1970 Jeep Gladiator 1 Ton 6BT 12V Cummins Build

[Mikel]

Mikel, can you tell us about the 6 lug wheels but GM hubs on that M715? Is it all custom?

Good eye! That's a 1986 GM dana 60 axle. I made 2" spacers out of 1018 steel (to bring the wms to wms width from 69 to 73") with the eight lug pattern on one side and the six lug on the other. With hydroboost, truck stops really well. Parts are dirt cheap and available everywhere.

Gearing is 4.10s. The rear was regeared to 4.10s as well. With the Cummins, it's not undergeared at all.

You should come down to Plainville some day

[The PIG Smith]

Tell us more about those wheels.
What brand, model and size those are?
What size tire is mounted on those wheels?

[Resbum]

... Mind sharing the source for that lovely radiator?

It's a Flex-a-lite: Model http://www.flex-a-lite.com/auto/html/58295.html
Here's the ebay store I got it at.

http://stores.ebay.com/cascadesalescompany

I got it for about half price. I am extremely wary of ebay purchases, but the seller described it as a Flex-a-lite that passed all functional quality checks for performance, but was blemished in the manufacturing process. I noticed they were in Milton, WA, about 15 miles from me, so I asked the seller if I could pick it up to save shipping and they agreed. I drove over there and it turns out to be the Flex-a-lite manufacturing plant. They use that ebay store front to sell their blemished goods. My blemishes turned out to be 20 slightly bent cooling fins (While fabricating I also noticed it's about 1/4" out of square). Not bad for 1/2 price. While I was there I picked up a remote filter kit, trans cooler, oil cooler, and power steering/hydraboost cooler.

Tell us more about those wheels.
What brand, model and size those are?
What size tire is mounted on those wheels?

The wheels are 17X10 Weld Racing forged aluminum wheels I bought from a craigslister who wanted to step up to 18" rims. I got them for $200. He also turned out to be the guy who told me of an excellent Cummins mechanic who will help me do the engine when I get to that point of the build. God bless craigslist.

The tires are 35X12.5-17 Hankook Dynapro M/T's that I had siped. I never realized how limited the selection is for Load Range E M/T's until I went looking for them. My 5th wheel has a gross weight of 18,000lbs and a max tongue weight of 2,800lbs. Although my truck will only haul it for maybe 2% of its life it still needs to be able to do it. I read hundreds of customer reviews online before commiting to these tires. They get great reviews from people who haul heavy. Luckily, they get good reviews for also being quiet and how they wear.

I've mentioned craigslist a few times. I'm barely able to afford this project. My ego does not require that I have the latest high dollar brand new bling items on my truck. Function comes first, form comes second. If I can get it on craigslist and it's in good shape and doesn't appear stolen I have no trouble buying it used. I also do a lot of price checking for new parts. I have no issue with getting vendors to price match against each other to drive the price down. Brent, at BJ's Offroad, has been great at helping me out with price matching. He has also been understanding when I can buy something cheaper somewhere else.

Resbum

[ross80truck]

Great thread! I just subsribed. I am working on a similar project except I am using a Wagoneer instead of a J truck and I am using a NV4500 instead of the auto, other wise everything else looks the same. I hope mine looks half as nice as yours looks. Keep it up.

[Jeepguyp]

6bt

wow

[budojeepr]

It's a Flex-a-lite: Model http://www.flex-a-lite.com/auto/html/58295.html
Here's the ebay store I got it at.
http://stores.ebay.com/cascadesalescompany

Perfect, thanks for the info.

You got me thinking again about putting in an intercooler... ...although the location might be in the way of my (as yet nonexistent) A/C evaporator.

[bruner1981jpce]

Nice work! Can't wait to see the next update. Subscribed.

[Resbum]

I want to thank you all for the positive feedback so far. I'm also open to suggestions and negative feedback, as long as it comes in a constructive manner.

ross80truck- You should start a build thread. I'd like to see your project.

Perfect, thanks for the info.

