What in Tarnation?
 

Kind of boring in the dead of winter. I have plenty of work in the wood shop, but I gotta have a mechanical challenge so I have something to 'engineer' when I lie awake at 3 am after getting up to pee. So there's this cummins inline 6 cyl turbo diesel I keep rolling back and forth on a cart in my shop. Not the powerhouse 6bt like a dodge or the shorter 4bt from a frito-lays delivery van. It's a 210 cu in 120 hp. I have owned 2 others but sold them in trucks, the latest I had put into a '59 f350 9' pickup, but sold a few years back. A very rare case of seller's remorse for me. OK, we go back about a week or so and I had been thinking about a conversion into my 47 tonner PU. The 59 ab is low on oil pressure and compression and tends to foul plugs. The truck is a gem though. Maybe best cab I have ever seen and I rebuilt the box and a nice grill etc. Here's what I have done so far. I have 3 tonners in my back 40. One is just a 100.00 rolling chassis with chopped rear of frame and no title. I decided this would be much easier to arrange the engine and it's gm sm465 tranny into as a mockup, then transfer what I did into my good truck. Super easy access on a bare frame.

I hoisted the engine/tranny over the frame and after a lot of head scratching decided the only way I could get the mounts in and clear the steering box, oil filter etc was to cut out the front ford engine mounts out with a torch and side mount it about mid engine..... So I did and other issues kept cropping up. The worst issue was I hated myself for cutting that frame (and since it was a mockup, the horror of cutting my good pickup frame later) Last sunday morning I got out of bed at 3:30 am, Welded the mounts back in and made a pledge that if I was going to do this it would be a complete bolt in kit. No more cutting, no welding on the frame, nothing. The 6at is now mounted with 1/2" clear at the firewall, 1" fan clearance to the ford 6 cyl G radiator I had in a parts truck, re-fabbed motor mounts up forward in the 6 cyl position, using the stock ford donut motor mounts. Trans is mounted on a heavy duty removable cross member just behind the untouched ford trans mount. I made a spacer to get the radiator clearance right but it's just a bolt pass through affair. The throttle lever is in the exact right place on the right side but it needs a pull to accelerate the bosch rotary pump. I had planned to heat the ball end leg to go up, not down, but now have dreamed up a bell crank to change to a pull, bolted to the head. Did I mention I placed a factory cowl on this thing to get firewall /tranny clearance? It would have been used for a bread truck or school bus etc. The GM shifter comes up through the trans cover about an inch further back than stock, but still comes through the cover with no cutting. It's late here and this is the longest post I've ever seen. I will get some pics tomorrow, but excuse the messy shop strewn with scrap metal and the ugly mock up frame. If you have any interest look on youtube at '59 F350 with cummins 6at' I know, I know it isn't a flathead, but I might build a nice one in a couple years and drop it in some weekend. Why am I doing this? Because it was there......

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

i am jealous, and confused, didnt you say a 4bt, and later mocked up a 6at? i read it twice. at any rate, love them cummins. i am on my 4th 6bt, currently driving an 89 (first year) dodge. as most folks say, i didnt buy a dodge, i bought a cummins. i dream of replacing my favorite truck i ever owned, a 63 1 ton ford with a 16' roll deck, with the same truck and a 6bt cummins . drove that ford coast to coast hunting junk for 18 years and knew it was bad planning when i watched it drive out the drive way. keep us posted, i for one will be watching

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

6at . I think the 4bt is a 6bt with two less cylinders. This oddball cummins was first used in onan generators and was later offered as an automotive version and sold to fleet truck operators. Most of the ones I know of came out of UPS trucks. They are indirect injected and develop their hp at 3600 rpms, so gearing and speeds similar to our flatheads and other gas engines.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Love it!

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Cummins bought Onan in the late '80's and the 6AT engine was part of that deal. I worked on 4BT automotive applications and knew some of the Onan engineers well at that time. I think the 6AT was allowed to die a natural death by not developing it to meet new emission requirements, maybe around 1991. UPS used a lot of 6AT engines followed by 6BT engines later on.

Good luck with your installation, it sounds like quite a project.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

I went and checked out your old YouTube video of the 59 . . . looked like a real nice setup and one that had to make that ole' truck quite the rig. I like your new plan - post some pictures and who us what you're up too!

