The Green Grendel

[campfire]

Bump

It's taking me to work each day. The rear brake line leak was eliminated with some wrenching. And I took the opportunity to install the proportioning valve up at the M/C. Brakes are now balanced. The only issue is that now the valve is leaking. And quite a bit faster than the rear was.

Otherwise it's just putzing around town from point A to point B. I've built a bunch of confidence in it over the last 8 months. As long as I add brake fluid every 100 miles.

 

[Justin V]

Bump

Double bump

 

[campfire]

I tried retightening the brake line, we'll see if that eliminates the leak. Otherwise I'll probably chuck the proportioning valve. Braking wasn't horrible without it. I replaced the leaking injector return line. And installed my CB radio for next week's camping trip. 4 days to go...

 

[campfire]

Oh, I swapped the old oddball tire back to the spare position, and it rewarded my efforts by promptly committing suicide. Split open like it was in the Arizona sun. Really odd for our cold and cloudy area.

 

[campfire]

Retightening didn't work. The NPT pipe threads were bottoming out before they got tight. Oreilly's sells a valve with a proper flare fitting, but they couldn't get it here in time for the trip. The local hotrod shop didn't have any either, but they suggested buying a standard 1/8" coupling so as to isolate the coupling from the valve (in case this was a tolerance stackup issue). They also recommended switching to pipe thread paste instead of teflon tape.

Surprisingly, doubling the number of NPT threads worked. But the flare fitting then leaked.

So I cut and reflared the line, and bled it all out again. It seems to be working now, and all 4 wheels lock up together.

On the last test drive the speedometer went dead. Hoping the cable just slid out of place under the dash.

I don't see any more fuel leakage, but I'm still smelling more smoke than I would like.

Otherwise we're fueled, oiled, and packed. We leave for the overland trip in 21 hours.

 

[AgDieseler]

I'm still smelling more smoke than I would like.

That might improve with mileage. It took my truck about 2 tanks of fuel to ditch the cold idle smoke following an extended period of minimal running/driving. I'm also convinced Stanadyne blue stuff compensates for some variabilities at the pump.

David

 

[campfire]

That might improve with mileage. It took my truck about 2 tanks of fuel to ditch the cold idle smoke following an extended period of minimal running/driving. I'm also convinced Stanadyne blue stuff compensates for some variabilities at the pump.

David

It's true the truck has been mostly sitting for a couple weeks. But overall it has been on DD duty for 9 months now (for my whopping 5 mile drive to work). Shouldn't be having sitting issues now.

Looking back over that time period, I've had a loose oil coupling, two loose brake couplings, and leaks from two ancient injector return lines.

I'm very happy with the maintenance record.

 

[campfire]

Things different this week include dribbling fuel on the exhaust during the line replacement, dribbling brake fluid on the other exhaust manifold during the coupling swap, and driving around with the rear window down (so the foot vents are dumping in more under-hood air than normal). Maybe I'm just smelling it more?

We'll give it a few hundred miles and see how it goes.

 

[454Sub]

Hold her to the rug, let that 6.2 sing the song of it's people.

 

[max 02]

And you packed a couple of real good fire extinguishers! Right!?

 

[campfire]

And you packed a couple of real good fire extinguishers! Right!?

Yessir!

 

[campfire]

Yooper Trip is in the books, and we are back home safely. The fuel line worked, the new brake fitting held (despite plenty of bouncing), and I left the dash bezel at home because I still haven't taken the time to trace the 24V voltmeter problem. The speedometer broke the night before we took off, and the issue is inside the transfer case. So we went without this time, driving off of phone GPS speed estimates.


We drove about 850 miles (guessing due to the freshly broken speedometer), and the truck had zero mechanical issues on the road. With one large caveat. I dumped the poor Grendel into a puddle, and took on water for a few minutes until getting winched out by my traveling buddy.

Water poured in through weight-reducing holes in the floor and non-existent door seals. Pictures were not a priority, but we grabbed a few blurry ones while waiting for Adam to spool out his winch. Outside, water covered almost all of the rear bumper and buried both the headlights. Inside, it rose gradually until the driver's seat was submerged and the water started to flow over the tranny hump where the shifters are, and also onto the bed floor where the camping gear was located. The passenger side had less water but still soaked the bottom of the seat before we reached dry land.






