Back into hydraulics a little bit... Allison Automatic valve body and Ford IPR valve

What I've got from digging into these is that they are really not very complicated. All that makes that Allison (3060 I believe?) work are 6 solenoids and 4 ports. Clutch packs etc are the same as any other automatic and are somewhat familiar as I've been in a Ford AOD before.

Week: 40

FQ2013

More on the Cummins M11... Performed starting charging test and got 10.43 cranking volts. Seems okay but I'll be back there in not too long. Back probe at ECM power harness reveals a blown fuse and a broken wire in the loom where it crosses between the frame rails. No change in the problem though... Do some more research through Cummins and come up with ECM needs to see 10.5 volts to power up. Okay I have in the neighborhood of 11v at the ECM harness as it has a dedicated power and ground. However, the switched power is supplied from the starter connections. Now I'm suspicious, to test my theory I set up my meter to test voltage at the power distribution block inside the cab (Supplies key switch/acc. power from the starter). During cold cranking voltage pulls down to 10.3-.4 range and slowly climes back. As soon as it hit 10.5v the truck would start almost immediately. With the engine warm the cranking voltage was 10.7 and the truck started fine. Performed voltage drop test on the battery cables and found 1.3v drop across the 2/0 positive cables. Replaced cables and truck starts consistently within 3 seconds. Previous crank times nearing 30 seconds.

Hours: 50

FQ2013

Continuing Cummins M11 fuel pump issues... I'm starting to feel pretty familiar with these by now! You may remember I was having problems with losing prime and well, it got a lot worse. Truck couldn't start on it's own anymore because it would pull the batteries down before it could self prime and purge the air. When I initially started working on this truck it would build 22 +/- psi cranking. When I pulled it in the shop it would barely make 10 which is no good at all. In my research I found a TSB from 15 years ago regarding above tank filter mounting. Apparently Cummins decided the best fix was a check valve in a fitting at the filter...

Along with a reman fuel pump I was sure the problem would be resolved. Nope, although the original pump had stripped the splines on the drive gear (Causing the low pressure) it was not the ultimate problem. With a pressure gauge hooked up while cranking it will read zero but spike up to 20 psi every 10 seconds or so until it starts. Hmmm, the check valve eliminated any drain back and air intrusion so what's going on now? FSS is 12v powered with ignition on but only "pings" while cranking (explaining the pressure reading). What the heck? According to Cummins the FSS is powered when the ECM senses the ignition is on and only turns it off with the key switch or engine over speed. On further research some ECM's are programmed to shut off fuel until it get's a reading from the engine position sensor. Performed Cummins ohm testing procedure and sensor tested out fine. I'm not sure I'm convinced that it isn't the problem though.

Week: 60

Wheel end control...

On the topic of ABS and stability control

Computer is getting feedback from wheel end sensors but they must be using individual leveling valves or a single modified valve that can control the suspension independently.

ABS valves

The brake modulator is used to control individual or in this case LH side of the tandem drive. Using the input from the wheel speed sensors the computer will command the modulator to cycle exhausting service brake air to the atmosphere and preventing the wheel from locking up. A three wire connector is used to control the inlet and exhaust solenoids in the valve. During normal operation the service air bypasses the exhaust port and is routed directly to the brake chambers.

And there were pictures...

In the process of repairing an intermittent short in the headlight system I found these. None of which were the problem.

The corroded off wire in the first picture was in the wiring loom directly behind the RH steer tire. No tape, shrink tube, etc... had been used. Someone then skived the insulation off of wire 22D coming out of the RH headlight relay and ran a light gauge jumper wire to front of the truck. A crossover wire was used to hook the headlights together but was left hanging across the front cross member. It is pictured below. I repaired the damage to the harness in the loom and completely re-did everything from the end of the frame rail forward. New pins in the metripac connectors at the headlights and the harness is now back to OEM original using numbered wire.

FQ2013

Learning the art of repairing what has been done before you... Driver complained of the headlights flickering on/off constantly. In the process of finding the short I found these. None of which were the problem.

