cursedshitbox posted:

So far in our journey we've been about this far. Which isn't far at all.


With the coach more or less running itself there's no need to stay at the LTVA till April. Plus its best to chase 75 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny forever despite having a coach built for ski season.

Its been a while since we last visited Vegas, three years now, let's roll that direction.

First night's layover is near Camp Ibis.

Woke up really early to catch the sunrise, wander the place, and get rolling.


One of the things I learned at the LTVA is that if it takes two hours to make coffee every morning when its cold and the coffee by then is cold, why bother getting out of bed.
Enter the automatic cheap coffee maker. The only way I'm getting up before the sun rises.

It was worth the early morning though.


A cement pondering pit in the desert.



Placard for Camp Ibis


Rolling into Vegas from the south side. First camping spot out near GoodSprings.

Camper swayed too close for comfort near the power pole driving over some ruts. Looking back it looks mild. At the time it was hair raising.

First night set up. Out with the Sous Vide then some cookies





There's a couple filled in mines around in the general area but there's not a whole lot going on. Areas pretty trashed. Lots of broken glass, tvs, and boolets.



Truck has been leaking coolant consistently like it always has since I've owned it. It would be nice if it stopped though. Taking a wire brush to the radiator tank shows that the tank is beginning to delaminate from the radiator core.

Resoldering it will work though I don't have my torch. Two part epoxy will do. But we're rolling out today so I'll do it later and just keep topping the coolant up.

More garbage and house cut fries.


Most of the time with line of sight the internet is better on the road than Cox was at home. The system runs off of two networks and it takes about 5 minutes to swap between them. It can be a pain in the rear end to bounce between both carriers. To test service he would run speed tests while I drove. Our phones and one of the two carriers are the same so that cut down on rebooting the modem to run the alternative carrier. Sometimes we'd need to pick between solar yield or bandwidth. That's what the generator is for.


Provisions run. Trader Joes actually. No bus conversion or giant toyhauler is pulling this kind of parking shenanigans off.


Lake Mead, woah what happened to you. Oh right. Drought.


Night in a campground. No hookups, its just a layover. Packed in a little hiking, and of course beers and cookies. Saw a brand new Nissan/Cummins rig with a huge dent right about where the bed is where they caught a pole with it. Gotta watch for those things.


HOOKUPS. Unlimited length showers. Free electricity. Time to scrub the coach from ceiling to floor.


Nearby marina with more really low water levels and the sunset



Since there's hookups. Designed and printed a shelf for the bathroom. This little modification really improved counter space in there. Not that there's much.



Boondocking under by Lake Mead. At capacity this spot should be about sixty feet under water.

Got to see some cool stuff while here like an aerial drop into the water by the military. Lots of speed boats and the occasional jeeper looking quite lost.
Since we're not in a campground we can do a round of maintenance on the coach.


The brand new "Fantastic" Vent is squealing like a banshee. It uses generic skateboard bearings, in sizes we actually have! But the motor assembly is spot welded together. And the squealing bearing is in the top, and sealed.
Cue drilling a hole in it and dripping the finest Rotella in there. I have a spare fan motor, its in storage, I'll grab that later.


Lamb Gyros for lunch.


Alright let'sdo the quarterly service and check up on the radiator.
Every quarter I drop the rear driveline and hit the far side joint with grease, and the other two zerks on that shaft. Front one has three zerks to be greased though I do the axle end one once a year because its a ten of ten pain in the rear end to drop.
There's 4 rod ends, 4 knuckle joints, and 2 axle u-joints to grease. Hub lockouts are tested.
Belt tension and condition is checked. So is clutch/brake fluid levels.
Steering linkages and rag joint is checked for play and integrity.
Brake pad life, hoses, and rotors are inspected.
Diffs/tcase fluids checked. Transmission fill is rounded-the-gently caress-off by the original farmers so that one is uncheckable. Yolo?
General chassis inspection from bumper to bumper with a flash light to look for damage or any fasteners vibrating free.
It takes a few hours to knock out however it results in worry free operation. You don't know till you know. And if you know, you know. But you can also forget, so put that poo poo in a spreadsheet.


Back to the radiator. Oh. Yeah that's getting worse. Good thing I brought five pounds of two part epoxy.



Oh that's much worse. And a lot faster than it was historically.

Cleaned and primed.


