Project Queso

[krogo]

I've been a lurker for a very very long time. I've never contributed here specifically, but have over at FT forums. I've been on the fence about starting a Project Thread. I figured what's the worst that can happen. I can always abandon it!

Introduction: The name is Ken, the wife and I live in Indiana. Two kiddos in college, and we are planning our "Retirement". Our retirement goals are simple, Retire young enough that we can take our RV to all 49 Continental States and Most of the Canadian provinces. Work has sent me around the world and it has made me realize that I've never seen much of my own country.

Our tow vehicle is a 1993 F-350 XLT Crew Cab, Long Bed, Dually, NA 7.3, 2WD.
She's always been impeccably reliable. Lost a Trans several years back, the belt tensioner ate a belt once, lift pump failure. Otherwise she's never let us down. Heck the AC is still on the Factory charge and works very well.

We purchased our latest RV Two years ago and very quickly realized the ole' girl was seriously struggling.
The trailer comes off the scales at 8500 lbs, but Ole' Queso couldn't make it over 55 MPH on the flat. Keep in mind, she's on her original Injection Pump and has 125ishK miles, so I know it's baked.

I weighed my options, New truck, Different Truck, Keep Queso.

New Truck: I work in the diesel industry, never will I own a new "Light Duty" Diesel. I don't care how "Medium Duty" you think some engines are, they aren't... Full stop. That left me with a single option, The new SuperDuty with the 7.3 Gas when it was finally released. The issue became ordering what I actually wanted, which was a near carbon copy of Queso. By the time I was able to option everything out the way I wanted, I was north of $65,000. That amount does not jive with our early retirement goals.

Different Truck: Clapped out 7.3 & 6.0 powerstrokes and Cummins Dodges 7 Man Children have been through (Chevy is not an option in my mind, they still owe me money) all north of $15,000. No thanks.

Keep Queso: She's in relatively good shape for a rust belt truck, Cab corners are solid, odd rust spots here and there, but overall great looking at 60 feet. The new trans only has 8K miles and the engine, as I've mentioned is sitting around 125K.

We decided to keep Queso, throw $10K at her, and get her up to more modern "Standards".

I started the journey with a Very Excellent correspondence with the likewise Very Excellent @Thewespaul of CDD. Shes' gonna need to be force fed if I hope to modernize. We decided on a near copy of Big Blue. The only difference is I decided to go with a 90cc pump instead of the 110cc, a choice I'm still not sure about. Watching Big Blue come together really makes we wonder if I made the right choice. Hopefully he can correct me before it's too late. I do plan to go through the engine, check for wear, replace/refresh as necessary, drop in some gapless rings to improve efficiency and TADA.

I do have some Wild ideas that I hope to share along the way: Retaining dual tanks without the FSV and I promise it isn't what you're thinking and (GASP) an Electric Vacuum Pump to retain Vacuum Brakes!!! No Hydroboost, Nope Nope Nope. (Shall I dodge the flamethrower now or later?) I've got other things in the works as well, hopefully shared with time.

Here is a pic from last year. Tony Rojo HID headlamps, LED everywhere else. Running Boards are long gone.

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[IDIBRONCO]

Very nice looking truck. I'm jealous. I won't try to out guess Wes. He knows his products and services better than anyone else does. My only question is about the electric vacuum pump. It takes a lot of vacuum to operate the brakes. Will you be able to find a big enough one that's made with enough quality to last for a long time? Either way you go, I always recommend installing a vacuum gauge. This will let you keep an eye on the health of your vacuum pump.

 

[krogo]

The Pump I'm installing is the Hella UP50 driven by my own controls. It's designed to augment traditional vacuum sources or be completely stand alone. They had the EV market in mind.
It's capable of developing 14 inHg in 2 seconds, 20 inHg in 4 seconds starting at atmosphere with a minimum of 27 inHg. 1500 hour service life should be plenty!
I do own several (3) vehicles with Electric Vacuum pumps (two of which are actually hella up28's, the baby brother, from the factory) and I'm completely comfortable with them.
We'll see. Ultimately this is an experiment, nothing is cast in stone. Anything has to be better than the anemic factory vacuum pump, and I don't want the clutter of hydroboost.

 

[hacked89]

Nice looking truck and looking forward to seeing your performance upgrades from CDD come together.

