Helping JimT out with an inframe ...

[JimT]

Well, just hit 670,000 miles on this truck. About 100k on the inframe. She's still running so I guess I didn't screw anything up too badly? ;)

So, here's the short breakdown of the last 100k miles:

Despite spending a good amount of time cleaning and painting parts much of the paint has peeled off, in large pathces. Specifically anything that was painted with Corroseal then Por15. All the parts that were only painted with the Tractor Supply IH Red have held up just fine. I'm not sure the cause, could have been the high humidity or just operator error, but it seems to be somewhere between the layer of Por15 and the bare metal, possibly something to do with the corroseal coating. So, new damper, peeled and rusty. Oil pan, peeled and rusty, lower coolant pipe to the radiator, peeled and rusty. On the flip side, I painted the exhaust manifold with corroseal ONLY before reinstalling it and, as expected, it mostly burned away once the temps got high enough. The interesting thing here is that 18 months later there is almost no rust anywhere that had the corroseal and most of the manifold still has a sleek black tint to it. Not exactly sure what to make of it, but it's interesting.

Ever since the inframe I've been adding coolant. Not a lot, maybe topping it up once a week on average. Initially it was due to a number of different leaks from coolant hoses not touched during the rebuild. Now I haven't had any visible leaks in months and the coolant still drops a little, though it's very slow and probably amounts to a gallon (or less) ever 2-3 months. It's hard to say for certain since I've had to drain and refill the system to facilitate other rerpairs at least 5 times since the inframe was done. Since the last refill there was about half a gallon added in the first week then only a splash or so to keep it within the sight glass on the steel tank. All in all the rate of refill is low and keeps going down, especially as the weather warms up so I'm not really worried.

2 of the coolant drains were due to failure of my fan clutch. First time it failed last May I replaced it. Right from the start every blue moon I'd smell hot grease and see a little splatter on my new fan blade. Well, end of august, 90+ temps and the AC cranked, the fan clutch started pissing air. Luckily I was empty, 1 exit past my house on my way to a pickup. Canceled that and went home for 6 months. Anyway, it seems the o-ring failed inside. This time the dealer gave me a different clutch which actually came with good instructions and extra parts for a future rebuild and it's been perfect since. Dunno if I messed up the o-ring when I installed it and that cause some kind of friction/over heating (hence the grease seeping out) or if something was wrong with that clutch from the start causing it to overheat on lockup which eventually melted the o-ring. Either way I like this new one much better and haven't had any issue with it. The first one was a Borgwarner and the new one is from Horton.

Oil consumption has been steady. Was going through about 2-3 gallons every 10k miles before the inframe. Right now it's about .5 - 1 gallon every 15k. Smell lots of oil fumes from the breather but little to no smoke from the breather or out the fill tube with the cap off. Do have a persistent leak of a few drops at a time from the bell housing.

Took some time off, unplanned but needed, from August 2021 through February 2022. Truck didn't run during that time as it was partially disassembled . Other than some extra blowby when I first got back on the road and an issue with a fuel rail pressure leak that I'm currently working to diagnose, it's been running great.

I did the overhead back around 30k after the inframe and not much had changed. Plan to check it again next weekend, weather permitting, when I do the next oil change.

Outside of the engine, my driveline issue still hasn't magically gone away on its own... dang... Could be trans or diff or something else causing some speed related vibration, notably around 50-55mph and 70 and up (not that I exceed 62 very often). I'm currently planning a big overhaul where I'm gonna change my rear end gears to a different ratio, swap out the tranny (the current 13 speed makes some noises I don't like, probably needs a rebuild, might go with an 18 speed instead), replace the clutch while I'm at it (seems to work fine except for the lack of a clutch brake for the entire 4 years I've owned the truck) and everything else in that area while it's torn down. Also, while all that junk is out of the way I'm gonna drop the fuel tanks and clean them out, replace all the fuel lines and all the air lines on the truck. They all run under the cab and between the driveline and the exhaust it's nearly impossible to access anything under there. They are all visibly showing their age and I'd rather be proactive. It's bound to be a fun and joyful learning experience. Especially working on my back on a gravel driveway :) Luckily we don't have a swear jar at this house.

Oh, I also picked up a maxwell start module a few month back and will be installing that along with an expansion to my batter bank and a new alternator. Will end up with 7 batteries and the start module so I should be able to run my accessories without an apu or excessively cycling the batteries anymore.

I'm also in the process of finally installing a bunch of extra gauges that I bought last year. Biggest hurdle was finding space on my dash without adding gauge pods. With that hurdle finally out of the way (hey, it was a low priority project) I'm now dragging my feet getting the wiring part done. Maybe I'll have another update next year ;)

Last but not least, those catseye tire pressure things I installed last year have been working great, no leakage or false readings, only seasonal temperature related adjustments. So far I'm very happy with them.