You came from a farm I can fix you like a farmer. I'll chisel this off later and just solder it. No biggie. The system barely runs at pressure anyway.


While hitting the almost dozen zerks up front. Wait.. That's not near the radiator.

Ok its just an extra oil leak.

Or is it?


Ohhh poo poo. I'd warned that I never did this stupid coolant pump before setting out and its original and welp here we are. Its dying. There's a buncha caveats with replacing one and it can turn into a big hairy mess at the best of times facilitating dropping the oil pan.

Call up the Ford dealer in Las Vegas. Yes! They have a pump for the old IDI! Cool, I'll take it. Two thermostats, and like 5 bottles of coolant additives. I'll drive right over when its ready and pick it all up.
Why a Ford pump and not aftermarket? Well. Look at the giant load its carrying. Its been there for 30 years and got me this far. OEM parts for OEM quality control. haha. Not on a Ford/Intertrashional but whatever you get my idea.

Parts are ready for pickup. Swinging through the dump station since its on the way to Vegas, met this awesome skoolie conversion.


And the pump exploded right before the ranger station at the park's entrance. With another 27 miles to go. Its absolutely howling when running like the fan is eating the radiator. Power assisted brakes and steering are gone, and the alternator has dropped out. Temp gauge immediately pegged itself. At almost seven tons it will proceed no further with a critical hit. Its too hot to open up or risk getting burned.


Let it sit and cool off. Drove it out of the park and parked it.

Options are. Get it towed as is. Find a shop to work on it. Drop the camper here or somewhere and get the truck by itself towed, also find a shop to work on it. Fix it here where it failed. It's mid day and I'm now on the clock. The truck can't sit here more than twenty four hours and if I get it towed, sitting somewhere will also cost cubic dollars by the day. We will also have hole up in a hotel while its being repaired, however long that will take.

cursedshitbox posted:

I haven't been to Kern Plateu or Eureka Dunes. As of right now there's another run of 395 planned this late fall with motos to get a little deeper off the beaten path. I really like this part of the country so far and despite climate change I may just buy a piece of dirt out here to drop a shop.

I've never tried sandboarding, seems like it would be a blast. Not that I know how to surf or snowboard. Mid to late November would proobably be about the timeline I'm back in the area. Was out there about a month ago but as we all know the conditions aren't as favorable for outdoor sports.

Yes! The cooking projects you're reading about right now are from a friend's starter given to me in 2020. I started a new one from scratch mid last year when the one I've been writing about died. It's been a lot better to bake with. I still bake with sourdough regularly long after its fallen out of popular culture and will be doing a sourdough stuffed crust Detroit style pizza later today. Dutchoven... Yeah I want to get one. A good one. I do use an ancient cast iron brought back to life that when I met my husband, was rusty and used to hold Jeep parts. 'Gear oil infused' bacon wasn't a good idea in hindsight. Garlic infused however...

The pan is stored in the oven for transit. Funnily enough its been thrown across the camper a few times. There'll be an audible clang that can be heard up front over the engine and everything else with a .... ??? We throw a bungee cord on the oven door to keep the pan secured. One of the stock pots fell out and chipped the sink's enamel. All the heavy stuff in that cabinet goes in the sink now. Working on ways to improve that. Such is RVs.

cursedshitbox posted:

Then there's the really weird poo poo.

csb posted:

This part of Oregon is also pretty good about forestry management. It's a good thing with annual fires.


The spot next to me is blocked off because bees have taken up residency in one of the trees. Rather than kill them there's a specialist that has come out and is slowly persuading them to leave the tree.
This is really fascinating to me.

cursedshitbox posted:

The cafe's brick oven is something I really wanna incorporate into the next build.

csb posted:

Probably the pump

cursedshitbox posted:

Everything is fine.

cursedshitbox posted:

I kinda dig the abandoned building aspect for urbex. Buuuut I might be an outlier there.

I'll have to roll through German Ridge next time, that's a little bit of a drive off the freeway and we had a snowstorm in the rockies to beat.

This is another sidetrack tech post where instead of an update you all get some institutional knowledge that's going to become increasingly important over the next few weeks.


How do diesels work? How does mechanical injection pumps work? Carburetor principles. AKA loving magic. That's how.

But no, not really.

