Unverified Ownership The Whambulance

How did I miss this thread? I don't know, but I'm sure hyped! Congrats!
 
Seriously.

Look at this fitting.
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Also, so far as I can tell, nobody makes these except Dorman.
 
This project continues to crawl along. No assistant today, so no actual forward progress, but I puttered around with it a bit.

Got the brake line mounting brackets out of it, made replacements with a much more sensible dual-pclip arrangement (instead of 2 clamps bracketing the bolt head, making it impossible to get a tool on it to ever open a clamp ever again) there's 1 clip in 1 hole for the brake line and another in another for the wiring looms. And socket head capscrews because clearance with wrenches on pclips sucks.

And welded captive nuts instead of backing nuts.

Modified headlight bucket. Went to install it, and the spring exploded. Naturally, it's not the same spring that every other manufacturer uses with these headlights, it's different enough so as to be unusable (because they mounted it differently and in a different spot).



So I have ordered a pair of headlight adjustment springs from a dealer. They'll be here in 2 weeks.
 
So my usual helper (my younger brother) got injured at work and is out of commission for weeks. Today I managed to enlist B-Rad to finish up the 2-man parts of the brake lines.

The main line is in, we made another run on the axle and got that in. These two runs used almost an entire 16ft roll of stainless brake pipe.

We did not fill or bleed because:
1) I want to buy a power bleeder
2) I don't actually have anywhere near enough good brake fluid to fill the reservoir (AN ENTIRE QUART! IN THE RESERVOIR!) nevermind the lines.

We finished removing all the beauty caps from the lugnuts.

Got the headlights in. It now has nice bright Silverstars. Still need to aim them.

The one side I completely rebuilt from scratch as per above. The new spring arrived. However, getting the old spring (which is held down with a phillips screw down the center of the coil, which then narrows) was a bitch and required extensive modification.

You know what, I'll take pictures of what I had to invent as soon as my phone's recharged.

We got the stuck tool door open (turns out it wasn't locked, just WAY stuck). Another door is sticking now, I'm going to take all the doors apart and lube everything at some point.

So, all missions successful today.

I'm going to see about replacing all the light bulbs and disabling the sirens/flashers (just enough for inspection) tomorrow, and one of the door-hold-opens on the rear is busted and maybe fixable.

Also gonna try to track down window seals. Probably won't do it before the rally, but the seals in the back are seriously perished.
 
This is B-Rad engaging in the rear axle hug necessary to access the sphincter in which the brake hose bracket lives:
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Note it's sitting on its suspension with the airbags completely flat (and perished) and there's still plenty of room for activities.

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IT LIVES. Gotta get rid of those DOT numbers.

Here's the rear of an OE headlight enclosure (aka "the entire fucking hood". Note the pointy boss bit. From the factory, a self tapping phillips screw is run down the center bore of the spring (clamping on reduced-radius coils at the back) and seats in that dingus.
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That's great, as long as it doesn't need to come apart 30 years later. The phillips stripped right out. So I drilled the head out.
Originally, I was going to backdrill down the bore and get the shaft of the screw out that way, but it's a self-tapper with a point - no way to center on it.

So I did this:
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Dremeled off the boss, but not through the screw (this actually tore off the dremel cutting disc and sent it bouncing around death wheel style). Grabbed the pointy end of the screw with a pair of mole grips and turned it out. Drilled out the hole to 1/4 inch and ran an M6 bolt through it, with a nylock on the back. Also note my new adjuster screws.

Of course, this is a problem because a normal M6 wouldn't fit down the center bore of the spring and you could never get a wrench on it, but because I'm me, I had class 12 M6 cap screws on the shelf (they're also what I'm using for the P-clips):
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I prettymuch compulsively replace any fasteners I can get away with with these things. I still haven't figured out if the truck is metric, SAE or both, but everything new I'm putting in is metric.

By the way, the air horns are actual air horns. I haven't figured out what they're plumbed to yet.
 
So, on to the first big actual design challenge. The electrical system.

There will ultimately be several electrical buses:
Vehicle DC - Starter, running lights, cab stereo, shit like that. Home to starter batteries
House DC - All other interior and exterior lights (LEDs only), DC accessories, house stereo. Home to deep cycle batteries.
House AC - AC outlets and appliances
Vehicle AC - House and vehicle battery chargers

These will be bonded in the following states:
Genset off, ground power off, engine off: House AC is powered from house DC bus via inverter. DC buses are isolated. Vehicle AC is isolated.
Genset on, ground power off, engine off: House AC is powered from genset, vehicle AC is tied to house AC. DC buses are isolated.
Genset on, ground power on, engine off: Shutdown signal to genset, otherwise same as Genset off, ground power on, engine off
Genset off, ground power on, engine off: Vehicle AC bus tied to ground power, house AC tied to vehicle AC. DC buses are isolated.
Genset off, ground power off, engine on: House AC is powered from house DC bus via inverter. DC buses are tied. Vehicle AC is isolated.
Genset on, ground power off, engine on: As Genset off, ground power off, engine on, send genset shutdown
Genset on, ground power on, engine on: As Genset off, ground power off, engine on, send ground power eject and genset shutdown
Genset off, ground power on, engine on: As Genset off, ground power off, engine on, send ground power eject

I suspect I'll switch the bonding modes with a Raspberry Pi powered from the house DC bus driving some fat solenoids/solid state relays. I'll need to watch the failure-mode state for that carefully, though.

