dk8019
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- Location
- Lovettsville, VA
So I loaded up the SUV over the past few days with all the needed items I could think of and what I had found suggested here for recovering a 5-ton. This was a M814 listed in Drexel, no start, so I assumed dead batteries and took along a pair.
Morning started out not too early, 6:30am from Springfield, Ohio with a buddy of mine, who would drive the other vehicle back. Started out a nice morning, traffic was light, state police abundant and everything was going fine. Around 8:15 or so, it started to rain coming into Indy. We could see some nastiness on the horizon. We made it on to the base ok, just a quick look at our license and they turned us loose. I found a nice 9 series 5 ton I would like
(see pictures)
Talked to Dave, the guy who drives up there and he sent us over to wait by a gate to get into the secure area for pickup. Met two guys from Mississippi who were waiting to get in as well. They bought one of the nice 820s and had been over the day before to check her out and see if she had juice, which she did. By this point it was raining quite hard
, and Dave came back and let us into the lot.
We drove in with the guys from Mississippi, and a guy with a sweet CUCV with a flat bed on the back. It looked like it was designed for recovery missions, we missed a pic of it sorry, anyone know who it was? He recovered a nice looking M818.
Dave took us down to the M814 and I jumped out in the rain to check it over. Matched up with the pictures, and looked about like I thought, although the passenger window had taken a hit, and will need to be replaced, but overall looked pretty good.
I crawled under it, checking the rear diff fluids, tranny, and transfer case, but missed something rather important, which I'll come to shortly.
Everything under the hood check out, need some power steering fluid though, and a little more brake fluid to top it off, but not too awful. I setup the batteries in series, and tried to start it, but she just cranked over slowly, not fast enough to start. I wandered over to the guys with the 820, and they said they would be happy to slave me when they were ready to roll, so I returned to my truck to look it over some more.
A few tools in the tool bin, two fire extinguishers, a chock block, full tank of diesel, and that was about it. I looked in the back, and saw what I thought was some random junk up near the cab, but I didn't want to fool with getting the top off in the rain, and went back to the car.
The guys came over in a few, and connected up the slave cables, and she fired right up, with all kinds of smoke from my earlier attempts. She ran up nicely, and I watch everything come up except for air pressure. I started looking for leaks, and found a small one in a short rubber hose in the engine compartment, but figured this couldn't be it, as I was building no air pressure. A walk around again found that the red glad hand on the back of the truck was missing along with its valve.
Great I think, but as luck had it there was a glad hand on the front of the truck that had a valve and a cap, so I removed it and installed it in the rear, which resulted in 70 PSI of air pressure, the compressor however was running constantly to keep up with the small leak in the hose.
I figure I might as well see if she would move, put it in gear and backed out of my spot. No problems... Forward gears just fine, brakes a little more mushy than my deuce, but postive lockup all round in gravel at about half pedal, so I figure I'm good to go. I drive around to where the M105 was to pickup as well, and after a few attempts squeezing the M814 into place, which was no easy task in a narrow yard, we were ready to go.
Off we drive up to I70, and I notice that my battery gauge is pegged out, just great, either bad generator or perhaps just a bad regulator, there's a spare at home, so I guess that will have to do for now, no going back. The temp gauge is doing all kinds of funny things, and I noticed that the battery gauge, as well as the rest of the electrical gauges only read normal when at idle, and to keep them from being killed and pegged out I unplug them, figuring I would check at next idle. The rest of the trip was uneventful back to Springfield, except when at some point I decided the stop lever in the 5 ton works like the Deuce and killed it on the highway. This time I had to swap the new batteries in and start it back up.
I did find it strange that just turning the switch on and letting the clutch back out didn't fire her back up, I just chalked it up to my beginner's knowledge of 5 tons at the time. Soon enough we were home, after a enjoyable trip back to Ohio without rain, which had magically disappeared.
