Project: IDI International Travelall

Took the frame from 155" wheelbase down to 119.5" wheelbase

Everything disco'd except main cabin harness and AC lines almost finished dash removal, pretty sure just the harness that runs the entire span of the dash is holding on for dear life...

Cab is off finally, lost a weekend due to not being able to get the cab off.

Nice Project. Looking great! Thanks for sharing.

junk said:

Nice Project. Looking great! Thanks for sharing.

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Thx man can't wait to get it drivable, had atleast 1 week hold up waiting for people to show up and help remove the cab, now I'm at 2 weeks delayed due to welders not showing up, I've got a guy coming this weekend (fingers crossed) he stopped by the other day to get material ideas so looking good for some progress.

Long 8 hr day in the garage @ 110 degrees.. had to cantilever the body onto the frame and took quite awhile.. half the day if feels like.. that beast was ALOT heavier than I thought, me and 3 guys took the dodge cab off with little struggle and carried it about 100 feet around to my backyard.. this was a whole 'nother animal.

I now have 2 1/4 that we have to move the engine and trans xmember back or I would loose my intercooler (not happening). We were planning to weld 3" boxed steel to the top of the frame rails for the rear body mounts, concerned with garage clearance i opted to cut the bottom inch off of those pieces so its more like C channel. It still won't clear the garage, im hoping the weight of a full tank (going to have one fabricated), all the doors, tailgate, and glass will drop it just enough.

Gonna be awesome

saburai said:

Gonna be awesome

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Yeah man I cannot wait! Had some more downtime, its getting attention here and there but wife had Covid for 2 weeks and man it's been hot in the garage!

Sprayed the interior floor, rear compartments, and ceiling with black raptor (egc101) Found this rockville rockmat sound deadener (great stuff) 50 sq ft for 115.00 (no tax and free shipping on their site.. ordered the first one on Amazon (had to pay tax) 2nd roll is due to be here tomorrow. Carpet came in
Previous seats would have been awesome.. they were going to be stuffed door to door .. 1 thing I didn't take into account... steering wheel was 4 or 5" to the right... picked up 2 seats of these also out of a 2020 Sienna

Hesitate to post this up because its half assed and been sitting for over a month but here goes! Cut up the dodge dash bezel to squeeze in a double DIN had to sacrifice the worst cup holder design of all time Front windshield getting installed tomorrow, welder is coming back on 8/8 to recess the firewall and help scoot engine back, etc.

Forward floor/dash came out great!

Funny thing about the 2ndgen bezel... I'm looking to modify one a little so I can use the 2ndgen cluster (with tach) in a 1stgen. What did you use for filler and reinforcement?

u2slow said:

Forward floor/dash came out great!

Funny thing about the 2ndgen bezel... I'm looking to modify one a little so I can use the 2ndgen cluster (with tach) in a 1stgen. What did you use for filler and reinforcement?

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Thanks man, I first used Evercoat Fibertech.. thought it was about 1/2" thick but its actually 1/4" thick then I just skimmed over that with regular bondo.. I used masking tape to kind of guide where I wanted it.. the overdrive button I cut up its little holster and had to turn it sideways get it to fit upthere.

you can also use that bondo aluminum mesh to reinforce, i didnt use any on the bezel but i used quite a bit to repair the brittle 2nd gen dash.. it wouldnt stop breaking.. id repair it and a new spot would break off.. I'll get photos of that soon when its done but this Fibertech stuff is great I'll post some vids of it in a minute

Not sure why the video im looking for is so hard to find but here's a good one


If possible paste it onto some wax paper and smush it down, that wax paper will get hot! But when you peel it off its way smooth, also its not like traditional filller where you run a ribbon of hardener across the diameter of your puddle unless you have a real tall puddle. The package recommends adding hardener by weight i always eyeball it and lean towards using less.. just play with it and one more thing... its expensive (for a filler) its about 60bux for less than a quart. Amazon is cheapest, the photo shows a tube but it comes in a nifty little **** cutter pouch.

Not much done lately, been busy with the family and its been 110+ for around 40 days straight now... only had to cut a small portion of the firewall out
The EGC101 held up great to the heat from a MIG.. single stage firewall side not so much
using a 40 gallon tank from an 88 'burb' had 77k looks practically new inside.. sprayed a couple cans of rusroleum undercoating and slapped on some deadener.. Hopefully the deadener don't fly off and stick to someone's vehicle on the highway during a 'nice hot day'
240k and KDP had not been tabbed yet! ..took care of that, painted the timing cover, snapped the oil filler tube clean off.. wish I would have known the filler tube unscrewed oh well (oops) also removed the (monstrous!) Oil pan.. working on cleaning that up, painting it, and will probably reinstall after the engine gets scooted back. Using all Fel-Pro gaksets, all new gates hoses (rad, heater, all 3 hydroboost), gates PS rebuild kit, gates serp belt... keep adding more work for myself since it won't get any easier than to do it now. Picked up Energy Suspension engine mount inserts and misc. Front end bushings, 12 qts of Mobil1 turbo diesel oil.. not sure if i should use the Mobile 1 on the new gaskets what do you guys think?

Hope this is good enough for maintenance while its all opened up and easy to work on

Anyone know if I can use this fuel filter top from a 7.3 idi as a transmission filter head?
Installed the clean as whistle and freshly painted oil pan tonight.. gave up on using a torque wrench after bolt 5.. hopefully the wrist torque-o-meter calibration was on point. Installed timing cover the other night and realized I torqued em all to 28ft lbs instead of 18ft lbs.. fingers crossed no issues arise.