Speed up a 969?

[kw573]

Hello all,
John, when you say USD125 "a piece", does that mean I'd get a 5557 + a 5520 for USD125? If so, then hmmm , as I've just ordered eight 5557's at USD88 each and eight 5520's at USD107 each!! Of course there is no freight on that (yet). The only US supplier I found (thanks to this thread!) was about the same price. I also emailed about 8 suppliers that I found on Milweb, and only 3 even bothered to reply, and only one is prepared to chase prices! I suppose that I'm too small a player, or people are not interested in doing business down-under. Either way, I have very little joy with major suppliers overseas.

Yes, the spring seats have had grease nipples (zerk fittings?) fitted. Whether I use grease or oil or a combination will depend how well the sealing works. As the movement is bearly 30 degrees rotation either way, I plan to fit 'O'-rings and see if they keep a high quality heavy oil in place. This would give the best lubrication I believe. If it leaks too much, I'll add a suitable grease via grease nipple. I think.

As for the wheel bearings, modern practice is to use lip-type seals and grease. Yes, some use oil. Felt retainers would have me constantly wondering if they are doing their job, or are the brakes being lubed (despite the slinger arrangement fitted) and are the bearings still adequately lubed, or has moisture ingressed? It doesn't seem to be a big job to fit seals, they are about AUD20 each and look as if they will almost go straight in. And I would expect far superior service from them.

Sgt. Hancock
thanks for the comments and suggestions. Respectfully given, as you have, these are one of the major drawcards of these forums in my opinion. I fully intend to follow up your suggestions. The reason that I have headed for a japanese engine is familiarity (I've worked on them before), availability, reputation, price and rev range. I have been led to believe that I would not be able to get a diesel USA engine that would be comfortable at much over 2500rpm with the power for a 9 ton truck. This is important to me in order to have at least a moderate cruising speed on the highway of around 50mph. I intend to rally this truck for the next 2 or 3 decades, so what I do needs to be comfortably sustainable. Of course, a USA engine would be a lot 'closer to home', and a lot easier to fit viz. imperial engine to an imperial gearbox vs. metric engine to imperial gearbox.
As for desecrating a historic relic, I intend to fit the engine with zero mods to the vehicle, in such a way that it could be lifted out and an original engine fitted and it would look as if it had never been any different. No extra holes drilled anywhere, nothing cut off or welded on.

The spring seats, that mount on the trunion, have had their bushes incorrectly fitted, and have trapped moisture which corroded to inside surface. see below.


So, I welded it up.


Then tried to file it back to original.


This didn't work. I wasn't patient enough. So I welded it up again and put it on a lathe and turned it out. Success.

This is pressing the old bushes out. Anyone want to sell me some NOS ones?


Thats all for now. Have a nice day. Sam.

[kw573]

Hello all,
Lately I've been attending to various small items. Eg, instruments, which require CAD drawings of the faces to be made to be sent to the instrument repair man, as most of my gauges are repairable and the major cost is screen printing new faces. Hmmm, time consuming.
And I've started a closer look at the wiring in the cabin. There are three looms there:- main, that goes from the terminal block to the switches/gauges; dipper, that goes from the terminal block to the dipper switch (that wasn't difficult!!) ; and charging, that goes from the regulator to the gauges and generator.
But here a few other bits and pieces.
The pintle hook came from another truck, a wreck on a dis-used mine site in the outback. The shaft was bent part-way along, how it got bent there, I don't know. Perhaps it was used when not properly assembled in its' mounts. Anyway, the press fixed that.


The next problem was that the end of the hook had been reduced, presumably to recieve a much smaller ring, or more likely, a hole in a flat plate. So that was welded up and ground then flapper-disc'ed to shape.



I've also started on the torque rods. There are eight of them, four of fixed length and four adjustable length. This makes it an eight-rod suspension, of the "new-way" style. The heavy wrecker is a six-rod suspension, none of them are adjustable, their mounts are instead.
To dis-assemble the adjustable ones took a large pipe wrench and a good vise. The best vise I have at this time is the one I made a bracket for to go on the Heavy Wrecker vise-bracket. A good excuse to get the Kenworth out!


The fixed-length ones are mounted at the bottom of the suspension and have a ball joint with a tapered pin, like a tie-rod end on a car. They are apparently packed with a material like webbing. Anyway, one was dodgy, but I managed to get a NOS replacement end for the adjustable rod, and just pressed the worn one out and the NOS one back into the non-adjustable rod.
The adjustable rods have a ball-and-tapered-pin on one end, and a vulcanized bush on the other end. Although these ends are designed to be replaced as a unit, I pressed the vulcanized bush out for a closer look.


I used a press plate that I had cut out to size by laser cutting, and a 3/4" drive socket to fit. Worked fine.


The bush can be seen to have a dislodged rubber. It was like that on the truck.
I have found some replacements that fit, but are a little different design. Perhaps post-war design. I'm going to see what is involved in having them re-vulcanized.
Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions that could help with any of this?
That's all for now. bye, Sam.

[40 Chevy]

Sam;
I was fortunate to find NOS upper rods, my lowers wer O.K., just cleaned them up. There is a company in the US that makes new ends that I think will work, you just weld the ends onto the rod.

http://www.atrobushing.com/index.php#

John Gott

[Ben Dover]

Southeastern Equipment at one time had NOS DT Torque Rods.

[softskin_driver]

Hi John I have used Atro for the Hendrickson rods and beams in my International M-5H-6 in the past they are very helpful and carry an impressive inventory of parts. If they don't have it they can make it.
They are a polyurthane supplier not rubber.

[40 Chevy]

Sam;

I sent you a PM. Let me know if you got it.

