pappawheely
Autonomous4X4
Nice swap. I hate drums too, (had a firebird with drum brakes all around). I hope you have better luck than I did with the El Dorado parking brake. If there was a better e-brake solution I would do that swap on my F350.
The CUCV Build-1986 M1031 Mobile Field Maintenance Assault Vehicle
- Thread starter PlethoraOfGuns
- Start date
PlethoraOfGuns
Adventurer
So we took the truck out the other day to test her offroad. She did great, but went to start the generator to run the microwave to heatup lunch, and well, something metal flung out from underneath at high velocity.
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Well that something turned out to be the belt pulley keeper for the generator. It seemed to have given up and dislodged itself while the generator was spooling up. Luckily, the belt stayed on long enough for me to shut her down.
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Luckily someone had a spare generator I could use to fix my generator to heat up my lunch. Boy, what a hassle. So a little bit of welding prep always goes a long way.
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The onboard generator is small enough to run off of a 3kw generator. My 12kw generator seems like overkill most of the time, but it's nice to run that 3 phase air compressor sometimes... :ylsmoke:
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Ah, all better. Now we can heat up that tv dinner!
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Seems to be holding up just fine! Nothing can stop the generator now!
.
Well that something turned out to be the belt pulley keeper for the generator. It seemed to have given up and dislodged itself while the generator was spooling up. Luckily, the belt stayed on long enough for me to shut her down.
.
Luckily someone had a spare generator I could use to fix my generator to heat up my lunch. Boy, what a hassle. So a little bit of welding prep always goes a long way.
.
The onboard generator is small enough to run off of a 3kw generator. My 12kw generator seems like overkill most of the time, but it's nice to run that 3 phase air compressor sometimes... :ylsmoke:
.
Ah, all better. Now we can heat up that tv dinner!
.
Seems to be holding up just fine! Nothing can stop the generator now!
KE7JFF
Adventurer
Weird how that just popped off on the generator...
And as for the drum brakes, I'm not a big fan of them either, but I know a guy who has a small on-the-side shop that does work on drums real well so I go to him. However, your disc brake conversion is pretty easy so can't beat that.
And as for the drum brakes, I'm not a big fan of them either, but I know a guy who has a small on-the-side shop that does work on drums real well so I go to him. However, your disc brake conversion is pretty easy so can't beat that.
PlethoraOfGuns
Adventurer
Thanks for the support guys! As for the generator pulley thing, I'm not sure why it popped off. Putting the keeper ring back up to it, I couldn't exactly tell how it was originally kept on. Definetely not rust. Oh well, a few beads with the MIG machine and she'll never pop off again. :ylsmoke: And no, she doesn't vibrate anymore than usual with the weld repair. But when the generator runs, the ground and even some nearby trees shake, so...
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PlethoraOfGuns
Adventurer
Been working with using the fridge, tv, microwave and stuff. I might need more than one deep cycle battery.
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The battery up front works great. The voltage drop to the rear is a little more than desired, but works. If I knew that I would have been better off with 2, I most likely wouldn't have built this battery tray and put more of my efforts into something else.
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Deciding where to put these batteries have caused many sleepless nights. Below the electrical cabinet is a no brainer, but way more work than I was willing to put into. That work involved moving the air tank. I was even going to mount two air tanks, one here on the drivers side...
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...and one here on the passenger side. But that damn tool chest is heavy and very much in the way.
.
And just to remind you guys, this thing is in there! When it was empty we had to cut, hammer, and squeeze this thing in there. Then welded it in pretty much. It's solid as a rock and I'm far too lazy to deal with it. Problem with mounting anything below the cabinet is that if your going to through bolt something, the one side under the tool chest is inaccessible. So I even have a second air tank laying around that will most likely not have a home on this rig anytime soon. I gave up months ago. But currently, batteries are important so I came back to the problem of mounting something under the tool chest.
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The idea is to move this whole setup to the same location on the passenger side.
.
