ke5eua
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Made it home. Aar to follow tomorrow.
-
Steel Soldiers now has a few new forums, read more about it at: New Munitions Forums!
Picking up my M818
- Thread starter ke5eua
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Congrats on a safe journey. 
Vandrel
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Congrats, let's see some pics 
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We all do derive pleasure from stimulating the optic nerve! So, pix would be good. Glad you are home safe and sound!!
God bless,
Tony
God bless,
Tony
ke5eua
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Alright time for the After Action Review.
Picked the truck up from Donny around 1430 ish. Went over and made sure all tires were at pressure and Donny was nice enough to grease all u-joints for me.
Put the batteries in, I was worried about them moving around, and they did on a bump which damaged a cell in one of the batteries.
Left Donny's and stopped at a gas station and topped off the left tank. It took 15.04 gallons.
Left the gas station, and headed to my buddies house on Fort Sam Houston. I stopped at a truck wash on my way and washed out the truck and the engine bay so I could see if any leaks started to happen.
Made it to his house and knew I was having problems with the batteries as the voltage gauge was doing the funky chicken.
Once at his house, I pulled the battery box cover and saw the problem, the cross over cable wore down the heat shrink over the connector and allowed it to ark out.
Went through several problem solving solutions to get her running again, and determined I had a bad battery.
Jumped the truck off in the morning and headed to wally world. Bought a new battery, put it in, strapped them down and was good to go.
Said my "see you again" and headed for the house.
Stopped at a TA right outside San Antonio and put 53.415 gallons total both tanks. Ate a little breakfast, and got back on the road.
I decided to stop every 2 hours to allow the NDT's to cool down and my back to relax a little.
Stopped for lunch around 1430 then got back on the road.
Hit Beaumont right at 1800 and boy was that fun, bumper to bumper traffic. Now up to this point I hadn't had any problems with other drivers on the road. Lot of looks, waves from the truck drivers.
Now I hadn't hollered at any drivers, or used any special hand signals at this point but I ended up hollering at a driver that decided she wanted to put about a foot between her front bumper and my rear end while going up hill at a dead stop.
The truck driver behind her started laughing as I proceeded to tell her if she like the current ride height of her car then I wouldn't advise getting so close behind something that weighs 18000 pounds. She kept a nice buffer distance after that once she realized I move a little back before I go forward on the uphills.
After that the trip was pretty uneventful the rest of the way. I did drive in to some rain, and after all my preparations I forgot to pack hose clamps. After a quick stop at a truck stop, picked up a pack of hose clamps, fixed the windshield wiper flex hose to let the windshield down I was golden.
Now, Texas has decent roads, Louisiana not so. Once I got in to Lafayette my trip decided to become a little bit more bouncy. I hit one bump so hard the transfer went in to neutral, made the pucker factor go up a little. Once I realized what happened I pulled off to the side of the road, put it back in high and got going again. From then on out if I hit a bump I grabbed the transfer handle just in case.
I did have one car honk it's little horn at me, but I equate it to stupidity, you'll see why in the pictures.
So what did I learn from this trip?
No matter how much preparation you do you will always forget something. I planned this trip for a whole month and still forgot some little things.
Luckily I didn't have to use the tools to much, especially the tire changing ones.
Sunscreen and baby powder should have been brought and used. My left arm looks like snookie, and well lets just say baby powder in a key area would have helped a little.
Now before anyone says you should have read the tm, I did, I even brought it with me, and the lube order.
I didn't take any pictures along the way, my buddy did get some of the truck in the walmart parking lot before I headed out, I'll have him email them to me so I can post them.
So what is the plan for the truck? Well, slowly it will be restored to it's original right off the factory line condition.
Now, pro's and con's.
Pro's:
I enjoy these vehicles. I miss driving them, so finally owning one is a pro to me.
It's big, it's green, it's so fluffy I wanna die!
Con's:
Spring suspension, mixed with driving bobtail equals bouncy uncomfortable ride.
Noisy.
No air conditioner, although except for the stop and go traffic I was good. Cracked the front windshield to the first detent, opened the drivers window and the foot vent and I was comfortable.
Would I do it again, of course.
I think I covered everything. The odometer had 19098 on it when I left, and in my drive way it shows 19659. Thats 561 miles and I still have about an 1/8 in each tank. The sending units need to be replaced in each tank.
Overall it was a good trip.
If you have never driven anything bigger than a class 3 vehicle (F350) then for the love of all that is holy please for your safety and the squirrels around you get some training before driving one. I cannot stress this enough. A split second mistake could mean a the difference between you and a minivan full of nuns. I have thousands of miles behind similar trucks, fire trucks, 939 series, PLS, and the big daddy 1070, so I know how to drive them.
The fuzzy dice were with my my first deployment in my truck the entire time, so I felt it was only fair they accompany me on this ride, and all future ones.
