I always had great luck with the ww carbs on my dodges, but they are fussy about float height and sometimes it's hard to find a pinhole leak in the floats themselves. My 67 crew cab with a ww on a 318 was good for about 17 mpg highway while still capable of terrifying 23' long truck sideways burnouts.
It's time for a long overdue update. Shortly after my last post I realised I needed to finish the garage before the winter and before taking on another project. I did the insulation, walls, paint, had an electrictian buddy come do everything and plugged in the heated floors and lighting which was great! I put in a lot of hours and finished in the christmas holidays. Around that time we already had 2 feet of snow come down, and shoveling my driveway was a pain in the ass so I needed to get the Fargo running quick.
It took me 2 hours to move it 20ft into the garage with a come-along...I put a shackle in the floor when I had the concrete slab poured exactly for that!
Tight fit in the garage, damn that thing is huge!!
Put in a new thermostat, lower and upper radiator hoses and elbow. I hoped and prayed the waterpump was good.
The starter was very weak and noisy, so we took it appart to do a refresh.
Which turned out to make no difference, the starter would smoke and barely crank over the engine. I went to the junkyard and got one from a 98 dakota v6. The ministarter was the best upgrade I did so far. Cranks super fast and is much smaller and lighter, thank you very much to Dusterbd13 for the advice!!
Removed, cleaned and re-installed the fuel tank with new hoses, filters, and delphi fuel pump.
A friend of mine installing a new starter relay.
We installed new spark plugs and wires. I finished the carb rebuild but found out I was missing some accelerator pump parts, and the arm was very worn out and not working anymore. So I run no accelerator pump until I can upgrade...
I made and added new grounds, and repaired a lot of wiring in the engine bay which suprisingly was very untouched, but falling appart from age.
Broken drivers side leaf spring. There tuned out to be 3 broken leafs.
So I searched all over the net and found out that dodge 1/2 tons rear springs from 73 to 92 I believe was similar in size so I got some at a junkyard that were there since 2002, car part destiny I guess! But I was wrong they don't fit that good and were only a 5 pack since it was from a 2wd. They are 2 1/2" instead wide of 2 3/8" and 24x28 instead of 24.5x24.5". But I decided to make them work anyway!
I made new shackles to start.
1/2 rears on the left, 1 ton front on the right.
They were also wayyyyy too soft, so I added 3 leafs on each side from a 1981 toyota rear spring pack. It was a butchered install but the results are satisfying, but I will never take it on the road with that suspension setup.
Finished engine bay
Im assuming it runs now? You didn't specifically say. The 'custom' leaf setup sounds like what happens when you decide that you won't allow yourself to fail, no matter how goofy your path to 'success' becomes. Awesome truck, keep it up!
So all in all it's a victory, but a bitter sweet one.
On the plus side, the driveway gets plowed when it snows, and there has been a lot of snow here so far. This thing is a beast!
On the negative, the steering box is all rusty so the steering is almost impossible to turn (toyota p/s swap will be coming), the heater core leaked so I had to loop it, it wants to die for about 2 minutes if I ram the snow too hard, the master cylinder leaks. But worst of all, I have no idea how to plug the hydrolics to make the plow lift and swivel. I'm a complete noob to hydraulics so now I just lift the plow with a hoist for it to work, but I would like to plug the hydraulics for sure, and I need help.
I have a fisher dv21 controler with 3 available outlets, a lift cylinder with 2 outets, and 2 swivel cylinders on each side with 1 outlet each. So 4 outlets total to connect, but only 3 available ports on the controller. So I think I am missing a part somewhere.
Controller:
Lift cylinder with 2 ports
Look at the bottom, you can see the two swivel cylinders with one port each.
The connectors on the end of the swivel cylinder hoses look like compressor fittings, one male and one female.
"joy stick" I guess?
Any input appreciated, I also posted on a plowing group to seek help.
I've got some videos I'd like to show you guys, but they are too big to send from my phone to my computer, I've got to find a way
Should be pretty easy to plumb the hydraulics. The port at the end makes the ram go out, the one closest to the middle makes it go in.
In reply to GillesDecourse :
Nice to see this thread here! I remember seeing your Fargo on Kijiji. Where are you located? I can maybe help you set up the hydraulics if you’re close to Mtl. Ken.
