By
2017 Thor had accumulated a bit over 70km under my
ownership. We do regular maintenance on the truck, but
sometimes lack of use is worse treatment than hard use. In
this case, I had taken a consulting gig that prevented our travel
for nearly a year. During that time, the truck sat in my
driveway slowly eating itself. I had purchased an Engel
cooler to be installed in our center tool box to provide cold
beverages and ice during trip. The installation spanned
months as the consulting gig kept eating up my spare time.
When the mechanical installation was complete, we attempted to run
electrical to the unit and discovered that the voltages were
low. During subsequent investigations, we discovered a set
of interconnected issues.
We
were preparing for a summer road trip and discovered a multitude
of problems had occurred during Thor's extended vacation. To
meet our goal of seeing the solar eclipse from the path of
totality, we needed to get our repairs in motion. We tried
to start the truck and discovered that the starter had developed a
hitch. Having never removed a starter, it looked like a big
job. And it was. Not because the removal was
difficult, but rather it was clearing a path to the starter that
was difficult.
After
staring at the tight working conditions, I concluded that the only
way to access the starter was by removing some exhaust plumbing,
linkages and the turbocharger return oil line. Above, the
exhaust line was removed from the turbo. Fortunately, our
recent turbo service left some non-corroded bolts that allowed an
easy removal.
Several
linkages have been removed as well as the exhaust line to allow
viewing the starter.
The
access to the bolts that held the starter in was occluded.
The biggest issue was there was no "straight shot" from the
outside world that would allow putting a socket on the nuts.
In the end, I ground a socket that allowed access skirting the
shoulder of the starter. Add in a wobbly extension and we
were in business.
The
mounting points looked quite clean.
The
starter is a big chunk of meat.
Doing
some web-work, I discovered that I could examine the brush cup of
the starter. I mounted it in the vice and tore into it.
The
shaft protection cup.
Stator
housing removed showing the rotor. It was in good
shape. It turned out that the solenoid was the issue.
Rebuilt
and clean, it was only $150 to get repaired (and several days).
Rebuilt
unit installed.
All
the parts put back in place.
Next
up were the truck batteries. I had installed a multi-channel
marine charge maintainer on my battery array, but since the issue
was with the Xantrex controller, the charge maintainer had no
shore power, thus allowing the batteries to be damaged.
Heavy, awkward and expensive, the batteries were simple to
replace.
The overall source of the problem was the box in the center of the frame above - thet Xantrex inverter/charger. As you can see, I outdid myself during installation, packing components tight into the available space. Removal was a hassle, but we finally were able to get access to the unit without a full removal.
Oops,
there is a problem here. A simple visual inspection showed
the likely cause of the issues.
For
whatever reason, the hot side of the input line had become a high
resistance connection and started on fire. The issue went no
further than the junction box. We are not sure when this
happened, but there was never the smell of smoke in the
cabin. Happily, when the bad wire was removed and low
resistance crimped connections were used, the unit came back to
life and was performing correctly. After opening access to
the guts of the system, I concluded that given the electrical load
of the Engel, it was time to finally install solar on the
roof. Once that task was completed, the truck should be
fully self sufficient.
Back
to the original task - installing the Engel cooler. We had
installed industrial drawer slides inside the tool box years ago
and they served us well carrying our Yeti ice box. We were
lucky enough to have the same mechanical setup work for the
Engel. Almost. The Engel cooler was deeper than the
Yeti and needed a bit of help to prevent a mechanical
interference.
A
second set of drawer slides were required to allow the Engel to
open without interference. These locking slides were
installed flat due to space restrictions.
The
Engel is a nice unit and fits within the existing
infrastructure. We may need to add vents to the tool box,
but we are going to run it for awhile to see.
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Photos and Text Copyright Bill Caid 2017, all rights
reserved.
For your enjoyment only, not for commercial use.