ACW custom 1114 build

[acw1]

Good evening,

A bit ago I posted an introduction and it was suggested I start a build thread. I didn't have much to post between now and then. We've only have been putting in a few hours over the weekends. That's getting ready to change.

We have a pretty ambitious set of plans for the truck, so I'll lay them out here.

First order of business was to deal with the roof, without the armored doors the roof hung way out over the sides and the front. We cut 4 3/4" out of each side of the roof, and a couple inches off the front. We took material out of the flat part, and will re weld the curved sides back on. During the process, we found the roof was badly warped. So we cut it in half in order to flatten it back out. The turret ring lip was also pretty badly rusted, so we cut that out and will be replacing it too. We just had the underside of the roof mediablasted to get rid of all the insulation. The roof is now ready to be welded back together. I'll post photos when that's done.

(Note for anyone who might try this, the roof is hardened steel and will ruin any carbide tooth sawblade you throw at it. We ended up making all the cuts with a plasma cutter)

In addition to the roof itself, there was no understructure. No b pillars or turret supports. We fabbed and mounted a new turret support. Once the roof is all welded together we will make b pillars to connect to the turret support, then gusset everything for rigidity.

We will try to finish the roof before the next phase, and get photos up. It should look much cleaner when done.

The next phase is starting now, the engine swap. Our 1114 in Iraq had constant problems, and I don't want to deal with them. So the motor, trans, and transfer case are coming out. They will be replaced with a 7.3 liter powerstroke. We just got the donor truck today. Decided on a donor truck because we need so much from it that it didn't make sense to try to piece it together from junkyard parts. I know there are things I'm missing, but at the least I need the power train, all attachments including ac. Also need the intercooler and ac parts, the wire harness, computer, fuel system, throttle peddle and all the things I don't know I need yet.

I'm sure there will be unforseen problems in fitment, but the biggest one I'm anticipating is the 7.3s oil cooler is integrated into the side of the block, so I'm guessing that's going to cause some interference issues. I also know I'll need custom driveshafts and probably plenty of other things. Real loose measurements put the 7.3 within an inch in height and width from the 6.5, so I don't anticipate any major fitment issues. And if there are, I have a plasma cutter.

To mount the motor and trans we are anticipating fabbing all new mounts and crossmembers. It's possible we will have to raise the body, if that's the case we'll make new body mounts too.

We have a good deal more plans for the truck, but we'll get to those later since this post turned out so long. Really the roof and the motor are the biggest parts of the build, everything else is minor compared to the amount of work that will go into those.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to share any thoughts or comments, especially the ones about how it should be a cummins or duramax swap!

-Ben

 

[acw1]

Roof update.

After much messing around with the roof, we finally have it all back in one piece! Due to all the warping, there was an awful of tinkering to get everything as straight as possible.

The roof was cut into 4 pieces, the two sides and then the middle was cut in half. We centered to flat section, then matched up the cut off curved sides. Because we cut out nearly 10 inches of the flat part, we lost the mounts. So after much careful eyeballing, we made new mounts and welded them to the curved parts of the roof. This mostly lined up the curved pieces with thier flat counterparts. Left the bolts loose for final adjustments and welding.

Because we took out so much of the flat, there was an odd little transition from the rear flat section to the rear of the curve. So some heating and beating was required to match up the transition right next to the sponsors. It didn't come out perfect, but it did come out pretty good.

After welding everything together, we welded the roof to the turret ring, then removed every clamp I own to see what it looked like. Came out very nearly perfectly flat, save for an annoying dip over the drivers seat. This should come out once the turret assembly itself is bolted onto the roof.

We will also be making a roof rack and adding some lights, so while the dip annoys me, it will be pretty well hidden when all is said and done.

Next big step for the roof is to make b pillars and add gussets to them and the turret ring support. Also need to get it off in order to di some detail work to the underside if the roof. That will be some time though as the truck is getting ready to be brought to the shop for the motor swap. Next updates will be how that turns out. Hopefully have something to share by the end of next week.

Feel free to leave any comments questions or concerns. Thanks for reading and have a nice day!

-Ben

 

[acw1]

Motor swap update:

We have the donor truck completely torn down at this point. Took me and my son about 20ish total hours to get everything out of the F350. Unfortunately we don't have the space to keep the donor truck and work on the humvee at the same time, so we took everything we thought we might need before the truck heads to its final resting place. Here's a quick list:

The motor, trans, and transfer case
The fuel tank along with lines and pump
The pcm
Very nearly the entire wire harness
The throttle pedal (more on this later)
Various control modules I don't know what do
The instrument cluster
The ignition switch
All of the ac components
The intercooler and radiator and all external coolers.
The brake booster
Vacuum pump and reservoir.

Turns out buying a Lariat with the adjustable fuel and brake pedals might have been a tactical error. For the powerstroke, all fuel and throttle signals come from the pedal, same goes for the one with adjustable pedals, however, the mechanism that adjusts the pedals is large, and will likely be a pia to mount in the humvee.

We took a good solid look at the humvee today in order to identify any potential fitment issues. Surprise surprise, there are many. Chief among them is that the ford's tcase appears to be a good deal larger than the humvees unit. The oem tcase has about 2 inches of clearance to the frame, and is nearly touching the fuel tank. Not certain how we will solve that problem, but initial thoughts are getting/making a smaller fuel tank.

The second big issue is the 7.3s oil filter mounts parallel to the oil pan, which puts it right smack in the middle of the front driveshaft. So some sort of oil filter relocation will be neccesary.

It does not appear that the 7.3s oil cooler will be much of a problem. Just have to fab motor mounts around it, which we had to do anyway.

Other notes, which may be problems or may not. The 7.3s fan is much larger than the humvee's, and the oil pan sump is a little bigger. Also, the air intake is on the opposite side, so won't be able to use humvees air filter.

Another potential issue is finding a place to mount the fuel pump. It's amazing that for such a wide vehicle, there is next to nothing for space underneath.

I think mounting the transmission should be pretty straightforward. The humvee's crossmember is just a straight bar. Should be pretty easy to add whatever is neccesary to hold up the trans.

We are near the point where the challenges become real problems, which is daunting. Plenty of times I've looked at something and thought 'wtf did I get myself into'! But, I've said from the beginning I don't want to not do something on this project because it's hard.

There will be plenty more problems found over the next couple weeks. I'll post em here and the solutions, or failures, whichever the case may be. Thanks for reading and have a good one!

-Ben