paradeduty
New member
- 727
- 28
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- Location
- Chelsea, Michigan, U.S.A.
Well, finally got a chance to do a little bit of wrenching on the HMTT this afternoon.
Got the original flat aluminum grille off and out of the way. It was pretty mangled from lots of heavy handling and no brush gard so it had to be replaced anyway. Being as there is no radiator in the front of the engine (has custom experimental radiator and hyd drive fan behind engine over trans) this makes getting to the cables and belts and pumps one whole lot easier (maybe the new one should be on hinges!).
Got the front bumper removed so that a new one can be fabricated. Had a little good luck - while up in the bed checking things out and scratching my head, what should I stumble upon but the other third of the bumper that for one reason or another (probably tugged too hard) was cut off quite a while ago. Very cool - now we don't have to make one or two new matching lifting eyes for the ends (one would have been missing - didn't know it was in there under 2 foot of snow!).
Had a chance to crawl under and check out the shifting setup for the transfer case (never could get the shifter to budge). And the problem is.........Ta Da........yup - frozen shifter cable. They totally disconnected it and left it in low range. Due to the tilt cab, this cable has to be all of 20' long! Have to put that on the list.
Checked out the mildly cobbled rear end. Mudflaps are basically garbage. Added on low slung pintle hitch has to go. The rear frame cross member has seen some signifigant tugging from the looks of it (probably draw bar testing at the proving grounds may have helped cause this). Plus between the over stock height tires and suspension spacers from the original M656 donor vehicle, the stock pintle height is now about 9" over standard. I took some pictures of the rear of my M54 5-Ton 6x6 frame. Its some work, but I think it might be better off in the long haul to just replace the entire rear cross member with a decent one off of a 5-Toner (drop pintle, bumperettes, and all). The frames are the same width and rail height so except for a few thousand bolts - no big deal. Plus they did remove and discard one of the original bumperettes (not a match for the 6x6) and I will gain proper pintle height and rear chain clevis attachment points. Hopefully I can find a 5-Ton with some good mud flaps, too - the ones on my M54 would work well.
I was kind of hoping that I could just exchange the drop sides and tailgate off of the bed (supposed to be an M813 bed). But as I was again scratching my head (something just didn't seem quite right) - it dawned on me.......oh yah! They changed the HIAB Crane from the original one that they were trying out. This replacement had manually extendable outrigger supports which the first one did not have. This (as the domino effect begins....) is a physically larger unit which required the widening of the space allocated to it in the front of the bed (the space normally reserved for the spare tire I believe). To do so they shortened the Drop Side Panels by about 6 or 7 inches - so that rules out that easy swap, hey! Oh well - I'm mulling over some options to keep this realistic (one of which is just leaving well enough alone!).
The other thing I still have to track down is a front crank pulley accessory attachment to go between the Detroit V6 and the Auxiliary Hydraulic Pump (for the Crane and Winch and Rear Aux Hyd.). Just because the original pump was designed to attach to a custom shaft (with remote engage/disengage feature), I will probably end up having to get a new/different pump as well.
Anyways - nothing earth shattering - but it might be interesting to check out.
Pictures and captions to follow (if I don't mess them up!). Happy wrenching!
Got the original flat aluminum grille off and out of the way. It was pretty mangled from lots of heavy handling and no brush gard so it had to be replaced anyway. Being as there is no radiator in the front of the engine (has custom experimental radiator and hyd drive fan behind engine over trans) this makes getting to the cables and belts and pumps one whole lot easier (maybe the new one should be on hinges!).
Got the front bumper removed so that a new one can be fabricated. Had a little good luck - while up in the bed checking things out and scratching my head, what should I stumble upon but the other third of the bumper that for one reason or another (probably tugged too hard) was cut off quite a while ago. Very cool - now we don't have to make one or two new matching lifting eyes for the ends (one would have been missing - didn't know it was in there under 2 foot of snow!).
Had a chance to crawl under and check out the shifting setup for the transfer case (never could get the shifter to budge). And the problem is.........Ta Da........yup - frozen shifter cable. They totally disconnected it and left it in low range. Due to the tilt cab, this cable has to be all of 20' long! Have to put that on the list.
Checked out the mildly cobbled rear end. Mudflaps are basically garbage. Added on low slung pintle hitch has to go. The rear frame cross member has seen some signifigant tugging from the looks of it (probably draw bar testing at the proving grounds may have helped cause this). Plus between the over stock height tires and suspension spacers from the original M656 donor vehicle, the stock pintle height is now about 9" over standard. I took some pictures of the rear of my M54 5-Ton 6x6 frame. Its some work, but I think it might be better off in the long haul to just replace the entire rear cross member with a decent one off of a 5-Toner (drop pintle, bumperettes, and all). The frames are the same width and rail height so except for a few thousand bolts - no big deal. Plus they did remove and discard one of the original bumperettes (not a match for the 6x6) and I will gain proper pintle height and rear chain clevis attachment points. Hopefully I can find a 5-Ton with some good mud flaps, too - the ones on my M54 would work well.
I was kind of hoping that I could just exchange the drop sides and tailgate off of the bed (supposed to be an M813 bed). But as I was again scratching my head (something just didn't seem quite right) - it dawned on me.......oh yah! They changed the HIAB Crane from the original one that they were trying out. This replacement had manually extendable outrigger supports which the first one did not have. This (as the domino effect begins....) is a physically larger unit which required the widening of the space allocated to it in the front of the bed (the space normally reserved for the spare tire I believe). To do so they shortened the Drop Side Panels by about 6 or 7 inches - so that rules out that easy swap, hey! Oh well - I'm mulling over some options to keep this realistic (one of which is just leaving well enough alone!).
The other thing I still have to track down is a front crank pulley accessory attachment to go between the Detroit V6 and the Auxiliary Hydraulic Pump (for the Crane and Winch and Rear Aux Hyd.). Just because the original pump was designed to attach to a custom shaft (with remote engage/disengage feature), I will probably end up having to get a new/different pump as well.
Anyways - nothing earth shattering - but it might be interesting to check out.
Pictures and captions to follow (if I don't mess them up!). Happy wrenching!
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