New Haul and Tow RV transporter truck build..... Season II

[pmmjarrett]

Rick, this is the absolute worst time of year to be out as an RV hauler. Very busy this year and everybody is behind shipping stuff. He hit that wheel hard and was dragging me with it. Tire is cut too.

Bob, he walked right past my truck and got into his and took off grabbing gears....... CRUNCH!!!!!!



On a positive note. The Freightliner got 12.34 mpg hand calculated running 1525.7 miles of mountains, some snow & ice and hard side wind all the way on 123.583 gallons of fuel. That comes to 14.1 - 14.7 mpg if you back out the 16 hrs of idle on that fill.

This is gonna be a good truck on fuel.

 

[pmmjarrett]

Well..... It's show time. '09 Taxes are done, '10 accounting caught up,still fighting w/ insurance on the old truck and a few other things around the house are caught uo so it's on to the truck build.

My budget is extreeeeeeeeeeeeemely tight on this build with the old truck out of commission, so I need to finish it and have it road worthy for under $4500 and need to get it done quickly so my plans have changed alot..... I ain't waiting anymore on the insurace fight. With my luck, and the speed of smell that they operate, it'll be next year before that mess is sorted out.

• Scratch getting the whole truck painted
• Scratch the 4 stainless toolboxes
• Scratch the thought of building the bed out of 6061 alloy aluminum or getting a steel be galvanised
• Scratch 2 new seats and carpet
• Scratch covering the whole deck in steel

Yep, she's been cut to the bare necessities.


Finished clearing out the shop yesterday to get the tail in to work on the driveline, hit it hard this morning and got the tail light assemly and tag axle off. The drive axle will be moved to the tag position giving me the 13' cab to axle measurement that I need. It will be a simple swap as the tag axle was a factory axle and both use the same suspention hangers, air bags etc.





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[pmmjarrett]

Just a quick update.

Didn't do any physical work on the truck today, all mental. Was working on the final plans for the bed and then went shopping.... A lot of shopping.


Purchased

• All of the steel for the bed
• 8' Aluminum low profile ramps
• 75' of 3M Reflexive conspicuity tape
• 4 lasso tire straps w/ flatbed rail style hooks on the ratchets
• Koneta Ultra rubber quarter fenders
• White 6" oval LED reverse lights
• 2" amber LED marker lights
• 2" red LED marker lights
• Amber 6" oval sequential LED turn signals for the rear
• Splash stop RV shield - Hula skirt
• D-T Aluminum 6" drop adjustible dual ball hitch
• Foot pedal for the TIG welder
• Argon Flowmeter
• 3 way brass valve
• and paid for the welding machine I purchased the other day on evilbay

That's enough damage to the budget for today. I should be back onto the axle swapping tomorrow and hopefully have it about done when this stuff rolls in.

 

[Bob&Patty]

DUDE, your good...BTW, when your thinking this hard, does all this stuff stay inside your head or does it sometimes run out your ear holes.

 

[pmmjarrett]

DUDE, your good...BTW, when your thinking this hard, does all this stuff stay inside your head or does it sometimes run out your ear holes.

When I think this hard it gets stuck in my head and pushes green stuff out of my wallet.

 

[pmmjarrett]

Ok, back to work.

Got a lot done today. Unloaded my stuff strapped to the frame deck. Removed the deck plate on the frame, Removed the fifth wheel, pulled the wiring harness and airlines up to the cab, took off the Wabco air leveling system, removed the drive axle and then moved it back to it's new position and bolted it in.

The drive axle is only bolted on to the suspension hangers. I have some frame work to do prepping for the drop frame section before I can put the air bags, shocks and track bar back in.

 

[pmmjarrett]

Air lines and electrical are done for the rear brakes and ABS system. Only electrical to do on the axle is to lengthen the wires for the differential lock sensor 60". Would have been done today buy I can't find my heat shrink tubing and didn't want to make a second parts run today.

Parts I ordered are starting to roll in too. Received my aluminum ramps, LED marker lights, Splash shield, quarter fenders and new wheel straps..... How come everything you need last is always the first stuff to arrive.




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[pmmjarrett]

Moving forward.

Spent yesterday chasing new and used parts everywhere between Florence, SC and Raleigh, NC and back into Raleigh again this afternoon to pick up the used driveshaft I bought yesterday in Florence that had to be lengthened 8" in Raleigh. Pretty good turn around time to retube and balance it of less than 24 hours from when I dropped it off at the Spicer driveline shop in Raleigh.

Today after burning up half the day on the road again and taking care of various paperwork I needed to catch up on, I moved the quarter fender mounts, bolted up the crossmember where I removed the 5th wheel and installed the new carrier bearing crossmember. I still need to slightly modify the carrier bearing mount so that it is the same length as the trucks original before I bolt in the new driveshaft, simple fix to cut it in half and add 4" to it.