Gilles,
Enlève le tape rouge sur la controle valve. Valide les connexions des boyaux en bougant le levier de contrôle dans la cabine, les cables font bouger des « tiroirs » qui dirigent l’huile aux boyaux.
Le boyau pour le cylindre de levage est branché sur le « tiroir » avec le fitting qui est seul proche de la plaque id. (pour lever on envoye de l’huile et ca descend en vidant le boyau avec la gravité) .
Les boyaux pour les cylindres d’angle se branchent sur l’autre « tiroir » hydraulique et travaillent de façon opposé (en remplissant un tu dois vider l’autre).
Sorry to everyone else but it was easier to explain the plow hookup to a fellow Québecer in French ! Ken
In reply to EastCoastKrawler :
Had to get that translated via google, but that's pretty much how I figured it must work.
Thanks a lot for you help, I really appreciate it. Ken I am about 1h north of Mtl, in Notre-dame-de-lourdes. I think the hydraulics will be more of a summer project since the Toyota will be in the garage next week-end for a tear-down. The explanations were very helpful, thank you!
I have two more questions. If the lift cylinder lifts up with the hydraulics and goes down with gravity, what does the top port of the lift cylinder connect to?
And also, I need to make new hoses since mine were missing apart from two crusty ones. How do I tell what fittings I have on the module and on the cylinder so they make the right hoses without actually bringing them the module and cylinders?
It’s my pleasure. I owned an old diesel 1986 GMC with Fisher plows about 10 years ago. You are not that far away from me by the way!
The lift cylinder is not original to the Fisher plow, the original cylinder would have been much thinner and would’ve had only one fitting at the bottom. That cylinder you have looks like a tilt cylinder from a lift (chariot élévateur) or a tractor with the two fittings and an adjustment rod end. I will keep my eyes open for a used original lift cylinder for you !
For hoses your best bet is to bring the old ones and maybe (if you can) unscrew the fittings from the cast control valve and bring them too. There are different types of fittings/threads/angles etc. Any hydraulic shop (Hebdraulique or Traction for example) can make new hoses.
Good luck !
I wouldn't worry too much about the 140 vs. 230 hp. It's the old gross vs. net thing again. Besides that, in a truck like this, the peak number is practically irrelevant anyway. It's what's under the curve that your going to feel when pushing snow or pulling a hill. You've got to rev the pee out of them to get them to where that peak number was taken. Somewhere that we almost never go in a truck to begin with. Also, that 140 might have been due to a governor limiting the revs.
GillesDecourse said:
would probably be a good thing to tighten up that bottom bolt on the cylinder as well too 
EastCoastKrawler: Good idea, I'll get the fittings off, and at least a new single action lift cylinder.
A 401 CJ: I've driven it around the neighbourhood once and this thing is slllloooww, like dumptruck slow. It is at 12 degrees initial timing now. There is plenty of torque for what I do with it for now, but once it becomes a tow rig it won't cut it. I'm thinking big block with dual tbi and megasquirt, or 318 turbo would be interesting.
edizzle89: It cuts the removal time in half :p
I'm wishing for some snow soon so I get have some fun with the Fargo, maybe some time next week!
Here are some crappy videos I finally managed to upload:
Winter if coming so it's time to work on "one ton tanya" again!
The worst thing about the truck is the steering. The steering box is seized up and it takes all your strength to turn the wheel. So I put a 1979-1985 toyota box in I had laying around.
First was to cut off the part that I don't need from the pitman arm, then I tried a little heat and a Toyota SST pitman arm puller but the puller bent and the pitman arm didn't move. I then welded two bolts to it, came off pretty easily with a bolt-on puller.
Then I built a steering box bracket using 1/4" plate and the original toyota bracket
Test fit, I had to cut the bottom of the frame off to have the box closer to the frame, even then I had to grind some extra metal on the bellhousing for it to fit.
I welded it all the way around the bottom and tried to weld as much of it as possible to the frame with a gusset at the back (hard to see)
Adapting the toyota box joint to the Fargo steering column
Custom pitman arm, I'm sure there is a name for that but I cut a grove in the original pitman arm and fitted the toyota one inside it, preheated with a small torch and welded it
With Sandcooling,
I had to make two cuts to bring the pitman away from the frame, making a "Z", and was afraid of the strength of the arm with that much welding and cutting, so I reinforced it with 1/4" plate on each side
More to come!
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