Beginning the Journey

[gslader]

Just out of curiosity, are you running motor oil or ATF in the trans now?

@Third From Texas: Update on the trans fluid question. Got ahold of the CAT dealership this morning and turns out the transmission has OTR brand Full Synthetic ATF (Link Here). They said fine to top-off with any other full synthetic ATF - I asked specifically about Transynd or Mobil D/M and they said both should be fine. We will see how it goes.

 

[Third From Texas]

@Third From Texas: Update on the trans fluid question. Got ahold of the CAT dealership this morning and turns out the transmission has OTR brand Full Synthetic ATF (Link Here). They said fine to top-off with any other full synthetic ATF - I asked specifically about Transynd or Mobil D/M and they said both should be fine. We will see how it goes.

Yeah, I need to pop the sample port open and pull a sample to find out exactly what's in mine. It's and A1R and has a red tint to it. I suspect it's ATF but want to be sure. General Disorder has the same truck as I have. It's coming up on 10k miles and I'm going to do a full service on the entire truck. $$$$$$$

 

[chucky]

We only used Transynd and Alison told us in new transmissions of theirs they only wanted Transynd in them for warranty and we changed fluid every 50 thousand miles and the 2 filters

 

[GeneralDisorder]

Yeah, I need to pop the sample port open and pull a sample to find out exactly what's in mine. It's and A1R and has a red tint to it. I suspect it's ATF but want to be sure. General Disorder has the same truck as I have. It's coming up on 10k miles and I'm going to do a full service on the entire truck. $$$$$$$

My truck has about 7,000 miles on it now. The trans definitely has 15w40 in it. I just pulled a sample a few days ago - on the dip stick it looks nearly new. In the sample bottle it's a little darker than new oil would be. Very clean though.

 

[gslader]

Had a chance to get replacement bed tie downs from Peck & Hale installed - made a short video of the process. These things were $100/piece (plus shipping) - with all the FMTV beds that are getting scrapped out there hopefully some folks can pull some of these off and get them into the secondary market.

 

[gslader]

I'm bad at a lot of things and trying to document the work I'm doing on my truck makes me realize I can add another thing to list - videos. Anyway, I pulled together a quick edit of pulling the starter and fixing the loose (and sheared) bolts on the flange plate. . .

 

[coachgeo]

I'm bad at a lot of things and trying to document the work I'm doing on my truck makes me realize I can add another thing to list - videos. Anyway, I pulled together a quick edit of pulling the starter and fixing the loose (and sheared) bolts on the flange plate. . .

congrats...... no magic white smoke.

so now check all your drive shafts for play.. infact..... if you have not done so yet.... remove them..... take them to a driveline shop that is very accustomed to doing big rig truck driveshafts.... have them evaluate them...... do repair if any needed and balance them.

aka..... the sheard bolt you found has been found before on trucks with off balance drive shafts.... it is one of the places the vibration stress shows up.

 

[gslader]

congrats...... no magic white smoke.

so now check all your drive shafts for play.. infact..... if you have not done so yet.... remove them..... take them to a driveline shop that is very accustomed to doing big rig truck driveshafts.... have them evaluate them...... do repair if any needed and balance them.

aka..... the sheard bolt you found has been found before on trucks with off balance drive shafts.... it is one of the places the vibration stress shows up.

@coachgeo Thanks for the suggestion. I originally checked the starter after reading about driveline issues. I thought the issues were primarily related to the three main bolts that affix the starter to the engine (not the flange bolts). That said, I've tracked down a local driveline shop and will bring both shafts in to get balanced. Out of curiosity do the drive line issues manifest themselves most often in the A0, A1 or A1R?

 

[Third From Texas]

@coachgeo Out of curiosity do the drive line issues manifest themselves most often in the A0, A1 or A1R?

A0 and A1 4-wheel trucks have the issues.

The 6x6 and the A1R have corrected (ie: straight not down angled) setups thus do not suffer the same catastrophic vibration issues.

 

[coachgeo]

A0 and A1 4-wheel trucks have the issues.

The 6x6 and the A1R have corrected (ie: straight not down angled) setups thus do not suffer the same catastrophic vibration issues.

[image here removed]

same true with any steepish drive line angle. steeper angles are better at transmitting vibrations from one place to another is all.

 

[gslader]

So I had a chance to get up and do some work the truck that mostly went really well but I made one idiotic oops (more on that below but I don’t believe it is a huge issue).

I bit the bullet and ordered the aftermarket airbags for the cab. Installation was easier than expected an only took about two and a half hours all-in. The drivers side was more challenging with access to the rear bolts on air bags more restricted but it wasn’t as bad as I was anticipating. The previous airbags had some pretty meaningful air leaks (my compressor was cycling every 5 mins or so), with the new air bags my compressor is now cycling every 15 minutes or so.

Is there anyone interested in my old stock airbags? I hate to throw them away but I have no interest in keeping them.





I also added an in-line oiler to try to preserve the life of the air hydraulic unit. This was a super quick add, took about 30 minutes to get installed. I’ve cycled the cab lift a few times to try to get the oil rate in the right spot. The unit appears to be working nominally and hopefully elongates the time between servicing the AHU.