X2 on the vacuum pump.
I had a (1) summit electric pump on my brake booster and another one for the HVAC. Brakes worked great, but I personally wasn't a fan. I wasn't a fan because the specific vacuum pump I had worked great but got hotter then I liked. Converting to hydroboost and no vacuum.
If/when I ever put AC on the truck I'll add one of my electric pumps back for the blend door.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[Thewespaul]

Hey Ken welcome to Oilburners and thanks for the kind words, always so cool to see the trucks my parts are going on and to know a bit about their history. The Up50 sounds like a beast, I’m looking forward to seeing how your vacuum setup performs over the factory system as well as the fuel transfer system you’ve designed. I think there’s a few chevys that owe me money too

 

[jrollf]

Great truck!!! I have pretty much the same thing but all black with the 7.3 IDI Factory Turbo motor. Love it!

I would love to find a set of those running boards... can't find anyone that makes anthing but tube steps and basic ugly straight diamond plate running boards for the OBS Crew Cab Dually trucks anymore.

My parents had a late 80's SuperCab dually, the running boards on it were cool, one piece from the front wheels to the back wheels, no split at the bed. They started narrow at the front and widened at an even angle all the way back to the width of the dually fender.

 

[krogo]

Unfortunately, the running boards had been in place since new and we're seriously falling apart. Large holes had formed and large passengers had deformed them over the years. They were not high quality by any stretch of the imagination.

Cosmetically, she's losing the silly handles on the B and C pillars, losing the visor and the spoiler. The visor and spoiler are both in reasonable shape still and I'll offer those up to anyone interested when I'm ready.

 

[krogo]

Saturday morning update: I hate people that return stuff they broke.

The fuel system is getting a Deatchwerks 9-250 fuel pump. I had originally intended on installing a Walbro however reports of chinesium clones coming from high profile sellers does not instill confidence. That I can tell, the Deatchwerks is as good as the Walbro, and as of yet no known clones on the market. Heck it could itself be a clone of the Walbro, who knows.

I, like a fool, purchased a "used, like new" pump from Amazon, having done this several times before allowing myself to save a buck. The pump arrived, and as usual looks like it had never been actually used. I spun in the AN fittings and clipped on some test leads to bench test prior to mounting. I fired it up and boy did it pump. Spewing fuel from the base of the negative supply post. Upon further inspection it looks like someone reefed on the nut with no backing wrench and spun the post in the pump. Rather than own their mistake, they sent it back to Amazon.

There are days when I appreciate the way Snap-on deals with broken tools. If there appears to be abuse, nope, you own it.

TLDR: Some jeckwad broke a fuel pump, sent it back to Amazon, I ended up with it and lost a weekend of fuel system work. I guess I'm painting.

 

[krogo]

To highlight some of the work already done.
The chassis has been encapsulated and painted.
Polyurethane body mounts. Rear spring hangers replaced due to rust holes.
All bushings replaced with polyurethane lubed with Schaeffer 238.
All rear suspension components (expect springs) blasted and painted.
New B&W class 5 hitch.
38 Gallon rear tank with sump.

She Barely fits in the building in this position!!

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I used some welding wire to fabricate a new float arm. As others have mentioned, 4.5" longer is perfect.

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[krogo]

Weekend Update.

30 micron Aeromotive style strainer installed.
New Fuel Pump arrived and installed.
Weldon Fuel Pressure Regulator installed on temporary mount.
Supply and FPR return are fully plumbed, Nylon -8 Hose & AN fittings throughout.
Factory return line refitted with -6 nylon hose & AN fittings.
Installed "Ty's version" Fuel Tank vent into rear tank.

Due to space, I need to ditch the Facet pump I planned to use in the transfer system. Going to source a new pump this week.

Pictures soon hopefully.

 

[krogo]

Sorry for potato quality.

Strainer and Pump, Injector/IP return line not yet routed

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Holy Potato batman, Fuel Pressure Regulator on temp mount.

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[krogo]

I have the new transfer pump ordered. It's just a Facet cube with check valve. The possibility exists to back flow from the rear to the front if the rear tank is full.
Below are some pictures of the controls for the new pump.
The brains of the operation is an Arduino Nano and some "Jazz Hands" code I whipped up.
Connected are two Adafruit 4226 INA260 power sensors and a 0.9" SSD1306 OLED display.
OLED is mounted in a 3D printed frame that will take the place of the original fuel selector switch.
As of yet I have not, but I intend to utilize all the factory wiring for the fuel selector switch to support the system.
I still need to package all this up in a tidy box to mount in the dash, bench top development and diagnostics so far.

