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My M35A2 Project aka Big Betty

TMNT

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It's been raining for days now, so no real progress on the truck. I did get my tag attached last night and started it up to run it for a few minutes.

My wife has not wanted to go near the truck since I brought it home, and she's passed up several chances to go for a ride while it was warm and sunny. Last night she decided she'll go for a ride with me although I hadn't planned on going anywhere. It was very dark, very wet, and we still had a steady soaking rain falling. We only rode about 3 miles round trip. She said it was loud and the rain blowing through the windshield frame got her pajamas wet. Yeah, she went in her PJ's.
 

TMNT

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Drove Betty to work again today. Took one of my buddies to lunch in it. She's still burping out coolant from the overflow tube. I'm thinking she needs a new radiator cap. One of the casting plugs on the passenger side of the engine block also seems to be leaking coolant. Looks like the only way to access and fix that one is to pull the intake manifold.

My windshield wipers are still not performing very well. The drivers side motor needs to be cleaned out, lubed, and maybe rebuilt. When they do manage to work, they've managed to fling the wiped blades completely off of the wiper arms. I think I'm back to square one on the wiper blades.
 

TMNT

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I ordered a new radiator cap, new lower hose, and with trepidation, I poured in some radiator stop leak with hope that would dry up the small coolant leaks.

I had planned to take Betty out this morning to pick up my 10- year old son from a sleep-over at a friends house. There was about ten boys there and I thought they would get a kick out of it.

It was 24 degrees and I just could not get her to fire up. I did a good job of making a lot of white fog, but she hardly even coughed before I depleted the batteries and gave up. I disconnected the batteries and put them on chargers and went to get him in the FJ Cruiser.

I tried again about noon and she fired right up. It was in the 40's by then. I've noticed she has a really pronounced lope right after she fires and then she steadies up after a couple of minutes. The fleet manager at work said that sounds like a head gasket issue. Anybody else agree?

My son and I took Betty to Lowe's yet again. We stopped by to see a buddy on the way back and showed off a little. He has a great appreciation for big old trucks. Overall it was a great day but just disappointed that she has so much trouble firing up when the temps are below 40.
 

TMNT

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It was pouring rain pretty much all day today. I loaded a bunch of trash and scrap from the on-going home flooring project into the Deuce and hauled it to the big roll-off at my warehouse. Good thing I had on my frog-togs, I think it was almost as wet inside the cab as it was outside!

My drivers side wiper motor stopped working so I had to use the manual mode all morning. Maybe tomorrow I can pull that motor out and troubleshoot it. I noticed the red button is depressed and won't pop out like the other one does. The passenger side is working like a champ.

I installed my new radiation cap and she didn't burp coolant out at any point today.

I also gave her a good bath. I figured why not, as I was already in my togs and the rain would help rinse her off. I used a strong solution of KrudCutter house and siding cleaner and bleach to attack the dark stains from tree sap and mildew. It worked great. It almost looks like fresh paint! It was raining too much to get pictures, but I hope to take some tomorrow after the fog clears.

My son and I are going to brunch at The 57th Fighter Group restaurant at Peachtree-Dekalb airport in the morning. It's a cool WW2 themed restaurant with some old MV's around for decoration. Michael thought it would be cool to take our deuce there for breakfast and I agreed. I hope to get some good photos there if the fog will lift early enough.

Here's the one photo I took today while eating lunch and waiting for the rain to pass.
 

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Jeepjake

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It was 24 degrees and I just could not get her to fire up. I did a good job of making a lot of white fog, but she hardly even coughed before I depleted the batteries and gave up. I disconnected the batteries and put them on chargers and went to get him in the FJ Cruiser.

......

Overall it was a great day but just disappointed that she has so much trouble firing up when the temps are below 40.

I had the same issue, turns out it was just me! I am not sure how familiar you are with the multifuel engine, but they don't operate like a modern diesel.

I did some reading, inlcuding the operators manual which roughly illuded to short crank times and long waiting before re-cranking.
This method works without flaw for me.
1. crank 2-3 sec with Engine cutoff fully pulled(to be sure it's not Hydrolocked)---Edited on 1/22 to remove 0100 brain Fuzzz :)
2. Crank 5-10 seconds with fuel on, or until you get nice white fuel vapor out the stack
3. WAIT a minimum of 45 second to a minute!! I make myself get out of the truck and do another walkaround. The fuel injectors in the Hypercycle Diesel engine do not atomize the fuel very well (actual hardly at all) rather it is squirted into a semispherical dish shape in the top of the piston. Furthermore, it is not burned immediatly upon injection like modern diesels, rather it has a "slow" flamefront instigated by compression rathern than the presence if atomized fuel Give it some time to vaporize so it will combust more easily when you squish it!

after waiting a good 45 seconds to a minute, she will fire on the first cylider to hit full compression. if not, DO NOT continue to crank more than 5-10 seconds, it won't do any good, you will just have a repeat battery drain, let her sit again and try over.