If you're not familiar this is your standard diesel thermodynamic model. It's similar to how a gasser works in a way but it's also vastly different. With compression ratios anywhere between 15-22:1 there's no need for a spark plug. The air is heated beyond the autoignition point of diesel through the forces of compression alone. Where in a gasser your spark plug would fire near tdc for the power cycle, it is now replaced with your fuel source that operates for the same reason.
https://i.imgur.com/96q9Qrs.mp4

You with me? Awesome. In a gasser timing is very important for the power output and efficiency of the engine. In some cases it'll even ruin the engine itself if it is too far advanced. Diesels care about this sorta thing too. However, they're also a lot more robust. Too far advanced or non advanced and it'll lead to wasted fuel, smoke, high exhaust gas temps, damaged glowplugs if it has them.

There's a bit of a technology divide with more modern engines. Cars are going through this now with port injected being the old way and direct injection being the new hot thing on the block. Smaller engines went through a phase where they were indirectly injected. Saved on fuel system development costs. Made for a (smoggier) but more efficient engine. It packaged smaller. It's quieter in operation which is important to customers with discerning ears. Not that any of us could tell.

This Old Farm Truck is of the Indirect variety. Dirt rear end simple. With a compression ratio of 21.5:1 it'll run on nearly anything but water. Do not give it water.

The engines of this era used what's called a poppet valve for an injector. no electronic controls. Just a mechanical pintle and a preset spring.

It stays closed until the pump sends high pressure fuel its way that overcomes the spring force and forces the pintle open.
The leak off line is there as a return and to smooth out any water hammer like effects that you'd see in a house. The pintle/spring and delivery valve can be quite harsh and this is its damper.


Still with me here? No? oh well. We're doing this anyway and can't stop won't stop.
I'm going to ignore unit injectors and focus on the rotary pump since that's what this truck has. It has a rotary element like a distributor does for an old car. Each injector has its own line. Every line is carefully routed to not have excessive lengths than its adjacent cylinders or else it'd cause timing issues with the fuel pulses.

This is the Roosa Master DB2 injection pump. There's a lotta poo poo going on here. Don't worry, it's not that difficult.

Fuel enters at #3 and travels between 3-6 then jumping to number 11. The rest of the system controls how much and when


(#12 the inset is an air bleed for the head)

An exploded view.


And its hydraulic diagram. It's fairly simple, not to worry.


Let's start where fuel enters the system. The Transfer pump.
Fuel comes in from the right. Pressurized, and leaves to the left. It comes with a built in pressure regulator that you see above. It's a rotary vane style pump. This is a major wear item in the db2.
It's not the high pressure delivery pump but rather the supply pump for it. It requires a lift pump from the fuel tank to feed the transfer pump.


Being a rotary vane, we've all seen them before. Air injection (smog) pumps, air conditioning system vacuum pumps, diesel supplemental vacuum pumps, all use the same style of pump.

The rotary vanes and their swept surface are the wear item.
Side view of the same system.

The thin plate and regulator also make up the viscosity compensation system. The orifice allows leakage of fuel to return to the inlet side of the pump. Flow through this orifice is unaffected by viscosity changes. Biasing pressure exerted on the backside of the piston is determined by the leakage past the designed clearance of the piston in the regulator bore and the pressure drop through the orifice. With cold fuel, there's little leakage. With hot fuel, leakage increases. Fuel pressure in the spring cavity increases also. The increase in pressure helps the regulating spring.


This is the drive shaft with the transfer pump at the very end and the all speed mechanical advance with the high pressure plunger assembly at the other end.


From here fuel makes its way to the head. Here it is pumped to the required 1700PSI pressure and primed as the rotor spins. When the rotor gets to the the required cylinder passage fuel is then sent into the delivery valve that meters the start/stop operation of the injection sequence, then it makes its way to the injector where it can get on with business.


The rotor assembly with the all speed mechanical advance and transfer pump relative pressures.

The high pressure charging cycle. As the rotor spins there's two passages in the rotor that registers with the charging annulus. Fuel from the transfer pump controlled by the metering valve flows into the pumping chamber forcing the plungers apart. The plungers move proportional to the fuel required for injection on the next cycle.

The 'high pressure' circuit with the delivery valve and discharge fitting. The delivery valve is designed to create a sharp cutoff between injection pressure and not injection pressure. It reduces residual leakage which can lead to smoke, high egt, poor fuel consumption, etc.

