Successful recovery...sort of...

[Chinookpilot77]

Howdy all,

So I drive 4 hours up to Huntsville and picked up my deuce and an M105 Trailer, my first of each.

First I'll talk about the truck...(sorry, no pictures at this time, in a hurry, but they will follow)

The truck started right up, purred like a kitten actually. After picking up the trailer I headed back to the house with my wife picking up trail in my diesel dodge. The oil pressure was running at 90 PSI for the first 4 hours of the trip, solid 48-50 mph down 65. I get to montgomery, hit traffic and I notice the oil psi is down to 60, no biggy i thought. Then I stop one more time in troy and the psi was down to 30....by the time i pulled in my driveway it was down to nearly nothing.

I lost most of my Air pressure as well, though it was running 3/4 on the gage (forget the scale) for the first 4 hours of the trip. I haven't even gotten to look at the truck yet and do any troubleshooting, just posting about the experience here. By the time I got home I had 0 psi.

The water tempurature stayed dead money on 200 degrees....except for the next part....(noticed my temp at 210-220 and somebody started flashing their lights at me to stop)

Just past troy, my trailer brakes caught on fire and i had to leave it dead on the side of the road. I'm going back on sunday to see if the trailer is still there to recover or not, but I figure it'll be stolen by then haha. While I was dosing the flames with two small bottles of water, a guy stopped by and told me there was a bolt I could loosen to release the brakes when they cooled down, when I looked at the hubs, I saw several air lines, but due to only looking at it by the flames of my burning brake drums I figured I'd have to go back when it was light out to figure it out. Can anyone point me in the right direction on this mysterious bolt?

So, bottom line, I picked up a truly awesome machine, I mean this deuce was perfect, even has a gun ring! Then 6 hours later I have a deuce with no air pressure, very little oil pressure and a m105 dead or stolen on the side of the road.

All in all, if I were to do it again, I'd probably have the damn thing shipped here!

 

[Speddmon]

I'm sorry to hear about your adventure.
As for the oil pressure, have you checked the oil level yet since you've been home? Maybe it has a leak or got pumped into the air system through the compressor. If the latter is the case, that may explain the loss of air pressure, and maybe even the brake problems with the trailer. Pumping oil into the air system can't be good, if that was the case.

Hopefully someone with more experience will chime in here.

 

[hndrsonj]

So did you have the trailer lines hooked up? Was the parking brake off? Did you do a thorough pre-start walkaround and check all fluids ect? We will need some more info before alot of your questions can be answered accurately.

 

[Ferroequinologist]

My m105 pass side brake locked up whenever I tapped the brakes on the way to Haspin.

First, if you start loosing air pressure, you should stop and check it out.

Second, oil pressure should drop once it warms up. When it starts to drop below 40psi in most diesel engines, you should stop and check it out.

Glad you made it safe, and hopefully even if someone does hook up to the 105, they won't be able to pull it far with bad brakes.

I'd check to see if your oil was passing through your air compressor. Have you drained the air tanks yet? did you see any oil when you unhooked the brake lines on the 105 when you disconnected it? If there wasn't much oil in the air system, I would check to see if your hand brakes or cables on the 105 got rusted. Sometimes parking brakes will freeze up from sitting for long periods of time.

Keep us up to date on what you find.

Again, glad you made it safe at least!

 

[Nonotagain]

A injector pump leaking into the engine would be my suspicion for the loss of oil pressure. If you check the dipstick and the level is high, check the injector pump.

Diesel in the engine oil would also be the cause of loosing air pressure since the rings won't seal very well.

As for the M105 trailer, GL is known for picking up and moving these trailers with fork lifts. On ocassion the parking brake cables get crushed causing the brakes to stick. Given enough heat the wheel bearing seals give up the ghost and leak grease onto the hot brake parts.

When you go to recover your trialer, take a jack and remove the offending drum, if you can. Back the brake shoes off the drums on both sides and reassemble. While still on the jack check the bearing preload before bringing it home.

 

[G-Force]

Wer you able to restart the truck after you got home???
To lose all three systems like that it sounds like maybe your alternator isn't charging and you ran the batteries down possibly???
Or maybe a bad ground for gauges.......

 

[drgreg]

Did your air pressure drop before you disconnected the trailer?
Does your trailer have 1 air line or 2?

 

[scooter01922]

So let me get this straight. You took a truck with an unknown history and kept driving it as your oil and air pressure dropped to almost nil???? Just thinking out loud here but those are things that need to be investigated ASAP, not when you arrive home. Hope you didn't cook anything by running so low on oil pressure.

 

[Chinookpilot77]

Yep, I did a ton of stuff on this recovery I would have preferred not doing, but it simply could have been no other way at the time. You can armchair quarterback it if you'd like, but it was a situation I did the best with what was available to me at the time...anyway....

The truck still starts and runs just fine, though I only ran it for less than a minute yesterday. Oil level is exactly as it was when I picked it up, no diesel in the oil or anything like that. Also, the air pressure issue, as well as the trailer brake issue were caused by a broken compressor belt, as I saw yesterday morning when I was able to "post flight" the truck. I didn't hear the buzzer over the truck noise and my earplugs...

So, I think the air pressure issue is a quick fix, just replacing the belt. I was hoping that after the engine cooled the oil pressure would come back, but it is still reading about 30psi. That is the only issue I think will take more troubleshooting.

 

[drgreg]

So, my guess is, it is a 2 line system on the trailer.
There is a idiot light kit for the air system. I got mine from saturn surplus.

 

[Chinookpilot77]

Sorry Greg,

Yes it is a two line trailer. I recovered it today, so I am now 100% on my initial project. Gonna try to find the compressor belt tomorrow from somewhere, and then work the oil psi issue. After that, the real work begins!

 

[scrapman]

Drove a truck home with similar oil pressure problem. Would run 60+lb then drop to 30-lb to almost zero then back to 60+. Oil level good. Problem? Bad sending unit. Suggest to check pressure with 0-120 mechanical gauge to get true cold/hot readings.

 

[Speddmon]

NAPA should have the belt in stock if it's for a deuce. NAPA #25-9510

Also, Goodyear #17511
Gates 9510

 

[Chinookpilot77]

scrapman,

Yeah, I have a bit of experience troubleshooting, albeit on helicopters and not on old trucks, but the principals remain the same...start cheap and work toward the expensive!

I am hoping its a sending unit or the gauge itself sticking, etc etc. As soon as I know, I'll post my findings here.

Speddmon, thanks for the part numbers. I found those yesterday when I searched for compressor belt. Also found a few good articles on the matter.

Thanks for your help your input guys.

 

[drgreg]

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M35​

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[Chinookpilot77]

Had a chance to look at the deuce again today following the troubleshooting tree. Oil pressure voltage was 6.72...time to replace the gage. Ordered 3 new belts and a gage today from OD Iron. Hopefully I'll have her battle ready as soon as the parts get here!

 

[Butchy_Boy]

GL man, I have yet to buy one, but common sense dictates, is old, you had best be ready for anything lol.

Are these hydraulic brakes, or air brakes? Or a mix? I did some work with diesels, but not extensivly on the same model.

 

[Chinookpilot77]

They are air ASSISTED hydraulic brakes. I know the ford medium duty trucks from the 90's had the same thing...(not sure about now because I haven't driven one in that long). when the air pressure is up, I was actually quite surprised how well the deuce stopped.

 

[PorscheTech911]

Congrats on the new toys buddy