War Eagle

I use the power stop slotted and drilled rotors on my Ram 3500. However I run the EBC LTS pads (green Box). I also run 19.5s in the spring to Fall time frame when I'm towing or hauling so I put a pretty good load on my brakes. My towing is a 14K trailer or hauling a 4k slide in camper. I have used the brake and rotor combo since 2014 and have over 60k miles on it. No noise, great stopping power and I haven't seen any non-normal wear on rotors or pads. Still the original EBC pads I installed and they have tons of wear left on them. I also have a pac-brake so that helps to minimize brake wear too.

I looked at many brands for both sizing capacity (BTU output) burn efficiency, auto start capability, fuel burn rate, stove style and cost. There were lots of brands that have auto start features as well as many styles to choose from. I tried to get as much technical info as I could about them to help me evaluate other features I was interested in. To make a long story short I chose the Harman brand because it could burn multiple types of fuel (such as wood pellets and/or corn ) and it could be throttled down to 3/4 of a pound per hour burn rate and still stay running. There were other brands that could burn multiple fuels but no other brand that had a rating of less than one pound per hour burn rate. That for me was the final deciding factor in my choice. That meant I could keep the unit running and still throttle it down without running you out of the house if you only needed a little heat. So when my mother in law came to live with us I used the wood stove all during the winter because she wanted to keep the temp above the 70 degrees that we kept the rest of the house at in the winter. We did that for over eight years until she passed away. During that time Harman had some sort of problem with one of their safety switch features so they replaced that switch in each of my stoves at no cost. During the 8 years of running I started having a starting problem with the ignitor on the stove that I ran for my mother in law. Every now and then the stove wouldn't start and I had to reboot the control panel and then the ignitor would work for a while then it would repeat the problem. Turns out that Harmon knew about the problem and redesigned the ignitor and had a fix available. It was beyond my 3 year warranty period so the cost was on me. The new ignitor was $90. I bought two of them and replaced the one that was acting up and just kept the other one on the shelf for when I might need it for the other stove. It's still sitting on the shelf because the second stove never developed the ignitor problem. No other expenses or problems in the 13 years I have had and operated the Harmon stoves. For the last 3 years I have ran the stove in the kitchen and family room area 24/7 during the winter time because of the atmosphere a burning fire creates. I have it throttled down to it's lowest setting and it burns slightly less than 5 bags a week. I clean the stove ash out once each heating season and the temp stays right at 70 degrees and my heat pump for that portion of the house hardly runs during the winter now.

I have 2 Harman Pellet stoves that I have installed about 13 years ago. They will heat the house completely and keep it at what ever temp you want. The main heating system for the house is water source heat pump which supplies heating and cooling for the house. The pellet stoves were installed for back up heat in the winter so that if I was to loose electricity or the pump for my water source I could have heat for the house. My mother in law came to live with us in the last few years of her life so I installed a battery back up system for the pellet stoves. When the stoves are running they do not require much energy. It's about 40 watts to run the feed auger and that cycles on and off. The distribution blower is not much more than that. The power hog is the ignitor, but then that only runs to start the fire then it is off for the rest of the burn cycle. So a good sealed battery can operate the stove for nearly 12 hours. If you were to set the stove up to run constantly (rather than on and off cycle controlled by temp set points) you can run for days.

With only 50 hours on the tractor then I'm guessing she is still under warranty. If that is so then I would highly recommend you follow the pre-defined service schedule for lube, fluid changes and filters and make sure you keep good documentation on product used and hours on the clock if you are doing all the service yourself.. Heaven forbid and you ever have a warranty claim you can bet Kubota will look closely at the service and products used to maintain that machine. Super UDT-2 is good stuff and actually will dampen some of the noise from the HST.

This article is broken and I don't know why. If you look under Gen 3 Articles, Truck Exterior, LED light...., then you will see the article with all the pictures. If for some reason that link doesn't work for you then PM me and I can send you a copy of the article with pictures to your email.

