7020 PS with Cummins 5.9 transplant

Congratulations DrAllis. Excellent! Can’t wait to see some photos later. Try to get an exhaust Gas Temp gauge installled just before turbo so you can keep an eye on it when it loads up & looses a few rpms.

WOW what a beast you’ve created again in your lab Doc!!!

The VE pump and 5.9L combination do make for a tremendous torque rise. I'd leave it alone, you got it set just right lol! In no field conditions would it ever pull down below rated rpm. The only time it's in this situation is accelerating to hi idle from an idle or lower speed. Spools the charger much quicker, and it probably smokes very little, and bet no smoke while putting out the 136hp @ 2300. 

The 7020 already had a Sanden compressor on it from a previous repair many years ago. My brother found a ready made bracket for 5.9 Cummins/Sanden and we didn't even have to change a hose.

Edited by DrAllis - 23 Oct 2022 at 7:58am

Even with ours pulled down to that 2030 RPM figure, there wasn't any smoke at all. Kind of impressive how they manage to split the atom inside the combustion chamber.

My brother did a good share of this project, so it wasn't all mine. When we finally figured out which flywheel to use, things fell into place pretty quickly. Still some small details to do before spring, with the largest being moving the fan shroud rearward about 3 inches. No problem in the Fall, but Spring temps will demand a better shroud location than we have now.

When this project all started, I had visions of making the back plate adapter myself. My plan was to take the original 7020/301 back plate and sandwich another 301 (combine or tractor) back plate between the 7020 plate (which fit the bell housing) and the 5.9 Cummins engine block. Each A-C plate was 1/2" thick. To join the two 301 plates together was pretty easy. I just used the rear crankshaft seal as a pilot. I pressed it halfway into each plates seal hole and squared the rotation up so they were in perfect synch to each other. At that point, I drilled four randomly placed 1/4" holes thru both plates with each hole then getting tapped to 1/4" NC threads. These would be my alignment dowels for the A-C plates. The fully threaded 1/4" bolts could be installed from either side depending on where I wanted the hex head to be at the time. The eventual plan was to tack weld the plates together, but not until all the machine work was completed. Lots of measurements of the A-C 301 flywheel position were taken beforehand and this 1 inch thick two piece adapter plate seemed to be getting me within about 1/4" inch of where the original was. While bolted together, both plates were then bored larger thru the rear seal holes to make them large enough to pilot over the Cummins rear seal retainer/holder. We had a Dodge truck aluminum flywheel housing for a stick transmission. It was used as a jig to start the machine work. The A-C plates were placed over the Dodge plate and mounting holes to the 5.9 Cummins block were drilled. Also, the Cummins alignment dowel tube holes were machined at the same time. We now had holes with alignment holes to bolt up the A-C plates to the Cummins......except for one more hurdle. The 5.9 rear crankshaft seal retainer/holder protrudes from the rear face of the block. The rear lip of the engine's oil pan is part of this too. I now had to carve out the front A-C plate to go around all of this. The rear A-C plate also had to have some opening up done because of this too. I was trying to make it possible to access those four rear oil pan bolts when the engine was in chassis, just in case. Anyway, we were now at the point of an adapter plate that fit the Cummins block and would connect to the tractors bellhousing. Next step was to source a flywheel that would accept the larger design A-C torque limiter (7045 & up -8030 & up) getting me close to the correct depth. The boring/location of the STARTER was yet to be done, but you can't do that until you settle in on what flywheel you're going to use !!  I spent a lot of time over a month trying to find a flywheel Dodge related (I had two Dodge starters) that would work. First hurdle was there are 151 tooth flywheels and 157 tooth flywheels. I finally figured out the ring gear tooth pitch was the same between them, but of course the starter hole was closer or farther from the center of the crankshaft. I had a dimension on the aluminum Dodge 151 tooth bellhousing to work with and I found (on the "net") a location dimension for the 157 tooth starter. But, the flywheel still alluded me. An affordable one at least. In the end, our time clock was running out as Fall was approaching. My brother purchased a "kit" from a guy in Indiana or Ohio that included a machined 1" thick adapter plate (well, two 1/2" plates together is pretty much the same thing) and a used flywheel from an 8.3 Cummins engine out of a Case-IH Magnum tractor !!!   Who knew an 8.3 and 5.9 Cummins flywheel would interchange ?? Well, I sure didn't !!   Anyway, we then were able to use a starter from a 426 A-C because that matched up to the 8.3 ring gear. He doesn't use a torque limiter, but a spring loaded damper bolted to the flywheel, similar to what's on many Gleaner combines. The biggest "flaw" in his kit is the fact that if you ever need to remove the oil pan, the engine has to come out and remove the flywheel and adapter plate to get at those four rear pan bolts. So once bolted up to the bellhousing and frame rails and front support in place I welded/fabbed up some front engine mounts and everything fell into place after that. As most every project like this goes along, the costs $$$$$$ are ALWAYS more than predicted. This kit was a couple grand, but moved the finish line up to where it's now being used for Fall work.      EDIT: A somewhat modern mill with dial indicator was used for the rear seal hole boring, drilling and location of plate to block mounting holes and the alignment dowels. I did everything else myself with die grinder and thin cutting disc.

Edited by DrAllis - 28 Oct 2022 at 7:55am

DrAllis, thanks for sharing about the rear adapter plate/flywheels, starters, etc.. Since you were able to finally install the AC 426 starter onto the 8.3’s flywheel ring gear, did the adapter plate allow the starter to be mounted on the tractors/driver’s left side away from the exhaust manifold heat?

I've know for quite awhile that the rear plate and flywheel from a 5.9 & 8.3 interchange.

No. It was to be a "one of". Now that I know what flywheel and starter to use, it would take very little to finish my adapter plate. Locate the starter hole, bore it and tack weld the two plates together and paint.

Jerry: The pieces on the right and the bottom picture show the front mounts I used. The rear mount was a full plate to bolt to the rear of the Cummins block (it would fit either a 5.9 or 8.3) and the standard 1755 bellhousing.

Dr Allis is the most amazing…..

Bet that was BIG $$$$$$