M61A2 engine swap - Cummins L10

[montaillou]

Friend of mine is doing an engine swap on his M61A2, and though he is registered here he rarely posts so I thought I would pass some pics along and some general info.

He also is changing the transmission to a Spicer 6453

He's relayed to me that the L10 is longer and taller, so he's raising the cab by at least a couple inches, modifying the bell housing (I believe) and it's a pretty tight fit.

The swap is being done with the help of a machinist and that guy is doing some motor mounts this weekend (1/29 & 1/30)

I'll update as I receive more info/pics.

 

[Lukes_deuce]

That will be a nice upgrade in power! I have a soft spot for L10s. I learned to drive commercial trucks on a single axle freightliner with an L10 and 9 speend on my uncles farm back in the day. Its no big cam but she has good power for moving hay and a tractor around.

Looks to me it a 270-280 aftercooled version? Does it have jakes?

 

[montaillou]

Looks to me it a 270-280 aftercooled version? Does it have jakes?

I'll pass your question along.

So, the swap is almost complete. In the end, he didn't have to raise the cab. I've been told the custom motor mounts aren't pretty, and that there were a couple issues with the radiator - 1) it was too thick, but I saw modifications in progress to the housing, 2) one of the ports was at an awkward angle, but I guess he found an adapter.

The in-tank pump also was kaput, but I had spare pumps and gave him one. Though, now I'm down to 1

I expect it will be finished mid this week. I'll try and get some pics of the finished product.

This pic was from a week ago.

 

[Lukes_deuce]

Good to know he didnt have to raise the cab. Im never a fan of body lifts.

Did he need to swap radiators? The stock radiator is a good unit. I never heard of people with lots of modifications needing to install a larger radiator. I know of a few guys who put big cams in their trucks and do not have issues.

 

[montaillou]

More pics:

 

[lovecm]

That will be a nice upgrade in power! I have a soft spot for L10s. I learned to drive commercial trucks on a single axle freightliner with an L10 and 9 speend on my uncles farm back in the day. Its no big cam but she has good power for moving hay and a tractor around.

Looks to me it a 270-280 aftercooled version? Does it have jakes?

Yes it has jakes but they dont work at the moment and it is the 270 with optimized aftercooling

 

[lovecm]

Good to know he didnt have to raise the cab. Im never a fan of body lifts.

Did he need to swap radiators? The stock radiator is a good unit. I never heard of people with lots of modifications needing to install a larger radiator. I know of a few guys who put big cams in their trucks and do not have issues.

No I could use the stock rad just had to make adapters to go from the rad hose size to the eng hose size

 

[Lukes_deuce]

No I could use the stock rad just had to make adapters to go from the rad hose size to the eng hose size

Nice work! My uncle had an L10 in a beat up freightliner. I always wanted to buy it off him and install in my 923.

 

[lovecm]

Sorry it took so long to post but I've been fighting nothing but problems with meeting the engine up to the original transmission and I don't really want to put a 9 or 13 speed transmission in it due to having to move the transfer case redo drivelines so on and so forth so I have opted to swap it out for a international DT466 with the SAE2 flywheel housing it should swap right in there with no problem and I was lucky enough to get an entire truck pretty decently priced so we'll see how this goes

 

[WillWagner]

Cummins offers an SAE2 housing. You just need to find a parts guy that can find it. I HAD all of those books at one time, but I left them when I retired and they have since been tossed. What is on it now?

Although, moving away from OAC is a good thing, they were prone to overheating.