Hello all,
Thought I'd give an update after a week or so. I had a few weeks off and decided to make some suspension changes along with getting the new body mounted. We dropped a gear off the B&J and had Scott Law build us a straight drive NP208. Somewhere along the way I managed to install the B&J sprag in backwards so the first test & tune failed miserably. She wouldn't pull in low gear and she killed the engine in high gear. Thanks go out to all the young boys that showed up to lend a hand and I apologize for my ignorance. At least we put a lot of beer away. lol
A day long fight with the B&J (again my ignorance) and some fab work on the u-joint guards ran into a late Sunday evening Test and Tune.
Here the boy is circulating the fluids.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy4A4MYexEc
Craig makes a couple attempts to heat up the slicks to the point they will bite. I think we need to get this thing on the scales and do some pre-loading.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBUnSFJDj0E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztg2BMAWV-E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDFDpmOCyaI
Now this last video doesn't reveal much other than the launch and the beginning of a wide open run-away. Yep that's right. Craig was to lift just as the end of the concrete came up but as the video shows, that sum biatch was on full power long after he went out of sight. And wouldn't luck have it that the rack decides to stick at WOT???? He missed my nephews razor by fractions of an inch and managed to spin the thing around in the yard just about 3 feet away from our chicken coup. From where we were, once he went around the end of the race trailer, he was out of sight and all I could here was the 5.9 screaming and all I could see was a ton of dust. I immediately got it in my head that the boy was on his top in the middle of our garden. When I rounded the race trailer he was actually setting on 4 wheels on the ground holding the brakes and the clutch with everything he had while the slicks were beginning to roll some serious smoke and his left hand was pulling on the manual fuel kill. The first thought was to run over and get him out of the heap, but, he couldn't let go the clutch so I reached in began pushing with everything I had on the fuel kill. By some
miracle of God, the thing started slowing down and eventually quit. There was our brand new S480 along with the new hood stack glowing a bright orange with the sounds of a hot pan of bacon frying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGFOoNRtOhw
I know what most of ya are thinking right about now 'cause I used to have the same ignorance. Let me tell ya first hand, a run away like this is very, very dramatic. Lets forget the piles upon piles of money thrown at this thing and the countless hours upon hours of work to get it where it is, lets focus on my only son setting in a run away knowing if he let the clutch go things are only going to get worse.
Thank God this heap decided to shut down. Why it shut down is beyond me 'cause after talking with our pump man, the fuel kill wasn't doing nothing.
Now I can guarantee one thing right here and now that you can absolutely bank on, we will be reinstalling our air kill and it will be used on every single pass we make. I don't care if it takes ten minutes to get the thing fired back up and out of the way, that air kill will be pulled on every pass!!!!!! Why?????? For the ones who haven't seen this little girl get with it in person, she's a monster. Now just try to imagine the same run away happening at the end of the one of mud runs we've done in the past. You would have maybe a .1th of a second to realize the problem and by then the crash would just be starting!!! Remember, we are now running a weighted clutch in front of a pretty much neutraless B&J. When that engine gets around 5000rpms, you can forget dis engaging the clutch. I can only
thank the man above that this happened like it did and damage was minimal.
I took, yet again, another day off work and ran the pump and injectors to Mountaineer Diesel. I can't thank Dale Burns enough for what he has done for this effort. His shop is full of work and he takes to time to have the 'Master' Rich test my injectors and find the problem with the pump. At this time, it appears the #1 plunger over pressured and mush roomed the base.
Reasoning to follow, if I can find one???? By the way, The Transfer mud races are a no go!!!