I will admit to getting slightly impatient as I saw myself turning into a mermaid. But it's hard to complain when you have a friendly tow strap bailing out your own stupidity.

Thankfully, most of the gear up on the bed floor stayed dry, and most of the gear in the front didn't matter too much. Aside from my paper maps, of course.

The engine stayed running, and once we got back to shore everything looked fine and functioned normally. After a minute or two of having no belt accessories, the belt squealed back into life and we were back in business. I have never imagined being so glad to hear a belt squeal!




I still can't figure out how the intake kept dry. It certainly couldn't have done so if I had been running the stock air tube running down to the core support.

 

[campfire]

Pictures of the offending puddle. It was shallow on both sides with a transverse gorge that swallowed the truck quickly, one axle at a time. No current during this adventure, but it clearly hadn't always been so calm.

After extraction:






Then Adam pointed out that the puddle had a bypass. It wasn't a great bypass, but it wasn't as soggy as the puddle, so I drove around the water instead of through it.




When I first opened my door to let the water out, I tried to catch the various baby clothes, diapers, tow straps, etc. that flowed out of the cabin. But I failed to catch my water bottle (the white floaty thing in that last picture). So it floated around in the puddle for a while. Adam eventually fished it out, so I consider the bottle a survivor as well as the truck.

 

[campfire]

Then the next puddle, just a few feet further, was deeper and wider, and had no bypass. So we turned around, went back through the swampy bypass we had just crossed, and wandered our way back to paved roads.

Live and learn.

 

[campfire]

After that adventure, I checked the engine oil for contamination, and continued through the rest of the week without any breakdowns. Now, after the 850 miles, the engine has lost almost a quart of oil. Visually, this appears to be coming exclusively from my newly-replaced rear main seal. 2-piece, of course.

I am planning on checking/flushing the other bodily fluids in the near future. The only thing I noticed (toward the end of the trip) is that I get a low groaning sound when I start moving while the wheels are turned hard to one side. As in pulling a U-turn (something we did plenty of on this trip). I hear a gearcase-starved-of-oil sound then and only then. I figured this pointed to the front axle until I remembered that I had turned the lockouts back to the free position (verified that the front driveshaft is not turning). The back is locked with the Detroit, so it's not differentiating any more. I'm not sure what other options I have. The problem persists in both 1st and 2nd gear, and it goes away as soon as the wheels move back toward center.

Both axle vents were well below water level, and the tranny/T-case vents were as well (though not for as long a time).

 

[campfire]

Overall, given my stupidity, I'm very impressed with how well the truck handled it. I was not very many inches away from hydrolocking the engine and having a much sadder day.

 

[campfire]

And you packed a couple of real good fire extinguishers! Right!?

Wound up not needing either of them. Kind of ironic, I come prepared for fire, and end up deluged.

 

[campfire]

That might improve with mileage. It took my truck about 2 tanks of fuel to ditch the cold idle smoke following an extended period of minimal running/driving. I'm also convinced Stanadyne blue stuff compensates for some variabilities at the pump.

David

Smokey smell in the cabin has been determined to be a combination of my rotted-out stock exhaust and my holey floor. No isolation from the carcinogens, they waft right in. So this problem is easily fixable.

 

[campfire]

Hold her to the rug, let that 6.2 sing the song of it's people.

Been there, done that. Offroad with the NV4500 was a different style of driving. In a mostly good way. When cruising through this stuff, I did not like the wide gear splits and slow shifting times. No bueno.






But when idling my way up rock ledges, the stick-shift/idle-governor combination made life easier.

Given the bulk of what we drove through, I was not missing my built 700R4.

 

[campfire]

@AgDieseler, I'm also getting visible oil spots all over my tailgate, same as the Suburban. So injectors are a good idea.

This truck has grown on me a lot this week. I still don't have much motivation or reason to keep it. The burb will do sooooooo much better hauling kids. But given how much gnarlier this year's trip was, I would not have wanted to haul a burb through several of our spots. Traveling with a 2-door JK, my turning radius was already a handicap.