My Water to Air intercooler install

Burning oil · Mar 19, 2017

Husker6.5 said:
I think it's called "temporary".

Never heard of them.

Husker6.5 · Mar 19, 2017

Looking good, Nate! Black and silver, how about polishing and buffing the hell out of it and shooting it with clearcoat?

n8in8or · Mar 19, 2017

Husker6.5 said:
Looking good, Nate! Black and silver, how about polishing and buffing the hell out of it and shooting it with clearcoat?

Too many pinholes that I have decided to not fix...

n8in8or · Mar 19, 2017

Braces are made. I made the studs a little long on purpose so there will be enough thread for a washer and a nylock nut. Now it's time to remove the bumper and weld the pieces out. I think that is finally it for fab work. Time to finish things.

n8in8or · Mar 19, 2017

Burning oil said:
Hey! and what kind of engine oil cooler is that

I chronicled that in an earlier installment.....your oil lines are so strong that when I tried to move them to the side for clearance the oil cooler broke before the lines would budge!

n8in8or · Mar 19, 2017

Well I thought I was done. Took pictures and everything. Then I noticed a little dimple in one of the deflector pieces where the welded stud is. So I looked closer and saw a couple more dimples. So I cranked on the nuts and sure enough I was able to get them to pull through. GRRRR. So I pulled them all out. I tried chamfering the holes and grinding the studs to a point. Nope, that's failing too. So now I'm unsure what I'll do....just do some nice stainless button head bolts? Not sure, but it's hard to think after working on it for 6 hours and now being frustrated. So I'll have to let it sink in overnight......

n8in8or · Mar 19, 2017

Decided to do a quick mockup with some bolts I had lying around.

ak diesel driver · Mar 19, 2017

Looks good. Another alternative might be carriage bolts

n8in8or · Mar 19, 2017

ak diesel driver said:
Looks good. Another alternative might be carriage bolts

Yeah I was thinking that too. I have another idea that might work, but it's kind of hard to explain, so I'll try to give it a go tomorrow and see how it works.

Burning oil · Mar 19, 2017

IMO go back to shaved smooth. It hurts my eyes now.

n8in8or · Mar 19, 2017

Burning oil said:
IMO go back to shaved smooth. It hurts my eyes now.

I agree. All this work and it should be smooth. I think I can do it still. We'll see....

Jaryd · Mar 19, 2017

I work with metal for a living and you made that look easy. I wish I had the patience you have when I'm working on my stuff around the farm or on my truck. Good looking bumper for real.

n8in8or · Mar 20, 2017

Jaryd said:
I work with metal for a living and you made that look easy. I wish I had the patience you have when I'm working on my stuff around the farm or on my truck. Good looking bumper for real.

Thanks Jaryd! The hours and hours I've spent working on this thing sure haven't felt easy....

n8in8or · Mar 20, 2017

Ok I found a solution. If I had executed it properly it would have been a fantastic solution, but I struggled a little and had to do some rework.....but in the end it turned out ok.

First thing I did was drill out the holes to 15/16". And no....that didn't freak me out one bit

.

Then I installed carriage bolts in the bumper braces. After that I installed the deflector over the bolts.

Next was welding. I was able to lay some nice beads since I had so much real estate to work with.

Then I ground the welds and bolt heads down.

After that I reinstalled the deflector. This is when I found out that I had screwed up earlier. I got dimples again!!! But I couldn't pull the bolts through like before...which made sense. What I did wrong is I had only finger tightened the nuts before, not wrench tightened. So when I reinstalled the deflector and tightened the nuts with a wrench it drew the bolts in a smidge and voila....dimples!

So I ground the deflector down to the height of the dimples and DAd it and now all is well. It can use a little more sanding, but I wanted to get it reinstalled to make sure it was ok before I took it to the nth degree.

So now I just have to do the same thing to te other deflector, sans screw-up of course.

Burning oil · Mar 20, 2017

Ahh, my eyes are much better now.

n8in8or · Mar 22, 2017

As I had hoped, fully tightening the bolts before welding worked - no dimples! So I ground and sanded the deflectors and then gave everything a once-over. Now it's disassembled and off to the sandblaster tomorrow.