I started this truck two years ago. From the beginning, I intended to keep the 1975/76 grille, ut I also wanted to have an intercooler. To make things worse, I planned to use a 2nd generation cummins intercooler, which is much bigger than the 1st generation intercooler. On top of all this, I will have air conditioning and will need a condenser behind the grille as well. This adds a lot of junk that was never intended to fit behind there. Well, today, with Hondo to keep me company, I figured it out.
Here is my original, rusty ol' core support. The long, oval-shaped holes are leftover from the 440 days. I used to get so much radiant heat in the cab that we would sometimes leave for camping in the middle of the night in the summer. I cut those holes to increase the air flow under the hood.
The first thing to go was this center grille support.
This is the 2nd gen intercooler. You can see The Great Vittorio in the background.
I forgot to tale some pictures, apparently. Maybe I will edit them in later. The next thing I hacked out of the core was a section of the box at the bottom so I could drop the intercooler as low as possible. This would take out some serious structure from this part that supports the hood, fenders, radiator, battery, etc, but I will combat that by grafting a piece of 1.5 inch box tubing along the bottom. By doing this, I will not need to use the body lift spacers under the core and it will be every bit as strong as original.Then I had to cut a piece of the brace under the hood latch.
I am missing another picture here. Imaging how good the inter cooler looks with the top just under the above cut and the bottom flush with the bottom of the core support. I also blew some holes for the inlet and outlet tubes.
This shot shows the cooler under the grille. Now imagine the big ol' grin on my face. My teeth may even be showing.
The next thing to tackle is the condenser. On a 1st gen Dodge Cummins truck, the condenser is on the outside of the intercooler. There is now way this would fit behind this old school grille. My solution is to put the condenser between the radiator and the intercooler. I am hoping this will work. I do not know how much the intercooler will preheat the air before it reaches the condenser, but I will give it a try. To do this, the center support down the middle of the core support needed to go. In the picture below, you can see that I also cut out some of the metal below the condenser. I actually did not need to do this. I only needed to square the lower corners where they were rounded like the upper corners or the hole, as you can see in the pic. Since this core was all swiss-cheesey with rust that needs to be patched anyway, I just hacked it out of the way for now with a sawzall.
This shot shows the missing center support. In the upper left corner, you can see where I marked for the hole for the connection point for the air conditioning hoses.
So, now I have the condenser in, the intercooler in, the grille on, and the lower valance in place, well, almost.
I'll try ti set this picture up. The silver on the right is the bottom lip of the grille. The little smile at the very top of the pic is the right turn signal lens hole. And, the long hole in the middle is the original hole in the 1975/76 valance. In the hole you can see the edge of the cooler. This is the part that is holding the valance out. The black lines are showing my plans for more chopping. In the pic, you can't see the contour of the metal, but if I cut this out, the valance will drop back at least an inch.
Rather than just chopping out what needs to come I will open up the whole hole. I hope to be able to make it look like it came this way. We'll see.
Here it is, engine side with the radiator in place.
Here, with the radiator out, you can see the connection block for the condenser.
This shot is looking down the hood latch opening. Red arrow = intercooler. Blue arrow = condenser. Yellow arrow = Radiator.
And, here it is all dressed for the party. I was so excited I even got out the ladder so I could get far enough away to get the hole thing in the picture.
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