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Superthermal's M813 Build, THE BOT

Superthermal

Well-known member
Steel Soldiers Supporter
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Location
Utah, Murray, United States
Had a great outing with the local MV guys here in Utah. I had to drop out a day early due to some clutch disengagement issues. The peddle lever connects to a shaft that is mounted to the top of the frame and a shorter shaft then pushes a forked rod that connects to the actual clutch fork. I could not see that either lever was twisting on the shaft so I can only conclude that the clutch fork may have gotten bent or something. Will check it out a bit more when the BOT gets its shower.
In any case the lockers were working absolutely solid and had no issues whatsoever driving where ever I pointed the rig. Ran 25psi in the rears and 35 in the front. I could have gone down to 20ish on the rears since I don't have much weight in there but the tires were biting plenty.
The sprag style transfer case was absolutely killer in the sloppy mud. I never once noticed the front be late to engage or anything like that with the sprag.
Did bend my flag pole for the umpteenth time. I might just remove that thing when wheeling in the trees for now on :).
The 1 to 4 air chuck I made was used several times to lower my/others PSI evenly and raise them back up. Liking that thing and highly recommended.
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Superthermal

Well-known member
Steel Soldiers Supporter
346
966
93
Location
Utah, Murray, United States
Another 1300 mile round trip, this time down to LA to picka part. I was able to find through a fellow 809er an in the can 6453 transmission. This is the same transmission that is stock to my rig, the 5 speed with an overdrive, but this will be one with some synchros that actually work. :)
I have thought to swap out the transmission for something more exotic, like an Eaton RTO 10 or 13 speed, but that would require some heavy modifications and a fair number of custom parts. Not to mention I would have to figure out how to drive a slit case, etc... LOL, this swap is not impossible as I have read some of the builds here on SS where this has been done, but an RTO would benefit mostly the on road drive-ability, where I am more concerned with wheeling. The 5 speed seems to be flawless off-road and would keep the truck stock simple enough for my wife to drive it.


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Now modifying something important that will definitely be noticed, I am contemplating on how to change out the clutch foot peddle/release for a hydraulic setup so there isn't any issue with how the cab/frame/clutch all flex and shift when wheeling. It is very obvious that the clutch linkage gets bound when the passenger side goes high and the drivers side goes low, such as when you drive trough a ditch diagonally. I have also had the transfercase get knocked out of gear with the flex. I will be looking into that too. Either way the drive-ability off-road would be enhanced with a mod like this.
Volvo has these two. Looks like near 3/4 master or so. I'll need to go out and see what the mechanical advantage is on the manual linkage and what the stroke needs to be to have some better ideas.
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