WHYDTYTT: What Have You Done To Your Truck Today?

[Gary Lewis]

Mark - Yes, the NP435 has brass synchros, as do most manual transmissions. But this page on Mobil 1 75W-90 says:

Excellent rust, staining and corrosion protection of copper and its alloys

• Helps to reduce wear

• Long component life

And since brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, you should be good to go.

That [Mobil 1 75W90] is what we put in my transmission at the GTG a couple of years ago and everything is still fine!

Good to know, David. Thanks.

As for what I did to my truck today, I cut the winch power leads and installed the 350 amp connectors. Tomorrow I plan to drill and tap the receiver right where the right/vehicle connector is and secure it there with two 1/4-20 SHCS's.

Unfortunately the 2/0 that I have doesn't appear to be long enough so I have a text into Scott to see if he carries 2/0 welding cable. And when I get the cable, from wherever that is, I'll crimp on the other two connectors and be in business.

Oh, and those 4 bolt heads you see are the new 10x1.5mm 10.9's I got the other day. I had 3/8" bolts in there, but was afraid I'd forget at some point and try to mount the winch with them. So I replaced them with the actual bolts that'll hold the winch in when the time comes to move it back over.

[Gary Lewis]

Good to know, David. Thanks.

As for what I did to my truck today, I cut the winch power leads and installed the 350 amp connectors. Tomorrow I plan to drill and tap the receiver right where the right/vehicle connector is and secure it there with two 1/4-20 SHCS's.

Unfortunately the 2/0 that I have doesn't appear to be long enough so I have a text into Scott to see if he carries 2/0 welding cable. And when I get the cable, from wherever that is, I'll crimp on the other two connectors and be in business.

Oh, and those 4 bolt heads you see are the new 10x1.5mm 10.9's I got the other day. I had 3/8" bolts in there, but was afraid I'd forget at some point and try to mount the winch with them. So I replaced them with the actual bolts that'll hold the winch in when the time comes to move it back over.

The winch wiring is done. I drilled and tapped the receiver to take 1/4-20 screws and mounted the truck's connector, as shown below:

And Scott brought me 20' of 2/0 welding cable last night (THANK YOU, SCOTT!!), so I got the extension cable made today. Here's one of the connectors after crimping with my 16 ton crimper. And, by the way, there's plenty of dielectric grease inside, and then the crimps were all protected with adhesive-lined shrink tubing.

And, here's the extension cable:

Then I installed the pigtail on the winch:

And, with the spare tire on the connector is held pretty tightly so it won't bounce:

But, the jumper cable can still be connected quite easily:

Now all I have to do to get ready is rewire the brake controller () and load up. Oh, I forgot - and install the new shackle on the winch line when it comes in.

[1986F150Six]

The winch wiring is done. I drilled and tapped the receiver to take 1/4-20 screws and mounted the truck's connector, as shown below:

And Scott brought me 20' of 2/0 welding cable last night (THANK YOU, SCOTT!!), so I got the extension cable made today. Here's one of the connectors after crimping with my 16 ton crimper. And, by the way, there's plenty of dielectric grease inside, and then the crimps were all protected with adhesive-lined shrink tubing.

And, here's the extension cable:

Then I installed the pigtail on the winch:

And, with the spare tire on the connector is held pretty tightly so it won't bounce:

But, the jumper cable can still be connected quite easily:

Now all I have to do to get ready is rewire the brake controller () and load up. Oh, I forgot - and install the new shackle on the winch line when it comes in.

Progress is a good thing!

[Ford F834]

The winch wiring is done. I drilled and tapped the receiver to take 1/4-20 screws and mounted the truck's connector, as shown below:

And Scott brought me 20' of 2/0 welding cable last night (THANK YOU, SCOTT!!), so I got the extension cable made today. Here's one of the connectors after crimping with my 16 ton crimper. And, by the way, there's plenty of dielectric grease inside, and then the crimps were all protected with adhesive-lined shrink tubing.

