Unfortunately no. I spent a couple of weeks working on my offroad Jeep so the project took a back burner. Then I took a week of vacation.

Should get back to making progress again soon...

 

Looking forward to seeing your progress!

 

No pictures to post, but for anyone who has interest or was following this project thread, I'm happy to report that after a 6 week hiatus I'm back to work on it.

I've pretty much finished sorting through the wiring harness. I've eliminated all the wiring for the computer and the vacuum switching circuits for the gas emissions control. Next I have to eliminate the section with all the relays for the ignition and emissions, and I'll have my wiring harness pared down to just the essentials (starting, charging, lights, heat, etc.).

Then comes the really fun part of the wiring - splicing in the engine wiring for the diesel, then rebundling and retaping it all...

Still to complete:
Plumbing the vacuum system for heater controls and brake booster,
Plumbing the fuel lines including installing a low pressure supply pump,
Install the transfer case and make any neccessary driveline mods,
Installing the tranny shifter and fabbing the linkage for the t-case shifter,
Installing the radiator, oil cooler, and tranny cooler...

With a little luck and some decent weather, I might be done by the end of September.

 

What kinds of modifications did you have to make to the torque converter for your conversion. i have an s 10 that i'm going to repower with an olds 4.3 v6 fwd engine there is a lot of myths about these olds diesels. what is the stall speed on your torque convert? thanks for any information.

 

I had a custom torque converter shop mate the flywheel half of a TH125c torque converter (a TH125c is what came in most of the 4.3L FWD cars) with the front half and internals of the torque converter for a 700R4. They set it up with a stall speed in the 1400-1500 RPM range - just below the torque peak of the motor (165 ft-lbs @ 1600 RPMs). At $300 it wasn't cheap, but I don't expect to have any TC problems, and if I do its fully warrantied...

 

thanks for the information on the torque converter. that can save a lot on hunting down a solution to part of a project. i wonder if a person can use a flywheel and starter from a rwd 4.3 diesel with the s10 torque converter.

 

Only if the RWD 4.3 is externally balanced like the FWD 4.3 - and the RWD flex plate balance matches that of the FWD 4.3 you took off...

 

One other thing I just thought of regarding using a RWD flexplate on a FWD engine. The RWD engine has the standard BOP bellhousing pattern and the FWD has the "narrow V" pattern (like the 2.8, 3.1, & 3.4 gas engines). That means that the RWD bell is WAY bigger - and I'll bet the flexplate is too. The FWD flex plate is only about 10"-11" in diameter, and the one for the RWD is probably more like 13"-14" in diameter.

Anyway, I've made some more progress - nothing much to take pictures of but progress none the less. I have finished my transfer case shifter & linkages, and have the tranny shifter modifications about 95% done. I ended up using the shifter from the Camero I got, but it turned out that the cable that came with it was WAY too short. Its only 29" long, and with the shifter location being farther forward there wasn't enough cable to come up through the tranny hump in front of the shifter and bend back again.

So I spent a bunch of time on the Napa website looking at different shifter cables and once I identified one that looked about right I called them to "check stock". While I had the guy on the phone I had him list all the cars it would fit. Then I went to the local wrecking yard and found one in an 85 Cutlass for $20 (a new one was over $50).

I still had to make it fit by moving the tranny bracket a little, but at 52" it is plenty long enough to come up through the tranny tunnel in front of the shifter aimed in the right direction to hook up.

 

been through all 5 pages so far and I am hooked. keep up the awsome Work.

 

Nice to see you are back on task! How close are you to the first start-up? It's raining good now so you should be spending more time in the shop! BTW, I'm getting hungry!