reason they stopped using them. Fast wear, harder steering effort etc.

But I have an engine showing up tomorrow, got the garage re arranged for room for working on it and installing it. The steering will have to wait a few weeks.

I've got a growing collection of parts I'll have to get rid of too. 4 brake backing plates with brakes and wheel cylinders, master cylinder, vacuum power booster, 4 drums, a running engine and transmission, 12 volt generator and regulator, a few canvas top frame parts etc..

[jmacqueen]

Well I got my engine in today..

Only couple of red flags to worry about just looking at it. Rotary pump, with a mechanical fuel pump on the block, holset turbo, says 105hp. Inside the valve covers look very clean, outside looks like what you'd expect from a fleet van.

First issue is they cut the dipstick and tube in half cutting it out of whatever it came out of. Going to have to figure out a new dipstick tube and dipstick.

Second there's not a CPL# on it. It's a rebuilt engine that was rebuilt by Reviva, who look like a good company, quality rebuild probably, QS9000 shop. They replaced the cummins tag with their own tag, and filled out every part of it but the CPL# I haven't looked to see if maybe the cummins tag is still underneath.

I do have their serial number and part number though. so I can probably get a little more info if I call, maybe a CPL# Probably 858.

I believe I found the lord mounts at mcmaster carr, ordered 4 and we'll see what we get. Ordered them in 650lb rating, I might should have gone with the 350lb rating.

Shipper should be picking up my transmission/flywheel/starter/flywheel housing today in MN, if so it'll be here before the weekend.

NOS front springs should be here this week, so things are coming together. By the time I have the springs upgraded with a couple of leaves, I should have the engine cleaned up and ready to hang in there.

Won't be long and I can show you guys my pitiful welds... ;)

[Bruce]

In Bid'ness

Don't forget to take some pic as you go?

[jmacqueen]

Pics...

[jmacqueen]

Don't forget to take some pic as you go?

I will, I also have more pics of the brake system I need to post up. That kit from uglytrucking went on very nice. A bit of a pain to fill the back half of the master cylinder but I just grabbed a bit of sheet metal and a hammer and made up a quick funnel I can keep in the glove box.

I already stripped the front of engine and it looks like both front and rear main seals are dry. Oil down the front from missing the fill tube I guess. It turns over as it turned when I tried to take the crank pulley bolts off.

Got it cleaned up a bit, I'll probably throw some engine paint on it to get it looking better.. Just need to choose a color other than black.

It was obviously sitting outside for a few months, a bit of corrosion and rust to clean up but the intake and exhaust was duct taped, the turbo spins free and easy.. So far so good.

If I'm lucky they took care of the killer dowel pin when it was rebuilt, I may call the rebuilder and ask.

I'm surprised the bolts seem to be mostly metric on it. I was expecting standard bolts.

Anyway I'll be sweating until I can get it in and running, with fingers crossed for no knocks or other issues.

[MoparNorm]

...Anyway I'll be sweating until I can get it in and running, with fingers crossed for no knocks or other issues.

It's a DIESEL, it's nothing but knocks followed by rotation!! = )
Good Luck!

[jmacqueen]

I got my transmission, flywheel and starter and a flywheel housing for a very good price, basically about what I expected to pay for just the transmission.

But the flywheel housing starter location interferes with my turbo location so it won't work, and I don't like the mounting setup either.

So i need an SAE 3 flywheel housing with a mid mount or low mount starter location.. Anyone know where one might be for a good price?

[Charles Talbert]

Just typical

These are just the typical issues one faces when an engine isn't equipped correctly for the application. Issues like this is specifically why we don't install take-out engines. We spec ours new from Cummins correctly equipped to best fit the application. You can tie up a mint in cash if you have to go back over the Cummins counter to purchase the correct flywheel housing for instance. Our cost for the housing is over $800, I believe around $1,200+ is retail. There are vast different ways that engine can be equipped to best fit various applications, we have found the chances of finding a take-out that fits an M37 application the best it can to be slim to none. Maybe your luck will be better, happy hunting.

[jmacqueen]

They are to be expected, sometimes it's half the fun.

Charles while your here, there's one piece of the puzzle I haven't dug up a solution for, and that's going from the spicer 3053a tail end to the transfer case.

What do you use to connect the two up? and can you help me out on it?

[Charles Talbert]

They are to be expected, sometimes it's half the fun.

Charles while your here, there's one piece of the puzzle I haven't dug up a solution for, and that's going from the spicer 3053a tail end to the transfer case.

What do you use to connect the two up? and can you help me out on it?

We use our own custom set up.

[Keith in CO]

trans to t-case

there's one piece of the puzzle I haven't dug up a solution for, and that's going from the spicer 3053a tail end to the transfer case.

The process I've used to hook up a divorced t-case to a variety of transmissions, is to have a drive line shop make a custom shaft to link the two. Any shop which makes drive shafts can do this for you. If you have the trans output shaft dimensions, or better yet a jack shaft which was used on the 2.5 ton truck it came out of (boyceequipment.com may have these), and the jack shaft from your M37, once you have the engine/trans mounted in place, measure the distance between the trans output and the t-case input, take your two shafts to the shop and ask them to make a shaft to span that measured gap. I've seen this done with a u-joint on each end (like the M37), or one double-cardan joint in the middle. Having a slip joint is important too, as it will allow the two boxes to flex with the frame during off road driving, without putting pressure on either box.

Because this shaft is so short, it is critical that the trans and t-case be aligned as straight as you can get.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cardan_Shaft.jpg

http://www.jpmagazine.com/techarticl...ion/index.html

[jmacqueen]

We use our own custom set up.

So I'll take that as a no then...

Just trying to throw a little business at you, I'll just take the tranny and jackshaft to a local shop then...