3 Tons of Fun! Littles' Build, Travel, and B.S. Thread

I would think some sort of small metal shield thing that will hold shape when going 80mph would be better versus some tape/insulation like that which would probably just flap around in the turbulence.

Curious to see how this experiment plays out.
It makes me wonder about how bad the MT temps on my truck and crawlbox get

Have you weighed your rig to see what it totals out at with the addition of the flipac?

 

I could try something like that. I do think the air cooling on the sensors will be less of a factor once the skids are back on.

I havent re-weighed my truck since swapping over to the flippac. I'm afraid I will weigh in at 59xx lbs and have to give up my 3 tons of fun title. I recall when I added it all up it was actually lighter in total than my topper/prinsu/RTT setup by like 80-100lbs. I think the flippac is around 350 or 360lbs.

Ignorance is bliss. Daily driving around I dont think theres much to worry about.

 

Bingo.

yours is just slightly heavier than mine because 6’ bed.

 

Just completed another test drive.

I flipped on the cooler after 22 miles when the crawl box was at 120. The trans gauge immediately shot up to about the 160/170 mark and stayed between there and 200 as I continued to drive. With this configuration I am only going to get an accurate reading when the pump is flowing, and it's pretty damn consistent with my pre-install observations using the new sensor. Otherwise it's off by 30 degrees warming up.



Unfortunately I had to cut the test short when I heard what I thought was a loud pop. I shut everything down and looked over everything but saw no issues. In retrospect I think the pop I thought I heard may have just been my phone falling out of the holder and hitting my center console. At any rate, by the time I fired the truck back up and flipped everything back on, the trans was down to about 150/160 and continued to fall below the lower line which I'm guessing is 140. It stayed there the rest of the ride home during which I left the cooler running. Obviously I dont want it running that cold, but its all functioning mostly as planned.

It certainly wasnt the long drive through the mountains situation I'm most concerned about, but I'm going to call that a promising, successful test result. I'll be out playing this weekend and headed to west slope in mid sept, so I'll have more data soon.

I got to thinking about this on the drive and I really like this idea the more I think about it.

I dont want to over complicate it, but I've already got two relays in the mix...so i could swap those out and use a time on delay and time off delay to run the pump for 3 minutes every 15 minutes, and default to the thermostat in between. That would allow thermostat to do its thing above 180 and and cycle the oil through periodically below that temp.

SPDT time delay off relay
https://www.qualitymobilevideo.com/bu509td.html

HELLA 996152151 12 Volt 5 Pin 0-900s Delay On Time Control Unit

$54 HELLA 996152151 12 Volt 5 Pin 0-900s Delay On Time Control Unit

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003C508Y8

Or I could drill some holes in the transmission and be done with it.

Of course the big appeal to this setup for me was not having to drill.

 

Those are time delayed. Not timer. I was meaning something like this:
Timer WIFI 10 AMP 6V 12V 18V 24V TIME ON OFF DELAY CONFIGURABLE, CYCLING and OPTIONAL TRIGGER

$35 Timer WiFi 10 AMP 6V 12V 18V 24V TIME ON Off DELAY CONFIGURABLE, Cycling and Optional Trigger

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B083HN673G

 

Going to take a different approach to this....

What shape is your clutch, master cylinder, and lines in? What started for you to notice that the temp in the trans might be reaching hi temps?

 

They are all original with 120k. Visually the master, slave, and lines all look fine. The system is all working properly. I haven't noticed any slippage or chattering or anything different.

Nothing really triggered this I have just built up the awareness since the crawl box. Prior to putting the crawl box in Sept 19, I never gave temps a thought or paid attention. After they went in I made it a habit to start feeling how hot the sticks get and after a few occasions they got almost too hot touch on long trips, and I decided to install the sensors for fun times and learning. After a few months of monitoring via the gauges I wound up here. I had chalked it up to just having a heavy truck and running it hard over the passes, not necessarily anything being wrong.

 

Things that make you go hmmmm…

 

Realistically though, I am impressed with your endeavors in trying to solve for issue.

I need to give you a call this weekend so we can plan out October.

@6 gearT444E and I Are going to come out west. I just need to pacify Bonnie so I can get the plans solidified. Bear with me a little bit.

 

Thanks, that's how I would have wired it as well, what I was asking was where in the schematic the thermostat (switch) was in reference to your relay coil. You have wired it positively switched which is what I would have expected. I'm guessing you had an intermittent connection on the contacts of the relay to the fan/pump. Did you check polarity to the fan/motor, perhaps they were spinning backwards from how you intended them to flow and hit some kind of flow restriction. I don't know how you plumbed the cooler or what's upstream/downstream of the cooling unit so you may have dead headed the pump? Just a guess.

 

I gotcha, typically with manuals they do regulate heat fairly well and will have built in fins to help extract that heat at speed. Alot of issues when it comes to performance of them and feeling is the sluggishness. Which is actually at the clutch more times then not. More so older fluid, worn clutch, or alot of systems wont have a nice slave cylinder line to protect from heat and itll get heat soaked causing pedal stick, etc.

 

Gotcha. Thanks for the input. Polarity of the fan is correct. Flipping the wiring will just run it in reverse.