Theory of operation:
One of the INA260's is connected inline with the dash fuel gauge to the rear tank sending unit.
The other INA260 is connected to the front tank sending unit.
The rear sending unit is supplied ~5V from the gauge itself, which the INA260 inline measures accurately.
The Front sending unit is supplied 5.0V from the Arduino power supply, which is also measured accurately by it's INA260.
Using Ohm's law, we can take the measured voltage from each sensor divided by the measured current from each sensor and calculate the resistance for each sending unit.
The code uses a lookup table the translate the calculated resistance to percent fuel capacity.
The OLED displays the front tank fuel capacity, as well as text to indicate when the pump is running.
A relay module, driven by the Arduino, is used to drive the pump.

Currently, the code waits until the rear tank is below 65%, checks to make sure the front tank is over 15%, then runs the pump until the rear tank is at 80%.
My thought process is the following, Fill both tanks, now 57 gallons in total. As we cruise down the road, the system will transfer fuel automatically. Since I have not altered the rear sending unit just added a shunt in line, even if the controls fail, the OLED fails, the pump fails, when the dash gauge read empty, it's time to fill. Nothing in the way I have designed the transfer system will strand me as long as I watch the factory fuel gauge as we all do anyway. The Cube pump is rated for 15GPH so the transfer will be slow (an hour for the usable contents of the tank), that means I'd need to be averaging 4MPG to outrun the pump. I'd say that's pretty good.

OLED showing full front tank(front connected factory sender), rear tank is calling for fuel (fixed resistor simulated), "PUMP ON" text indicating Fuel Pump relay module is active.

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Same conditions as above, wider pic.

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Same as above, different angle.

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Front tank sender sifted to empty, Gauge "Empty", no "PUMP ON" text.

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Same as above, different angle.

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Cont....

 

[krogo]

Front tank full, rear tank over 80% (Gauge still moving when I took the pic), no call for fuel.

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Rear tank 25%, Front tank full, Call for fuel.

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Rear tank < 25%, Front tank < 15%, No call for fuel.

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I hope you found this interesting.

 

[lotzagoodstuff]

Nice write up. Great choice on the DeatshWerks pump. have one in my GN and I have accidentally run it out of fuel with no ill effects. I believe Deatshwerks makes the best Walbro style pump. All the other stuff is totally suspect, I installed a Walbro knockoff in my GN and it never made good pressure brand new out of the box. Guess what? Brand Xdidn't warranty it. Deatshwerks puts their money where their mouth is with the 3 year warranty.

I'm interested in how you mount the pump as I've always been told they have to be submerged in fuel to cool them. I also really like your two tank with no FSV, and I'm pretty interested in your vacuum brake experiment.

Great write up, and good job keeping your old rig and dumping a little well deserved love into her. The name really makes sense: tortilla chips are good, but cover them in queso and now they are out of sight fantastic

 

[krogo]

@lotzagoodstuff The pump (9-250) is an inline by design and came with the frame mount, we'll see!
If ya look up a couple posts, You'll see it mounted.
Honestly, with 5 PSI of head and a bypass regulator designed for 1000hp, plenty of fuel will be ripping through it I'd doubt cooling will be an issue.
In fact, I've thought about a fuel cooler since circulating this much fuel will likely heat the fuel itself up pretty well.
That's an easy add in the future if needed.

The Vacuum Pump write-up will be a bit yet. Just getting ready to pull the engine. While it's out I plan to do some work in the engine bay, to include the Vacuum pump setup.
As far as controls are concerned, I'll be using the same Arduino for both Fuel Transfer and Vacuum pump. I probably could have shown that last night.
I picked up a GM map sensor to use for vacuum measurement (The good Ford ones are PWM and honestly, I didn't want to mess with that since GM makes a nice, reliable 0-5V output flavor).
Another relay module to drive the pump.
I wrote the code at the same time as for the Fuel Transfer system.

I have not written the code to display Vacuum Pump state or Vacuum developed on the OLED display yet, but I do plan to add that. @IDIBRONCO
I'll also use the factory Vacuum warning light as a diagnostic light for the system.

I'm adding three gauges, that's it. I don't want it to look like a cockpit, and honestly, I'm debating about that.
I might just make a larger display add another Arduino to drive a Gauge panel. We'll see.