... or not. Company phone won't connect to the server to upload the pictures. I'll put them up in another post as soon as it works.

Week: 50
Total: 418

FQ2013

Found another purpose for my test gauge setup... Intermittent hard start with a Cummins M11. Fuel pressure while cranking jumps from 0 - 20 with hang time on the 0 until it finally starts. Extended crank after sitting for a few hours. If only shut down for 5 minutes it will start right up but will take up to 30 seconds cranking the first time in the morning. I'm suspicious of the check valve sticking letting the fuel drain back. Fuel pump is identical to the N14 I've been working on.

Week: 50
Total: 368

FQ2013

Adjusting wheel bearing end play using TMC RP618...

Initial torque 200 ft-lbs while rotating wheel

Back off 1/2 turn

Back up nut torqued to 300 ft-lbs

Checking for end play... Initially at 0 (Bearing pre-loaded). Backed off inner nut slightly and ended up with 10 thousandths which is still no good. After close inspection the inner nut would rotate approximately an 1/8th of a turn while torquing the back up nut. The locking ring has worn to where it allows the inner nut a 1/4 turn free movement. I have a new lock ring etc... on order. After fighting it for a while I was able to get end play set to 0.003" within the acceptable range of 0.001 - .005.

FQ13

Run into problems with my N14...

No start - No smoke, cranking fuel pressure at 11 psi (Logged into Cummins and 25 is required to start). Was able to scrounge up a fuel pump and build a good one out of two as well as a Dipaco repair kit. Typical to my past experiences with Dipaco half of the o-rings were wrong or missing (Universal o-ring kit to the rescue).

Cranking pressure of 28 psi... White smoke but still no start. ECM has battery voltage and both fuses are good. Injector circuit fault code 322 is stored but may be a bird. Does not flash check engine light with ignition but not sure if it ever did. Shut down light does flash.

To be continued...

Week: 70
Total: 258

FQ13

I did my starting/charging system test today and now I have two more trucks to do it on at work... Gotta love intermittent start problems! Going into brakes now as I was working on a Utility Trailer at work I'm learning the joys of parts support for aftermarket TPS and central lube systems. The TPS is a PSI system manufactured by Meritor so I was able to find the hose that I needed but the grease setup is its own nightmare. I had to retrofit the trailer over to newer style auto-slacks and inboard s-cam bushings which required a couple of "interesting" adapter fittings (You would not believe how long it took to find a 45 degree 1/4 x 28 - 1/8" NPT).

Hours for week: 68
Total: 188

FQ2013

Took the air brake pretest... Not good.

Moving on into brakes I have to do a brake job on a trailer with TPS. Should be interesting, what could go wrong right? I built a bearing washer that should speed up turn around time on my brake jobs quite a bit.

This week I've learned how to track down parasitic loads using a voltage drop across the fuse and I think I've come up with a way to track it even further using voltage drop testing. With a test lead on the ground post of the battery and the other test lead in hand, in theory one should be able to test all the way to the suspect component without an amp clamp. Since if there is no flow there is no current drop the reading will be 0.00 at the suspect component if it is not the culprit. However if there is a measureable voltage drop any point in the wiring harness (Test using back probe etc...) you can follow it all the way to the culprit.

Week: 60
Total: 120

Update

Failure on the cruise control problem... I thought I had it tracked down to the faulty park brake switch but after a jumper wire test fix still no cruise. The throttle set does work though so it's probably time to tear apart the dash and check the brake switch.

FQ2013

So I pulled the hubcap and found this... Looks like money to me!

Also in class I found the parasitic drain on the Peterbuilt and the International. Crimped a battery cable end as well as Deutsch and Weatherpack connector pins. My electrical is starting to come back to me now... I think I found why the cruise control doesn't work in one of our fleet trucks (We'll see tomorrow).

Hours: 60

Neat...

Now I've been looped into presenting at our safety meetings... Neat deal. Learning all kinds of things about regulations...

Hours for week: 44
450.5 total

And it just keeps going...