When injection starts, the delivery valve moved slightly out of its bore and adds the volume of its displacement section "A" to the delivery valve spring chamber.

#12 in the above inset is a bleed valve. Basically this is its operation is to bleed the head.


The all speed mechanical advance.

This is its circuit feeding with transfer pump fuel on the left and housing pressure to the right.

The purpose here is to provide a mechanical timing advance based on rpm and status of load.

The plunger assembly at the bottom does all the brain work while the rotor does the gruntwork.

The transfer pump pressure has to overcome the nearby spring and the dynamic injection loading on the cam in order to change the cam's position. The reed valve prevents the cam from returning to its non advanced position during injection by trapping fuel in the piston chamber. This bore is a wear item. Fuel will leak down and the advance gets rather lazy if at all operational. The leaf spring is known for cracking at high miles and the rollers can also wear adding to the advance failing to work properly.

And a map of its operation. The trimmer screw is for fine tuning the advance start movement.

Externally there's an adjustable cam that also can be adjusted to fine tune the advance map.

A test to see if the advance is working is while idling, pull on this large rocker arm. If the engine's note does not change, the advance is non functional.


Then the governor.
The governor's job is to maintain the desired engine speed within a preset range under a variety of load conditions.

This one like most any other governor relies on centripetal forces working on the flyweights.
As the weights are tipped outward they move the thrust plate agains the governor arm which pivots on the knife edge of the pivot shaft which rotates the metering valve.
The forces on the governor arm caused by the weights is balanced by the governor spring which is controlled by the foot throttle.

As load is reduced and engine speed increases the weights rotate the metering valve clockwise to reduce fuel. This limits the speed increase to a value determined by the governor spring and the foot throttle.

As load is increased and engine speed decreases the metering valve will rotate anticlockwise to increase fuel.


You now know more than most people about an obsolete technology nobody cares about. I glossed over some bits and pieces as they're minor players compared to the rockstars that have gone out and partied too hard on gritty farm fuels.

This is relevant because the truck will intermittently not start hot, the advance fails the arm test, the cold idle advance seems to also be broken, and it has a weird running issue right at 2100rpm where if the governor is held solid, the engine speed will wander high then sag back down slowly like a lean condition on a gasser.


Sources/further reading:
http://www.stanadyne.com/dealerportal/ssi/english/Product%20Manual/99834.pdf
https://radionerds.com/images/f/f4/Stanadyne_db2_operation_and_instructions_manuals.pdf

cursedshitbox posted:

carbon buildup from oil burnin.

I might be misunderstanding your second question here.
WIthout putting pressure gauges on various parts of the system there's not a lot more that can be done since we can't empirically test the part.
Lazy/tired poppet injectors will leak leading to high egt, poor running, hard starting, smoke, etc.
If the high pressure plungers aren't pumping up they'll give lousy power output and in extreme cases, no running at all.
Transfer/lift pump problems stem from no starts to not being able to run any faster than idle speed.
Timing advance and all of its features is critical in cold starting and engine performance.

Now that we've taken the bad pump out of the equation and subsequently pulled four injectors it's beginning to look a lot like a dead 7.3 Which 7.3s don't make enough power to die.

It's gonna get worse before it gets better. This truck only breaks with no breaks.

This thread is almost a year behind. A year later. It has not gotten better. The stint the thread is getting into now is a big driver behind why I started this thread.

cursedshitbox posted:

the engine has over 50Psi of blowby.


Made it to a truck stop where we regroup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ieEpciHkB0

kastein posted:

It's a 7.3 IDI with one or more cracked pistons, imma stop you right there. Cannot comply.

cursedshitbox posted:

Fully wrapped all of the hot side plumbing. It looks loving gorgeous.

cursedshitbox posted:

While under, the truck tries to take out my eye with a motor mount bolt.
I wasn't wearing my glasses.

PainterofCrap posted:

I have pulled engines & drivetrains in hot weather, cold weather & inclement.

I have used the sketchy PGH HF engine hoist. Kept waiting for a weld to blow.

I have honed, re-rung & replaced lower bearings in sub-zero weather with a kero heater keeping (only) my feet toasty.

But I have never tried to do all of this at once at the side of the road in Randoville. Never with a pigbeast of an engine.

My hat is off to you both, sirs.

drat.

CarForumPoster posted:

Is it okay to ask for recommendations ITT? Seems like the right crowd, happy to post elsewhere.