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

I got a few photos this morning. I also decided the cowl must have been from a G engined truck and that's why the long arm bending downward and push rather than pull. Today I hope to shorten the short front driveshaft. I think I have 3 of them from my junkyard. I have shortened them before, but today I want to try something a little different. The plan is to scribe an index line for phasing u joints, cut out the 3 or so inches, turn a wood dowel about 18" long on my wood lathe the ID of the shaft.Tap in fit. Weld around the joint, leaving the wood inside. What could possibly go wrong? If the six inches of linear weld ever sheared, I'd just roll to a stop. So here I am cutting and welding..... I also am slightly modifying the radiator support as the radiator is about an inch in front of stock. The cross bar will be bumped ahead. I will keep both of these items from the good red truck and save them for the next generation of flathead lovers. I have a conversion u-joint on it's way that has the GM caps on one axis and the ford tonner axis on the other. I love stuff like that.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

So that's what a "tarnation" is... huh.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

I was wondering about this too. Most of these "American expressions" come from English words ("vittles' from "victuals", "critters" from "creatures", etc.) but I can't figure this one out.:o

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Purgatory?
Bruce

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Not sure either, but there may be a connection to the Turbo Cabulator.....

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

1784, American English alteration of darnation (itself a euphemism for damnation), influenced by tarnal (1790), a mild profanity, clipped from phrase by the Eternal.

The longer version: The history of the noun and interjection tarnation illustrates a phenomenon called taboo deformation, by which words that can be considered offensive or impolite under some circumstances are made more acceptable or softer-sounding by altering one or more sounds that make up the words. Tarnation appears to be a variant of darnation, itself a taboo deformation of damnation, in the same way that darn is an alteration of damn. Tarnation, however, seems to have been influenced by tarnal!, another mild oath that is derived from the adjective eternal—as used in eternal damnation! for instance. The taboo deformations darn, darnation, and tarnation have been used in New England since the late 1700s.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

What the hell??

I'm liking this project!

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

It was meant to describe my project as some kind of hillbilly nonsense. Like
" What in tarnation is this hick up to this time?"While not a listener to national public radio (my wife is a fan) they have a yearly contest whereas one takes a word, changes one letter and gives it a new definition. The results are often quite humorous. One of my favorites over the years has been 'reintarnation'.... coming back to life as a hillbilly. Speaking of such things I made my dowel for driveshaft alignment but grandparent duty got in the way of the welding aspect this afternoon. The welding may happen tomorrow morning at 3 am depending on the whims of my bladder and the magnetic pull of all that steel and iron in the shop.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

They are a very reliable and fuel efficient engine, and something different.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8MAVbo6Gq4

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Got my driveshaft welded up. This will give me the yoke to yoke dimension and be good enough for a start and drive around my end of the island. Before I hit the mainland I will get a properly built and balanced shaft. It's only about 2' long, has the carrier bearing on the rear of it. Ideally I'd have a 3150 end yoke welded onto the end of this 2" dia shaft, but it's a big u joint on the tranny's output (from a '77 GM one ton dually) and I only see them listed for a 2 1/2" or 3" dia tube.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Good work, GB. An interesting project.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Thanks Mart, Always a good word! Did a bit of cleaning up after the manic phase of making this thing fit. Been pulling the mounts and painting them, fan, radiator, etc. I needed an entire chevy clutch kit so have one on order. This cummins has all chev at that end of things. Still need to work out hydraulic clutch details, but I did that before with the '59. Edit: Did I mention I ordered a 4 row aluminum radiator with bottom outlet on the left made for a chev 350 in a 46 pickup?

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Gary
I like the cat yellow engine mount. Also your adjustment pulley.

30 years ago I put a 6BT 5.9 crate engine in an old White compact with an Allison MT 640 Transmisson. Very good combination for a cl 6 truck.
Bruce

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Thanks CM.... When this oil burner gets put in place in my red truck it will be painted and properly wired and plumbed and I hope it will be the kind of project vehicle I could drive coast to coast. Coast to coast on the Puget Sound is from my wife's sisters place near Port Angeles on the West, to maybe even her older sister's place in Ellensburg way back East!

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Oh yeah Gary, that big trip East to Eburg must be all of 200 miles!! (my son and grandkids live there) Probably only 1 tank of fuel in that rig round trip.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

I'm looking forward to the coast to coast inaugural roadtrip!

Get your movie buddy to get it on video!