Got truck 280 back... $11,800 later it has a new engine. Now it's in the shop getting a water pump and I noticed a puddle of gear oil under the front driver this morning. Neat, because I really wanted tear a rear end down to change the front cover gasket.

Valley Freightliner is putting on a training class next month that I'll be going to, "Multiplex Electrical & Smart Switch Training". Should be good!

Week: 50
Total: 406.5

Summer 13

More interesting times... OSHA inspection last week. Coincidence? And then a literal pile of steaming feces awaited me in the loading yard on Saturday. I think someone may have been a little irked over being fired... Apparently the belt drive grinder with all the guards broken off is no bueno. Who would have thought? And maybe the pvc airlines, complete lack of chemical inventory or MSDS's on file, and the loading dock is well... We hired a structural engineer from Carlson Steel to draw up a few modifications to pass the OSHA inspection. Spent some time with him today and he thinks he'll have his report done by Monday. Because I didn't have enough to do already!

Learned that neither Motor Trucks or Valley can look up trailer brake parts off VIN or axle numbers... What if I want to have the parts sitting on a shelf before I tear the trailer apart?

50 hours for week
Total: 356.5

Summer time

This has been a very interesting week... Eric W. (Owner of the business) fired the operations manager and the other mechanic on Tuesday. I am now in charge of all the maintenance and repairs in our fleet working on ways to streamline the operation now as I am now expected to accomplish in a 40 hour week what used to take two mechanics a full 80-90 hours total. I'm setting up a maintenance schedule and parts inventory list right now as well as deciding on the best way to track service costs. Also decided I need to buy some better torx bits... I broke every T-40 we had in the shop by 10:00 this morning (The 24" breaker bar may or may not have had something to do with this).

Week: 48
Total: 306.5

Summer 2013

More work on the flatbed project... Built a new carrier bearing mount, got the air solenoid for the dump gate plumbed in along with splicing the wiring harness into a junction box. Just waiting on parts now so I can put the wet kit on.

Also learning about all the "interesting" things that Case engineers did on a 580B Construction King... You have to pull off the loader frame, backhoe, and cab to access the last bolt holding the brake housings on!

Week: 51

Total: 258.5

Maybe it'll work now...

Tried posting this before but went back and checked and it was no where to be seen... Stupid computers anyway. This week I rebuilt the purge valve on a Wabco air dryer. Seemed like there must be a simpler way to make it work (Less moving parts would be good I think). Also picked up a side job mounting a flatbed on one of Knutzen Farm's trucks. Smiley's quoted around $40,000 to build a flatbed so they bought a truck with a flatbed on it for $10,000 and I'm doing the fab/mods to make it work on the new truck. Got the hinge laid out and welded in after deciding that plasma cutters work WAY better for cutting through doubled frames than a torch. Rust had started between the doubler and original frame on the donor truck and buckled the frame all the way up to the cab (I'll take pics next week) so I used the torch to cut the hinge out... Not doing that again. Moved a cross member a few inches to clear the hoist cylinders and I need to build a new bracket for the carrier bearing. I should be putting the wet kit on the truck next week.

Weeks hours: 54.5
Total: 207.5

Summer 2013

Learning how to deal with office staff this week... 4:00 yesterday, "yeah we need that truck at 7am." Well thanks for the heads up!

60 hours for the week
153 total

Summer 2013

Learning about how an ABS trailer brake valve is "not" supposed to work... Took it apart hoping it was just stuck but the cup seal is hardened up causing it to leak by and dump air pressure.

Also did some welding on a cross member mount after doing an inspection.

Weeks hours: 41.75
Total: 134.75

Summer 2013

This week I learned that sometimes it's not always leaking because the gasket it bad (See picture of isolators).

Workin' on getting my class B CDL and I am a new fan of a super 10 transmission.

Hours for week: 43

Total: 93

Summer 2013

Alright, so what is the "correct" way to install s-cam seals? Given square cut o-ring (Quad ring) and a traditional cup seal I'm putting the cup seal on the hub side with the o-ring on the inboard side (Towards the slack adjuster) so that it will purge the grease where you can see it. According to Danny the cup seal goes on the inboard side but reversed so that it will still purge grease correctly. Seems like it would work either way just fine to me? Every reference I've found has 2 cup seals with both installed towards the inboard but none reference the o-ring?

