Finally joined

[Seventh]

After lurking for a couple years here soaking up some knowledge I finally decided to join in the fun.

Got a 94 IDI Turbo 2wd ext cab a couple years ago from an old timer who was the original owner. 71k on the clock when I got it. Immaculate condition. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for but I fell in love with it. I was looking for my first diesel truck and wanted a nice one.

PO only used it to tow his camper around on road trips. He added a 65 gallon tank into the front of the bed, with a nice filler bezel/cap exiting the side of the camper shell. Holds about 100 gallons of fuel total including the two factory tanks haha.

The truck came with a three + inch stack of service records from the local dealer.

So far I've replaced all 17 miles of rubber fuel hoses between all the tanks and switchover valves and up to the pump, and installed a Baldwin fuel filter.

It had green coolant in it, with some dried crust around the water pump and in the radiator core, everything looked original, so I replaced the entire cooling system minus the head gaskets and heater core. Literally every single hose, gasket, cooler o-rings, radiator, you name it. Filled it with Delo ELC coolant, and installed new belt, tensioner (shock type) and idler pulleys. I also installed the hypermax cowl induction intake at that time with an afe dry flow filter.

The A/C compressor would only come on sporadically, but would blow cold when it did, found the switch on the reciever/dryer was no good and the connector was all corroded. Got that fixed up with a new switch and cleaned up the connector, works like a charm now.

The PO had an aux trans cooler daisy-chained into the outlet of the stock radiator cooler. I didn't really like that, so I skipped the radiator cooler altogether during the rad install and went straight to the aux cooler and back. I then got the derale deep pan with the cooling tubes integrated, installed that with the 4wd deep pick up trans filter and installed a transgo tugger shift kit while I was in there.

I've been running it on Delo 5w40 synthetic with an FL 1995 filter. Runs really smooth and quiet. Driving at speed you almost can't even tell it's a diesel.

I picked up a banks downpipe for the factory turbo, but have been unable to find the mid pipe anywhere. I wanted to straight pipe it anyway, and I've heard that you can use an exhaust system for an OBS power stroke and it will mate up nicely with the banks IDI downpipe. Thoughts or advice?

I didn't really plan on posting a word castle, but wanted to share my tale. So much of the work I've done on the truck so far has been only possible by lurking here and gathering info from the knowledgeable members, so thank you oil burners.

Only have the one pic of my truck handy right now, but here she is

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[IDIoit]

welcome. nice rig. what part of nor cal?

 

[Seventh]

welcome. nice rig. what part of nor cal?

Thanks

I'm in Sacramento

 

[FORDF250HDXLT]

Took you long enough to join! Better late than never.

Welcome to OBN.I hope you'll reconsider doing away with the radiator cooler for your trans.That there is the main cooler and will work far better than any size aux cooler you could possibly buy in itself.The main danger of running an aux air cooler only,is that when idle/off road,slow city congested traffic driving,the trans wont have any good way to cool and adding an electric fan to it would only help a touch.
There is no better setup than:
Trans out - into radiator - out of radiator - into aux cooler - out of aux cooler - return to trans.

This way here is ideal because,you get max efficient cooling from a water cooler which no air cooler can compete with,then additional cooling via air cooler before it returns to the trans.This way here,your odds of having ideal 175F trans temps (at the test port) are greatly increased.

 

[Seventh]

Took you long enough to join! Better late than never.

Welcome to OBN.I hope you'll reconsider doing away with the radiator cooler for your trans.That there is the main cooler and will work far better than any size aux cooler you could possibly buy in itself.The main danger of running an aux air cooler only,is that when idle/off road,slow city congested traffic driving,the trans wont have any good way to cool and adding an electric fan to it would only help a touch.
There is no better setup than:
Trans out - into radiator - out of radiator - into aux cooler - out of aux cooler - return to trans.

This way here is ideal because,you get max efficient cooling from a water cooler which no air cooler can compete with,then additional cooling via air cooler before it returns to the trans.This way here,your odds of having ideal 175F trans temps (at the test port) are greatly increased.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I skipped the rad cooler because I thought it may be restrictive having the two coolers in series like that.

I did purchase a trans temp gauge when I installed the derale deep pan. I figured I'd throw the sender in there during install while I had the chance, however I never have ran the wires or installed the gauge. I'll have to do that soon and see where my temps are.

I'll definitely re-route the cooler lines through the rad if necessary