Under the bottom of the tool chest is about 2" of air space before the aluminum floor of the cabinet. A coworker came up with the idea to take out some of the tool chest drawers and make access holes in the bottom of the too chest to get to the mounting nuts. Amazing what ideas you can come up with after a few beers after work. :beer: So I went ahead and measured for where we needed the holes for the mounting bolts and drilled a pilot hole up.
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And then used a hole saw to go down through just the bottom of the tool chest.
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That gave the clearence for all the hardware and socket to fit down into.
.
And finally, got the air tank brackets safely mounted on the passenger side under the big tool chest!
.
Now that this is out of the way over on the passenger side, that should clear the drivers side space under the elctrical cabinet for a few batteries.
.
The battery up front works great. The voltage drop to the rear is a little more than desired, but works. If I knew that I would have been better off with 2, I most likely wouldn't have built this battery tray and put more of my efforts into something else.
.
Deciding where to put these batteries have caused many sleepless nights. Below the electrical cabinet is a no brainer, but way more work than I was willing to put into. That work involved moving the air tank. I was even going to mount two air tanks, one here on the drivers side...
.
...and one here on the passenger side. But that damn tool chest is heavy and very much in the way.
.
And just to remind you guys, this thing is in there! When it was empty we had to cut, hammer, and squeeze this thing in there. Then welded it in pretty much. It's solid as a rock and I'm far too lazy to deal with it. Problem with mounting anything below the cabinet is that if your going to through bolt something, the one side under the tool chest is inaccessible. So I even have a second air tank laying around that will most likely not have a home on this rig anytime soon. I gave up months ago. But currently, batteries are important so I came back to the problem of mounting something under the tool chest.
.
The idea is to move this whole setup to the same location on the passenger side.
.
Under the bottom of the tool chest is about 2" of air space before the aluminum floor of the cabinet. A coworker came up with the idea to take out some of the tool chest drawers and make access holes in the bottom of the too chest to get to the mounting nuts. Amazing what ideas you can come up with after a few beers after work. :beer: So I went ahead and measured for where we needed the holes for the mounting bolts and drilled a pilot hole up.
.
And then used a hole saw to go down through just the bottom of the tool chest.
.
That gave the clearence for all the hardware and socket to fit down into.
.
And finally, got the air tank brackets safely mounted on the passenger side under the big tool chest!
.
Now that this is out of the way over on the passenger side, that should clear the drivers side space under the elctrical cabinet for a few batteries.
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balexander87
Observer
Ditto! Not working here either :-(
PlethoraOfGuns
Adventurer
Eh, it's just boring drilling and welding pictures. But I'll see if i can reload them. Standby...
PlethoraOfGuns
Adventurer
I supoose your right. If it wasn't boring, what would we all be doing here then? If that's the case, here's some more stuff!
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Hmmm, batteries. I thought we only needed one more, but since we had the space to squeeze in two, might as well make provisions for two. Not having access to all that fancy computer aided design stuff, and mostly too lazy for paper and pencil, just kinda winged it and started with a square the size of two batteries.
.
But I can get a little fancy sometimes...
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Tacking everything up and measuring twice, or three times to make sure these batteries will slide in there.
.
Working on the sides that will also be how the battery box will attach to the truck.
.
Each side attaches to the truck differently, one bolts up sideways to some angled aluminum frame piece, the other bolts up vertical through the floor of the cabinet under the microwave.
.
Something like that. Just enough clearance above the battery terminals too. Now just need to close up all the sides and find a way to hold these things down...
.
Hmmm, batteries. I thought we only needed one more, but since we had the space to squeeze in two, might as well make provisions for two. Not having access to all that fancy computer aided design stuff, and mostly too lazy for paper and pencil, just kinda winged it and started with a square the size of two batteries.
.
But I can get a little fancy sometimes...
.
Tacking everything up and measuring twice, or three times to make sure these batteries will slide in there.
.
Working on the sides that will also be how the battery box will attach to the truck.
.
Each side attaches to the truck differently, one bolts up sideways to some angled aluminum frame piece, the other bolts up vertical through the floor of the cabinet under the microwave.
.
Something like that. Just enough clearance above the battery terminals too. Now just need to close up all the sides and find a way to hold these things down...
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