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

This red truck already has new brakes with new cylinders, lines and hoses, king pins, spring bushings, tires 7.50 x 17 front and rear. All rewired for 12 v, rebuilt heater and instrument panel. Rebuilt the 8' bed and new wood and bed strips. I did all that in 2017 and 18. Just needs a good drivetrain.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

A lot has been going on in my life since I last posted on this thread. 2 of my work trucks down pretty bad. We dropped the front of the rear driveshaft of my 92 f350 onto the pavement at about 60 last friday night, racing for the ferry with about 3500 lbs of reclaimed lumber on the mainland. Luckily it's a 4wd dually flatbed so we made a sling to suspend the shaft and ran the breakdown lane in 4wd with the fronts pulling us..... Escorted by the state patrol no less. Two days later my backup chev lost it's shift linkage, So I borrowed my buddie's beater to get home that night. Now I'm on my suburban, which failed to start this afternoon leaving our jobsite. What's a guy to do? Well I got home early because of all this and just so happens it's the the day my wife works late so I got some much needed 'Me Time' on my project. Ok well I had a good weekend on it a few days back. Throttle linkage was fun. Used 3 old 1/2" wrenches with 5/16" nuts in them (drilled out to 5/16) for bearings. Even bought some nylon 5/16 nuts and bored the threads out of them. Now in my bell crank etc I have replaceable bearings. The other two are heim joints I bought on the mainland when we missed our ferry. I could go on all night but wife home soon gotta make a fire in the wood stove so it's cozy in here and she doesn't think I'm obsessed with my 'project'. The aluminum rad arrived today. I had cut out the 'stretcher' across the rad support to move it ahead, and am now adding a new one 1/2" forward, but that's a story for another day.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Good progress despite the distractions.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

I have found a truism "no matter how many vehicles you have, at one point in time they will ALL be broken at once!"

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

I'll be on the 7:am ferry to pick up the flatbed and all my lumber. This should give me most of the weekend to work on my conversion kit. By the way diesel engine kits for the old ford big trucks is nuttin' new....

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Gary
Perkins and Lister diesel engines were also used in early Fords.
Bruce

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Thanks Bruce, Both of those names are more familiar in the diesel realm than Hercules. I first saw this hercules page many years ago and now I wonder if it was the impetus for me doing my conversion as a 'kit'. I am still going to great lengths to make this conversion kit a bolt in procedure. I would have loved to mount this cummins engine onto my T9 crash box without touching the driveshaft, but an adapter to put a gm small block into a v8 drivetrain was about 500 bucks and then redrilling flywheel and a few other mods were needed. The GM trans was a bolt on to this particular oddball cummins.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Great project Gary.......you got the shop door open and green grass out there!!!!!.....this picture shows why I don’t get much done in the winter......always enjoy seeing what your up to!!!!......Mark

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

those Hercules conversions were popular with the US army, after the war many of the big cubic in gassers were swapped out. not good for the collectors today as parts can be a nightmare. keep up the good work GB

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

So the weekend is now officially over... I got quite a bit done though it doesn't show much of anything in these photos. I'm still dealing with my primary work hauler being down in the middle of a huge job, but a guy has to keep his projects on the front burner. This alternator mount for a gm one wire was completely from scratch as the one on it was cast iron and for some kind of unknown alternator. I dug up an extra 'one wire' alt, but it has the wide v pulley on it like we use on a slingshot bracket with ford type belts. The one wire alts usually come with the narrow pulley that I need right now, but can I find one in this cluster****? I'll get one at napa tomorrow if I'm in town. Every thread tapped into this engine block is metric,,,??? I saw that one guy on some 4wd site said onan/cummins had them produced in Japan? Edit: and that oil filter attachment was a cast aluminum 3 bolt affair, but it was afoul with the ford motor mount so I cut the casting in half on my wood bandsaw, then tapped the passages I exposed with a pipe tap and bought the remote setup. I tapped the base of the old stock filter with fittings for 3/8 hose but the new remote housing is tapped for 1/2" pipe. Is that 3/8 hose gonna carry enough oil for this 210 cu in 'beast'. ?