Can anyone point me to some good options for bolt in campers for late model pickups? Do places like Outdoor World have ones I can go see?

More context:
I am thinking of buying a 21/22/New 4 door F150 or similar in the next year. My wife and I love road trips, shes loves camping, I...prefer a 3+ star hotel. She'd be scared to tow a trailer so I'm looking at bolt in options for a camper that can be put in the bed of an F-150. I'm a Mech Eng, was a machinist, not scared of fiberglass work, so I'd happily do a DIY. Budget would be flexible (~$25K I pulled from thin air), I want to make a 3 star hotel on wheels. Should be able to use A/C with engine on, hot plate cook, microwave, fridge, etc.

CarForumPoster posted:

I meant not including the cost of the car, obvs

cursedshitbox posted:

It looked close enough on the boroscope but uhhhhh nope it sure doesn't function like the genuine part does.


Fellow beater ford


And a C3 in its natural state.


Transit spot waaaayyy out of the reach of some other campers on this road.




Random bike maintenance. These misalignment spacers have been broken for a year.





Not a lot for riding around here. Couple good rolling hills but mostly flat washes and sand. It's fine and all, but its no single track.



New cheap coffee maker with a thermal carafe that'll stand up to the rigors of rattling down dirt roads


Thoroughly bored and having explored everything in the vicinity we roll on to the next point near Las Cruces.

My first big fuckup is that I violated my rules and traveled after dusk.


The trail got really narrow between the foliage at one point and scraped the hell out of the paint.

It may buff out.


I then realize the umbilical cable that powers all the camper's exterior lighting is gone. It got caught somewhere and yanked off of the rig. And is now not here.

I pull the bike down and go back tracking after it.
It's still where I left it, however I also ran it over crushing the plastic shroud of one end. Big wad of tape will fix it.

Got dusted out by the finest people on side by sides flying flags that indicate clearly the level of information they're working with.

Plug the cable in. Its all good. Powered the freezer down for the winter to save having to run the generator. There is a metric ton of offroad traffic here, including brodozers. This is too close to civilization if those things are driving by.

However nearby is a caldera.

STR posted:

Nah, if you want an easy to get burger that's tasty, grab a green chile cheeseburger from Blake's Lotaburger. All over NM now, a couple in El Paso too. I THINK they started in either ABQ or Alamogordo.

Haven't had one in ages, but I make a version at home.

Suburban Dad posted:

cursedshitbox posted:

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1014721-shakshuka-with-feta

Since this is sort of kinda related. Have a recipe for menemen too. I deviate from the recipe a bit on both. Get some urfa biber, harissa(the paste is delicious), sumac, and aleppo pepper.

https://www.themediterraneandish.com/menemen-recipe/

cursedshitbox posted:

A visual aid to how much garlic your recipes should be using.

cursedshitbox posted:

He's probably not wrong.


Forearm sized burrito.

cursedshitbox posted:

This area is known as Esperanza Mine. Its not far off of I15, I've driven by it a thousand times in years past but never actually came here.

It is complete with a garage and cabin. Usually these are ransacked and anything of value taken. This one, surprisingly intact.


The garage.


It's pretty clear that there's some caretaker that visits on occasion. The 55 gallon drum gone furnace may fire with a little help. Not much in the way of tools around however.



Ugh, someone left the lid up.


Back side of the cabin. Complete with glass that hasn't been used for target practice.


Inside it looks lived in.

This place is legit nicer than some pads I've rented in cities with its fancy kitchen.


Turning to the hall. This place was built as one room then added to over the years of its use.


Another furnace, in better shape.




Alright enough clownin' around let's hike over to the mines and look at some r o c k s.

Lower tailings pile and the adit near it.



Up above is a shaft cut into the mountain following the dip. It's unstable, I wouldn't enter this one if it were an option.



Looking up from the rock is a view of the cabin and the valley.


Since I don't own a car with a muffler the drat things are growing free range now.


And sunset. Hike tomorrow to the main digs.



Almost there.







Looking up over the headstock, interesting striations.




Probably the ordinance shed.

It's inaccessible because of erosion and well, this. They're always empty anyway.

NPS has blocked off access for our own good to the shafts in the area.






With daylight waning it's time to head for home. It's a bit of a hike back.

The vehicle is next to the little mound centered in the distance casting the shadows.

Fossil of some sort?



bbbburritos.