Picked the truck up from Donny around 1430 ish. Went over and made sure all tires were at pressure and Donny was nice enough to grease all u-joints for me.
Put the batteries in, I was worried about them moving around, and they did on a bump which damaged a cell in one of the batteries.
Left Donny's and stopped at a gas station and topped off the left tank. It took 15.04 gallons.
Left the gas station, and headed to my buddies house on Fort Sam Houston. I stopped at a truck wash on my way and washed out the truck and the engine bay so I could see if any leaks started to happen.
Made it to his house and knew I was having problems with the batteries as the voltage gauge was doing the funky chicken.
Once at his house, I pulled the battery box cover and saw the problem, the cross over cable wore down the heat shrink over the connector and allowed it to ark out.
Went through several problem solving solutions to get her running again, and determined I had a bad battery.
Jumped the truck off in the morning and headed to wally world. Bought a new battery, put it in, strapped them down and was good to go.
Said my "see you again" and headed for the house.
Stopped at a TA right outside San Antonio and put 53.415 gallons total both tanks. Ate a little breakfast, and got back on the road.
I decided to stop every 2 hours to allow the NDT's to cool down and my back to relax a little.
Stopped for lunch around 1430 then got back on the road.
Hit Beaumont right at 1800 and boy was that fun, bumper to bumper traffic. Now up to this point I hadn't had any problems with other drivers on the road. Lot of looks, waves from the truck drivers.
Now I hadn't hollered at any drivers, or used any special hand signals at this point but I ended up hollering at a driver that decided she wanted to put about a foot between her front bumper and my rear end while going up hill at a dead stop.
The truck driver behind her started laughing as I proceeded to tell her if she like the current ride height of her car then I wouldn't advise getting so close behind something that weighs 18000 pounds. She kept a nice buffer distance after that once she realized I move a little back before I go forward on the uphills.
After that the trip was pretty uneventful the rest of the way. I did drive in to some rain, and after all my preparations I forgot to pack hose clamps. After a quick stop at a truck stop, picked up a pack of hose clamps, fixed the windshield wiper flex hose to let the windshield down I was golden.
Now, Texas has decent roads, Louisiana not so. Once I got in to Lafayette my trip decided to become a little bit more bouncy. I hit one bump so hard the transfer went in to neutral, made the pucker factor go up a little. Once I realized what happened I pulled off to the side of the road, put it back in high and got going again. From then on out if I hit a bump I grabbed the transfer handle just in case.
I did have one car honk it's little horn at me, but I equate it to stupidity, you'll see why in the pictures.
So what did I learn from this trip?
No matter how much preparation you do you will always forget something. I planned this trip for a whole month and still forgot some little things.
Luckily I didn't have to use the tools to much, especially the tire changing ones.
Sunscreen and baby powder should have been brought and used. My left arm looks like snookie, and well lets just say baby powder in a key area would have helped a little.
Now before anyone says you should have read the tm, I did, I even brought it with me, and the lube order.
I didn't take any pictures along the way, my buddy did get some of the truck in the walmart parking lot before I headed out, I'll have him email them to me so I can post them.
So what is the plan for the truck? Well, slowly it will be restored to it's original right off the factory line condition.
Now, pro's and con's.
Pro's:
I enjoy these vehicles. I miss driving them, so finally owning one is a pro to me.
It's big, it's green, it's so fluffy I wanna die!
Con's:
Spring suspension, mixed with driving bobtail equals bouncy uncomfortable ride.
Noisy.
No air conditioner, although except for the stop and go traffic I was good. Cracked the front windshield to the first detent, opened the drivers window and the foot vent and I was comfortable.
Would I do it again, of course.
I think I covered everything. The odometer had 19098 on it when I left, and in my drive way it shows 19659. Thats 561 miles and I still have about an 1/8 in each tank. The sending units need to be replaced in each tank.
Overall it was a good trip.
If you have never driven anything bigger than a class 3 vehicle (F350) then for the love of all that is holy please for your safety and the squirrels around you get some training before driving one. I cannot stress this enough. A split second mistake could mean a the difference between you and a minivan full of nuns. I have thousands of miles behind similar trucks, fire trucks, 939 series, PLS, and the big daddy 1070, so I know how to drive them.
The fuzzy dice were with my my first deployment in my truck the entire time, so I felt it was only fair they accompany me on this ride, and all future ones.
Ord22
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Great looking truck! Glad you had a safe trip! Enjoy the truck.
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that is one sweet looking green machine.. glad you made it safe and sound back home
bigugh20
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Beautiful truck. I find it funny that I couldn't stand the way the M818 looked with the extra space behind the front tire...until I spent a few hours driving one. Now I have this explainable need to own a tractor.
ke5eua
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Ok guys, got a little issue.
