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MJ on 42 Boggers continued

Here's a few more pics from last Sunday's run:



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Since apparently I'm going to be the "tow guy" when trucks break, I figured I'd replace the shackle mounts on the rear bumper. The old ones were 1/2" thick, they were certainly strong enough but only had 3/4" holes and my shackles are all 7/8" or larger pins. I'm all about overkill so instead of drilling them out I ordered some 1" thick mounts from Barnes through Amazon. Tracking told me that they would be here today so I cut off the old ones ahead of time. So when I opened the package today and realized that my shackle mounts didn't come in I was less than pleased. I checked tracking and now they won't be here until Monday. Oh well I guess I won't be the tow guy this weekend :cheers:

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On the plus side, it gave me a little time to work on my trailer. The brakes have been only working intermittently and before today I just haven't had time to look into it. I finally looked at them and found a few spots that where the wires go through the frame tubing, the grommets rotted and broke out causing the wires to short out. I built the trailer in 2001 so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I decided to use some PEX tubing and run new wires outside the frame. I only had time to pull out all the old brake and deck light wiring and get some of the PEX installed. At least now I have incentive to finish the job.
 
I installed the new brake and deck light wires and reconnected to the truck and still have a "Check Trailer Wiring" message. The truck is a 2014 Chevy Silverado with the ITBC integrated trailer brake controller. Additionally, when I pull the breakaway switch I get a "Service Trailer Brake System"message.

So I did a little research online and found that it could be a few things, trailer plug connector, brake wire or ground wire. The plug and brake wires are new, I didn't change the original ground wires because they are connected to SS studs welded to the frame and when I stripped the wire when installing the new axles there was nice clean copper wires.

The other possible cause could be a problem with the ITBC. I guess tomorrow night I will make sure that I have perfect grounds on the trailer and ohm out the brakes to see if thats the problem. If it turns out to be the truck I will probably just install a regular trailer brake controller. Based on what I'm finding online, problems with this system is pretty common and the dealers are hit or miss finding the problem, nevermind fixing it.
 
Figured out the trailer brake issue tonight. I have an auxiliary switch in the trailer tool box to activate the brakes. I found two issues:

1) The ITBC is reading the resistance of the indicator bulb and freaking out giving me the "Check Trailer Wiring" message.

2) When I activate the switch it sends voltage back through the trailer brake wire, again freaking out the ITBC which then gives me the "Service Trailer Brake System" message. When this happens I still don't get connection back until I remove voltage from the circuit (shut off the switch) and turn off and restart the truck.



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I was able to rewire my auxiliary trailer brake switch to open the circuit from the truck brake wire when I activate the switch. This solved the "Service Trailer Brake System" problem. For now I disconnected the ground wire to the indicator light, I'll get a diode from work tomorrow and that will solve the other issue.

Things were so much simpler with the add on brake controllers. The GM ITBC is just way to sensitive. I'm a little concerned with it's reliability.
 
I installed a diode in the aux. brake circuit on the trailer and now everything is working as it should. My driveway is a little steep so its nice to be able to lock all 4 trailer brakes when loading/unloading.


I also got the Barnes's shackle mounts in and got them welded on, painted and even hung a set of orange shackles just to make it look good.


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I planned on working on the wiring at a much later time, but I'm finding myself doing a little bit of road driving every time I go out so I figured I better at least wire the lights so I at least look somewhat legal :roflmao:.

I was good at wiring before, but now that I've spent the last 11 months "helping out" in the Electrical Department. I've become a pro at it. No more butt connectors for everything. Nothing but DT & MP connections now.

The only downfall is that now I know how to wire things theres no way that I'm going to just hack it together. So that means that this just turned into a project, and its going to get expensive. I just ordered a sealed PDM, some diodes, an LED flasher & some more connectors so I'll have to wait to complete it.

Well, at least I got the marker lights, turn signals, headlights, fog lights, permitter lights and winch controls wired on the front end. Of course that was probably the easy part. Now I need to get them into the cab and wire up some waterproof MIL spec switches and the PDM, that will take some time.

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Installed the compressors today, and like everything else, it turned into a project. The air tank only has one port on it and its on the bottom. So I welded a 1/2" bung on each end of it. I would have removed the tank to do this but I would have had to removed the fuel tank to get to the bolts so I just welded them on under the truck, not too pretty but functional.



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Once that was done I looked for a good location to mount the compressors. I wanted to install them in the bed but paperwork said to keep them away from moisture and I figured it would be a pain to protect them. Locating them under the hood is out of the question because of space so I decided to mount them in the cab. WOW space is in short supply on these trucks, you definitely need to get creative. My last rig was a full size Blazer so there was tons of room for anything I wanted.


I made up a couple mounting plates out of some scrap 3/16" plate, welded them to the rear floor channel and mounted the compressors. I figured that I'd plumb the system with PEX, it's rated for 160 psi and the press switch is set to turn of at 150 psi. so I should be well within a safe operating range. After a couple trips to the hardware store I was finally able to get the system plumbed.



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The specs say these things draw a combined 60 amps and I wanted to be sure that I didn't have another "THERMAL EVENT" so I'm using a leftover Warn winch solenoid instead of a relay to activate them. I was going to carry a spare but figured I'd just wire it in as a back up. If I ever have a failure all I have to do is move one of the jumpers in the MP-280 splice pack and it will switch to the back up solenoid. I'm using a 75 amp resettable circuit breaker feeding a 6 ga cable to the solenoids. From there a 10 ga wire is tied into the compressors so I shouldn't run into any excessive draw issues. I'm using a MIL Spec waterproof DPDT switch (eventually they will all be changed over to these) with an aircraft switch cover just to follow the theme of what was already there, plus I think they're pretty cool, and an indicator light. Not that I'll forget they are on, they are plenty loud enough in the cab to hear over just about anything. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out though, Theres plenty of clearance between the compressors and seats and I can clearly see the air gauge. The photo of the gauge was taken about 2 hours after I turned off the compressors so I clearly have a small leak I need to find.



