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19trax95's 1986 CUCV M1028A1

16075 Views 358 Replies 24 Participants Last post by  19trax95
So I have been looking for a decent square body for some time now. Didn't really have my eyes on anything in particular, but the frame and body needed to be in as good of shape as I could find.

Last week I came across this beast on marketplace up in Massachusetts. It's a 1986 Chevy M1031. Which is the military CUCV service truck.

It is I'm great shape. Frame is rock solid, and the cab has very, very little rust. It is also mechanically sound. A couple little leaks, but that's to be expected.

It has the 6.2 diesel, th400 trans, np205 t case, king pin Dana 60 front axle with a limited slip, 14 BFF rear with locker, and 4.56 gears. The service body is all aluminum. It used to have a PTO driven generator and air compressor, but those have since been removed. The PTO is still on the t case though.

My plans are to keep it fairly original, but add a few creature comforts to suit me better.
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Sold the service body this morning. Was one of the easiest sales I've had on Facebook marketplace. And perfect timing. Guy looked at another one, and it wasn't in great shape. I just so happen to post mine and he seen it. Messaged me this morning at 7 saying he can be there with a trailer in 30 minutes.

Showed up, looked it over, and gave me the cash. No haggling or nothing. Probably means my price was too low, but I got what I wanted out of it, and he has a nice service body for his start up business. So it's a win win.
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Great progress on this project!

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Will be starting the turbo swap fairly soon. Lately I've just been driving the truck and nothing much has been getting done on my own stuff. I'm taking a break from side work for a while to get my own projects rolling.

We had a fire at the farm last night to get rid of the old trusses from the barn. He raised the roof and extended it length wise so there was quite a bit of wood to get rid of. We dug a fire pit in the pasture and went through a fair bit of wood.

Was a decent photo opertunity so I grabbed a couple lol.
Automotive parking light Tire Wheel Vehicle Car
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Tire Plant Sky Vehicle Car
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Just ordered my hose and fitting to make my oil feed line for the turbo. Got it all through jegs.

I'm making it out of -4 AN line. It'll be a 90⁰ fitting off the turbo, route back to the driver's side rear corner of the motor, which is where I'm going to tap the oil off of, then to a -4 AN fitting to 1/8" NPT adapter into the oil galley port that is currently used for the oil pressure switch.

I will be installing a T fitting so I can keep the switch (which I will be swapping for a sensor and adding a gauge for said sensor).

So now the only part I need to buy, is a V band flange for the downpipe adapter. The rest I either already have, or will have to custom make. I am still debating buying an exhaust for a gmt400 truck with a 6.5 and modifying that, or just doing it my own way and building the entire thing. But that'll be something I can figure out once the turbo is in, and I get an idea of clearances and such.
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So I will be starting this turbo ball rolling this weekend. Likely Saturday night after I do the oil pan on my neighbors wife's car.

I have some cummins specific fittings ordered through work and the rest I have pretty much. I need one clamp for the downpipe yet, but that's also on order.

Will post pics as I go.
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Got the old passenger side manifold off, and both exhaust flanges off the manifolds today. Both batteries are out as well. Went to install the "new" 6.5 manifold on the passenger side and found the bolts I got aren't really long enough.

So I'll grab some new ones that are the correct length at work tomorrow and put the manifold on. I could have put it on today but then I'd have to swap bolts and all so I figured I wouldn't bother. All the bolts came out without any issue at all except for one of the studs on the passenger side manifold, which doesn't matter since it won't be reused.
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Made a little progress tonight. Got the 6.5 manifold on and torqued, which let me tell you, absolutely sucked lol. Had to zip tie the bolts so they wouldn't fall out as I fished the manifold in there. Then make sure the gasket didn't get damaged. Only to find the bolts were literally a millimeter or two too long so the heads hit the frame before the manifold would slip into place.

So I had to loosen the motor mount, take a big pry bar and lift up slightly on the engine, hold it with one hand, and slip the manifold, 8 bolts, and the gasket into place and start the bolts so they clear the frame.

But it's on there and has clearance now that it's in.