According to UPS, the new welder and my steel should be here tomorrow so it's "show time".

 

[pmmjarrett]

Not much has gone as planned last 2 days, new Inverter Plasma cutter/ TiG welder lasted a whole 5 minutes cutting huck rivets off the frame after spending a few hours putting everything together. The seller said he will have UPS pick it up and refund my money so we'll see how that goes.




Good news is I scored a nice old 300 amp Airco AC/DC Heliwelder IV Tig machine on craigslist 60 miles from me today, I can live without the plasma. This will greatly increase my shops capabilities allowing me to weld nearly any type and thickness of metal this thing is a beast tipping the scales at an estimated 500 - 700 lbs or better. Yea baby, going back to old school

• Water cooler, 10 gallon stainless dynaweld unit.... need to get a new motor for the pump, it worked but was smoking... Not good..... will fix that tomorrow
• Has optional Pulser built into machine
• Foot pedal
• AC 6 - 405 Amps
• DCSP (DC straight polarity = electrode negative, ground/work piece positive) and DCRP (DC reverse polarity = electrode positive, ground/work piece negative) 5 - 315 Amps
• 60% duty cycle at 300 amps both AC and DC
• Flowmeter
• new Weldcraft WP-18 water cooled torch w/ 25' leads and at least a 15'-20' ground lead
• base w/ swivel casters on all 4 corners

 

[truknutt]

You forgot the "Tim Taylor Toolman GRUNT....Oooo-Oooo-Oooo-Oooo-Oooo!"

 

[pmmjarrett]

You forgot the "Tim Taylor Toolman GRUNT....Oooo-Oooo-Oooo-Oooo-Oooo!"

Roooooooooooooooo Nooooooooooooooooo..... I was still trying to catch my breath after about 3 hrs of playing a one man rigging crew with an engine hoist and a couple chain falls getting it unloaded from my dually, moving it across 10' of grass, squeezing it between the currently un movable Freightliner and the shop door and then getting it back onto the rolling base it came with. It took 5 big ol country boys to load this in the truck when I picked it up.

I got tools to fix tools Oooooo Ooooooooo Oooooooo Oooooooo Ooooooooooooooo

 

[truknutt]

There it is!!

 

[pmmjarrett]

Woooo Hooooooo...... I still have my TIG welding skills, TIG welding is a perishable art and I havn't used TIG in just over 15 years.

Managed to modify the carrier bearing hanger, lowering it 4" to match the original one on the truck to maintain the same driveline angle for the rear shaft I'll put in tomorrow. The new driveshaft bolted in perfectly. Only casualty here was 2 broken chrome sockets (ya I know I shouldn't use them on a 1/2" drive impact wrench but I needed a 12 point to get the bolts out of the old driveshaft and one didn't budge. Had to weld a nut on that one after breaking 2 sockets and rounding off the head, then it came out like butter.

Also drilled a hole and mounted the track bar, busted my nice expensive 5/8" drill bit on that one, need to replace it tomorrow because I still have several holes in that size to drill out.

And finally cut the huck rivets to remove all of the old axle mounts to clean up the frame. Need to get a few 3/4" grade 8 bolts to bolt the crossmember back in place where the air leaf mounts were.

Chassis is almost done.




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[irvin56]

looking good.
I hope you have someone in shop when your working. you never know what might happen.

have you been busy hauling Trailers. over the winter months down south?

 

[pmmjarrett]

looking good.
I hope you have someone in shop when your working. you never know what might happen.

have you been busy hauling Trailers. over the winter months down south?

I work alone out in the shop. As far as trailers go I spent January through the end of March working out of Oregon hauling trailers into British Columbia and Alberta.

 

[Mike Repp]

I wish I had your talents, you really do nice work.

 

[pmmjarrett]

I wish I had your talents, you really do nice work.

Oh anybody can do what I did today..... Turned a $100 piece of 1/4" plate that I had sheared to size (48" x 20") into a $100 piece of scrap metal by cutting off the wrong corner...DOH!!! .... made the notch for the air bags 11" deep instead of 9".

It's a structural piece that absolutly has to be right and the cut is right where some very important bolts are going so there ain't no fixing this booboo by welding the piece back in.

The good news is I only did it to one of the plates and realised it before finishing it up or worse..... making the plate for the drivers side identically wrong.

 

[jmgratz]

Happens to the best of us. Like they say, measure twice at least and cut once.

 

[pmmjarrett]

Happens to the best of us. Like they say, measure twice at least and cut once.

I did Jim, but I forgot to erase the extra soapstone layout lines where I didn't want to cut......... And of course that's the first one I cut.

 

[Netem]

Hey Mike I hate to tell you but these things only get worse with age. I turn the big 60 this summer and I do things I would have never done before.