This article is broken (under Gen 2) and I don't know why. The photos were not in PhotoBucket so that is not the reason they aren't showing. I think it got broken when everything was move to the new site software. Look under Gen 3 articles and Truck Exterior and you will see the LED lighting article with all the pictures. If for some reason that link isn't working for you then send me a PM and I'll send you the article with pictures in a seperate email response.

I have the Oregon permit and yes if you get the Idaho enhanced permit it will meet the Oregon requirements with the exception that you also have to have a letter from your local sheriff stating that you have no mental problems that would keep you from owning a gun. Easy to get by just going into your county sheriff and they look up your record and pen you a letter that you take to the Sheriff in Vale. In Vale you give them a copy of your enhanced training certificate, the no mental problems letter (from your home town county sheriff) give your finger prints, picture and $60 bucks and then they do their own background check and send you the Oregon permit in the mail. The Oregon permit is good for 4 yrs then has to be renewed. Oregon does not send out reminders when your permit is about to expire so you have to keep track of when the permit expires so you can renew and not loose it. When I got mine only 2 counties were giving permits to Idaho residences (Malhuer and Jefferson). The county seat for Malheur is in Vale so that is the obvious place where you would apply for your Oregon permit. You have to make an advanced appointment (online only) and then show up on the appointed day and time. When I made my appointment they were booked 2 weeks out.

Best of luck to you on your surgery and your recovery!

Interesting that the topic of chainsaws has come up. I just bought a Stihl MS271 (Farm Boss) with 20" bar two weeks ago. Stihl has a sale going on and I needed to remove about a dozen 18-20 inch diameter trees on my place. They were advertising $30 off this model and if you purchased a 6-pack on Stihl brand 2 cycle oil they would double your warranty. I have an Echo CS3400 that I have used for years to trim trees and take hunting to cut fire wood and remove downed trees on the road etc. I have really liked the Echo because it is so compact (handle on top rather than out the back) Arbor guys use this style when up in the trees because it is easier to handle. The Echo is too small and would take too much work to remove the trees I want to take down so you can see the reason why I needed a new Stihl, right? The job of felling those trees was pretty short work with the Stihl. I was impressed with the speed I could chew through those trees.

I use the EBC yellow pads. Designed for heavy loads of RVs. I've read all the pros and cons for drilled and/or slotted rotors and just finally decided that the only way I'll ever know the truth about it is to run them myself to see how they work with my style of driving and loads I carry. I first ran slotted rotors of the front of my gen 2 Ram (disk brakes only on the front on gen 2 trucks). I have had them on for several years before I bought my gen 3 Ram. No abnormal wear or any cracking, No squealing. Liked them so when I decided to do brake upgrade on my 3rd gen I went with the drilled and slotted rotors on the front and rear. I put those and the EBC brake pads on a little over 3 years ago and I am very happy with the setup. No perceived abnormal wear and no squealing and no heat cracking or any problems at all. I've had to anchor the truck a couple of times when I was heavy loaded and my stopping was very satisfactory.

I have a PacBrake on my 05. I have a beefed up tranny (triple disk low stall converter, billet input, modified valve body and a bunch of other goodies inside). I can use the exhaust brake in the top 3 gears because it will lock the converter but the slowest speed the brake will control to is slightly under 20 mph. That won't be good enough on steep mountain back roads. Good brakes and rotors will be a plus but dropping the transfer case to low will be very useful to control your speed without a lot of heavy brake use. I use heavy slotted rotors and have had very good luck with them.

My vote is with the GPS. Doesn't make any difference what tire size you are wearing or gearing you are running. Adjust the tire diameter input as needed to make the speedo match the gps reading and you will be good.

First thing I noticed was that my OH computer started to tell me the outdoor temp was 130 degrees F. Now every time I check its 130 degrees F. Then a little while later it started to reset the ave mpg every time the truck started. So every time I start the truck the ave mpg reported is 0. However, as you drive it appears to be working to calculate the ave mpg but it now starts at zero. The miles driven are being reported the same as the odometer. Any one have any similar experience? If I wanted to fix the problem, what needs to be fixed? Is there module or computer or something that needs replacement? If I choose not to fix it am I risking something else not working right in the system? As an example is the overhead doing or reporting anything to some other system on the truck that is now negatively affecting some other operation?

