A few weeks ago, I decided to monkey around for the first time with
the front winch on my M543A2 5-ton wrecker, which I bought not too
long ago. It has seen better days, and is in need of a bit of PM.
Well, it's too late for "P"... it just plain needs "M". :-)
Anyway, I found that the linkage to the control handle in the cab
seems to be out of adjustment, loose, or otherwise bollixed up a bit.
I temporarily pulled out the transmission hump covers to give it a bit
more room to move, since it was hitting against the opening without
quite engaging properly. Once I did that, I couldn't seem to get it
back into neutral, as if the detents weren't working properly, or were
just so dirty that I had to use enough force to overshoot neutral
every time. Thus, I managed to get my truck into a state where I
couldn't disengage the control lever in the cab, but I also couldn't
disengage the dog clutch lever on the wrecker itself with the engine
off. In other words, I wouldn't be able to turn it back into a
drivable truck by myself without pulling out some tools and dropping
the clutch drive shaft (which was probably under a bit of torque by
now!). I know that most of y'all haven't met me yet, but you can
probably imagine that I'm not quite tall enough to push on the lever
on the winch crankcase while simultaneously feathering the clutch
pedal to jiggle the shafts. Luckily, there were a couple random
strangers around, and one of them was happy to help out by pushing on
the lever while I slipped the clutch pedal. With the winch disengaged
and no longer trying to pull the chain through the front bumper, I was
able to repeatedly fiddle with the in-cab lever and then jump out and
look under the truck, until the front winch driveshaft was no longer
turning.
It looks like that front winch won't do me much good without a
helper... unless I modify things a bit. It occurred to me that there's
already an air-operated remote clutch control at the back of the
wrecker, for operating the clutch while shifting the crane drive and
rear winch gearboxes. It's a lever that looks an awful lot like a
steering-column-mounted trailer brake control handle, and it actuates
an air cylinder that operates the clutch linkage. It seems like it
shouldn't be too hard to install another trailer brake control valve
at the front of the truck and tee it into the appropriate air lines. I
guess I'd also have to add a selector valve somewhere, so one valve
wouldn't be venting to the atmosphere while the other was trying to
pressurize the line. I'd still operate the crane from the cab, but the
additional valve would let me slip the clutch from the front of the
truck in order to engage or disengage the winch gear-box without a
helper. What do y'all think about this?
Hmm, I'd want to be reeeeealy careful when using it, to avoid running
myself over. The existing rear clutch control isn't quite so bad,
because you pretty much need to be sitting in the back of the truck to
reach it.
On a related note, does anybody know of any companies that sell truck
parts such as generic air brake components, that have web pages with
nice online catalogs (with PICTURES!) and on-line ordering? I've
gotten really spoiled by McMaster-Carr's web page, and I'd like to be
able to buy truck parts the same way (ferinstance, I'd like to order a
random generic trailer brake lever valve...). I currently live in
Yuppieville, so I have a bit of a drive to get to a truck parts store.
With my lack of big-truck experience, I need nice pictures and good
descriptions to figure out what I need to buy! :-)
-- Mark J. Blair, KE6MYK <mblair1@home.net> PGP 2.6.2 public key available from http://www.keyserver.net/ Web page: http://www.qsl.net/ke6myk/ DO NOT SEND ANY UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL EMAIL TO THIS SITE PLEASE SEND PLAIN ASCII TEXT ONLY -- NO HTML OR QUOTED-PRINTABLE
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