Intercooler part 3 - Lower Brackets

This is the way the intercooler was left hanging, literally. In the previous posts, I made upper mounts and installed the tubes, but ended the day with no lower brackets.
Here is one of the brackets I made. The procedure follows.

I strted with the old hunk of frame from the bent 1-ton outside. This is nice heavy steel with a 90 degree bend already in it.
As before, I layed out my cuts on tape. I was looking for simple L-brackets with a 5/8" hole 7/8" from the back of the "L" I tried my new, very expensive, Irwin step bit but the steel was too heavy. Hopefully, I did not ruin the bit right out of the box.
So, after a trip to the drill press and a few swirlies with the burr (5/8" was not quite big enough), this is what I had.
After a little grinding tio clear the paint and some welding...Then some paint ant the bushing and we are done.

Grill Options

of all the Dodge truck grills, I am partial to this one. I am not sure why. For this body style it is one of the oldest and straight ones like this are almost nonexistant. This is the gril I plan to put on the crewcab sometime in the future. If particular interest is whether I can get it wrapped around an intercooler and air conditioning condensor. Note: this grill goes with round headlamps. This is just to check fitment.
In 1991 when the Cummins Turbo Diesel Dodges became intercooled, Dodge changed the grill style to the cromed plastic bubble grill to make room for the intercooler. With this old school grill off of a 1975 truck, there is very little extra space. The aluminum of the actual grill piece clears the intercoller, bet the steel valence below the grill does not. When I do the crew cab, I will be using an even bigger intercooler out of a 2nd generation (1995-?) It is 1/4 inch thicker and about 4 inches wider on both sides. Clearance will clearly be an issue, but I am confident that I can trim the valence to fit and still look nice.
This is the proper grill, the bubble grill, if you will, for the ctd (cummins turbo diesel) intercooled trucks. The valence inder the grill is for a gasser. I believe the ctd valences have ventilation for the bottom of the intercooler.
If a person is modifying an older core support as I am. The headlights would need to be relocated up a bit. Obviously the easiest thing for me to have done would have been to use this grill and get a correct core support to go with it, but then what would I have done with my time over the last few days...clean my shop?

I wanted to see if the pre-intercooled front could be made to fit.

The lower valence is in place.

It fits alright, but it covers a lot of the intercooler. the bottom of the cooler is at the 13" mark. If I use this valence, I will cut some openings to let air get to the cooler.
Here an ugly surrond and broken inset are hanging in place. The surround fits fine, but...
...the insert hits the intercooler. The cooler is holding it out about a half inch.
Studying the insert, if I cut the grids out of the four big slots, it looks loke it would fit. So, using the cut-off wheel in the die grinder I cut about a half inch off the back of the two big openings on the driver's side. Mmmmm... the smell of burning plastic.
After cutting out the back half inch, whis included the grids, It fit better, but this stud is now hitting the insert.
After a little strategic notching with the cut-off tool, it fits pretty good.

It does change the look a little. You can see the new on the driver's side and the old on the passenger side. If he wanted, a person could put some kind of mesh or something back there to give the grill a custom look. The end of the story is....It os possible to get an intercooler behind th factory non-intercooled grill ... sorta...

Intercooler part 2

This is a continuation of the previous post. The inlet tucks into the holes perfectly.

The outlet does the same.
A straight on shot of the outlet as viewed from the engine bay.
The stock intercooler has tabs with rubber isolators. The next few pics will show the process for making these mounts.

The back-side of the isolator was right at 1 1/2" from the core support. Looking in a tray of misc. junk, I came up with two spacers that were exactly 1 1/2" long and had a 1/2" inside diameter. I ground the paint away where the spacer comes in contact with the core support and tack welded it in place.
Then I welded all the way around the spacer.
The rubber isolator bushing has a sleeve i it that just accepts a 1/4" bolt. It just happens that a 1/4" nut fit almost snuggly in the end of the spacer, so I welded it in place. First I threaded it onto a bolt so I could hold onto it and keep it aligned while welding.
When I was done, I had made a nice little bracket this one is on the passenger side. I removed the overflow bottle prior to welding since it was attached to the other side of the core support.

This is the bracket on the driver's side all painted up. It happened to land right on the end of the indent for the battery tray, so, befoe welding it in place, I beat the end of the dimple flat with hammer from the engine side so I would have a flat surface to weld to. The rest of the dimpled area will still work for the battery tray.

I still need to make lower brackets for the intercooler.

I will weld two pocket to the front bottom of the core support to accept these bushings.

Here is the stock '92 tube attached to the outlet of the intercooler.

The same tube also attached to the intake.

Finally, this is the the tube installed from the turbo to the inlet on the intercooler.

Intercooler Part 1 - Lots of work today.

The Ramcharger will be getting a stock first generation intercooler. I hope to fit it in behind a stock '89 or '77 grill. Some people say it can't be done. This is the side profile of the inlet. The outlet is identicle.

The tape shows that the bell is about 6" from top to bottom.
The inlet/outlet is a little over 2 5/8" in diameter.
The center of the inlet/outlet is 6 1/2" from the bottom of the intercooler. The inlet and the outlet will just fit on each side of the radiator flanges. The distance between them is the same as the distance beyond the flanges.
My layout may be lower on the core support than others because of the 1 1/2" body lift. The fact is, i am installing it as low as possible to keep the intercooler piping as level as possible. I am going to cut two 3" holes, one above the other, with a hole saw. Since the center of the hole is 6 1/2" from the bottom of the intercooler, I marked the center up 6 3/4 " up from the ledge at the bottom of the core support. Then I made marks 1 1/2" above and below the center mark. These will be the centers for the holes.

Since the fit will be tight, I measured 1 1/2" from the edge of the opening. This will put the edge of the hole right at the radiator flange.

Here is the outline of the of the hole marked out on the tape and the hole saw that gets to do the carnage.

The holes are drilled. The rest will be get trimmed out with the cut-off wheel.

Except for smoothing and paint, this one is done.

Clearly this flange in the center of the support will need to go away. I'll just cut it off.

The bracket is off now and the other hole is layed out the same as the first.
The two holes ar mostly through.
Once cleaned-up, the intercooler slipped right in place. In the next post, I will make some brackets an hook things up.

Radiator part 2

Here is the missing trial fit 4 pic from the last post. As mentioned in the previous post, al it needs now is a little trimming of the support flange beside the lower radiator hose outlet.
Ther is plenty of fan clutch clearance.

I just nees to drill two holes to mount each of the two upper support barckets.
The upper hose fits perfectly.
The lower hose will hook right up. The arrow indicates where I trimmed out a little of the radiused contour to make room for the radiator mounting brackets.
I will have to wait until the fenders are on to see if the hood clears. Next, I will grind down all the sharp edges from all the cutting, weld the lower brackets in place, and touch up all the bare metal with black Zero-rust. Then, I will attack the intercooler.
The upper factory bracket installed.