JeffMoss1
Jeff
About a year ago, I, being a 20 year old college student that couldn’t tell the difference between a piston and an alternator, decided to buy a 17 year old model of the extended version of what I’ve come to realize must be the biggest van on earth, to try and figure out what the heck working on cars/trucks/whatever is all about. I seriously didn’t know anything. It all started with the dream of the “vegetable oil powered road trip around the country,” but it’s somehow grown further into how big can I get my exhaust pipe and a constant realization that my engine is bigger than everyone else’s around me. I’m not sure whether this is good or bad.
My favorite part of the van, so far, was my two week long project this past
summer where I took the exhaust system off of an enormous fire engine and retrofitted it to work on my van. I have a very low budget, so this was my idea for an upgrade as opposed to nothing. I made friends with a guy who owned a really sketchy junk yard down by the river, and he agreed to let me go at the fire truck if I worked for him for a day. So after an absolutely exhausting Saturday of collecting tires and crawling through the mud, he finally let me go at this thing with my wrenches. Somehow, I actually got the thing off, and in retrospect, Jack definitely got the better end of the deal.
At the time, I was learning how to weld, so I decided to buy a dirt cheap, used, harbor-freight welder in order to do this project. Seeing as there was only so much pipe from the fire truck, I was only able to add it on about two feet after the wye pipe, but it ended up working quite well. The pipes consisted of some straight and some bent pipe (4” in diameter) and a muffler. I used a friends abrasive chop saw and step by step chopped and welded these pipes together in order to get a geometry that would travel down the length of the van, sweep up over the rear axel, and nicely curve over to the side behind the back tire to stick out and show the world how big my pipe was. What I’m most proud of myself for is doing all this on the ground in the driveway of my rental house, running my sketchy, homemade 240V extension cord out the window for the welder.
This has been one of many projects that I’ve taken on since I bought this van. I have in fact designed a heated vegetable oil system so I can drive for free, and I’ve done a few other things including installation of some seats, coolant filter with SCAs, etc. My reason for being a part of this website is obvious. There’s a crew of some of the nicest, most helpful guys I ever could have imagined finding, let alone on the internet. With the encouragement of a few of the guys here, I’ve recently bought a 6.9L (from Rob Wick, 69Oiler,) and I’m going to be attempting to rebuild it this summer. We will see how it goes, I will no doubt be needing some advice along the way.
So, in conclusion, hook me up with that exhaust system, and you know it’ll go to good use! I’ll have the perfect opportunity to install it when I take my engine out this summer. I dismissed the idea of a real exhaust system long ago as being cost-prohibitive, but you guys could change that. Photos of my makeshift exhaust system can be seen at
http://www.rpi.edu/~mossj/Fire Truck Exhaust/
My favorite part of the van, so far, was my two week long project this past
summer where I took the exhaust system off of an enormous fire engine and retrofitted it to work on my van. I have a very low budget, so this was my idea for an upgrade as opposed to nothing. I made friends with a guy who owned a really sketchy junk yard down by the river, and he agreed to let me go at the fire truck if I worked for him for a day. So after an absolutely exhausting Saturday of collecting tires and crawling through the mud, he finally let me go at this thing with my wrenches. Somehow, I actually got the thing off, and in retrospect, Jack definitely got the better end of the deal.
At the time, I was learning how to weld, so I decided to buy a dirt cheap, used, harbor-freight welder in order to do this project. Seeing as there was only so much pipe from the fire truck, I was only able to add it on about two feet after the wye pipe, but it ended up working quite well. The pipes consisted of some straight and some bent pipe (4” in diameter) and a muffler. I used a friends abrasive chop saw and step by step chopped and welded these pipes together in order to get a geometry that would travel down the length of the van, sweep up over the rear axel, and nicely curve over to the side behind the back tire to stick out and show the world how big my pipe was. What I’m most proud of myself for is doing all this on the ground in the driveway of my rental house, running my sketchy, homemade 240V extension cord out the window for the welder.
This has been one of many projects that I’ve taken on since I bought this van. I have in fact designed a heated vegetable oil system so I can drive for free, and I’ve done a few other things including installation of some seats, coolant filter with SCAs, etc. My reason for being a part of this website is obvious. There’s a crew of some of the nicest, most helpful guys I ever could have imagined finding, let alone on the internet. With the encouragement of a few of the guys here, I’ve recently bought a 6.9L (from Rob Wick, 69Oiler,) and I’m going to be attempting to rebuild it this summer. We will see how it goes, I will no doubt be needing some advice along the way.
So, in conclusion, hook me up with that exhaust system, and you know it’ll go to good use! I’ll have the perfect opportunity to install it when I take my engine out this summer. I dismissed the idea of a real exhaust system long ago as being cost-prohibitive, but you guys could change that. Photos of my makeshift exhaust system can be seen at
http://www.rpi.edu/~mossj/Fire Truck Exhaust/