The prospects down in the flats are nowhere near as interesting. Not deep or have caved in.



Later in the evening, a SpaceX launch out of Vandenberg is visible from the middle of nowhere.

The juxstaposition of a 60 year old water tank to a rocket sending up cubesats so that it's possible to shitpost.



From here it's on to Big Bear, CA.

A Volvo wagon in the best color.


Taking highway 18 in. Steep with switchbacks. First gear is too tall don't bring 5th wheels back here steep. I traveled this road often years ago. Johnson Valley is in its backyard and that was my playground for years. As I near the Serrano Campground there's new noises coming from the truck. Like that of a loose fanbelt. But not during conditions that would indicate a slipping belt. 2nd gear and going from no power into the drivetrain to decel over 2000rpm there's a screech noise like that of a belt slipping. The belts are a little over a year old. Maybe it's that. It's never done this before though.
There's also snow in the forecast.
One week to jeeping.

cursedshitbox posted:

Sorry it's been a week. Mostly one in which I actually get some things done.

Alright. Why this camper weighs three bloody tons. I am a goon and I like food. The acres of material that go into my clothing are a testament to such. This post is about what goes into the food.


The Spice Must Flow

The staples: Garlic powder (nominally fine, not the super fine). I buy this by the big jug.

Two kinds of salt. Fine and coarse. Fine is used in baking. Coarse, cooking. Same with black pepper. I stock the seed.
Salt is pretty much never used in cooking unless it calls for it. Sourdough projects use it pretty regularly.

Herbs I generally stock fresh herbs. They last ~2 weeks. When I can't or stock fresh herbs, I have a backstock of dried. Cilantro tastes like soap to him so it does not get used. I do like it however.

Dried

Fresh

Cultural These are spices involved in specific cultural dishes. There'll be further overlap in the seeds section. Za'atar and Souvlaki seasoning is really easy to make from other parts of this list. They both make great kebabs.

Seeds Cumin seed is great pan toasted in most recipes. Ajwain and Kashimiri are key for authentic Indian dishes.

General Spices

Specific spice blends

Non Spices

Oiligarchy

Where's the Sauuuuce?

Hot Sauces, Marinades I change it up a lot here. They probably occupy a little too much space and there's always something new. There's some regulars however.

Staples

Tree Nuts

Ok so this is a large wall of text with not a lot of detail behind it. I mostly work with Mediterranean, Indian, Asian, and Western cuisines. I don't work with seafood or most pork. He works with Seafood however.
Say for a breakfast burrito comprised of my three-hour-potato-project + bell peppers, jalapenos, onions, mushroom, garlic cloves, and some kind of protein. (Typically plant based because it lasts a lot longer than meat.)
Fresh herbs if they're onboard. Rosemary especially.
toasted cumin seeds. A m u s t.
Most of the smokey spices go in. Urfa Biber, aleppo, sumac, smoked paprika, ancho chili.
Garlic powder, black pepper(coarse), harissa sauce and the pate. A mix of whatever hot sauce or oil I'm feeling that morning.
I'll probably do a writeup for this on my next batch.

I'm a huge fan of caremelizing onions with a little oil and tumeric. Do not be heavy handed with the asafetida, when the recipe says a pinch, it's not kidding. Coconut Aminos make a big difference in Indian dishes. Starting with the Mediterranean region can be done through most of the herbs, cumin, and harissa.

cursedshitbox posted:

I am pretty sure the transmission is dead. Because I found this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsVTeJ1K0OM

babyeatingpsychopath posted:

kastein posted:

"do you want to Ford the-" "gently caress no I am tired of Fording anything"

cursedshitbox posted:

I'll put together a couple screenshots of what it can do. I did enable remote start on it and some other goodies.


The old site of Tumco is nearby. It's one of the oldest mining towns in the state. There's close to 300 years of work here. Primarily a gold mine.










It's hard to gauge the immense size of the quarry.


A small and unfruitful prospect.


The Office. Lining up tires for this new shittractor. Nobody stocks 19.5s. And when they do, they're $500 ea.

I managed to find some Goodyears for 50% off.

The jeep makes a decent water truck/Eddie wagon.


Driving westward. A jeeper with AK plates driving in the rain like it's no big deal.


You all remember the person with the ram 3500 that broke in half? They have a close relative. With the bed/camper visibly porpoising in unison as they drove through the intersection.