And, here's the extension cable:

Then I installed the pigtail on the winch:

And, with the spare tire on the connector is held pretty tightly so it won't bounce:

But, the jumper cable can still be connected quite easily:

Now all I have to do to get ready is rewire the brake controller () and load up. Oh, I forgot - and install the new shackle on the winch line when it comes in.

That looks good Gary. Those are the same connectors that they use at my job for the 2,000 lb batteries that run the laser guided vehicles. (They move the palletized product into the warehouse). Definitely heavy duty and good for what you are doing 🙂

[Gary Lewis]

That looks good Gary. Those are the same connectors that they use at my job for the 2,000 lb batteries that run the laser guided vehicles. (They move the palletized product into the warehouse). Definitely heavy duty and good for what you are doing 🙂

Thanks, guys.

Got a bit more done today. Fixed the wiring error to the brake controller. Turns out it does make a difference where you tap into the light green brake wire. I originally tapped in on the speed control side of the clutch switch, as shown below. And when I pushed in the clutch w/o the brake sometimes the trailer's brakes came on. Apparently the speed control module back-fed just enough voltage that the brake controller came on. Plus, if you hit the clutch while on the brake the trailer brakes should quit. I moved it today.

And I connected the winch with the jumper cable, and it works perfectly.

Then I turned Big Blue around and set up the hitch to get the trailer level. The range of adjustment was one of the reasons I went with this trailer as most others had far less range.

Another thing to notice in this pic is the sliver of light between the trailer's coupler and the draw bar. Initially there was absolutely no clearance, but with a flap wheel I finally got 1/16".

And, here's how close to level the trailer is. Obviously that will change with load, but Big Blue doesn't sit down much at all with a load on him, so it won't change much.

[1986F150Six]

Thanks, guys.

Got a bit more done today. Fixed the wiring error to the brake controller. Turns out it does make a difference where you tap into the light green brake wire. I originally tapped in on the speed control side of the clutch switch, as shown below. And when I pushed in the clutch w/o the brake sometimes the trailer's brakes came on. Apparently the speed control module back-fed just enough voltage that the brake controller came on. Plus, if you hit the clutch while on the brake the trailer brakes should quit. I moved it today.

And I connected the winch with the jumper cable, and it works perfectly.

Then I turned Big Blue around and set up the hitch to get the trailer level. The range of adjustment was one of the reasons I went with this trailer as most others had far less range.

Another thing to notice in this pic is the sliver of light between the trailer's coupler and the draw bar. Initially there was absolutely no clearance, but with a flap wheel I finally got 1/16".

And, here's how close to level the trailer is. Obviously that will change with load, but Big Blue doesn't sit down much at all with a load on him, so it won't change much.

Nice work!

[Gary Lewis]

Nice work!

Thanks, David.

More doing today in prep for the outing next Tuesday. You may remember that I needed to replace the hook on the end of the winch cable as it wouldn't go through the fairlead that's on Big Blue's bumper. I got that done today, and it really wasn't all that hard. However, it did involve removing and re-installing the thimble on the end of the line, which meant that I had to learn how to do an eye splice in synthetic line. I found this

video to be quite helpful, and I will tell you that what he said about cutting synthetic line is accurate.

Anyway, I got that done and have it under lots of tension in the shot below. But, in that shot you can see the snap ring that holds the pin in that shackle. That's what allows easily removing the shackle so the winch can be moved from the truck to/from the trailer. However, it is also what took a bit of time today. I have, by actual count, 4 snap ring pliers, all of them the universal one-size-fits-nothing variety. Over the years I've hated using them as they never work well, I can never find the right tips to fit the pliers I need to use, the snap rings fly off, etc.

Today I'd finally HAD IT with them. They refused to take the snap ring out, and I finally got it out with a small pair of needle-nose pliers. So I went to Amazon and sorted their offerings by user rating, and found these: KNIPEX 00 20 04 SB 8-Piece Precision Circlip Snap-Ring Pliers Set. The rating is 4.5 stars out of 66 users, which is one of the best ratings of anything, much less snap ring pliers. But, what sold me was the reviews themselves - almost as if I'd written them. So I treated myself to an early birthday present. And Amazon tells me they'll be here Sunday!