This cold weather starting method has worked well for me. Another thing that helped a lot was turning up the fuel, but don't do that without a Pyrometer.

cheers
Jeep
 
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Jeepjake

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+20 starting/ below 20 starting

And now for some information that isn't riddled with incorrect details :)

I reread the TM regarding Multifuel Operation, start delay between cranking for +20 deg F starts is recommended 2 MIN, not 1 min as I had mentioned earlier, though I have had no issues starting only waiting one minute. (I am inredibly impatient for such things, hence forcing myself to get out of the truck and do a short walkaround so I keep my paws off the starter!)
http://test.steelsoldiers.com/upload/M35/TM9-2320-209-10-1.pdf check page 90 of the pdf, (tm page 4-37)

For cold start operation using a manifold heater, check page 95 of the same TM, (TM page 4-41)

As far as I understand it, if you make adjustments to the injection pump as I have (turning up the fuel) you are already accomplishing the same operation that is achieved by depressing the accelerator, simply more fuel at startup. i typically start mine with my foot off the accelerator. Though I may start feeding it a bit more during the initial crank, so I don't have to crank as long to get a good charge in the cylinders before I let it set.

Cheers
JeepJake
 

TMNT

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I tried changing up my cold start routine this morning. It was not cold, 48-50 degrees. I hit the starter for 3-4 seconds and let it sit for about 30 seconds. I hit the starter a second time expecting to get white fog and instead she started up. That's about 3 attempts sooner than usual at this temperature.

One question: How do you crank the engine over with the fuel off? A couple of people have said to first crank the engine over 3-4 seconds with the fuel off. If I leave the master power switch off I have no power to the starter button.
 

TMNT

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For the last couple of weeks, I've been driving Betty around town at least a couple of times a week with no real problems. Most of the small leaks seem to have dried up. The coolant leak on the lower right corner of the radiator still seaps just enough to wet the surface but not enough to actually drip.

I have noticed on a couple random starts, usually the first start after a few days of sitting, the starter will "clunk" but not spin. The second attempt always works. On a couple of other times, the starter seems to only partially engage the fly-wheel? No grinding noises and no free spinning, but a wierd shudder or shake that just doesn't feel right. Thta's probably not the starter itself. Again, on the second attempt it works just fine. At this point I'm just keeping an eye on it to see if it gets worse.

I've been trying to get the old steering wheel off for several days and I finally had success last night about 7:00. I did a bunch of reading of the various posts here from others about it, and I finally drilled and tapped the steering wheel hub and pulled it off with a standard steering wheel puller. It still took a few days of soaking it with pentrating oil, cranking on a bunch of pressure, and tapping it with a hammer to get it loose. I bent both of the 5/16" bolts for the puller and bent two quarters into little cups in the process. I used the quarters to cover the top of the steering shaft by centering them up on the steering wheel nut to prevent (further) damage to the steering shaft threads. I cleaned up the threads and splines, applied a dab of anti-sieze compound and put the new wheel on.

I need to repair/replace the horn wire now as I managed to pull the little bead off of the end. I had a devil of a time figuring out where the end of the wire came out of the steering column. Thanks to a text from Clinto, I found it coming out of the steering box. Now that I understand how that works, I'll have to pull a bit of slack toward the steering wheel and fix the end so I can install my new horn button kit.

I'm still working on the air-powered windshield wipers. I swear I can catch lightening in a bottle but I can't for the life of me get those wipers working reliably!! My problem is at this point, limited to getting the wiper arms attached to the wiper motor shaft. I tried the ANCO 4101 wiper arms with 3113 wiper blades which at first worked. However, within an hour or so of use, the plastic in the blade where it connects to the arm failed and it simply flung the blades off of the arms.

As a second/revised solution, I ordered the upgrade kits from Saturn. Now I'm having trouble getting the arms to stay attached to the motor shaft. The shaft keeps breaking loose from the arm, leaving the wiper moving back and forth with about an inch of total range, even though the motor is working through its full range. The knurled pieces are just so soft that the set screws strip the holes out.

I took the good, unmodified shaft out of a dead wiper motor and put that shaft into my good wiper motor last night. I should have a new wiper motor arriving today from Erik's. That will give me two good motors. I'm going to try the attachment option #2 in the directions where a hole is drilled through the wiper arm and the shaft nut goes on the outside of the arm. I'm also going to mill a couple of flats on the shaft for the set screws. I might drill a hole through the shaft and tap it and use a longer set screw to really get a solid connection between the two parts.

I know I could just dump the air-powered wipers in favor of the electric upgrade, but I really want to maintain the air-powered wipers for now. Ah, the things we do for authenticity!
 

TMNT

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Finally it seems I have success with the wipers. They're both working and so far they've not thrown the blades or the arms. The old motor on the passenger side is still sticking occasionally, but its definitely doing better than before.

I also got the horn button and horn wiring fixed. Only on a deuce do you get covered in 90wt while fixing the horn! The horn button kit from Saturn was missing the contact bead for the end of the wire so I improvised with solder and heat shrink. The rubber horn button cover also has a tendency to pop off but I'm guessing that will improve after the cover relaxes a bit.

