VerMonsterRV
Gotta Be Nuts
I really like seeing the macaws. We've seen a few different kinds so far, but haven't yet seen the all blue ones.
And the truck had issues again. We decided to head to an island that is mostly park and walk some beaches. In the morning before we went to this parking lot Heather saw a spark when I started the truck. We drove the 1km to this parking lot, stopped and went to the island for the day. When we returned in the afternoon I tilted the cab to see if I could find what was wrong.
I found that a small cap on the end of the starter was hanging by 1 screw, the second screw was gone. Plus a U shaped washer seemed to be jammed. I emailed Stafan (this guy is literally a walking encyclopedia for Mercedes trucks) asking about this and he confirmed that this washer aligns the shaft to the brushes (with a very nice hand drawn diagram of how it works), and the cap holds the washer in place. Given it had jammed in there, and there is very limited space I was working on trying to get the U shaped washer out. And that's when all the "help" started to show up. Very kind of them, but honestly it pretty much stopped all progress as I had to translate everything into Portuguese, which brushes doesn't translate well. After figuring out they call them carbons they started to understand. But not until it was dark. So, I thanked them and told them I was going to stop for the night and that they could go. I think they were glad to be able to go back home. The next morning I got out early before they all showed up and had it all back together and the truck started right up.
The offending washer without the cap. Luckily I had a couple of metric screws that were the correct size so I could put the cap/retainer back in place.
Now I do carry a spare starter with us. But to replace it there is a fair amount of disassembly needed to be able to get to it (turbo and dump pipe). I don't have spare bolts and studs for those, yet. I will be getting some.
Well, that's enough for now. More to come.
And the truck had issues again. We decided to head to an island that is mostly park and walk some beaches. In the morning before we went to this parking lot Heather saw a spark when I started the truck. We drove the 1km to this parking lot, stopped and went to the island for the day. When we returned in the afternoon I tilted the cab to see if I could find what was wrong.
I found that a small cap on the end of the starter was hanging by 1 screw, the second screw was gone. Plus a U shaped washer seemed to be jammed. I emailed Stafan (this guy is literally a walking encyclopedia for Mercedes trucks) asking about this and he confirmed that this washer aligns the shaft to the brushes (with a very nice hand drawn diagram of how it works), and the cap holds the washer in place. Given it had jammed in there, and there is very limited space I was working on trying to get the U shaped washer out. And that's when all the "help" started to show up. Very kind of them, but honestly it pretty much stopped all progress as I had to translate everything into Portuguese, which brushes doesn't translate well. After figuring out they call them carbons they started to understand. But not until it was dark. So, I thanked them and told them I was going to stop for the night and that they could go. I think they were glad to be able to go back home. The next morning I got out early before they all showed up and had it all back together and the truck started right up.
The offending washer without the cap. Luckily I had a couple of metric screws that were the correct size so I could put the cap/retainer back in place.
Now I do carry a spare starter with us. But to replace it there is a fair amount of disassembly needed to be able to get to it (turbo and dump pipe). I don't have spare bolts and studs for those, yet. I will be getting some.
Well, that's enough for now. More to come.
