Recovery of 817 dumper from Sparta Wisc. - Steel Soldiers::Military Vehicles Supersite

grunex125 · 12-31-2011, 00:18

Well Guys, yesterday was the big day for me, after 7 long weeks of waiting for my euc to clear I finally got the green light and called up the man who was helping me with the recovery and the drive home. We met at the gates in Fort McCoy and he promptly set to work teaching me all I needed to know in order to drive and operate these trucks. I brought along four group 31 Interstate batteries, and he set them in and made sure all the connections were right. He gave her the once over checking fluids and various other details and jumped in and fired it up.

I had other fluids along as well including coolant, 15-40 engine oil, gear oil, and brake fluid, as well as several hand tools, and all the necessary documents for release.

Jeff let it warm up a bit and while doing so gave me the walk around of what to expect, what I should be looking for and how things should sound and work. While the truck was warming up we heard a couple of metallic pinging noises, which seemed to come from the exhaust stack, and we kind of thought it may be injectors freeing themselves. After letting it run for about another half hr. just to make sure it wasn't anything major, Jeff parked his vehicle outside of the lot and we went back to get the truck. We parked the truck and went inside to the office to turn in our clearance badges and it was time to go!!

Now please keep in mind this truck from what we could best figure out probably hadn't run much for the better part of the past four years so to see a lot of black smoke rolling out of the stack was not very surprising to me. We left the guards choking on black smoke at the front gate. I was following behind getting a few shades darker as we went through town as well. lol after just a few miles we pulled into a truck stop and made some adjustments to the service brakes as they were not in the best of shape. a good qt or two of brake fluid later Jeff was feeling better about the braking situation and we were off. Heading up I-90 towards the interstate bridge at LaCrosse. We got a lot of weird looks from people I think mostly because of all the black smoke. However as the trip progressed it did seem to improve slightly. Oh, I almost forgot, when we heard those pinging noises back at the lot we put a little engine oil in with the full load of J-P8 that we had, so I am thinking that some of the black smoke was as a direct result of that oil as well.

The trip was going pretty much as planned, and we rolled up I-90 and got off the interstate just as soon as there was an exit, and we took Co. roads from there to my home farm which is located five miles N of Rollingstone, MN

When we got to my place Jeff walked me through a few more points to remember and things to watch out for and it was time to take him back to his home in Sparta. All in all it was not a really stressful trip, but nonetheless I was sure glad that I had help to go and preview the truck, check it over to make sure it was road worthy and also to help me drive it to my home farm where I will be practicing driving it and getting used to it as It is my absolute first truck larger than an F-450, and I have very little experience with larger trucks of this kind. God gave me 240 acres and I'm gonna turn this truck around......LOL, hopefully master the operation of it on my own turf and in doing so not endanger anyone.

I will get pictures posted here soon but first I have a few questions. Jeff handled this truck like a real pro, and I cannot complain one bit about his professionalism. Me on the other hand, I am a rookie truck driver, so much so that I have to admit that the truck scares me a bit......LOL Today I took the truck out to do a few practice runs on the frozen hay fields and brought it back in, my brother added a bit of injector cleaner to the fuel, and it was let to run for the better part of an hr. which in the process seemed to clean up about half of the black smoke I was choking on yesterday. (Now funny part, but first I have to give you a little bit of background information. Ya know those airliners we see flying over head all the time? and ya know how on some days they really leave those long contrails? Well my mother is of the opinion that only military jets leave long contrails, and civilian 747's etc do not. Well after one of my trips out to the hay fields today Dad says to me, "I can tell you were driving a military truck!" I says yeah? how's that? he says you left a contrail!!! LOL) Anyway, getting back to the subject at hand I noticed that this truck seems to be shifting hard from 3rd to 4th and even a bit in 4th to 5th. I pop it out of gear and seem to "miss" the gear, grinding them and eventually having to slow down and start over again. Now please keep in mind this is not my first rodeo as far as shifting gears is concerned, I've driven standard trans trucks for the better part of my adult life, and I always considered myself fairly adapt at shifting, but this truck seems to make me a monkey. I know the shift pattern, and understand how to run up through from 1st. low to 5th high, but for some reason I'm grinding when putting it into 4th high/low and also with downshifting. Am I doing something wrong in the shifting sequence?
here is what I am doing:
I'm empty, so I have been starting out in 1st high, accelerate to around 2000 r's step on the clutch, back off on the accelerator and shift up to 2nd, repeat process for third, same thing for my attempt at fourth and sure as heck I'm grinding. Once I'm in fourth, I have a lot less trouble getting into fifth, but then comes the downshift.
Downshift:
back off on accelerator, wait till it reaches 1600 or so step on clutch, slip it out of gear and try to put it into next gear lower........................no dice she just grinds. .............. and this process repeats it's self all the way down to 1st on the downshift. Jeff Drove this truck yesterday, he said the trans was a little sticky, but if he was able to shift and apparently not have too much trouble with it, that leaves me to believe that I (the monkey) am managing to screw up something in the technique. Now for my question, what am I doing so wrong that is so different from Jeff, and also shouldn't these trucks shift similar to the four and five speeds on the smaller trucks that I am used to? Do we need to burp these transmissions a bit to slide em into gear? Maybe I need to allow more time to slow down? I wish I could post a you tube link but I regret I do not have the vid camera. Maybe someone can shed some light on the situation.... please keep in mind I know how the shifting pattern is supposed to work, but I think my technique is extremely crude, any advice?