[Gary Lewis]

Thanks, David.

More doing today in prep for the outing next Tuesday. You may remember that I needed to replace the hook on the end of the winch cable as it wouldn't go through the fairlead that's on Big Blue's bumper. I got that done today, and it really wasn't all that hard. However, it did involve removing and re-installing the thimble on the end of the line, which meant that I had to learn how to do an eye splice in synthetic line. I found this

video to be quite helpful, and I will tell you that what he said about cutting synthetic line is accurate.

Anyway, I got that done and have it under lots of tension in the shot below. But, in that shot you can see the snap ring that holds the pin in that shackle. That's what allows easily removing the shackle so the winch can be moved from the truck to/from the trailer. However, it is also what took a bit of time today. I have, by actual count, 4 snap ring pliers, all of them the universal one-size-fits-nothing variety. Over the years I've hated using them as they never work well, I can never find the right tips to fit the pliers I need to use, the snap rings fly off, etc.

Today I'd finally HAD IT with them. They refused to take the snap ring out, and I finally got it out with a small pair of needle-nose pliers. So I went to Amazon and sorted their offerings by user rating, and found these: KNIPEX 00 20 04 SB 8-Piece Precision Circlip Snap-Ring Pliers Set. The rating is 4.5 stars out of 66 users, which is one of the best ratings of anything, much less snap ring pliers. But, what sold me was the reviews themselves - almost as if I'd written them. So I treated myself to an early birthday present. And Amazon tells me they'll be here Sunday!

More work on Scott's '78 today. Pulled the EGR valve and it was completely plugged with carbon. The valve wasn't seating, but it is hard to believe that much exhaust gas could get through there. However, we put a new gasket on made of a pop can and re-installed the EGR valve.

And, we cleaned up the vacuum line situation. Now he has ported vacuum to the vacuum advance, and manifold vacuum to the air cleaner - and that's it. Along the way we found some bad vacuum caps and a probable vacuum leak where the vacuum tree connects into the intake manifold. Shot brake cleaner everywhere and no change in the idle speed, so we think we have it sealed up tight.

Plus, we replaced the pickup in the distributor. The insulation inside and outside of the distributor on the pickup's wires was literally falling off. Checked the vacuum advance for working properly, and lubed the distributor. And bumped the timing up to 10 BTDC.

With all that done we got a good idle at 3 1/2 turns open on the mixture screws, and it pulls 17" of vacuum at 650 RPM.

But, the carb still gurgles at times. It comes and goes, but sounds like someone gargling or nuts and bolts being shaken in a coffee can. I'm guessing that there are problems inside so we'll put a kit in it sometime in the future.

[85lebaront2]

More work on Scott's '78 today. Pulled the EGR valve and it was completely plugged with carbon. The valve wasn't seating, but it is hard to believe that much exhaust gas could get through there. However, we put a new gasket on made of a pop can and re-installed the EGR valve.

And, we cleaned up the vacuum line situation. Now he has ported vacuum to the vacuum advance, and manifold vacuum to the air cleaner - and that's it. Along the way we found some bad vacuum caps and a probable vacuum leak where the vacuum tree connects into the intake manifold. Shot brake cleaner everywhere and no change in the idle speed, so we think we have it sealed up tight.

Plus, we replaced the pickup in the distributor. The insulation inside and outside of the distributor on the pickup's wires was literally falling off. Checked the vacuum advance for working properly, and lubed the distributor. And bumped the timing up to 10 BTDC.

With all that done we got a good idle at 3 1/2 turns open on the mixture screws, and it pulls 17" of vacuum at 650 RPM.

But, the carb still gurgles at times. It comes and goes, but sounds like someone gargling or nuts and bolts being shaken in a coffee can. I'm guessing that there are problems inside so we'll put a kit in it sometime in the future.

Did you pull the EGR spacer up? Even if it is the cast Iron one the gaskets can still leak.

[Gary Lewis]

Did you pull the EGR spacer up? Even if it is the cast Iron one the gaskets can still leak.

The spacer is part of the manifold.