I set the turbo on there to get an idea of the room I'll be working with. The intake won't be an issue I don't think. The exhaust is going to be by far the most time consuming part of this project. Will be lots of trial and error I have a feeling.
View attachment 958866
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Yikes! Those manifolds sound like a real hassle.
It wasn't too fun, but considering how fairly significantly larger the 6.5 manifold is, it's not awful i guess. The factory one is a breeze to remove and install.
Those factory ones look way too small for the motor. LOL
They are pretty small for sure. Really they are roughly the same size as the 6.5 ones on the inside, just the exterior of the 6.5 manifold has more meat on it since it needs to hold up a turbo
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Well jegs sent me the wrong fitting. The package was right, but the part inside was not. Got hopefully the correct one coming to me tomorrow. Tonight I'm going to start to tackle the crossover pipe. That way once that's done, I can do the intake, turn the pump up, mount the turbo, and run my oil feed and drain lines, and fire it up.
I have never ordered from Jegs. Which is surprising.
They are usually pretty good. Shipping is quick and prices are good. I've ordered a bunch of stuff from them and this is the first issue I've ever had. Was a $6 fitting so it's not even worth the hassle of returning lol
So I put in almost 4 hours of work, and don't really have much to show for it lol.

I am close though, and the design is finalized, so all that's left (for the crossover anyway) is to tack the two parts and then measure the pie cut I need, cut that, and weld it in.

So the 6.5 crossover I bought obviously wouldn't work. Wasn't even close. The shape was about right, but the angles are all wrong. And the flange on the driver's side was too big. This is due to me retaining the driver's side 6.2 manifold.

So, I salvaged one of the old flanges and then decided I'd put a flex bellows on the one side to help kill any vibrations, and to prevent damage to the manifolds should anything come into contact with the pipe.

This was the easy side. The passenger side is a different story. The angles on this side were all WAY off. So I cut the flange section off, measured how far I need to come down, cut again, then got it so that that section will contact the rest of the crossover by one edge. So all that's left is to tack it, then do some CAD work and ultimately cut a pie section out of a scrap section of pipe and weld it into the gap.

Don't mind the hideous welds, it's stainless to aluminized so it doesn't like to weld the best lol. But they will hold and not leak. I was able to get the clearance to the oil pan and trans bell housing down to about half an inch. That's as close as I wanted to go. I will be painting this with some high temp paint and then wrapping it with some header wrap to try and help keep as much heat in the exhaust as possible, and away from things I don't need to be any hotter lol.

But so far I'm happy with it.
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Crossover is done except for paint. I thought I had some left, but I don't. So I'll order some from napa tomorrow at work.

As you can see from the picture, I opted to clearance two spots to allow more room between the oil pan and then the one ear on the trans bell housing. Ended up being a little closer than I planned on, so I wanted to have at least a half inch of clearance. The little massage got me to 3/4"

Also got my correct fitting today for the turbo oil feed line.

Next up is the intake swap and turning the pump up while it's off since I'll have easier access to it.
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Got a fair bit accomplished tonight. I got the old intake off and the heads cleaned up. Then while I had as open access as it gets, I removed the side cover on the fuel pump and turned it up a hair over 1/4 turn. This should give me plenty of fuel to work with for the turbo, especially at the lower boost I'll be running.

Then I installed the new intake and got the bolts torqued. I set the upper plenum on there for the pic, but I need to clean it up yet. I may paint it with some aluminum paint. Just to make it look clean and keep it from oxidizing.

I also painted my crossover pipe, but that's nothing too special as it's just flat black lol.
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Well my goal was to fire it up tonight, but that didn't quite happen.

But it's closer. Intake is done, turbo is mounted, boost hose installed, oil feed line made and installed, and the oil drain line installed. I had to shorten up the intake tube on the upper plenum and also clock the turbo down a little.

All that's left before I can fire it up is to route the harness out of the way of the turbo, lengthen the glow plug wires, route the starter trip wire away from the manifold, and then install the batteries.

Hoping to have it running tomorrow morning or early afternoon. It won't be drivable yet, as I need to make the downpipe and all, as well as modify the battery hold down, make an intake tube, install the CDR, and make my manual wastegate.
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Got an early start this morning since I'm having a BBQ today, but I reached my goal, and it's running! At least temporarily. Not drivable yet, but I just had to get it running. It was too close not to.

Still got a lot of work left, but the bulk of it is done. Really the only big thing left is the downpipe and exhaust. The rest is fairly straight forward

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