Got a little bit of work done on the old U-Haul truck that I'm using to move our possessions across the country soon. First off I decided to change the oil. I ran it around the block to stir up the oil and get the engine warm so the heavy diesel oil will flow well and flush out any solids that might be in there. Then I started draining it into my 5 gallon oil collection pan.
Imagine my surprise when it almost filled the whole pan! When I looked up the oil capacity on this truck, I couldn't find anything on an International 7.3L IDI Diesel in the medium duty trucks like this, just the Ford pickup trucks that ran the same engine. They all said somewhere in the 10 quart range, so I only bought 3 gallons of oil for this job. Turns out the actual oil capacity was printed on the air cleaner this whole time and I just missed it!
It says 16 quarts of oil. That's 4 gallons of oil that this thing takes! Had to run to the store and get more. It still took a very long time for the oil to stop draining from this beast so I decided to start in on fixing the AC while I was waiting. First up was this sensor with a broken electrode on it.
It's a high pressure switch that I believe kills the compressor clutch when it sees a certain high pressure number. I searched online for that part number but couldn't find it, so I went to the local International truck dealer here in North County San Diego. The truck is so old (1988) that even they couldn't locate one for me. So, I improvised.
I cut this prong off of an old household electrical cord I had laying around. I then ground it down to be narrow enough to fit the spade on the electrical connector and soldered it to the sensor. It took a little wiggling, but I was in fact able to get the connector to slide on.
I also hooked up my gauges and found almost no pressure at all in the system, and a little bit of oil was bubbling out of the high side Schrader valve when I pulled the gauges back off, so I replaced it with a new one to seal the system back up. I found some old refrigerant that I had in storage and fed this thing about 2/3 of its charge and it started working!
As you can see from the frost on this evaporator coil, the actual refrigeration system is doing its job. With fresh oil in the engine and everything slapped back together, it was time for a road test. The truck actually seemed to have a lot more power up on the highway so that fresh motor oil did a lot of good I think. I have no idea how many miles are on the last oil change, but it was definitely time to change it.
Unfortunately it still blew kinda hot air out of the vents, so I've got some more work to do before I can take this thing through the desert and the deep south during the hottest part of summer. I'm pretty sure that heater core in the picture is still getting some hot coolant through it with the valve off, so I either have to adjust the linkage to get it to close all the way or replace that valve. Shouldn't be too much more messing around and I'll be good to go!
Wow, just checked out some of you posts that i missed (sorry). You are really planning this move from every angle. I hope it goes well.
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