John

[kw573]

John,
yes, I got it and have replied. Thanks.
I'm glad to know that my PM's work at least some times!

Sam.

[kw573]

Hello all,
Here are some more pictures relating to my last few posts.

Firstly, the completed pintle hook, fitted.
The pin that pivots the locking catch was a bolt, 3/4" if I remember. I replaced it with a cut-down high tensile bolt shaft. it is held in place by the small bolt that can be seen. This needs a small groove ground in the shaft to clear the bolt and thus lock the pin in place.


Here is the ball and tapered pin pressed out of the torque rod end.


And how it should look.


This shows the vulcanized bush type rod end, the style off my 969 (bottom) and the style available to me. These are NOS military in Reo packets, but are the same size, complete with the small toothed section on the end of the inner bore which engages on the pin when fitted.


More to come.
Sam.

[kw573]

Hello all,
I have finished and fitted the trunion for the tandem assembly. On an earlier post, I showed it being welded up and machined back to size. Here is that part, fitted. I won't really know how good it is until I get it all assembled. I have found some old large bronze bushes which I think I can machine a new set of bushes to go on it. The oil holes can be seen.


This pin is a NOS part for the vulcanized bushes that are on the chassis end of the upper torque rods. The 20 ton Federal 604 tank transporter seems to use the same chassis mount, pin and rod ends as the 969. The large groove takes a 1/2" locking pin. You can see the splined section that matches with the bush shown in the previous post. It think that they need to be a pretty firm fit!


Here is a new game for me, reproducing wiring harness. I picked up a bit of the original-type wire, copied the old cab harness, took measurements from the cab and drew it all out on some cardboard. Then cut some holes to thread wire through to keep it in place and started placing wires. Hmmm, they are different lengths, colours, sizes and go to different places. This small harnes took me 2 hours to get this far!



Now, who can tell me what's going on here.

The rear diff crown-wheel (bevel gear) bearing is listed as a No.218 (OD 160mm, bore 90mm, width 46mm).
What came out was a 217SS (OD 150mm, bore 85mm, width 27mm)!!?!
Why does the SNL list a different size to what is actually there?
Here is the listing.

This must have caused problems in service. I know it took me a while to realize there was a problem. I just ordered off the SNL numbers.
Anyway, comments/observations are welcomed. Have a nice day, Sam.

[kw573]

Hello all,
The cool weather has slowed me right down, but I have been chugging along.

I managed to finish and fit one set of spring seat bushes. I turned their O.D. 0.001" per 1"diameter of bore oversize, and this gave a press pressure of 3 odd tons. I also pressed them 5mm into the housing to make room for 6mm 'O' rings to go on later. Then I assembled it dry and there was a very little movement. Then some oil and no movement.


And the first side assembled, oiled and adjusted. And the spring, complete with new centrebolts, clip bolts and paint fitted. I was not able to find long nuts and am not happy with double nuts, so the old pitted ones will have to do until I find some replacements.


Then I finished and fitted the firewall wiring harness. It went together well, but not perfect. The loom is modern plastic stuff covered with cloth tape, it works well and looks the part.


Interestingly, the dipper switch, which I think is original, is almost identical to other truck ones from 1940s' + 1950s' eg Oz internationals.


Now, to finish the other spring seat, and start putting diffs together with new bearings.
Happy trucking!!
Sam.

[appel]

your work is amazing!

i have NOS front nuts if they are the same as the back i can helpt you...

nick

[kw573]

Hello Sgt. Hancock,
Although it has taken me a while, I did check out that webpage. It's certainly a handy bit of transmission. I don't see that the 969 would have the space, being a fairly short truck, with a transfercase in there already.

Look on line at Brown Lipe transmissions. A.K.A. brownie box. Particularly Spicer 5831. It is an "under drive - direct - over drive" transmission. It is installed between the transmission and transfer case. Respectfully, Sgt. Hancock.

The drive shaft between the gearbox and transfercase is barely a foot long as it is.

However, I am still looking at options, and will continue until it's time to do an engine job. I even plan to investigate having a new set of overdrive gears made for the gearbox that would allow the use of, say, a Cummins 6CT or 6BT and still get 50 MPH cruising.

The jury is still out. Have a nice day, Sam.

[kw573]

Hello Nick,
I checked out the spring U bolt nuts. The book calls them "spring clip" nuts. (Hell of a clip!) The rear are 1"-NF special (DT7095), the front are 1"-8NC (N11311G). So, no they are not the same. Thanks for the thought.
More to come. It's a cold and rainy day here today. Hmmm.
Sam.

[kw573]

Hi guys,
This is my third post on the same day. It's 8.45pm local time.
Had an interesting day. One of the rear springs has been laying on the end of a bench for a week now waiting for me to get some energy or assistance to lift it onto the spring seat and bolt it down. It's very heavy for me. That came this morning, we dropped it in place and, as I'm doing things in no great order, I thought I'd bolt it down while I felt like it. The "spring clips" ( 'U' bolts) are already painted, but when I dug out the nuts, this is what I found.



They are much worse than the other side, already assembled. I have already found out that finding such a long nut would be an involved process, so I decided to weld them up. I wire-buffed them clean, MIG welded them, ground the faces back to size, re-welded the spots I missed, re-ground back to size, re-welded the remaining spots I missed and ground them back to size and smooth.



And this is what I got. . . . 4 hours later!!



The last thing to do is run a tap through them in case the welding caused some shrinkage, test fit, paint, assemble, and torque to around 450 f/lbs.
Easy!
Then have two days off to get over it.
If anyone says they've got new ones of these, I'll be . . . delighted.
Happy restorations. Sam.

[appel]

hello sam

did you receved my email?

thanks nick

from hoobler1@hotmail.com