Mntsnow's recovery and building of The Beast

[Artisan]

I would lever it painted as is, It looks sweet as is!

If CTIS Works, go w/ it, if it starts to become a regular maintenance issue
I would strip it ALL off and sell it piece by piece.

I have a glad-hand air chuck and I plumbed in quick disconnects for
air hoses and air tools as well.

 

[crusader]

Congratulations!

 

[Bighurt]

View attachment 472931

I want to see more of that tow bar mount.

 

[MtnSnow]

Artisan,

Thank you for the picture. I'll probably do a setup like that as well for mine.

With the CTIS currently working I will keep it until it gives me grief and then pull it.

BTW I got a bonus with the truck. it was equiped with a radio at some point and the radio mount, external speaker and a couple of hand mics/speakers were still in the bed of the truck. It still has the antenna mount and cable run. Just no actual radio or antenna...but I will put my 2meter/70cm Yaesu FT-8800R in when I use the truck

 

[MtnSnow]

Update: Received my SF-97 yesterday (Friday 1-31-14). planning on hitting the Utah DMV Monday or Tuesday and getting it legal for the road finally!

Did some small PM work on it this past week such as it it had a couple of dash lights inoperative (bad bulbs) and fixed a side marker light that was inop as well

 

[MtnSnow]

Had a slight delay in getting the DMV work completed as I had to wait a bit to get the truck safety inspected and the shop was backlogged. But it's finally all done with Army Veteran plates issued and I've gone ahead and ordered personalized Army veteran plates to go on it to replace the ones they just issued. Supposed to have good weather this weekend so hope to get some more things done to it. Will continue to update this thread as things continue to happen.

 

[MtnSnow]

My son came up to spend some time with me so we spend the afternoon working on "The Beast" as my wife calls it.

Got my Locking door handles installed today...3 of the 4 original Phillips screws were totally stripped out so I ended up having to drill out the heads to get the original handles off and then used vice-grips to grab the stubs of the screws and was able twist them out after hitting them with PB-blaster and letting them soak for a bit.

Got the license plate holder mounted and the plate on it so hopefully I don't pulled over again because they didn't see the plate in the front windshield. (The cops in my area tend to pull you over for anything and everything they can) and then kept me busy chatting about the truck for 30 mins but no ticket as everything was in order.

Also mounted a 1/2 ton Haul-master bed-mounted crane to make it easy to get 55gal drums and such into and out of the bed that I had picked up a while ago for use in my pickup but never ended up mounting it until now.

Hopefully tomorrow after POW/MIA board meeting and General membership meetings the weather will still be holding out for us and my son and I can work on getting the GL markings/paint off the truck and also see if I can figure out why the dash lights don't seem to work when they did before and so did the windshield fluid sprayer (fuse?) as I know they worked last week when the safety inspector checked the truck..

 

[machinist75]

Would like to get some pics of the bed crane on your truck and any under bed bracing you did when you get a chance. Thanks

 

[MtnSnow]

I'll try and grab some for you tomorrow if the weather is good it was a bit to dark for my cellphone camera when we finished up as it was our last project for the day.

As for under the bed bracing the package included two lengths of heavy 2 inch "angle iron" that were pre-drilled and I used them as shown in the assembly manual...(yeah I looked at the install manual... )

 

[MtnSnow]

Sorry for the delay but work has been crazy lately but I finally got a day off and currently in between rain storms right now so I was able to get some photos of the bed mounted hoist. In a couple of pictures you can see I trimmed off the outside seat slat which allows me to keep the troop seats fully operable and keep the hoist out of the way when the troop seats are in the upright stored position.

 

[Gunzy]

Sorry for the delay but work has been crazy lately but I finally got a day off and currently in between rain storms right now so I was able to get some photos of the bed mounted hoist. In a couple of pictures you can see I trimmed off the outside seat slat which allows me to keep the troop seats fully operable and keep the hoist out of the way when the troop seats are in the upright stored position.

View attachment 480660

View attachment 480661

View attachment 480662

View attachment 480663

OK Mike, what's in the crates? Inquiring minds need to know.

 

[MtnSnow]

LOL....They are military issue stretchers aka litters, that I picked up for our community's emergency response teams that I just need to get dropped off.

 

[Gunzy]

And I thought it would be something cool.

 

[MtnSnow]

Sorry....but I did just get delivered a 24volt 7" color monitor with 2 color CCD instead of CMOS cameras for the beast. Will make backing up without soldier B around a good bit easier & safer. Hope to get them installed today & or tomorrow. Also have to track down why I just started getting a air bleed/venting in the brakes when using them.

 

[Gunzy]

Are you sure it's the brakes? Because the CTIS can be noisy.

 

[1 Patriot-of-many]

Congrats, looks like a nice clean truck.

 

[MtnSnow]

Gunzy, I'm sure it's not the CTIS. I've seem to have developed yesterday a semi-slow leak in the primary air side (leaks down upon shutdown of the truck within 20-30 mins) where as the secondary side holds pressure for hours. But I have also started venting air pressure into the intake stack upon application of the foot pedal brake (normally you only get venting upon lifting your foot from the brake pedal).

Anyways...I have rigged up a gladhand hose to go from my compressor in the garage so tomorrow if it's not raining I will be able to charge the system with air and start spraying the system down with soapy water and try and find the "bleed down" leaks and then get my lovely wife to play soldier B and let her do the brake pedal while I try and figure out what is causing that venting (going to follow this thread )

But I did get a few things done this evening. Installed the 24v Color monitor & mounted the solar panel for my PulseTech charger/desulfator & wired in a 5-40volt digital voltage meter which you can just make out at the bottom of the windshield.

 

[1 Patriot-of-many]

What did the backup system run you? That's a great idea.

 

[MtnSnow]

Patriot,

It ran me under 150 shipped. I got the backup camera setup from the large "E"-auction website and got the one with 2 color cameras & the 7" color monitor all items I got are 12/24volt compatible (I have one camera up front and one at the back) and the monitor has two inputs so a simple click of a button I can see backing up or how close I am to running over a small car when pulling into a parking lot stall LOL

Do read the descriptions on everything as some offer 24v compatible monitors but the cameras are 12v and some offered 24v camera but the monitor was 12v...

 

[MtnSnow]

A few people have PM'd me asking for pictures of how &/or where I mounted the cameras. I'll have to take a new picture of the rear camera when I go back over to my storage yard as I only have a pic of where I had first mounted it and forgot to take a new pic of where it is now (above the pintle hitch & trailer plug) and the next pic shows the home garage when I backed into the driveway yesterday when I was doing the camera installs. The front one as you can see is mounted to the plate that holds the ABS/Limiter valve assembly and the next pic shows my wife's car in front of the beast. (the image quality is much better than what my cellphone camera was able to take/show plus I haven't taken the plastic off the screen of the monitor yet either)