Also did some welding on a Ford L8000 12 yd dump truck. The box frame was breaking near the hinges so I air-arced out the cracks and welded front and back with 6011 and fabricated some stiffeners so that it will not break again. Had to weld up some cracks in the box floor too and learned how to weld on light gauge steel with 1/8" welding rod. With amperage around set around 50 you can feed a filler rod (With the flux scraped off) while you're welding (Similar to TIG welding).

Week: 50 hours
Quarter: 50

PM final part 2

Transmission: Eaton Fuller Super 10 spd

• Oil capacity of 11 liters
• Recommended RoadRanger synthetic SAE 50 spec PS-164 Rev 7
• MSDS for lubricant at http://www.roadranger.com/rr/CustomerSupport/Support/LiteratureCenter/index.htm?litlibtarget=1162919212455
• Oil must be changed every 180,000 miles or three years

Engine: 12.7 L Detroit Series 60

• Recommended oil is 15W-40 CI-4 or CH-4
• Capacity is 40 quarts including filters
• Recommended interval is 15,000 miles
• MSDS at  https://cglapps.chevron.com/msdspds/MSDSPage.aspx
• Recommended coolant is Detroit Diesel Power Cool 
• Part # 23518918
• Capacity is 58 quarts and change interval is 300,000 miles or 2 years

I learned the real cost to not keeping up with preventive maintenance and also the cost to doing the preventive maintenance. I counted 51 fittings on the Peterbuilt. I discoverer quite a bit more wrong with this truck than I anticipated.

PM final part 1

Apparently I've impressed our operations manager! Had a meeting with him a while back and I'm going to start taking over some of the maintenance management. Been busy with school but I'm working on a maintenance plan and inspection checklist. I did an inspection on one of what I thought was one of our better maintained trucks... We've only had this truck a few weeks so what could possibly go wrong? I used the inspection sheet in Heavy Duty Truck Systems.

1999 Freightliner FLD #285
12.7 Detroit 60 series rated at 500hp (We're an LTL company so you're just flying up the hills in this truck)
Eaton 10 spd
Spicer 3.90 rear ends

• Driver's side clearance light on hood
• Passenger side turn signal on hood
• Driver's seat belt not fastened to seat frame
  
• Missing dash screws (Rattles on rough roads)
• Turn signal switch loose (Held on by hose clamp)
• Hood rubbing on cowl 
  
• Loose alternator belt chirps on start up
• Transmission tail shaft is loose (Should have been written up as a vibration)

• Loose yoke on drive line between tandems (Should have been written up as a vibration)
• Both drive axles moving slightly on spring perches (Probably loose u-bolts)

• Cracked welds on cross member underneath cab (First time I've seen them break on a truck with an air ride cab). I need to look into why this truck is breaking here and the others are not.
  
• Oil leak behind oil cooler manifold (Battery died on flashlight so couldn't find where exactly the oil is coming from). Pretty common on Detroits... Surprisingly no leak on the front gear train cover!
  
• Bushings in front driver's side leaf spring worn out
• Clutch is out of adjustment... Not an EZ-adjust either : (
• Clutch throwout bearing is coated in gear oil... Umm, don't know what's going on there but I'm going to keep an eye on that. Truck has a new bell housing and reman transmission so maybe something isn't quite right here.
• Cold idle advance actually works! 

Week: 55

Total: 474

This week I've been learning a lot about multi-tasking. In a rush to finish building the loading dock and I'm taking over some of the maintenance management so I'm working on part stocking, maintenance schedules, etc... and I'm starting to think there's not enough hours in the day. Definitely need to change  some things though. Every brake job is new s-cams and bushings and so far every clutch failure has been the throw out bearing. Also decided that the torch skills are somewhat lacking at Scrap-it... Bought some plate steel from them and spent most of a day with a torch getting them squared up enough that I could use them.

