Thanks boss!

-DG

Dutch,

A link in your last post on the old thread to the new thread will help folks in the future to more easily navigate to the second of the two part saga.

Good work Dave! Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm..........I love the smell of diesel in the morning.

-Sean P.

In all fairness, I'm sure hoping this thread has run it's course.  I wish it would have been much shorter!  But there was one funny story from the second install that proves that a month away from the G is too long.

I had gotten everything installed and had buttoned things up from the under side with all the transmission conections made.  I went into the cab to try the shifter and make sure it got all gears (this is a 4 speed trans).

1....okay, 2.....okay, 3....okay, 4......okay, reverse......what the????

the lever won't push down to engage reverse......what in the heck is causing this?   There's free play in the lever, but it seems to only be in the upward direction....crawl underneath, re-check linkage, all seems okay, all levers move from underneath......What the heck is keeping that lever from going down?......Pull up and SNICK, right over into Reverse it goes.......Oh yeah.....you pull up to get reverse, not push down...... 

I guess some little remnant of driving Q's Audi was still stuck in my head wanting to push down to get reverse.

I'll take problems like that any time....  :)  

The drive home yesterday was great.  The 4000 ft climb from Denver up to home was accomplished all in top gear.  That's something I never had a prayer of doing in any 280.  Now granted, the foot was to the floor a good bit of the time, and right at the top of the longest constant grade (about 7-8 miles) where it steepens up to 8% I was down to doing 50 mph (speed limit is 55).  But that's actually normal for a lot of new cars on that grade, so I didn't feel too bad.  And my 280 was dropping to 40-45 at that same point in THIRD gear.

The exhaust work that my local guy did on the head pipe is absolutely a thing of beauty.  That pipe looks like it was made that way from the factory.  No interference anywhere, but tucked in nicely above and to the right of the front driveshaft, with zero chance of interference.  And he added a nice hanger bracket to handle the weight of the exhaust pipes and keep the weight on the turbo to a minimum with a nice little flex piece between the turbo and the hanger.  Perfect. 

On the way in today it seemed to run even better.  I need to run the diesel purge through it and change fuel filters again.  Then I'll make an appointment with Mark for early next week for him to tweak it just right.  I haven't really filled the tank to check fuel economy yet.  I figure I'll wait 'till Mark gives me the thumbs up that it's running really right before I start calculating fuel consumption.

Thanks again for everyone's help and support!

-Dave G.

Looking forward to hearing how AMZ and the missus are enjoying their trip.  Have him find time to post when they make it to your place (this AM right?).

-Dave G.

Look at http://4x4abc.com/G-Class/transmissions/getriebe.html

I'm considering the (1) G1/17-4, (2) G1/18-5/4.7, and (3) G1/18-5/6.15.

(1) is installed now (2 and 3 are on a boat on their way to me) and I'd like a slightly higher 3rd gear as well as an overdrive if I could get it, but the reverse gear on this one is nice for backing even up hills, where your speed can't get into the boost.

(2) gets me the overdrive I want above, but at the expense of a higher reverse gear, and negligible improvement of the 3rd gear ratio.

(3) gets me a wonderfully low reverse gear, and what looks like it might be a nice ratio in the cog below 1:1 (4th in this box), but still no overdrive.

In bench racing mode it looks like option (3) might be best, even if it limits me to 60-65 mph on the highways.  But I'll be able to better comment after trying them out.

I don't know about the auto boxes as I've never driven them and don't plan to in my use for the G.  Maybe others can chime in on the auto box.

Keep in mind that my use includes a lot of hilly driving at altitude.  A whole different set of driveability concerns would likely come into play if the G was used exclusively on relatively flat land at low elevations.

-Dave G.

My lovely bride, bless her heart, asked the same question last evening.  I had to say that first of all, with the recent wrench-fest, I won't care if I don't TOUCH tools till spring! (I know I won't be THAT lucky).  But yes, I would like to be able to run veggie oil and will probably add that capability some time.  As to how to implement the PROCUREMENT of the actual veggie oil, I'm not sure I have time in my life for the whole waste fryer thing.  But I might find it in me to cut my fuel costs a little by taking delivery of a carbouy of rapseed oil once in a while or something.   I don't know.  That's all a ways off.....unless Diesel goes to $5 a gallon.

-Dave G.

You bring up a great point, Loki.  If I got a larger tire that was nearly equal to the difference between 5th and 4th in the /6.15 box it would have a similar effect to getting the overdrive in the /4.7 box.  The nice thing about tire sizes is that they come in many more small increments of difference than do gears.  And they're a lot easier to change...although not any cheaper!

I'll have to do some playing around with the revs per mile numbers of some different tires besides the BFG Comm-Trac 235/85s I'm running now.  Thanks for bringing the idea up again.  Maybe the key to trimming out the gearing just right is the tire choice.

-Dave G.

Is that the single tank system that lets you also run biodiesel or is it the two tank system?

Chad

(I guess the question is related to this thread as food for thought on an SVO conversion in Colorado )

Chad

I finally got after the finishing touches on my gauges last night.  I just needed to hook up power to the converters, wire up the pyrometer, and tap in to the boost line.  Wow there's some interesting information here.

1 - Oil temp. - I can see that the temperature sensitive valve that opens up flow to the oil cooler is opening at 170F and closing at 140F.  Oil temp osciliates slowly between those levels, but never above or below (so far....it's cool outside).

2 - Exhaust gas temp - WOW, not being a diesel guy I never dreamed that gauge would fly around as much as it does.  Going downhill with light throttle, 400F, Full throttle, full boost, full load topping a long grade, it's creeping up to 1400.  Comes up pretty quick to 1200 and creeps up slowly from there while on a long grade as long as full throttle is maintained.  Any let off of throttle brings the temps back down pretty quick.

3- Boost - Looks like my waste gate is functioning by the book.  Boost jumps up quick enough and tops out at 11 psi where the book says it should.

4 - Oil pressure - another WOW, quite a bit of variation in this one with RPM and a much higher peak than I thought.  I think I need a different gauge and sender.  Actually, starting up from cold gives a pressure spike that sometimes shuts the gauge down for a few minutes.  Once the engine is warm it's running between 70 PSI and top of the gauge (80+) under cruising revs.  With the motor hot it drops to 20 psi at idle.  Again, I'm not familiar with what this motor is supposed to do, but it's unusual to me to watch that oil pressure gauge drop down and back up by half the scale each time I shift.

5 - Water temp - Interesting one here too.  The factory gauge response seems surprisingly non-linear.  Needle coming off the peg is about 130F.  Top of the white is about 160 F, first line is about 180F, but the whole center portion of the gauge is crossed back and forth while the Isspro gauge hovers between 180 and 195.  Water temp on the Isspro gauge is MORE stable than the factory gauge was making me think.  The two sensors are right beside each other in the first and second plugs in the left side of the head.

I also did a fuel filter change and ran a can of Diesel Purge through it yesterday evening.  Now I thnk everything is ready for Mark to work his mojo on it tomorrow.

This morning I also dropped by the hydraulics shop that made my cooler line for me to have the turbo feed line fabbed.  These guys had a nice one-piece, crimp-in banjo fitting so no worries about a joint to fail at the banjo.  I'll pick that up this afternoon and maybe fit it this weekend.  One less thing to wonder when it's going to fail.

Others' experiences and thoughts on any of the above greatly appreciated.

All the best,

-Dave G.