It started yesterday during the trip but I figured it was just because air was in the lines. There is a little pin hole somewhere on the right tank lines.
Here is the problem.
Start it up, idle goes up to almost 2000. Once you drive it runs good, but once you push the clutch in or put it in neutral the idle races to 2000. I can pull up on the throttle pedal and it goes down.
At first I thought it was the throttle linkage slipped a little but now I'm not to sure.
I ran some hot shot diesel extreme cleaner through both tanks, and some hot shot stiction eliminator the oil to clean out the injectors and ip.
If it is the linkage, can I just loosen it and let the shaft reset then tighten it back up?
I know I know, tm tm tm. I'm going to start looking through the -20 and -34 but was hoping this is just a quick fix.
You'll hear me having trouble starting it, I'm going to order a new black box, or rebuild the existing one. If I rebuild I'm going to convert it to a solid state device and hot glue the crap out of inside to prevent moisture from messing up anything.
A video for your viewing pleasure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnM8UQI7_j4&feature=youtu.be
It started yesterday during the trip but I figured it was just because air was in the lines. There is a little pin hole somewhere on the right tank lines.
Here is the problem.
Start it up, idle goes up to almost 2000. Once you drive it runs good, but once you push the clutch in or put it in neutral the idle races to 2000. I can pull up on the throttle pedal and it goes down.
At first I thought it was the throttle linkage slipped a little but now I'm not to sure.
I ran some hot shot diesel extreme cleaner through both tanks, and some hot shot stiction eliminator the oil to clean out the injectors and ip.
If it is the linkage, can I just loosen it and let the shaft reset then tighten it back up?
I know I know, tm tm tm. I'm going to start looking through the -20 and -34 but was hoping this is just a quick fix.
You'll hear me having trouble starting it, I'm going to order a new black box, or rebuild the existing one. If I rebuild I'm going to convert it to a solid state device and hot glue the crap out of inside to prevent moisture from messing up anything.
A video for your viewing pleasure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnM8UQI7_j4&feature=youtu.be
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looks like your spring is either slipped a little or needs oiling up.. its not your adjustment on the linkage for sure. spray oil the spring and the arm at the pump
Buster70
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Welcome to the addiction! I bet you are checking your return spring right now!
ke5eua
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When it started as soon I was able to stop I got out the WD-40 and sprayed the entire linkage, return spring, emergency stop cable, if it was connected or looked like it was connected to the ip I sprayed.
I'll pull the spring off and head to napa and see if they have a replacement.
I'll pull the spring off and head to napa and see if they have a replacement.
Last edited:
ke5eua
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One last picture. Spent the last couple of hours with degreaser and a hose going all through the cab and outside the truck. Tomorrow or Monday I will do the engine bay. Also put all my "BII" in the box behind the cab.
trooper632
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Where on earth did you find such a good looking truck, Lol, Michael did the right tank work for you along the way or did you rebuild the tank selector valve in San Antonio.
ke5eua
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I didn't rebuild it. It worked good, I was a little worried when I hit traffic in Beaumount but since the idle started running at ~1800-2000 it did ok.
When I switched the tank I already had it running and boy could you hear the difference from going from the red to the df-2, then it started to sputter, so I got on the road.
Rebuilding the valve and the lines is on the top of the list. The sender unit started working on the right tank, sorta, it read empty on full, and full on empty, lol
So far I have compiled a small list of need to get parts.
rebuild fuel selector valve, or switch to an electric version like the one on the 816
fix horn, it no working
Sending units for both tanks.
Headlights, the left one bit the dust on the trip.
Black box, either rebuild or buy a nos
winter boot kit for shifter and brake
new fuel lines
new brake lines
new power steering lines
new air lines
I'm sure the list will grow, but that is the order I have it in now to work on.
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the 816 is the same set up.. not electic.. the valve is by the door on the drivers side. on the dash is a elect switch but its just for the sending units not for switching the tanks.
ke5eua
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Hmm, then the tm is wrong.
Page 2-5 key 13
Fuel tank selector switch (M816) directs supply of fuel from left or right fuel tanks.
Page 2-7 key 17
Fuel tank selector valve (M816, M817, and M818 ), when in “L” position, engine draws fuel from left side tank; when in “R” position, engine draws fuel from right side tank. Selector is located on cab floor to left side of driver’s seat.
Looks like there was an electric version for the 816, plot thickens...
Jeepsinker
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No, it says right there that the valve is located on the floor by the drivers seat. Re-read that and think about it. They would never put an electric fuel selector on these trucks.
ke5eua
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It also says a switch on the dash directs fuel.
I copied straight from the -10
The only reference for the switch on the dash is in the -10. I have poured through the -20 and -34 and no reference to it.
It is a little aggravating to say the least.
Last edited:
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that dash switch only shows how much fuel in the tank selected.. two tanks but only one gauge.. so they switch it to show how much in that tank