Incidentally, this reminds me of my favorite feature of this entire thing. The ground power socket has an ejection solenoid, so in fire service, it can be left plugged in all the time, and you don't have to remember to unplug it before you drive away - just get in and it will eject the ground power lead when the engine starts. This does not work at this time.

I also need to source a genset and inverter. Diesel gensets, even intended for RV use, seem to be rare on the secondary market. That's annoying. I don't want or need a gasoline tank. I suppose I could always source a small diesel engine and a separate generator head (Harbor Freight has the second one of those tantalizingly cheap).
 
... Working a genset deal. $50. May or may not work.

Case of beer to person in Florida for picking it up.

Someone else will deliver it, likely for additional beer.


Best tire quote is $1500 for Double Coin brand.

Next best is $1950 for stuff I'd actually use.
 
I also need to source a genset and inverter. Diesel gensets, even intended for RV use, seem to be rare on the secondary market. That's annoying. I don't want or need a gasoline tank. I suppose I could always source a small diesel engine and a separate generator head (Harbor Freight has the second one of those tantalizingly cheap).

From my own research and limited experience with RVs, the RV market mostly switched to propane powered generators on diesel rigs long ago for reduced noise and reduced angry neighbors in RV parks and scenic campsites. Also for superior autostart capabilities, as I recall.
 
From my own research and limited experience with RVs, the RV market mostly switched to propane powered generators on diesel rigs long ago for reduced noise and reduced angry neighbors in RV parks and scenic campsites. Also for superior autostart capabilities, as I recall.
The really interesting thing is that I can't find propane on the secondary market either.

I mean, the engine is the same gas vs propane, there's just some extra plumbing for propane or multifuel, so it's an easy conversion.
 
The really interesting thing is that I can't find propane on the secondary market either.

I mean, the engine is the same gas vs propane, there's just some extra plumbing for propane or multifuel, so it's an easy conversion.

No shortage of the things down here, I see at least five of them on the local CL and Book of Face. A lot of people are listing the propane or multifuel ones as gasoline, though.
 
Interesting. This might be one of those "Pick one up on the road" kind of deals then.

Big remaining must-do items:
- Brake bleed (this weekend)
- Basic light bulb fixes (this weekend)
- Emergency light removal (this weekend)
- Tires (getting that taken care of next week hopefully)
- Assess air suspension situation and identify bags (this weekend)
- Vandalize the paint job enough it definitely isn't an emergency vehicle (I picked up a 5 inch whizz wheel for the angle grinder and a few cans of self-etching spray primer) - also this weekend
- Fluid change (Doesn't look like anybody has diesel Rotella in their annual oil clearances, damnit. I only need seven to nine gallons of it...)
- Interior partial gut (remove the oxygen lines because they can be construed to be medical equipment which is verboten by the insurance company)
- State inspection

Big remaining should-do items:
- Theme paint
- Stereo
- Convert all lighting to LED
 
Drilling out screws is gonna be a theme.

Drilling out screws and dulling drill bits on the stainless diamond plate the bastard goes through even more so.

I need to buy a drill doctor.
 
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Tires old enough to effing vote.

The carcasses on these 2 are 1999 or 1989. The recaps are 2002.

On the other side (I did get them off but it was dark so no pics yet), one of them was a different carcass coded 1989 or 1999 with a 1999 retread, and a 1989 or 1999 with no retread.

My suspicion is that the one odd tire with a 1999 retread is a 1989 carcass that came on the truck (it came out of the International factory in early 1990 despite being a MY91) and the rest are 1999 carcasses with 2002 retreads.

Also, in addition to being different tread patterns (which is normal for truck tires - normal "all position" tires that you can use anywhere have straight-ish tread that doesn't exit to the firewall, and then these are "drive" or "lug" tread for drive axles, when you expect to be on soft surfaces occasionally) the rear tires are actually *245* wide, and the steers are 225. Good thing I didn't actually order the tires yet...

Jacking and supporting this thing is RIDICULOUSLY difficult. I have the entire rear axle cribbed up with concrete and wood blocks, and the axle cribbed with concrete.

This worked:
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... After I broke the lugs loose.

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I also changed the front turn signal bulbs and the rear brake/tail bulbs. The latter required drilling out screws.... I suspect I'm going to be replacing the rear light array lenses and housings at some point because the seals behind them keeping water out of the cabin walls are completely perished.
 
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1/4" drive to 3/8" to 1/2" to 3/4" and it didn't explode?
I mean, I had backed them off from 500ftlb (that was a god damned workout) and all it was doing was overcoming the schmutz-in-the-threads torque. Except for one of them....

Where the dingus who installed the wheels last had put the alloy simulator centercap cover offcenter (it clamps in under the lugnuts) and the barrel was somehow too close to one of the nuts and contacted the captive washer. It actually ripped the captive washer off the lugnut (you can see it sitting there). So that setup technically destroyed a 33mm nut.
 
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