Once home, I backed it down into the gravel driveway which is on a slight slope beside the house. No big deal, but I goofed the backup, and got the M105 trailer cockeyed. I tried pulling forward but I felt the tires spinning, and my buddy told me the front tires were digging in. He chocked the tires, I jumped out and we move the M105 back into position by hand, helped by the gradual slope of the hill. I then backed the truck into position and all was well, except for the 8" hole the front tires had dugged into the ground. Strange I thought, the back tires looked like they hardly dug in at all.
So now it's time to looked her over completely, that is all the nooks and crannies for hidden little toys. A further inspection of the cab revealed another fire extinguisher, and a strange headset control box of some sort. (pictures to come) My buddy is playing with the canvas on the rear, and get the tail gate down and climbs in. He yells for to come back and see what he found, I climb in and there's a drive shaft for something, and the UV joints at the ends have seen better days. He asks where it might have come from, I told him who knows and went about looking around some more.
My buddy crawls underneath, and then calls out for me to join him, I do, and he points to the transfer case and asks, what's missing in this picture?
I looked about for a bit, and then it hits me like a pile of bricks!!! There's no frickkin' rear drive shaft on my truck!@#%#!@#
Sure enough, it's just not there, and the one in the back of the truck must be the one, as the UV joints at the transfer case and the first axle are similarly hosed up.
So, all in all I don't know how I missed this, none of my check included a line for "please ensure driveshafts are attached" and I guess during the inspection of the axles and transfer case I was oblivious. I'm amazed that the Sprag worked as long and as well as it did, thinking back, the only thing I noticed outside of the aforementioned things was that the truck had little to no engine braking.
So, it looks like I need some parts for the truck. I think the drive shaft is more or less ok. The plate in the center which supports it has seen better days, but maybe able to be fixed, I think. UV joints for sure, looks like the normal sources have them, however the output section from the transfer case and input sections to the rear might be a bit harder to come up with, anyone happen to have a spare? I considered pulling the ones from the front and see if that would work, but I need to see if it's possible at all. Any suggestions here?
Other wise, a new coat of paint, cleaning up the nasty parts, new battery boxes probably (any source for plastic ones?) and I think I have a small leak at the master cylinder from the line that leaves it, as well as the air hose mentioned earlier.
On the plus side, I have to say the Cummins rocks, power steering is awesome, and I love 5 tons.
Morning started out not too early, 6:30am from Springfield, Ohio with a buddy of mine, who would drive the other vehicle back. Started out a nice morning, traffic was light, state police abundant and everything was going fine. Around 8:15 or so, it started to rain coming into Indy. We could see some nastiness on the horizon. We made it on to the base ok, just a quick look at our license and they turned us loose. I found a nice 9 series 5 ton I would like
(see pictures)Talked to Dave, the guy who drives up there and he sent us over to wait by a gate to get into the secure area for pickup. Met two guys from Mississippi who were waiting to get in as well. They bought one of the nice 820s and had been over the day before to check her out and see if she had juice, which she did. By this point it was raining quite hard
, and Dave came back and let us into the lot. We drove in with the guys from Mississippi, and a guy with a sweet CUCV with a flat bed on the back. It looked like it was designed for recovery missions, we missed a pic of it sorry, anyone know who it was? He recovered a nice looking M818.
Dave took us down to the M814 and I jumped out in the rain to check it over. Matched up with the pictures, and looked about like I thought, although the passenger window had taken a hit, and will need to be replaced, but overall looked pretty good.
I crawled under it, checking the rear diff fluids, tranny, and transfer case, but missed something rather important, which I'll come to shortly.
Everything under the hood check out, need some power steering fluid though, and a little more brake fluid to top it off, but not too awful. I setup the batteries in series, and tried to start it, but she just cranked over slowly, not fast enough to start. I wandered over to the guys with the 820, and they said they would be happy to slave me when they were ready to roll, so I returned to my truck to look it over some more.
A few tools in the tool bin, two fire extinguishers, a chock block, full tank of diesel, and that was about it. I looked in the back, and saw what I thought was some random junk up near the cab, but I didn't want to fool with getting the top off in the rain, and went back to the car.
