I have a big tin of yellow paint!
And I've not touched it since it turned up because after a good couple of months of relatively decent health, joints-wise, I have come off the 4-day Easter weekend and faceplanted into the meatgrinder.
I have managed to get a little tinkering done, however.
A 10° angle jig. (The retaining/clamp bolt, as pictured, is a pain in
the behind because it kicks the tube over in the hole and makes it not
line up properly any more.)
And that jig lets me cut my intake runners in such a way that I can force them to curve over.
Not quite enough of a curve yet, though! I have a little over 8 inches of horizontal clearance from the port face on the head, to the closest point of the cab structure. So my next step is to modify the angle jig to be a 15° cut, making each step of the bend a 30° change. Once I'm happy with it, I'll start brazing it all together and seeing how much of a plenum I can get away with under that engine cover.
I just have to be careful to leave enough room for the injector,
fuel-rail, associated hardware and connectors...
Big tin of paint is now in my paint cabinet awaiting a paintbrush day! I have also gotten some more air fittings; two elbows to come out of the compressor -- unloader return, and compressed air supply -- and a T so that I can attach my unloader to the supply hard-line.
I've attached a little bracket to the nearside front cab mount
bracket, with a bolt welded to it, so that I have somewhere to bolt my
new hard-line pipe to; since the original, while also being a hard
line, was formed with multiple bends that I do not have the capacity
to replicate. At the other end, there'll be a tab that I should only
have to drill a hole in the spare wheel carrier bracket to support.
The replacement is a straight-shot from just in front of the cab mount, to underneath the spare wheel carrier; which will have a flexible line at each end -- stainless-braided teflon, as is common on modern trucks-- to connect to the compressor and the dryer unit's inlet. The return from the unloader to the compressor's inlet, I think I can get away with regular air-brake hose, which I will support with a rod welded to the tab for the supply (But it's easy enough to change out to a similar setup as the air feed, if I have to.)
I also did some more playing about with bits of aluminium tube, and modifying my little jig to cut a 15° angle. It definitely tightens the turn up -- I can now come from the manifold flange to pointing straight up, in 3 join lines -- but I'm going to have to add in some straight sections to ensure enough clearance for the injectors and whatnot. And all the while I have to make sure it fits underneath the engine cover! It's certainly a packaging challenge, but I'm sure I can make something happen. And once I've got one of them figured out, the rest should be a fairly easy job of replicating it.