mr.mindless

Boulder, that sounds awfully similar to my buddy's setup, and not too far from my own. Plenty haven't had issues, obviously, but too many for my taste. I'm sticking HD.

What are your uses for the truck? DD and light towing the 5sp is great. Tow heavy and you'll miss the extra gear split. 3-4 is a big jump in the 4500. If you tow heavy with a modded truck, expect grief from a nv4500. A friend of mine with an identical truck to mine is gathering parts for a Fuller 6sp swap after stripping teeth from 5th just like I did. His truck sees local driving with a mini excavator behind it 90% of the time. NV5600 is getting harder to find, no doubt. That took it off the table for me - cost of a 5600 swap was on part with the RTOO9513 I did. Difficulty obviously pales in comparison but that's a minor detail. A G56 6 speed may be the better answer but I have no intimate familiarity. I've got one friend with a trouble free unit in a high mileage third gen but he's only had it for a couple years and doesn't put many miles on. Not sure about the cross member situation; didn't the nv5600-g56 changeover come with the second-third gen swap?

If you don't have drops on the ground, you're not looking at a lappet cover, timing cover, timing case, main seals, or oil pan. They all drip enough to coat things under the truck and it'll drip after shutdown. When I had a loose timing cover and bad tappet gasket it would give me a dozen small puddles the width of the engine by by the length of the block or more. Lack of excessive crankcase pressure throws me, I would have expected blowby to be the cause. Almost has to be turbo.

I bet there's a PCM difference as well as possibly an ECM difference on the ISB (24v) and newer trucks.

Truck hasn't stayed parked for long enough to determine if the drawdown was due to charging issues or if it's unrelated. Since I disconnected the bad battery it's been better but not resolved. Hoping with a better charge while running it'll behave - starting out with a low battery is never a good place to be when sitting for a week.

Given the intermittent nature, I would almost bet on a cracked solder connection somewhere

Zero flickers at all in 4 hours of after-dark driving. Bet the alternator failing was the main issue all along. Hopefully it didn't actively kill the one battery, but now at least I don't think i have reason to fear replacing them.

Been a while on this one, but figured I'd update.I got a new trailer that's all incandescent lighting, so a lot more draw with the lights on. The voltage issues were coming back. Disconnected the grid heaters and that wasn't it.I video recorded the voltage gauge on the dash, and found it wasn't voltage drops, but spikes I was seeing. Watching the PIII again I was seeing nominal voltage of only about 13.2 running with my lights on, spiking to 13.7.Finally pulled the alternator Weds and had it tested. It passed one or two tests and failed the rest. Testing machine was asking 14.8v from it and it was able to provide a max of 13.2 and was at 12.8 nominal. Right after startup, at idle with lights and fan on, my truck would sit at 12.0 for a little while according to the PIII. Definitely fits.I Just picked up a new alt, and it'll be installed before a trip to Richmond VA tonight - tomorrow, hopefully I'll be done with this now.Shame that an AC Delco reman only lasted 50,000 or so. I put that in the spring after I got the truck.

It's the torque management that can work with the TCM that allows the higher levels on the slush boxes now. Remember if you want that 6sp in a light duty truck Dodge is your only option now. Ford and Chev dropped manual transmissions entirely begin the oil burners a while ago.

Looking forward to the before and after comparison numbers!

Nice!You'd best have some pics of that double stack

Hey Caj, how's she been treating you since the big odometer STOP?

Fueled at 300,120 and 300,400 yesterday! :ahhh:And had another damn injection line fail this morning (second motor, third trans, etc...)

If it does, CPS isn't your problem. You can get to it from the top no problem at all. Pull the belt if it's in the way.

my elephant hose is clear too. probably a year difference thing?and it's what you have instead of PCV, which is difficult to do on a turbo motor with positive intake pressure. They do it now though...

FYI if you leave it be, a slack chain can wear through the aluminum housing and cause you more issues like burning up bearings and having to replace or patch the case itself... diagnostic: check how much slop exists between front and rear outputs when in 4x4. Possibly tough to judge without experience to know what to expect as far as normal vs excessive play, but if it's really sloppy, you'll know it... Be sure the front shaft is turns free on the axle end so you don't have a false test, you may need to remove it depending on how well your CAD behaves disengagement-wise.

from your description the tcase is the first thing I'd be looking at.