You drill a new vent hole in the tank at the high spot. Then install a new bulk head fitting and then run the vent hose from the new bulk head fitting up to the fill spout and connect it to the place where the stock vent hose connected. I just took the stock vent hose and shortened it and the plugged it off and just zip tied it to the filler neck so it doesn't bounce around or dangle. The other end of the stock vent hose is still connected to the stock vent location on the tank. I didn't have any better way to seal off and abandon the original vent hole in the tank. Obviously you need to drop the tank to do this mod, so you'll have a few hours tied up in this project.

I have had a hand full of really good tanks over the years of driving my third gen. On one trip driving to Florida In January I got a couple of tanks that were way above normal. Got a picture of one that provided 460+ miles to the half tank level and one with 200+ miles just getting off the fuel tank gauge post. On other trips I thought I should have gotten more than I actually did and I can't always tell why either one of these conditions occurred (even when I'm trying to drive for good mpg's). I start with a little more fuel on board than most. My tank holds 37 gallons of fuel (I have relocated the vent tap at the highest point on the stock tank) so this allows me to fill my tank faster and allows me to put more fuel into it.

I have a 3500 SRW 4x4 that I wear 19.5s on. This is dictated because the load I carry is way over the weight rating of the 17 inch wheels an tires available. I carry a heavy camper with a slide and tow a boat which loads my rear axle at nearly 8500 pounds. I wear the 19.5s during the non winter months only and run Hankook AH11's on Vision aluminum rims. This is a steer tire and and I have nearly 50k on them at this time. I'll easily get over 100k from them and maybe a significant amount more. In winter months I use my stock 17 wheels and traction tires. I chose this path because I haven't found a very good selection of snow and ice traction tires in 19.5. Since I don't carry my camper and drag the boat around in the winter I don't need the weight carrying capacity of the 19.5s. In my research, I have found that the 19.5 traction tread tires don't get anywhere near the mileage of a steer tread tire. Also there is a very limited selection of traction tread compared to 17 inch tires. So rather than buying a 19.5 traction tire that won't give me long life I just decided that I was going to use the two tire and wheel strategy for my driving needs. If you go the 19.5 route I would suggest checking wheel prices for Vision wheels. I got mine through Discount tire. 5 rims and 4 sets of lug nuts for around $900. If the new truck you are thinking of buying is a dually then it would not be necessary to go to 19'5s to carry the kind of load I'm carrying. Over the last few years I also have seen one or two ads for 19.5 wheel and tire sets in Craigslist. If you're not in a hurry then you might find something that would work for you there. The tires had a little break-in time but I really like them. They run smooth and quiet. They are heavy and have a very stiff sidewall. This is a perfect combination for carrying my camper. Little to no swaying now with the high center of gravity load I carry. Even though the rotating mass is about 50 # per tire heavier than my stock 17's, I get a bit better mileage than when I'm running my 17s. I attribute that too the lower rolling resistance of the stiff sidewall tires.

If you have the Idaho Enhanced carry permit it is good for something like 38 states and it is recognized as acceptable training to apply for the Oregon carry permit. In general Oregon doesn't like to offer many out of state carry permits but Malhuer county is one county that does offer them. You have to make an appointment on line to apply for the permit (must go to Vale to make the formal application) and you have to have your training certificate as well as a mental health declaration from the sheriff that issued you your Idaho Enhanced carry permit. That mental health declaration must not be older than 60 days when you present it to the Malheur County Sheriff. The reason I mention the age issue is because when you go online to make your appointment for the carry permit application you will see there is about an 8 week backlog. So it's best to make your Malheur appointment then get your mental health declaration in a timely fashion to make your appointment. The other thing you might just need to be aware of is the duration of your permit life. In Idaho the Enhanced carry permit is good for 5 years (then must be renewed while the Oregon permit is only good for 4 years then requires renewal.