I took the mushroom (air intake) off to clean it up and paint it. I'll put it back on tomorrow when the paint is dry. I shot it with Rapco 383 green and it is really bright green compared to the carc that is on the truck. I may shoot some brown over it to "dim" it a little.

I bought a 1" drive pneumatic impact driver and 1" socket set but ran out of time this weekend without getting to the tire rotation that I planned. I need to move my worn front set to the rear and move some good tires from the rear to the front. I'm sure I'll end up blasting and painting the wheels when I flip them so that has to slip to next weekend.

I drove Betty quite a bit on Saturday and Sunday and she ran really well. She started easy and was able to pull up to 2500 rpm in 5th although I immediately backed her down to about 2200-2300. The transmission still has a pretty loud whine. I know when changed the clutch the gears looked good, but I've read that the whine is probably worn bushings. I'll run it for a while and worry about that later (I hope).
 

TMNT

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Well, it seems that regularly driving Betty around and putting a couple of quarts of ATF in every load of fuel has cleaned up the fuel system pretty well. It was 31 degrees this morning and she fired right up. Previously, anything below 50 and she was difficult and much below 40 she just wouldn't fire up.

Now I have to get that heater/defroster installed! I can make it without heat but no defroster blows!
 

TMNT

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Spent pretty much all day working on Betty. I had noticed the gauges sometimes stopped working while driving down the road and the fuel gauge bounced all over the place so I took the gauge panel out to check it out. The wiring was badly dry rotted with exposed conductor and loose connections. I didn't have a new gauge wiring harness so I used some Prestolite 14ga and Packard connectors to replace the worst of the wire and put new connectors on virtually everything. While I was at it, I cleaned all of the gauges with alcohol. I disassembled the two red gauge lights and cleaned them up as well. They were full of dust and some corrossion.

The result is all gauges work and are rock solid. On a test drive this evening, I noticed that the gauge ilumination is now much brighter and I can actually tell the difference between the two brightness postions for the gauge lights.

I've never changed a tire on anything larger than an F-350 dually before today. I put my new 1" drive impact wrench, 20-ton air jack and 12-ton jack stands to use rotating tires on Big Betty today. Needless to say, much more challenging than a 1-ton dually! It was 33 degrees with a 20 MPH wind and I was still sweating.

While I had the wheels off, I scrubbed, sanded and painted the outward facing side of the wheels involved in the rotation. The inward facing sides were already painted from a prior painting exercise.

I'm pleased with the results and very satisfied that it was a day well spent.

Tomorrow, I'm working on installing the heater so hopefully I'll have a heater before winter is over.
 

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TMNT

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I worked Sunday on getting the "hot water" heater installed. It's a bit bigger task than I expected. The heater was taken out of a parts truck and it took more to recondition it than I anticipated.

I decided to cut the blower box down and try to fit it in the cab instead of mounting it on the driver's side inner fender. My brand new air-shears failed after a cut about 6" into the blower box so that cost me a couple of hours. I eventually broke out my angle grinder with a cutting wheel and sliced the rest of the way through the box.

I thoroughly washed all parts and dropped the very rusty hardware into a cup of rust remover to soak. (They looked like new Monday morning!) The parts are ready for paint and hopefully I get that done this week. I did manage to get the air diverter mounted under the dash and get the diverter control panel mounted. I may have to rebuild the diverter box to get the 4" input on the opposite end to get it to work the way I want.

I discovered that the coolant leak that I thought I had under control, is now leaking pretty badly again. I think it is the gasket for the external coolant manifold on the passenger side of the engine. It might be the small casting plug in the head, but I don't think so.

I had planned on banging through the rest of the heater install during the evenings this week, but the weather forecast is calling for rain, sleet and snow tonight and into tomorrow. Man, I wished I had a shop!
 

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TMNT

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Thanks, Jeepers. I thought it would be rewarding to keep something of a journal here on our progress, Betty and me. For one, it'll be nice to look back here to the beginning and see how far she has come. For another, it'll be good to look here to see how far I've come. Things that might be very challenging today, might be "no big deal" at some point in the future. I'm learning something every day!
 

TMNT

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So that cab upgrade that JP-234 did has me feeling completely inadequate, but I made acceptable progress on my heater project tonight. More than I expected as a matter of fact.

I put a coat of primer and a coat of paint on most of the parts. I replaced the dry rotted wire on the blower motor, and straightened out the slightly warped squirrel cage.

I still have to cut down the blower box cover and trim the mounts down to fit.....somewhere. I'm still not sure at all how I'm going to plumb the 4" duct from the blower to the diverter. I'm thinking about putting the blower/heater core on the engine side of the firewall near the steering column. That could solve the diverter configuration problem and leave valuable cab space available for something else. If I mount the blower box on the firewall, I'm thinking I could plumb the air intake through the firewall to draw cab air to recirculate heated cab air instead of drawing cold air or engine compartment air.

I discovered my low speed resistor is cracked so I need one of those. I'm pretty sure it was good when I took it off of the parts truck, but I managed to let it get cracked while moving the parts around here.

(The paint is ultra flat Camo Green but it is shiny in the photo 'cause it's wet.)
 
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