4-Wheeling

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:11:12 -0800

Found some mud and drove through it :)
The truck has lot’s of power... need knobby tires though to get any grip in that stuff, I got stuck a couple times.

Burned a Post!

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:07:34 -0800

Both of the battery terminals on the inverter worked themselves loose and while under a heavy load the negative post melted off!!!
What a bummer, but the loose connections explained why I had been having problems starting.
Anyway I had to pull out the inverter and take it apart, remove the post and have another one made and install it all again.

Synthetics...

Tue, 20 May 2008 20:57:11 -0800

I got synthetic lube put in the transmission, hubs and axles today as well as getting the brakes adjusted and from preliminary testing it seems to have improved energy consumption by 5-6% :D

Will post updates when I have more data.

Brake Drag

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:37:31 -0800

I have had this feeling that my handbrake was all dragging because it has been really tight to pull on and it froze stuck a couple times this winter. So I jacked up the rear axle and sprayed WD40 on the levers, one of them was definitely rusted but even after loosening it up it still seems like the cable might be to short...
So I put it in 4th (1:1) and drove (wheels off the ground) 45mph, it was drawing between 18 and 20 amps! (at 312v) that’s like 6kw!! arrg.. just to spin the wheels.
Now that seems excessive to me.
So then I put in the clutch and timed how long it took for the wheels to coast down... 6 seconds! that seems way to fast to me... but what do I know.
Anyway it sounded like the drum was scraping half way around the revolution so they probably need to be turned.
I am going to take it in to a shop and have that all looked at and hopefully this IS a big issue and will give me lots of extra range once it’s fixed :D

Gas hits $4 gallon

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:59:57 -0800

Just went over $4 a gallon last week here in town...