Okay here's the story: High bidder on a M54 with broken steering
gear...
I got to the yard about 8.
First thing was to throw in some fresh diesel and let it mix
with what was in the tank. Only about 4 gallons but I thought it
was bone dry.
Next on to fixing the broken air connection up front. I ended up
just taking off the 90 degree bend with the broken nipple and
replaced it with a plugged elbow.
The air intake was pointed at an odd angle (down and inboard)
and due to the large amount of dirt on the fender/hood I wanted
to turn the intake to the proper position of down/outboard.
That took some careful digging to get to the inside latch on the
air cleaner drum, but I was surprised to see a good-as-new
filter from 1997 inside. Also by moving the intake, I could
smother the intake if it ran away from me.
On to the batteries. Easy enough. I did make one check- With one
of the battery leads disconnected, I took my ammeter and put it
across where the last lead would connect. No current means that
there are no extra "drains" (aka gremlins!) that needed to be
dealt with. That tested well so I put in the last cable and
moved on!
I couldn't find a bleeder for the fuel line and did not want to
mess with taking the filter apart (and possibly getting more air
into it) so I did the next best thing. I hopped in and hit the
start button for about 3 seconds of cranking but nothing
further. I took a breath and let the fuel pump build up some
pressure, then hit the start button again and she came right to
life! WooHoo! Oil pressure promptly came right up to about 50
PSI. After a minute or two the air buzzer went out and I figured
I'd try driving it-still with the broken steering gear. I only
went about a foot forward and back but everything worked well!
Brakes are great!
It's now about 10 AM and things are going well! I needed to
address the broken steering "relay lever bracket" and then I
could drive away! This, however, was a bear for one person to
do. Working around that large frame and bumper to get a wrench
on the back of those bolts and then try to turn the 45 year old
fine-threaded locknuts... Whew. The old bracket was apparently
very old- a 4-bolt setup. The replacement was a 6-bolt, with a
large support leg to the rear. This required a little clearance
cut on the inner fender. After that I was able to struggle
through bolting the bracket in. Getting the relay lever aligned
was a challenge. Turn the wheel, hit the lever, repeat. After it
was in line, the darned cross bolt through the pivot pin
wouldn't enter fully. The casting was damaged and the hole was
out of round. I had to hammer (eek) the bolt through then chase
it with a die to restore the threads. BUT now it's done!
I unhitched the trailer (M332) from my jeep and drove the jeep
off base to be picked up later that night. By now it's 3 O'clock
and everyone on base is getting out of work creating traffic! I
managed to hitch the M54 and M332 after about half a dozen pull
forward and back sessions. Then it was off into the sunset.
Literally, the sun was bright and the windows were filthy!! I
took a couple of laps around the DRMO buildings taking some
_wide_ corners and scaring some folks, I'm sure. Then it was up
the road about 10 miles to my friend's farm where the truck is
docked for the weekend! I'll be back monday with plates (I hope)
for the last leg of the journey.
It had almost 2 hours running time yesterday and was pretty
sweet. It sounds like the turbo has a little more whine/scream
than I'd expect (like you shouldn't be able to hear it at
idle...) Still getting used to double clutching too!
Oh as to reactions--- it turned a lot of heads. When we were at
my buddy's farm (parked proudly out front!) two cars stopped in
about 15 minutes. They liked it! In fact I like it too :)
So thanks to all for the help and support. I'm very glad that
this came together so easy.
Oh, does anyone have a passenger seatback cushion available?
That's about all I need for now.
Also- my insurance agent had to check what an "international
harvester" was. She had never heard of them. It's not often that
I at the age of 25 can call someone a kid !! And NO they didn't
asky anything beyond VIN, Year, and make. I did mention that the
title read unknown but I thought it was an IH.
-Damon
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Jan 05 2000 - 22:42:09 PST