I think you're right about the intermittent connection but I think it was due some corrosion on the fuse panel contacts at the source. I say that because when I added in the second switched relay on Friday, the relay did the same thing initially and I noticed my positive bus bar was pretty dirty. Cleaned it up and voila it worked. I think I was getting just enough contact across the corrosion to give me correct readings on the voltmeter, but when the load got added the voltage dropped across the crud. Seem plausible?

Thanks for the thoughts on this. Most of the time it cools fine via the fins, but on those long series of clicks, it just slowly ticks up. On the trail it hasn't gotten too hot. Usually we are going slow enough and stopping enough that it cools fine. The only time it got really hot the trail was after playing in sand, and those fins were definitely clogged up.

I will keep an eye on the things you mentioned, but as of yet I haven't noticed any change in performance, and mechanically everything is working. I dont even have the squeaky pedal (knock on wood). At 120k I am guessing a new clutch isn't too far in the future so we will probably have a peak at a few of them soon.

I did get a chance to run a little longer yesterday on some hills and am pretty pleased with the cooler. It might be working a little too well, so that thermostat is going to be a must. Cooler got switched on at 20 miles and the trans was reading just under 200. As I continued climbing, it stayed pretty steady, and then slowly dropped down as the road flattened out. It seems like it holds at about 150/160 on flatter highway with the cooler running. That's a bit too cold. I dont plan to use it in normal highway situations anyway, but I am trying to develop some baseline observations in various driving conditions.

I probably wont have much more info to share for a few weeks till I get a longer trip in, but I will update as I get the wiring figured out. The timer or a combination of time delay relays makes the most sense to me to cycle the oil past the sensors and allow the thermostat to do its job.

 

You got your bucket of bolts back together yet? As of now I am off the first two weeks in october.

 

Chasing down a few popping and clunking noises in my front end that have been getting worse. Two culprits identified. Skid plate and batteries.

Both the square nuts that hold the front skid plate to the frame just behind the bumper broke off the frame. Easy enough to fix. I "welded" new nuts on but you dont get to see those because they look like shit.

I also noticed the batteries seemed a bit loose, so I pulled those. Everyone said dont put duals in the factory location. I didnt listen. Every single mount point for my off grid engineering dual mount broke off. The shit was literally just sitting on top of the fender loose bouncing around. One or more of these are going to the bed, but that's a fair amount of work and probably more long term. Not sure what I'm doing just yet in the immediate term. I knew it wasnt a great idea but I didnt think it would break down this bad this fast.



And here are my first cracks I have noticed in the top of the core support.



Wonder if this is why my hood hasn't been latching correctly?

 

Add it to the list! If you can beef it up, I'd much prefer to keep things where they are versus moving everything right now.

 

A lovely package arrived from Accutune today

 

Couple updates with more excitement to come...

Front suspension:



Got the front coilovers swapped out. Went from the 700lb 14" springs on the toytecs to 600lb 13" springs on the foxes. The 700s were way to stiff for my front end weight. I only got a short trip on the dirt to test them out on the washboards, but I am very happy with the initial results. The reservoirs took some work to position just right, and it definitely helped to have a second set of hands. I did the driver side, but my lovely assistant took the lead on the passenger. I think she's a keeper! Pretty cool having her take an interest in my hobbies and want to help out. I even managed to laugh instead of getting upset when she stripped the threads on the reservoir bracket bolt by running my impact on full blast 5 minutes after I told her to be careful and turn the power down before using it to put the parts back on.




She felt terrible about it as we drove from lowes to home depot and back looking for the appropriate thread tap and bolt. I kept telling her it was just the frame and no big deal. It took longer to run around and get the tool and new bolt than it did to drill and tap the new hole.



Rear suspension:

As for the rear end, it's all finally coming together after 2 years. I dropped my truck and some parts off at Warfab this weekend. The archive relocate has been here since April 2019, the shocks since July 2020, and final the decision to go with the 63s and all that circus just happened this year. After doing my measurements and looking at everything, I just don't see any reason to pair up 14s with my alcans.



Trans cooler update:

As for a little update on the trans oil cooler while its fresh on my mind...

I shed at least 700-800lbs in preparation for my trip out to Montrose to drop off my truck for the suspension mods Mike is doing. Skids, topper, decked system, tools, water and fuel. On the drive out, I flipped on the cooler about every 10-15 miles in order to monitor trans temps. Never once on the trip did the trans hit 200 degrees. The highest temp I saw was around 190 coming up the last mile of Monarch pass. Contrast that with the 220+ temps I reported on shorter trips when I was carrying weight.

What that indicates/confirms for me is that my theory regarding weight being the primary contributing factor to my elevated trans temps has some merit, versus there being a problem with my trans. I will have all the weight loaded back up and make a proper run out to Moab for Rock Therapy in October to validate further. The cooler itself is performing great, maintaining or reducing temps when it is running.

 

Looks great Mike!

I have always been skeptical of the clearance gains from the relocate, but now that it's all welded up I see another inch of clearance to be gained beating back sheet metal. I am a function over form guy, but the other thing I really like is that it doesnt look like shit anymore.

Looking forward to seeing the rear go in. The pics and updates are greatly appreciated!

 

Those are some gorgeous welds awesome progress replacing your beat suspension Bryan!

 

Thanks. It was definitely time. Those B110s are TIRED. They went on in 2016 at around 75K, and I'm over 115K now so they have a solid 40K on them.