Week: 47
Total: 419

Patrick Spring of '13

My table's project was the hydraulic X-Change system which is an option on Bobcat excavators. I learned how to follow hydraulic schematics through valves. I've been spending a lot of time welding with 6010 and I learned that propylene cutting torches won't cut through powder coat nearly as well as I thought it would.

50 hours this week
372 total

SPQ13 Patrick

This week I learned how to use a hydraulic schematic to "reverse engineer" a system. Tracking a system back through the diagram and service manual greatly helped my understanding of the drawings. I also learned that sometimes you don't end up fixing what you intend to... I pulled a truck in to check the steering because a driver wrote up a clunk in the front end on the DDIR sheet. I had Dan turn the wheel while I watched for something amiss. I happened to glance at the water pump pulley that drives the alternator (Cummins M11) and noticed it vibrating. Shut the truck down and was able to see a shiny spot on the pulley shaft where the movement has been wiping the surface clean. I'll be tearing into that problem tomorrow and the steering clunk is on hold for now. If the bearing on the gear is failing I'll have to tear apart the front gear train to replace it.

Week: 52
Total: 322 hours

SPQ13 Patrick

Had some trouble with an Airco Wasp ii-e welder and narrowed it down to the rheostat. The first video shows the resistance of the 25 ohm rheostat while moving the dial. The second video shows the voltage test after changing the rheostat and replacing the equipment ground wire (The 6" piece of wire had 28 ohm resistance). Sorry the video is upside down. I got the fitting boxes done and the first 10 hydraulic boards

Week: 47
Total: 270

SPQ13 Patrick

Well about 9:30 tonight I was starting to wish that I had a bigger excavator with more lights. I learned how to draw hydraulic symbols for valves and I improved my understanding of closed center and open center systems but I still have more to learn on that topic because I'm still not exactly sure why they work how they do.

40 hours for the week
223 hours for the quarter

SPQ13 Patrick

This week I learned how the regulator on a variable displacement piston pump can change the flow. As the regulator tilts the cylinders away from the axis of the pump the piston travel goes up and it returns to near zero as the need for oil flow drops and it returns to the axis. I also heard back from PEAK on ELC coolant and according to their service tech most problems that arise are because many people switch to ELC when the gaskets have already started deteriorating similar to what happens when you switch to synthetic oil in a Detroit 60 and they all of the sudden leak everywhere.

Week: 47 hours
Total: 183

SPQ13 Patrick

This week I spent some time researching the use of ELC (Extended Life Coolant) such as Peak Final Charge in a Navistar 7.3 indirect-injection motor. Most ELC coolants use organic acid technology to prevent cavitation and corrosion. I did a quick google search (Otherwise known as the rumor mill) on the topic and was unable to find anything conclusive... Everyone's buddy had problems with ELC coolant deteriorating gaskets and seals but somehow this "buddy" never voiced his own opinion. Upon further research I found a TSB on the topic. In International's compatibility testing they found that all engines manufactured pre-02/02/1999 or serial number 940614 should not use ELC coolants due to injector cup deterioration and seal failure. This TSB however only applies to the 7.3 powerstroke engines and I failed to find any research on it's use in the 7.3 idi (The forerunner to the powerstroke) or if there are any required updates for its use. I've contacted Peak (Coolant product manufacturer) and I'm waiting for a reply on the compatibilty of their products.

I completed CAT Basics C & D And I watched the Lethal Strike video.

Week: 42
Total: 136

SPQ13 Patrick

This week I re-learned that you always always put the bolts back in the hole that they come out of while you have something disassembled. I changed the water pump on my 7.3 idi and I tried to save a little time... That mistake added over an hour to what should have been a 3 hour job (Because Ford just had to use metric and SAE bolts). I completed sections A & B in Cat Basics.

I also replaced the king pins in a Freightliner FLD. This was the first time that I had used a "Kaiser Qwik Kit". The spiral "no-ream" bushings are a very unique design.

Hours for the week: 47

Total: 94