These hosts are so heavy it would run the F550 close to its allowable payload.

A night on the beach. Picking the truck up in the morning then going straight to the tire shop.



Some socks that I should get for MTBing.


Whatever this is. I love it.


Picked the truck up, put 33 gal in it, then on to the tire shop.

Shoes on. Took a few hours. They sold my drat tires out from under me to a corpo account. Had one of their field trucks roll through and take care of the job.


Pretrip, noticed the front right headlight is out. Sunlight is waning and there's a snowstorm rolling in at elevation. Can't get the headlight apart to replace the bulb. I'll do it later.

It does alright in snow. Didn't slide once. Lexus RX suv went sailing past me only to end up in the median.

The drive home went without a hitch.

New, meet old. Old. Meet new.


But it's not ready for work yet. It is gonna go to the local dealer and get a go through to prepare it for service. Some other little things cosmetically I'd like to take care of and prep the truck. It needs a reverse camera for sure. Then it can be pushed into service.

cursedshitbox posted:

Kind of a spoiler since I built this some time after. Six weeks ago or so at the time of posting. Its the future web/app interface for all of the onboard systems.
I'm a huge nerd and I'm absolutely not sorry about it.

cursedshitbox posted:

More fkin headlight polishing. These housings are trashed. An entire sanding kit per headlamp this time.



I was planning to coat them but they're so hosed and it was just cold enough I couldn't.

cursedshitbox posted:

The jeep is a scout vehicle, little more. Its role is to gather parts, supplies, and provide navigation. It's prevented some navigational errors like what happened near Bend. Going bigger it would still do the same roles. I would probably throw it in a trailer at that point though.

Powertrains, etc
Going into airbrake land?

I prefer a stick, he's uh not good with crash boxes so it'd have to be some kind of semi-electronic engine with an ultrashift/Allison 5-6 speed. Think DT530E/ISC/ISM/ Detroit 50 series.
The RTO915 in the gillig had a wacky pattern. I was fine with it but I probably wouldn't select that box building a vehicle. I'm not super interested in running 2 stroke detroits in 2023. Though if I had to pick one, it would be a 671 for simplicity sake. The 4104 had one. Easy to service.

Then there's the H50EP hybrid box that'll allow a ISB(think 24V cummins) or the like to work in conjunction with it to do regenerative braking, stationary generator, parallel hybrid things. This is all extremely heavy and best suited to a truck with a tandem drive rear. But then it simplifies the power side of the upfit with almost 400V-DC on tap and a huge on board generator.

Taking the bus
The rub of going back to a bus is getting off the beaten path. It takes a literal crane to drag one out once it lays frame. Most of this thread is from places a bus can't reach. I'm posting from a spot now where high clearance and rwd + locker would make it when it's dry. Let alone now when it's pouring rain.
Ones that I could 4wd are practically front engine schoolies only and 1980s front engine wanderlodges. The cab over style schoolies are hell to work on. Dog noses come with their own problems, mostly less floorplan space.
FEs are kinda terrible to drive and hell on NVH compared to their rear engine siblings. The operator sits right next to the head of the engine with just a thin sheet of aluminum/fiberglass separating the two. They're usually total bastards to work on, and you guessed it, I'm working on it myself. The 550 isn't even exempt from that and it's one of the worst diesels I've ever had to work on. I've learned from this new truck that I really want an open engine bay to work in. Be it a good tilt cab which is hard to pull off with an overhead bunk, or a conventional tilt hood.
I tend to like the overhead bunk like class Cs/truck campers do. I've seen one bus implementation but not the details of a bedroom whose bed could raise and it pulled tables up from below to convert into an office. It packaged partially into the cargo bay space below however.

The overland adventure route
I would like to lean into the whole plus sized overlanding weenie rigs. So far the small/medium stuff has not been able to cope with my bullshit. The buses did, but I also didn't wheel them.

