92 The TowManche

[iimafa]

Took the rig out and headed south to red river gorge. The steering was getting pretty tough and forwards the end of the night I rolls into a mud hole pretty quick popping the tire off the bead and killing the pump. It was hard work driving it through the woods without power steering. I ordered another stock pump with the intention of modifying it, drilling out the orifice and increasing the pressure slightly. Also I started hearing a bad noise from the timing cover so with some reading I’m thinking it’s the chain tensioner. So I went ahead and ordered a tensioner and a new harmonic balancer, so in the next week or two I’ll pull it apart and try to get her back in shape. I also went ahead and ordered a thermostat controller oil cooler adaptor with the hopes to toss an oil cooler on the front. It get shot after wheeling all day and I’m hoping this will help slightly. 

[iimafa]

So I drilled out the orifice in a stock power steering pump, put a small #4 washer under the spring and tossed a new wheel on it.

BUT what I thought was a bad power steering pump turned out to be a bad steering box.
I’ve never seen this before but I managed to push the front cap out of the box. I’m assuming this was caused by not having the ring seated in it fully when I took it apart to add the hydros assist ports. To fix this I took the cap and snap ring from a Cherokee I had sitting in the yard, then tack welded the ring onto the casting to give me some piece of mind. 

 

[iimafa]

I set out to fix some electrical issues that have been bugging me when out on the trails. I had a 100 amp manual reset circuit breaker between the alternator and the battery. On hot days or when using the front large winch though this would trip and cause issues. So I came up with this after seeing how the badlands 12k winch uses auto resetting circuit breakers.

 So this isolates the battery in the middle, the engine and alternator behind 200amps and has the front winch behind 150amps.  The idea is half cocked, but I built it so I tossed it one anyways. The 150amp breakers should kick out a few seconds after when they go over 150 amps in an attempt to keep me honest and not destroy the winch/alternator/battery when using the front winch. Then after they cool down I’ll get another pull, the multiple conductors are supposed to act as a heat sink to help the whole unit stay cool. In the future I want to get a bigger alternator which is why I put 200amps on that side of it. 

If it works how I want only time will tell, but either way it was a fun project to build. 
resin 3d printed stand off, pla 3d printed mount. Conductors cut on the plasma table. it had a little bit of everything in this project. 

[iimafa]

I finally got around to making front fenders for the old girl, had some help with it also, the boys decided to help by drinking beers and rolling around in the garage chairs. Its been awhile since I’ve used the bender, but front a distance it doesn’t look half bad. It should help keep me from bending the fenders every ride. Beating the fenders straight has been a consistent job I have to do everytime I would get home from the woods.