You got me thinking again about putting in an intercooler... ...although the location might be in the way of my (as yet nonexistent) A/C evaporator.

budojeepr- Everyone has AC, but onboard compressed air is a little less common. There's about 2" between the radiator and the intercooler for the AC evaporator, if you really want it. Me, ...? I'm going with onboard compressed air. I'm going to turn the AC compressor that came on the engine into my air compressor. I have an old LP tank for my storage tank. I'm planning on mounting my trans, oil, and power steering coolers between the radiator and intercooler.

I will say this. Doing the radiator mod was relatively straight forward. The intercooler mod took a lot more thinking, mod'ing, fabricating to finally work.

I had some extra time this AM so I decided to post the radiator mods now, while its on topic. That way people don't have to go searching for it later in this thread. There's a couple pics that show the amount of cutting that went into getting the intercooler to fit.

Resbum

[Resbum]

Large Radiator Body Modifications

The very first thing I did was establish centerline between the frame and front valance. See the little red dots in the pic. I used my plumb bob and marked the frame and sheetmetal with punch marks so there was no risk of losing them. Since I'd removed the front fenders there was absolutely nothing to help keep that reference without the marks. Notice the green arrows on the right side. That represents the imaginary vertical line I used when cutting off sheetmetal to make the intercooler fit.


See the red dots and green arrows.




The red line shows where I cut the pillar off the front sheetmetal. You can also see the intercooler pipe sticking through the sheetmetal. By the time you move the pillars outboard a couple inches they start getting pretty close to it. I also rounded off the base of the pillar(red line) to make sure there was plenty of clearance.


This is how much you need to open up the pillars


This pic really shows just how much sheetmetal needs to be removed to get the intercooler to fit. I still need to fabricate the sheetmetal that'll support the base of the intercooler

[Resbum]

I used a piece of 3X4 rectangle stock to make the new mounts. I cut it approximately 3" long, then cut it on the diagonal along the long side. See yellow line. The cutoff piece then became the mount on the other side. I used my welding magnets to position the new mounts along the top of the old mounts, then tacked them in place. Using my 4' level/straight edge I then scribed a line through the old holes centerline on to the new mounts. Red line. Notice the scribe mark is actually back from the red line. That's to account for the sheetmetal that was left on the pillar when I cut it off. The green arrow is my new mounting hole location.










I leveled everything and used blocks under the radiator to make sure there was clearance for body/frame flex.


I clamped angle iron (red lines) to the new mounts to position/support the front sheetmetal properly


Then mounted everything together


I think I hit all the major points to consider.

Resbum

[Eugene 1]

thats is great work i hope mine turns out half as good

[Hook574]

Are the new valance mounts going to get into the inner fenders?

[Resbum]

Are the new valance mounts going to get into the inner fenders?

They're not going to get into the inner fenders, because they're inboard of the intercooler plumbing. Those definitely get into the inner fender areas. I'm going to tackle those mods when it comes up. While building everything I did do some test fits and checks and don't expect it to be a problem. I'm also pretty sure they're not going to interfer with wheel clearance during tight turns. Time will tell.

Resbum

[Hook574]

I figured that was a "cross that bridge when you get there" kinda thing. I know you said you cut the intercooler down 2 rows, did you do that yourself? Does a radiator shop do that, and could it also be cut down in width?

I know yours needed to be that width to clear your radiator I was just wondering if a narrower rad could be used.

[Resbum]

I cut it down myself.

The very first thing I did was confirm that my welder, could weld cast aluminum back together. I also confirmed with him where I should make the cuts so he had the material he needed to weld it back together.

I used a cutoff disc on my grinder to cut the fins between the second and third rows. Then I smoothed down the cut fins with a block of wood so the top trim piece could be tacked back on. Then I used a straight edge and tape to layout nice even cuts around the tops of the header tanks, before cutting them off.

Cutting down width IS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT ANIMAL. You're cutting across all those rows. I personally wouldn't consider that. I can't see any way it could be cheaper than just buying one made to the desired width.

I'll edit some pics into this post later.

Resbum