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

i would think the 3/8 hole is a restriction, but if you have your pressure gauge further down the line you will see what the motor is getting for pressure, but is the volume still there? i am on my 4th 6bt cummins, and a mix of metric and US thread is the norm from what i've seen. i even bought a nice 15MM mac wrench just for my cummins habit, odd size not seen on most import stuff. now, your lucky to be dealing with a normal V belt, thats not the norm. i had a constant problem with my 89 dodge burning up a voltage regulator about every 6-8 thousand miles. the hip cats on the cummins forum were all going for a GM 24 si, whats used on all the medium duty rigs and motor homes so, common on the road and eliminate all the dodge nonsense. i had a couple thousand miles on at home and headed out west to buy another piece of junk to complicate my life further. first morning, middle of nebreaska, cold out, start the truck to warm the diesel and its not charging. open the hood, yeah, the belts on, the alternator is spinning, so...its broke. drove west all day stopping at every auto store and every truck repair joint, no 24si in stock. so much for being common. finally in wyoming, nearly dark, 10 hours of no charge, and a truck shop had one on the shelf. i had tools, was gonna do it myself, but at 15 degrees, and near dark i begged them to do it for me. when the mechanic was trying to remove the belt, the outer case of the pulley fell on the floor!!!. so all day it was spinning, never ate the belt or looked funny when i had the hood open. when doing the conversion i had trimmed a little off one side for better alignment in my lathe, but had no indication that the pulley was made in two parts. i must have cut the weld,or was it pressed together? so now we have a new alternator, not needed, but no pulley. luckily, one of the mechanics had an old dodge in the lot not being used at the time, so i bought the alternator off his truck, paid him the retail cost to replace it, happy with that as i was once again on the road. i mostly only drive my pickup when i am on a trip to get some more junk i dont need, and now a spare alternator is behind the seat. the photo shows that i assume it was pressed together, but hard to believe that ran for about 400 miles with no noise. always glad to hear of your projects GB, you have an interesting life there on the island, keep up the good work, skip

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Thanks Skip! I know that feeling.... 'Hmmm, I'll just shave a little off the side of this pulley on the lathe. More clearance is always good." Good thing I don't have a lathe. Anyone else want to chime in on 3/8" oil lines? And what do I use for hose? EFI fuel line? Hydraulic hose? Braided would be nice with some 90 degree tubular sweep fittings at the ends.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

The process goes on. And on. I wasn't totally happy with my throttle linkage, so I cut the bell crank up and re-welded it and used a different pivot bearing in the center. Ford dealership called and said my 92 f350 was done so I got on the ferry and hitched a ride to the shop to pick it up. They had the driveshaft rebuilt, but turns out the flailing shaft had caused multiple teeth to shear off of the ring gear. I opted out of their offer to do a diff and trans service while it was there. I got out onto the highway and GRIND, RAP, CLASH,GNASH. Hellatious racket. I really needed that lumber back on the island for work. I was now a week behind schedule, which has been a tight one. Dang it, I should have had them do the diff service, they would have seen the chunks! I had a half hour to catch my ferry reservation for the 11am. As I neared the ferry terminal, a couple of construction workers looked up from their road work to see what in tarnation the racket was about. I was still a block away from them. Made it onto the ferry and parked it on the other side. Got my 3/4 ton 4wd suburban with my equipment trailer, off loaded 1500 bf of lumber onto that, called my buddie's tow truck who picked up the '92. Towed it to another friend's shop. He pulled the diff cover and said it had more bkoken teeth than whole ones. Lucky I bought both axles from a burned '94 f350 4x4 last year for 300.00. FRom my measurements I need to cut off the spring perches and weld them a bit inboard on the donor axle. It's a 4:10 and limited slip, so I'm doing ok. Heading over to his shop now to get some measurements before I move the perches. Dang, I can ramble on, but at least I'm only hijacking my own thread.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Glad you had a spare rear axle - that was a lifesaver! Sounds like you'll be back in business soon . . . stick with it!

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

By the way, there is a pic of a 46/7 ford wagon on a truck frame in the latest V8 Times, on the back page.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Can you post it up?

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

Thanks for the vote of confidence! My '92 is the backbone of all my hauling duties. Some of you have visited (all are invited). 1/2 mile of very steep switchback gravel road. Climbs about 600' in that distance. A HECK of a place to run a business, but it's private and peaceful and the view over Puget Sound is worth it. My wife has suggested I might buy a newer hauler for the business, but 10 grand for a newer truck with a quarter million miles... This one has 120,000 on it (hard island miles) but low for a 7.3 IDI. 5 speed ZF. In low range 4wd I have pulled the most crazy loads up this hill, never spun a wheel. Not once. Has a 12000 lb warn below the deck and an 8000 lb ramsey up front. Re-create that in a craigslist truck for the cost/hassel of swapping a rear end. I have the best wife ever, but she doesn't know a GOOD truck. What wife does? I continue to hijack my own thread but today being Saturday we went to town and I got a bunch of grade 8 fine thread bolts for my cummins project and some 2 1/4" exhaust parts for my intake to the turbo. This couples to an original ford oil bath air cleaner sitting atop the cummins. Pictures to follow but tomorrow I have to get this load of lumber to the kiln.

Re: What in Tarnation?
 

I do not know how to copy and paste a pic from a mag. Maybe someone else with better knowledge can enlarge and post the pic. If not, I will try.