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Now time for testing. The specs. say that it will take 1 min. 15 sec. to fill a 2.5 gal tank from 0 to 145 psi. I didn't think to time it but it certainly took longer than that to fill the tank. The other thing is that I really don't know how big the tank is, I'm just guessing at 2.5 gal. If I have time tomorrow I'll measure it as well as get an accurate fill time. I removed the valve core from one of my tires (42.5 x 13.5 x 17 Bogger) and completely drained the air. I then timed filling the tire from 0 to 15 psi. and it took exactly 2 minutes. And the compressors didn't drop below 80 psi while filling, so I was defiantly pretty happy with that. I also checked current draw while running them and found that it isn't that bad. For the most part it runs around 28 to 35 amps until about 120 psi or so. then goes up a little. It tops out at 45 amps just before shutting off at 150 psi. The thing that I didn't expect was the heat. I expected it to get hot, but wholly shit do these things heat up. The manufacturer has a caution not in the manual:

"CAUTION:
Never touch the air compressor or fittings connected to the air compressor, with bare hands during or immediately after use. The leader hose and fittings connected to leader hose will become very HOT during and after use. If necessary, wear heat resistant gloves to handle fittings, air line, and leader hose."


This is the understatement of the century, after running the compressor long enough to fill the 2.5 ??? gal tank and bring one 42.5 x 13.5 x 17 Bogger from 0 to 15 psi. the compressor head was 220 degrees and the end of the leader hose was 160 degrees. Thank god I made sure that there was a couple inches of clearance between these and the seats.
 
Next project: Beadlocks

I have the wheels and the weld on beadlocks should be here next Tuesday. Gotta say I'm a little excited about this one. And I get to make a spare tire mount. Only problem, I need to find a spare 42.5" tire now :eyes:. I'm guessing that will be more of a challenge than building the beadlock wheels .



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Defiantly more of a leak than I thought, the tank psi was at "0" psi this morning. I guess I have some leak testing in my future.
 
The beadlocks came in today so I figured I get started on them. I prepped all the wheels for them and tacked the first one in place. When I started jigging up the second beadlock for tacking I noticed that they didn't have the anti-coning rings on them. I stopped what I was doing and tried calling Chassis Unlimited to find out why I didn't receive them. I proceeded to sit on hold for about 15 min before the automated message kicked in and required me to leave a message. I left a message but don't expect to hear back until tomorrow. I already had the first one tacked in place so I figured they aren't going to take it back anyway so I might as well finish welding it now.

If they send me new rings they can send me 4 of them and a separate anti-coning ring.



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Well no call back from Chassis Unlimited today, but when I got home the anti-coning spacers were sitting on my deck courtesy of UPS. It looks like they shipped a day later than the other parts. The funny part is that the email I received with the tracking info only listed two packages which were the inner & outer rings. Still waiting for the 2" DOM to come in, bought that to bring the price up to get fee shipping. When I check my account on their website it shows that nothing has shipped yet.
 
I also got most of the parts for the disc brake conversion for the 14-bolt. I'm hoping to get away with not running a proportioning valve for now. I guess I'll have to see how that works out but the brakes absolutely suck right now so I figure it can't get worse.



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Four done and one to go. I should be able to get the last one done and get all the anti-conning rings installed tomorrow. With any luck I'll be able to get them painted too.



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Finished up by welding the anti-conning rings and painting the wheels. And finally the beadlocks are done! I was able to break down one tire and mount it on the new wheel. Holy shit, I forgot how much work it is to break down and change a tire by hand.



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All four tires are mounted, that equates to installing 128 bolts, tightening 128 bolts, torquing 128 bolts and torquing 128 bolts again. WTF, that sucked but at least its done.


The anti-conning rings didn't stop all the conning but I think they helped. It doesn't show very well in the photo but its more than obvious in person.



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Now that the beadlocks are done I've moved onto the rear disc brake conversion. The Caliper mounting brackets are RoughStuff, rotors and pads are AC Delco but the calipers are aftermarket cheep shit. The calipers didn't fit in the brackets, I had to grind off about 0.0625"+ to get them to fit. I can't say for sure what the reason is. Although the pads fit the calipers pretty loosely so my guess is that the Rough Stuff brackets that are made too tight.

I'll head to the parts store tomorrow after work for longer wheel studs, different brake lines and various hose and fittings. I'll have them functional by Saturday night, I have to, I've already committed to go wheeling on Sunday morning. Cant wait to air down and see how it does.




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Nice progress man!
 
Disc brake conversion is done, or at lease done for now. I'll install a proportioning valve later sometime. but at least the brakes stop the truck again.

I love this truck but the heat in the cab is absolutely ridiculous so decided to chop the roof to try and let some of it out. I used up the last of the orange paint on the beadlocks so I'll have to take care of that later sometime. But at least it's open now. I'm using an Alien Sunshade from a Jeep Wrangler for some UV protection. I'll find out tomorrow how it works.



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I have no idea what I can run safely for tire pressures, I ran 39.5 x 18 x 15 Boggers at 5 & 6 psi on my old Blazer but figure those had more volume. So I started a little higher and set the pressures at 7 in the rear and 8 in the front. Did some playing around before loading the truck up for tomorrow and drove it up the side of the trailer. Had quite a bit of tire squish so I'm guessing its pretty close to where it needs to be but I'll do some experimenting with the pressures tomorrow. I can't wait to get this thing back on the rocks!



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