I decided while it was off this time that it was the perfect opportunity to paint the underside with a "bitumen" protective coating. This has to be the messiest job on the planet! I started around 9am in the morning and didn't finish until about 4pm after throwing away 3 brushes, 2 rollers, 2 trays, 14 pairs of surgical gloves and what had started as a perfectly good set of work clothes! It doesn't matter how careful you are I defy you to do it without having to bathe in mineral turps afterward! However it needed to be done for protection from the elements and I feel happier now.
I haven't yet managed to take it for a drive with the current arrangement, uprated springs and batteries moved, but I did have a little drive with just the batteries in the chassis. (Just like it was when I first bought it with only a light tray. I'd forgotten just how easy it was to drive like that - even if a little rough as it's so light.) I must say it looks a lot better without the bum dragging on the ground . . . it's just touching the helper springs on the left and 10mm clear on the right (haven't figured out quite why it's heavier on the left yet) and it's about 50mm up from where it was on the old springs which makes it nice and level. Hopefully the water, fuel and generator won't sit it down too much again.
Having bolted it all back together I was thinking about all the checking I was going to have to do in the first couple of hundred kilometers to make sure nothing comes loose when I had a bit of a "light bulb moment". Some big trucks have small plastic indicators shaped like a teardrop which go over all the nuts on each wheel to make checking, which has to be done at very regular intervals, easier. They clip over each wheel nut and all the pointy ends are lined up in a regular manner. It doesn't really matter which direction they point as long as they all point in a regular direction - a quick look is all that is necessary to see if anything has moved, it stands out immediately. I was going to get some for my wheels but they turn out to be quite expensive so I have been using the tried and true check it with a wheel spanner technique. It occurred to me that all that is necessary is the easy visual check that nothing has moved. This can be done by cutting a narrow slit in a sheet of some throw away material (paper, sheet metal, whatever) and spraying some paint through the slit . . if anything moves after that the paint line will be out of line. A quick slash with some scissors in a piece of crdboard and a handy can of yellow paint and it looks like it may work.
Some places were a bit more awkward to get at and didn't turn out quite as neat but the principle will work I'm sure.
and at least they will get checked now as it is so much easier than getting out the spanners.
Now that it is reassembled it's time to make all the new electrical connections. These are all the power cables from the batteries going to the bulkhead connectors (mentioned previously) which end up in
here.
The fuses are not yet installed until I get a second opinion on everything!
With that hopefully out of the way I needed to turn my attention to a little problem with the bed lifting mechanism. Way back I had a little trouble with the frames of the motors being live and not being to be able to be connected in opposite directions. I thought I had solved that by making them both run the same way and mounting them driving one wheel through another. That has all been working fine until I combined the whole new electronic system with the old switching system. I had completely overlooked the fact that the chassis now becomes part of the system and while testing it with a separate battery works fine when the controller is hooked up to the new system it shorts out through the chassis and blows fuses.
DAMN!!
So I have had to pull the motors out (fortunately the batteries are no longer in the way or I'd be really cursing)
It looks like the problem can be solved by making a new insulating mount to replace the existing metal brackets I made before. Going to waste half a day but at least I know now why the fuse kept blowing when it had all worked fine with the initial tests.
No comments:
Post a Comment