There is a fair amount of water/meth injection info on Youtube that goes way beyond what JOHNFAK had posted. I just looked up Snow water/meth injection and got a list of things such as: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=snow+performance+water%2Fmethanol+injection+boost+cooler+ You can also look up other manufacturers and get similar info: i.e. Devils own, AEM and there maybe others.

At one time in the distant past there was someone from this forum that was running water/meth injection. If my memory serves me right I think he ending up dumping it. He then went to twins I think. I'm thinking it was JOHNFAK. I don't remember much about his experience but if it was him and if he is still around then he could probably provide some useful insight on his experience.

Since the 19.5's are a taller tire you need to reset your speedo/odometer calibration. IF you haven't done that then your odometer and speedo will be off. This alone would make the odometer record less miles than you are actually going, so your mpg calculations will be wrong. As mentioned by Dieselfuture the taller tires will change your final drive ratio of your truck. In this case if you have a 3.55 then the new final drive ratio would be like 3.40 or something similar. This will increase the load on your engine.

I went with the Vision wheels and I got them from Discount Tire. I checked prices at Bruneel, Les Schwab, and the internet. Internet was cheaper than these dealers. Discount Tire doesn't do 19.5 truck tires or any other commercial truck tire but they do get involved with the specialty wheel market so they quoted me a price for the Vision wheels that ended up being $125 cheaper than the cheapest price I could find anywhere for 4 wheels (and their price was for 5 wheels) so I bought the wheels there. With lug nuts and tax it was just at $900 and change. Vision includes center caps with their wheels and you can get open or closed. you have to specify "open" if you want them. I only use the 19.5's during the non winter months because I can get much better winter snow and Ice traction tires in 17" than you can get in the commericcial 19.5 market and I'm not carrying any heavy loads in the winter months. So I just purchased steer tires for my 19.5's. I ended up going with the Hankook AH11. Bruneel gave me the best price for the tires of all the quotes I got from the local tire dealers. I had them install the metal stems and they did the mounting and bead balance. I also had them sipe all 5 tires to improve wet weather traction. There are a lot of steer tire manufacturers so your choice of options is fairly large. Not as many choices in the traction tire option. I run 245x19.5 size When first installed the tires were a little squirrley on the grooved freeway but after a few thousand miles that behavior all went away. The tires are very smooth rolling and I get my best mileage when I've got my 19.5's vs my 17's. I think this is due to the stiffer sidewall which gives you significantly less rolling resistance compared to the 17's. I have noticed no measureable loss of braking performance or acceleration performance due to the heavier mass of these tires. My 19.5's are about 125lbs per tire while the 17's are about 84lbs per tire. Based on my experience with these 19.5's, if I was found considering going to 19.5's again in the future, then I would choose to do it all again. It's been a very good experience for me and how I use my truck.

If it turns out to be a balance issue then you may have to add beads to the tires. I don't recall how much out of balance the Centramatics will correct but beads will enhance the out of balance correction capabilities of the Centramatics

I scaled my 3rd gen truck last August (SB 4x4 with canopy) with one ton of pellets in the bed under the canopy and with my 19.5's on and the front axle was 4550 lbs and the rear axle was 5800 lbs. If the pellets actual weight was 2000 lbs then my truck was at 8350 total weight. I had full fuel, myself and some tools.

I also run 19.5s and use beads and am very happy with the ride. I think I paid about 8 bux a tire for the beads. You can't get a spin balance on a tire for that kind of money. If you ever have a flat and have to open the tire up it means you replace the beads with new. If you run the Centramatics you don't loose any weights if you have to remove the tire for repair or replacement. I think Centramatics will run around $190 or so.

X2 what dripley said. Something is a little fishy with the numbers. First I thought you might be seeing some tongue weight on the rear axle but couldn't figure out how you got a combined weight that was less than the sum of both axles (particularly with the trailer attached when you scaled).