Some links I found this morning after buildscharacter prodding me(again) about manufacturing these kind of vehicles. I would run these for myself, but not sell as a business. Not without a lot of understanding from the customer as well it's a 40 year old chassis and Things Go Wrong All The Time.
The class 5 domestics are becoming the goto for current heavy slide ins and overlanding builds. ER has been using them for a decade and a half. There's at least a half dozen cottage industries running these platforms now. Just announced is a 150 based variant that starts at $325 with 150lb of payload left on the table.
The modern class 5s drive good, the parts are all new, there's a warranty, etc. That's a lot easier to justify as a manufacturer. Especially when there's a six figure price tag. These plus size rigs start at around 500 now and go deep into the millions. It's not unheard of to see $8000 per square foot here.

https://reno.craigslist.org/for/d/dayton-1989-chevy-4x4-brush-truck/7623173247.html
https://westslope.craigslist.org/cto/d/durango-1983-gmc-4wd-fire-truck-brush/7622125047.html
Pull the fuel pincher, the transmissions, the upfit. Flatbed. Modernize the powertrain. Plop a sips built camper on the back.

Not opposed to 5 tons/lmtvs but I'm throwing 90% of it away which makes it kinda pointless. No thanks to the engine. The electrics are dodgy. Drivelines tend to vibrate apart. Axle leaks, etc. I love a cabover for visibility though. The 550's giant front end makes it hard to park sometime.
https://denver.craigslist.org/cto/d/canon-city-1999-m1088a1-for-sale-titled/7623619289.html
https://denver.craigslist.org/cto/d/boulder-truck-lmtv-m10781/7624059377.html
https://denver.craigslist.org/cto/d/boulder-truck-lmtv-m10781/7624059377.html

Another option could be to sell both trucks after the shop is done and they're fixed to roll that into the next build. Converting an old International cab over to 4wd/awd isn't that much costlier than converting an old F350 to 4wd. With the screeching I see of emissions years diesels and its related hassles while sitting on a rust free mostly restored presmog turbodiesel... it's entirely possible to trade that set of problems for a new set of problems. The 350s in a weird area where it's useful but also slightly too small to do everything I envision. Rebuilding it into a class 5 truck would end up with some really wacky looking modifications that would be akin to florida mudtruck poo poo. The 550 can and would, but it's a princess that makes bmws look rational. Nearly everything is built up of plastic quick connects or one-time-use hardware.

tldr: big rear end awd overland weenie mobiles is where it's at. Buses were good, but childhood exposure to camel trophy and dakar have ruined me.
Oof on the VW....A 90s Roadtek Dodge absolutely would have been better. They actually have *really* good wetbaths for what they are.

cursedshitbox posted:

I'm feeling like I've made it out of the weeds with this loving thing finally and I can go back to my other projects.

...
Go to start the truck and uh it's making new noises. Bad noises.

Chaosfeather posted:

. Do these exist? I legit don't know.

cursedshitbox posted:

hah what is it doing? 6.7?

Camped near Fallon Station, NV. Adjacent to a Naval Range.


it's about half an hour to Fallon. Good for supplies and doing laundry, etc.
It's a quaint trumpy little backwater sporting the usual stickers of 'lock her up' etc. I'm not here for those morons.

I'm here for the holes in the ground.

There's a lot of interesting stuff around. Some of it bikable.
Checkover and ready to tear up the trails

Since running by storage I converted the beater from flatties to road clipless. It surprisingly makes hill descents and climbs a lot less janky, despite being roadie equipment from when I last was a roadie; 2015.


Some deep sand too.

Never ate poo poo despite riding on road clipless. Pretty much means I'm too slow to break myself, ala 7.3.

Speaking of broken. A Toyota doing a Ford thing.


Old abandoned mines, our jam.






wtf there's an airbnb here


The headstock is surprisingly intact.



Mercury mine



Anybody that says the desert is void of any life is wrong.


The hike to this mine was pretty much pointless. It went straight down.

Turning around might help show why it's pointless.

Good thing I'm fat.

There's a cluster of mines in the distance. We want to visit the hill and see what's about.


Except...

The mountain? It's gone.

Rawhide pulls 45,000 Gold Equivalent Ounces per year from where this mountain once stood.

Since 1990 they've pulled 1.96MM GEOs.

But we have cool rock formations and striations near home.

The striations near home.


Desert rains.



On leaving the brand new turbo is now making noise. Everything is fine. Nothing is wrong. Nothing at all. Nothing at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-OBBPVjN3U
Its resonance is louder the deeper below 55F it is. Over 60ish there is no noise. It goes away once it warms up. Surely it's nothing.
The compressor surge is now gone. Fuel economy is back around upper 8s, low 9s, but with all the hills, I'll allow it.

Random spot along the original Pony Express.



May the Seventh.