My idiotic mistake was to overfill my automatic transmission fluid while I was servicing my fluids. Anyone have suggestions on an easy way to remove some automatic transmission fluid? I’m thinking that pulling the plug from the transfer case is probably the easiest way drain some of the fluid, just not sure how messy it will be to re-insert the plug with fluid still draining from it.

Next up on the to do list:

1. Pull drive lines to get balanced
2. Install Trimark door handles
3. Install automatic charging relay for battery bank

 

[Guruman]

My idiotic mistake was to overfill my automatic transmission fluid while I was servicing my fluids. Anyone have suggestions on an easy way to remove some automatic transmission fluid? I’m thinking that pulling the plug from the transfer case is probably the easiest way drain some of the fluid, just not sure how messy it will be to re-insert the plug with fluid still draining from it.

Vacuum extractor?

 

[Third From Texas]

As you said, I'd just bleed a little out of the transfer case. Simple. A little messy but what isn't with these trucks...

 

[gslader]

Vacuum extractor?

I tried running some tubing down the fill port and only got about 3’ in before I hit something (either a screen or just a tight bend in the fill port) and couldn’t get the tubing down into the ATF reservoir.

 

[Third From Texas]

Looking forward to hear how that charging relay works out.

I'm only using two batteries for the truck. The other two are set up (for now at least) as house batteries for the hab. I like the idea of being able to charge my external house batteries with the alt but never drain the truck batteries with the habitat use. Currently the two sets are isolated and I've been using a sperate battery charger on the house batteries but it does me no good if I'm not on shorepower or genset.

 

[Guruman]

Looking forward to hear how that charging relay works out.

I'm only using two batteries for the truck. The other two are set up (for now at least) as house batteries for the hab. I like the idea of being able to charge my external house batteries with the alt but never drain the truck batteries with the habitat use. Currently the two sets are isolated and I've been using a sperate battery charger on the house batteries but it does me no good if I'm not on shorepower or genset.

I've been shopping solar MPPT devices for this. Some of them would seem to allow charging the house bank while on shore power/generator, or while running the main engine, automatically switching when needed. Ideally I'd like something that would handle inputs from the engine, plus solar, generator and shore power. So far I've only found some that will do 3 of the four, so I'm thinking of combining shore power and generator inputs with some kind of A/B interlock switch to prevent ever having both connected.

 

[INFChief]

I wonder if the AOAP (oil analysis sample drain) port on the right side would dump enough / fast enough to make it worth attempting?

 

[gslader]

Looking forward to hear how that charging relay works out.

I'm only using two batteries for the truck. The other two are set up (for now at least) as house batteries for the hab. I like the idea of being able to charge my external house batteries with the alt but never drain the truck batteries with the habitat use. Currently the two sets are isolated and I've been using a sperate battery charger on the house batteries but it does me no good if I'm not on shorepower or genset.

I'll keep folks updated on how it goes. The big unknown that I need to investigate is how the PMDS, Battery Bank and Starter are all wired. I think for the ACR to work it needs have a direct connection to the from the battery to the starter; if the positive cable goes through the PMDS then it neuters the efficacy of the isolation aspect of the ACR. The remote switch for the ACR appears to fit nicely in one of the existing dash rocker switch slots. I have a 24v electric winch which is the primary reason for the ACR.

Ultimately I'd like to move to a 200A, 24v alternator paired with a 100A 12 volt equalizer then I can just wire the batteries as two sets of 24v batteries in parallel and not have to tap out 12v from the middle . . . but that is down the road.

 

[gslader]

First of all big thanks to @coachgeo for suggesting I check my drive lines. I pulled them last night and ran them down to a driveline shop first thing this morning. Turns out two of the four u-joints were bad and both of the splines and spline sleeves had so much play that they couldn’t get them balanced. So all new u-joints, new splines and spline sleeves, balanced and painted. Picked them up this afternoon and will throw them on tomorrow.


While the drivelines were in the shop I decided to tackle replacing my drivers door handle, which only works intermittently. The videos that Neil V and Sean posted were really helpful. My truck came stock with handle hardware switched and inverted (as it sounds like most of the later A1 variants did) so I had a few extra wrinkles. Also, I wanted to try to make the replacement with out drilling the 4” hole in the back fo the door panel. I was able to get the switch-over done and avoided drilling the 4” hole. The process was relatively easy but definitely tedious and time consuming. The biggest time suck was the fact that by orienting the latch and locking mechanism correctly (so the opening rod pushes up on the mechanism versus pulling down) meant that I had to create new door rods (that were different lengths than what came stock) for every single rod. So the process of trying to measure the length in the crammed door compartment, bending up the door rod, checking fitment through a dry fit, then adjusting length . . . Rinse repeat multiple times for each rod. This is where not having the 4” hole in the back of the door was most apparent. I also deleted the internal door lock.

I made a short video of the process that I’ll post later once I can get it edited up.

 

[gslader]

Drive lines installed. . . First one took about an hour and 15 minutes, the second one took 15 minutes - amazing how much I can learn from my mistakes. . .