You betcha, the beast is alive! We found a wiring problem after being
pointed to a specific section of a TM. We had been trying to get them ALL
read, thank you John Hutterer for pointing us in the right direction. The
wiring to the master toggle switch (remember previously mention wimpy
switch) was not wired correctly. The vehicle would activate the start
solenoid with a slave cable, but nothing from our own batteries. Because
the wire was wrong the master relay was not being activated as it should be.
(really glad we did not tear apart the relay!)
Got the wires back right and flipped the master and got a very satisfying
clunk sound from the relay, just behind the drivers seat. Flipped on the
instrument switch and all the bells and whistles came to life. Cranked her
up and nothing! Sputter, smoke, batteries grinding down. Zip.
Back to the drawing board. This engine is really pretty simple. No glo
plugs, no ignition. Fuel, starter circuit, charging circuit....that's about
it. Checked fuel/water separators. A GALLON! That's right, one each a US
gallon of water. Off to the fuel filler cap. Gaskets on same are shot, the
surrounding hull acts like a funnel. Its been raining here for days!
Rebuilt the gasket and drained off about 20 gallons from the drain plug that
was lowest on the chassis. (remember it had rolled off the transporter onto
a curb, sitting with a list to port) Turned out to be a good thing, all the
water settled to the lower plug. The fuel tank was full, the drain plug is
one inch in diameter and the threads are much shorter than anticipated. The
plug dropped out unexpectedly, so much for the grand scheme of controlling
the flow rate. That stuff comes out pretty darned fast! Tastes nasty.
Sputter and cuss and put the plug back in. We noticed it quit smelling like
water and started smelling like diesel. 20 gallons in a pan trying to slide
out from under a tank chassis is no easy task! Drain off the filters again
and re-prime the system. Crank her up again and after some sputtering and
smoking she jumps to life. Idles rough for about a minute and then smoothed
right out to a purr (well we were happy, it purred to us). After it warmed
up I slipped it into gear and it rolled right on out. It is great, runs
smooth. Power train is pretty even and the tranny shifts without
difficulty. Tears the hell out of the grass though. I drove it around for
about a half hour, putting a charge back on the batteries and then we
stopped to try the crane. As a lot of people expected, nothing happened.
While the track had been run as recently as a month ago, the crane has not
been operated in two years.
Back to the books, but we will sort it out.
Somewhere along the line everybody started calling it Babe, now it's stuck.
Soon to be painted on the hull. Cartoon of a baby in a diaper with a full
load in back, crane hook on diaper holding it up. Everybody was right,
these things do seem to name themselves.
Thanks to everybody who responded to the pleas for help, it was very much
appreciated! I will let you know about the crane and turret.
David & Donna Brubaker
Member MVPA
M-151A2
http://www2.southwind.net/~b52d
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 01 2000 - 21:37:49 PST