10-4 Magazine - For Today's Trucker

FEBRUARY 2005 SHOW & TELL
MOTOR MANIA
By Roving Reporter Suzanne Stempinski

At some truck shows, the judges will ask you to lift your hood to check your engine compartment for cleanliness. It’s no surprise that dirt and grease work their way into crevices and around fittings. Since you’re already doing a superior job keeping the rest of your truck clean and detailed, it only makes sense to spend time under the hood as well.

You’ll find yourself on your back, looking at your axles, the bottom of your oil pan and your frame, amazed at how much road junk has worked its way up and around your motor. A pressure washer will help you remove much of the grime. A good degreaser is also essential. You could (and might) easily spend a day just working under the chassis.

By themselves, motors look utilitarian – and most come in yellow, green or red. Dressing up your engine compartment can be done without breaking the bank; it is a time-consuming job you can work on whenever you have a few extra minutes. Wire loom comes in a rainbow array of colors and is available at most accessory shops or you can sometimes find it cheaper over the Internet. It comes in a variety of sizes and not only dresses up your wiring harnesses, it also serves to bundle your wires neatly. The wire ties you use to hold it together are also available in the same selection of colors. Whatever your paint scheme, wire loom provides a wonderful and complementary accent.

Once you begin the process, you’ll find an almost unlimited number of places where wire loom will fit besides just under the hood. Got lights in your bumper? Hate the look of those dangling wires? Wrap ‘em in wire loom. Your heated mirror’s lines and CB antenna cables? Bundle and wrap them, too. In some places on your motor, you may want to replace plain black wires with braided stainless. It costs a little more, but provides a high-tech, stylish look. If you choose to use “chrome” wire loom, be careful – that’s the one kind that starts as plain white, and the chrome look is achieved with paint. Pressure washing can and does blow the paint right off, and you can be left with a look that is not what you planned.

Motor parts can be removed and painted or chromed. For many motors, chrome head covers are available through your dealer. Chroming or painting additional parts can be done when your truck is down for repair and maintenance – or you can swap parts with friends and have a rotating stock of replacement parts to use while you’re running your truck and waiting for shiny parts to come back from your chromer. Sounds a little crazy? Not if you’re Darian Stephens.

For years, Stephens and a few of his truck show friends did exactly that. They’d actually loan each other working parts so they could run while their parts were being dressed up. If you have more than one alternator (like that spare one you keep in the side box in case yours quits while you’re under a load), send it out to be chromed. Getting ready for a new set of shocks? You can have them chromed or painted before you put them on your truck. It will keep your truck running, earning a living, while you’re still putting it in show-ready condition. You won’t end up with “one to show and one to go,” because as your revised parts come back, they’ll be going on your truck, minimizing your downtime. And then you can loan or swap the old parts to one of your buddies with the same motor who wants to do the same thing. A note of caution. There are different methods used to chrome parts. The less expensive variety will hold up for a short period of time – maybe 6 months to a year. The old fashioned process will cost you more, but your parts will stay shiny, with the chrome intact for years. In the long run, it may cost you less than having the work re-done as the cheap chrome chips, peels, pits or loses its luster.

Painting your motor can be a large or small project. Depending on your truck, and how deep the engine block sits in your frame, it can be done without having to swing the motor out of the frame. Stephens’ 1995 Freightliner Classic XL is a perfect example. He kept the motor its original Detroit Diesel green and dressed it up with chrome, painted parts and wire loom until 2001. At that time, a major re-do was on his agenda, so he stripped it down– leaving the engine still in the frame. At the time, his truck had 838,000 miles on it, and although the only problem it seemed to have was a slight increase in oil use, it was a good time to go through the motor and give it an overhaul.

At the shop where the painting was to be done, Stephens did almost all of the removal and replacement himself, minimizing the labor expense. He removed as many parts as possible – including the hood, starter, water pump, oil cooler, radiator, fan, turbo, manifold, air-to-air, air conditioning compressor, etc. First he painted the transmission, and bagged it (wrapped it in plastic and taped it off) then painted the motor, bagged it and painted the frame. While the other parts were off, he either painted or chromed them, and when the truck was put back together, it looked incredible – and continued the orchid metallic and dark violet metallic theme he displayed throughout his entire truck. His shop estimated the cost at roughly $1,000 for all the paint and labor – a relatively small investment for a big league outcome.

Plan ahead – good maintenance practices offer you the opportunity to enhance your truck’s appearance without adding more downtime or excessive expense. And while you’re working under the hood, you’ll have the chance to spot oil leaks or other potential issues before they result in an unexpected breakdown. Now go crazy and have some fun under your hood!