Front Winch Mount

Not much progress this week, waiting for things to arrive, next week looks promising.  I did manage to get a start on the front winch mount.

I welded up the plate and drilled the holes in it and the corresponding mounting holes in the chassis rails and welded the retaining nuts into the chassis rails.

Next up, cutting the slot for the cable and mounting the winch, when it arrives.

Battery Connections and Wireing

Today I replaced all the battery wiring and terminals, I used 50sqr welding cable for everything except to cable to the starter motor, that is 70sqr.

I used a piece of 30mm x 6mm brass bar as a buss between the two batteries, the battery terminals are the type with a 10mm stud attached.

I have added an Anderson connector to enable jump cable connection.

I crimped all the cables with a hydraulic crimper and identified them with the appropriate colour heat-shrink tube.

Preparing for the Winch

I am fitting a 30000lb Hydraulic winch to the front of the truck (mainly for recovering Land Rovers and other trucks !! )

I intend to fit the winch behind the bumper so as not to affect the trucks approach angle. I know that behind the bumper makes it not as accessible as in front of the bumper, but  for the occasional use it will get i am happy to go that way.

The winch will be controlled by switch in the cab and a radio remote, it will use an air free-spool actuator making accessing the winch not as important.

To make space for the winch i needed to move lots of air pipes and a wiring loom and the hydraulic oil container for the power steering.

The winch will sit in an 8mm steel tray and be bolted to both chassis rails. I am going to use a stainless steel roller fairlead mounted to the front of the bumper.

Gear Change Mechanism

Because this is essentially an old truck, a few things have worn, not a lot because generally Tatra parts are bullet proof.
I noticed on the drive back from the Czech Republic that the gear stick was a bit floppy, as we all know a floppy gear stick in never a good thing.

I identified the worn parts with a little help from my friends at Skarab and replaced them with new ones,

Fitted.

Here is the assembled gear change mechanism waiting to go back in the truck.

Electrical, Fuse Board

Moving on to the fuse board, as you can see it uses the really old type ceramic fuses. No my style, i upgrades it to use standard blade type fuses.

Then inserted resettable blade fuses in all the slots.

This fuse board just serves all the standard truck stuff,  Ignition, Lights etc.

Cooling Control Unit - Finally Fixed

The ongoing story of the cooling control unit, Well it is finally fixed and working perfectly as it should.

This one had me going for a while, first it was not even wired up properly, next the sensors were broken, missing and not wired.
Then electronic components had failed in the unit.
That brings us to today;
After i had actually fixed the electronic side of the unit i reinstalled it in the truck only to find it still didn't work.
It was working perfectly on the bench,  all the truck wiring and sensors and valves were correct and working.

So this didn't make any sense at all, I decided the best option was to connect the unit to the truck whilst it was open and recheck everything at the circuit board itself.

Here it is connected to the truck ready for testing.

I discovered as i had suspected  that all the sensors were correct,  However when i checked the output to the oil valve that operates the fan, i found it to be shorted to ground.

I disconnected the multipin connector from the box and metered it there,  No short.  On further investigation i discovered that inside the control box there was another wire connected to the valve output as well,  when i removed it the short was gone !

According to the truck wiring diagram there should be no connection to that pin.  I can only assume that at some point someone had connected the wire on that pin to earth somewhere in the loom,  thus shorting the oil valve output and causing the fault.

Here is the offending wire now disconnected and insulated.

Alternator Upgrade - Continued

I finished the alternator upgrade,  Because the new alternator is physically larger than the old one, I chose a smaller pulley to allow me to be able use the original  belt.

I am happy now that i can carry the original alternator as a spare and swap it in only a few minuets if needed using the same belt.

Here it is working;