Ok I promised you guys the good and the bad, on what worked and what didnt work. Well I have been busy on other peoples crawlers all winter so mine has been sitting under a tarp with a broken this and that all winter long.
Well its time to get it out, I have a run at the Flatnasty off-road park at the end of this month so.......
Here is the downlow.......
I was having a steering issue with my hydro pump, it started not long after installation. When I would get up to high RPM's doing long hill climbs or cyclones in the mud, it would start whining the steering pump. I couldnt figure out why the 6000 RPMs for a minute or two would cause this problem. When I would let it set just a few minutes and let if cool off I would pop the cap on the reseroir and it would release pressure and have some air bubbles in it. Well I finally figured it out.
Last fall when I was at the Flatnasty off-road park I was trying a hill called "Get-it-Billy" which has a bounty on it cause only a couple rigs have made it up, ( no I didnt make it :banghead
I sat verticle for so long that the oil ran up the valve covers and up into the intake and into the PVC valve and sucked up the breather and started smoking like a freight train......yes it was basiclly straight up.
Well after that hill my pump started whining like I was use to after high RPMs but it never would stop, almost dark I thought well I will mess with it later, so we went on trail riding into the night. The owner of the park took us down some long dark creekbed after dark, climbing over boulders and trees and whatever lay in the way. He got hung on a big tree so I offered my winch and stinger to lift the front of his rig off the ground. Welll with a flash light I noticed a ton of fluid on the front axle. My first thought was I busted the oil pan again with the front chunk. Nope it was hydrolic fluid.
Well after looking at it closer during the daylight I finally figured out what my steering problem hauting me for months was........ I had cracked the can on the neck of the pump at the inlet. Hind sight is 20/20 right? Yep it is.
It didnt take me long to realize my huge mistake. Looking back I see how stupid I was, but sometimes you just cant think of everything. The problem was that I had the pump ofcourse mounted to the motor, the resevoir was mounted to the fenderwall/core support, with a short stiff big hose running to the neck of the pump the high torque of the motor was just working the neck of the pump back and forth until it cracked. The big problem was it would not show a crack or leak fluid until I hit High RPMs/torque then it would open just enough to suck air but not really leak any fluid, because of the sucking of the pump.
I figured out real quick that I needed to do something different so I decided to make a bracket for the resevoir so that it could torque with the motor and the pump.
Here is the hair line crack.....................
A veiw from the inside...............
Here was my solution........ Braze the neck back together and make it stronger.....
First I had to remove the can......
First take out the pressure valve........
Next the two can bolts......
Then start the brazing process........
Next I inspected the pump and made sure the shaving collecting magnet didnt have any shavings or debree....
Then I reinstalled the can in reverse order and now it is on to the problem of making it flex with the motor instead of fighting against it...
I made a new bracket coming off of the air conditioner pump......
And finally good as new :thumby:
Stay tuned to find out the other minor things that didnt......well go exactly as planned...