The guys came over in a few, and connected up the slave cables, and she fired right up, with all kinds of smoke from my earlier attempts. She ran up nicely, and I watch everything come up except for air pressure. I started looking for leaks, and found a small one in a short rubber hose in the engine compartment, but figured this couldn't be it, as I was building no air pressure. A walk around again found that the red glad hand on the back of the truck was missing along with its valve.
Great I think, but as luck had it there was a glad hand on the front of the truck that had a valve and a cap, so I removed it and installed it in the rear, which resulted in 70 PSI of air pressure, the compressor however was running constantly to keep up with the small leak in the hose.
I figure I might as well see if she would move, put it in gear and backed out of my spot. No problems... Forward gears just fine, brakes a little more mushy than my deuce, but postive lockup all round in gravel at about half pedal, so I figure I'm good to go. I drive around to where the M105 was to pickup as well, and after a few attempts squeezing the M814 into place, which was no easy task in a narrow yard, we were ready to go.
Off we drive up to I70, and I notice that my battery gauge is pegged out, just great, either bad generator or perhaps just a bad regulator, there's a spare at home, so I guess that will have to do for now, no going back. The temp gauge is doing all kinds of funny things, and I noticed that the battery gauge, as well as the rest of the electrical gauges only read normal when at idle, and to keep them from being killed and pegged out I unplug them, figuring I would check at next idle. The rest of the trip was uneventful back to Springfield, except when at some point I decided the stop lever in the 5 ton works like the Deuce and killed it on the highway. This time I had to swap the new batteries in and start it back up.
I did find it strange that just turning the switch on and letting the clutch back out didn't fire her back up, I just chalked it up to my beginner's knowledge of 5 tons at the time. Soon enough we were home, after a enjoyable trip back to Ohio without rain, which had magically disappeared.
Once home, I backed it down into the gravel driveway which is on a slight slope beside the house. No big deal, but I goofed the backup, and got the M105 trailer cockeyed. I tried pulling forward but I felt the tires spinning, and my buddy told me the front tires were digging in. He chocked the tires, I jumped out and we move the M105 back into position by hand, helped by the gradual slope of the hill. I then backed the truck into position and all was well, except for the 8" hole the front tires had dugged into the ground. Strange I thought, the back tires looked like they hardly dug in at all.
So now it's time to looked her over completely, that is all the nooks and crannies for hidden little toys. A further inspection of the cab revealed another fire extinguisher, and a strange headset control box of some sort. (pictures to come) My buddy is playing with the canvas on the rear, and get the tail gate down and climbs in. He yells for to come back and see what he found, I climb in and there's a drive shaft for something, and the UV joints at the ends have seen better days. He asks where it might have come from, I told him who knows and went about looking around some more.
My buddy crawls underneath, and then calls out for me to join him, I do, and he points to the transfer case and asks, what's missing in this picture?
I looked about for a bit, and then it hits me like a pile of bricks!!! There's no frickkin' rear drive shaft on my truck!@#%#!@#
Sure enough, it's just not there, and the one in the back of the truck must be the one, as the UV joints at the transfer case and the first axle are similarly hosed up.
So, all in all I don't know how I missed this, none of my check included a line for "please ensure driveshafts are attached" and I guess during the inspection of the axles and transfer case I was oblivious. I'm amazed that the Sprag worked as long and as well as it did, thinking back, the only thing I noticed outside of the aforementioned things was that the truck had little to no engine braking.
So, it looks like I need some parts for the truck. I think the drive shaft is more or less ok. The plate in the center which supports it has seen better days, but maybe able to be fixed, I think. UV joints for sure, looks like the normal sources have them, however the output section from the transfer case and input sections to the rear might be a bit harder to come up with, anyone happen to have a spare? I considered pulling the ones from the front and see if that would work, but I need to see if it's possible at all. Any suggestions here?
Other wise, a new coat of paint, cleaning up the nasty parts, new battery boxes probably (any source for plastic ones?) and I think I have a small leak at the master cylinder from the line that leaves it, as well as the air hose mentioned earlier.
On the plus side, I have to say the Cummins rocks, power steering is awesome, and I love 5 tons.