Anyway, enough for tonight, I'll try and get some pics up tomorrow .

wsucougarx · 12-31-2011, 00:26

Congrats on your new acquisition. Glad everything went well on your trip. Nothing wrong with rollin' coal

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seano11 · 12-31-2011, 05:58

Maybe your friend was double clutching it ? Or maybe he was power shifting it try both maybe one will work

jcappeljr · 12-31-2011, 06:07

I always double clutch all big trucks.Glad to here you finallly got it.817s are awesoime trucks,I use mine alot.

1 Patriot-of-many · 12-31-2011, 06:26

I doubt(guessing here) the transmission is synchronized. Like the others said, you need to learn how to double clutch. It's not like a car or small truck transmission. You need to push the clutch in slightly(you don't want to push it to the floor engaging the clutch brake) hit neutral, allow the rpms to drop a couple, few hundred rpm then engage the next gear. I drive a tractor trailer for a living, I hardly use the clutch, I float the gears. Maybe there is a youtube video out there on double clutching. Kinda hard to describe. Basically on an unsynchronized transmission rpms have to be adjusted for road speed to get into gear without grinding ect.
As far as downshifting, you'll have to give the rpms a little blip upward( again probably a couple, few hundred rpm) in the middle of your double clutch before hitting a gear lower. It all depends on road speed and what gear you are trying to hit. Good luck. When I went to truck driving school eons ago, the instructor said it's easier for guys who never drove a stick to get doubleclutching down then guys that drove a synchronized transmission.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p--jE1cfhj0 In this video there is no clutchbrake so he's pushing it quite far. On your truck you don't want to push it to the floor, just so it's slightly disengaged, In the remarks below the video there's a video link to a semi doubleclutch video but I don't think my links are working below:
http://youtu.be/YfsyZQAjKvM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=YfsyZQAjKvM

There are quite a few videos out there to get the idea. have fun.

grunex125 · 12-31-2011, 09:36

Thanks Guys! I think I see what I am doing wrong now, first I was pressing the clutch all the way to the end of the travel as I am accustomed to when driving my F-450, and second I need to get to a point where I am actually traveling on the road to allow time to work through the double clutching and if need be the burping of the accelerator pedal to help facilitate downshifting. I do not think that the back forty is maybe the best place to allow first, time to sift up and then back down again, but we'll figure it out. I never grew up around big rigs and so as it stands right now I need to learn the ins and outs of what it is that I bought.
might be that a civilian truck may have been a better choice to learn how to shift, but then again I've always been one to learn by fire...........LOL

grunex125 · 12-31-2011, 17:54

Well.....today we took out the 817 and hauled a few loads, nothing major, just rocks and a bit of dirt with brush mixed in..........seems that I'm getting the hang of getting it shifted and the truck is deffinatly loosing some of the black smoke. still loping a bit when it's cold, but it seems to smooth out a lot when I let it warm up. No more pinging sound coming from the engine either.
I think that there is a bit of a stuck detent on the shifting rails because it still goes into gear a little harder than I would like to see. Other than that no more grinding, double clutching it seems to have helped a lot and also the pressing half way on the clutch has done a lot too.

here are the pictures of my dumper, As you can see my brother has a bit of humor as well...lol I was told (joking of course) by a truck mechanic in a nearby town to shut that truck down I'm smoking up the town! LOL (he's five miles away!)

fasttruck · 12-31-2011, 18:05

With the clutch engaged, as you pass through neutral you have to throttle the engine up to come in at the top of the rpm range for the next gear down, the opposite of upshifting when you close the throttle to slow the main shaft down to come in at the bottom of the gear above.

mcmullag · 12-31-2011, 18:29

very interesting, congrats and thanks for posting your story. When I got my latest truck from GL, I changed all the fluids and filters and the fuel filters were loaded with brown goo, also an inch of brown goo in the bottom of the fuel tank. Your truck may smoke less and shift better if you change all the fluids and filters. I'm talking all axle fluids, transfer case fluid, tranny fluid, engine oil, and all fuel filters. I put a quart of this stuff, Lucas, in each axle, the tranny, and the transfer case. I also run in the fuel, Power Service Products, diesel fuel additives, prevent gelling, clean injectors, disperse water, boost cetane, reduce emissions, improve fuel economyPower Service Products, diesel fuel additives, prevent gelling, clean injectors, disperse water, boos

power service, diesel kleen in the fuel, white bottle for winter has anti-gel, and gray bottle for the rest of the year, cleans and lubricates everythang.

Best of luck to ya!

1 Patriot-of-many · 12-31-2011, 19:16

You'll get it. I've been driving trucks for about 18 years and I still miss a gear here and there, grind now and then. Glad to hear you are getting the hang of it. Everything work on that beast?
I so want a dumptruck with a winch though myself! LOL @ your brother.