Nice!

Not sure if my '97 is at all unique in this regard, but my odometer is 1% off by GPS over 100 miles, but the speedometer is off by 5-6% (both read high, so the speed is about 5% "faster" than the odo)Something to consider when judging accuracy. not sure which is aimed to be more accurate with factory calibration.

If you're talking about a double-over, you're playing with trans gears already...

Why not a single OD and 3.72 or 3.55? I see zero advantage to more overdrive and less gearing versus the other way around, all things being equal.

Using that 'accessory power' to directly connect to the trailer battery without an isolator of some sort (i.e. dc/dc charger, or at least a diode setup of some sort) would be like having a mismatched battery in any battery plant and lead to all three batteries fighting each other and killing themselves. As that diagram outlines, that's not a charging lead per say, it's just a 40a ignition switched source (whose circuit also happens to run the trailer running lights as well as being the source voltage for the factory installed brake controller, as I found when I had a shorted trailer running light popping that fuse a couple weeks back)

I'm planning to upgrade the winch on my trailer, which will also entail putting a full size deep cycle battery onboard. I'm failing at finding high amperage DC battery chargers, just the 800mA units for breakaway batteries. If I draw down this battery winching a dead pile on flat tires 100' and up onto the trailer, I don't want it to take a month to get the battery back up to full power. Is there something in between the $300-500+ full RV inverter systems that have a ton of features I don't need (like shore power charging, built in inverters, etc) and the $8 throwaway 800mA and less "maintainer" type changers? --- Update to the previous post... Figures, I finally find something right after I post. Twice the price I was hoping for, and I'd need to figure out a proper mounting location since these are very much unsealed units, but this is the sort of thing I'm looking for 40a http://www.wmjmarine.com/33313.html 130a http://www.wmjmarine.com/33317.html --- Update to the previous post... Finally found something close to what I'm after, and probably within the limitations of the "trailer" aux power circuit without having to run additional plugs, nor will it draw down my main batteries when the truck is shut off since it doesn't start charging until 13.1v. http://www.ctek.com/int/en/chargers/D250S%20DUAL Couple selles on Ebay for around $200...

On the first item I agree, with wood decking 24" on center is an awful long span. On your second item I could not disagree more. If you're getting a real trailer, get real springs. Torsion axles do not load equalize and if your trailer and tow rig are not set up PERFECTLY you WILL be loading one axle more than the other depending on trailer slope. Slipper springs may not ride quite as cushy, especially when empty, but for a heavy duty trailer I would never use anything else. They distribute the load equally between all axles regardless of the attitude of the trailer which is CRITICAL to tire life, and important for braking, handling, bearings life, etc. My friends and I do a LOT of towing, and have spent a LOT of time on the roadside changing blown out rear tires on enclosed trailers sitting nose-up behind their tow rigs, even when not loaded terribly heavy. ---------------- My 36' low deck open center gooseneck car trailer is a Kaufman. The diamond plate steel decking has sagged badly from mildly poor design and heavy loading by the previous owner (there are no cross members under the decking, it's just welded to the steel frame on each side). The cracked and needed to be reinforced on one side where the double stack channel ends ahead of the axles. The factory fenders rusted out at about 8 years old, and I replaced them with fabricated drive-over fenders made from 10" junior channel. It was very under-lit from the factory, but IMO most trailers are and that's a pretty easy fix. It has Dexter 7k axles under it with slipper springs, and the PO upgraded from 16s to 19.5s, load range F. The factory wiring was very nicely done, and on the whole the trailer has been a very good piece of equipment for me. I don't know that a similar trailer from another more expensive manuf would have been any better. I'd definitely buy Kaufman again. --- Update to the previous post... This is my trailer: http://www.kaufmantrailers.com/heavy-equipment-trailer-store/Kaufman-Trailers-Catalog/Gooseneck-Car-Trailers/14,000-GVWR---36-ft.-Gooseneck-Two-Car-Trailer-p69.html As for deck width - if you're going low deck, you don't have much of a choice. You pretty much get 82" or you go to a deckover. fender/tire clearance and all. With an open-back fender you can probably get 83 or 84...