2008 A1R with 260a charging questions

[GeneralDisorder]

I'm done jumping through their silly hoops. I wasted four hours of my weekday (as a customer facing business owner with employees this is costly and inconvenient). If Oregon is so stupid they can't realize that the interstates were built and paid for by the federal government in part FOR the armed forces to use by this vehicle and others and just take my money...... fine I'll give my money to a state that isn't run by a bunch of idiot liberals.

Rick

 

[Third From Texas]

I'm done jumping through their silly hoops. I wasted four hours of my weekday (as a customer facing business owner with employees this is costly and inconvenient). If Oregon is so stupid they can't realize that the interstates were built and paid for by the federal government in part FOR the armed forces to use by this vehicle and others and just take my money...... fine I'll give my money to a state that isn't run by a bunch of idiot liberals.

Rick

Texas took a sharp turn and banned dune buggies some years back. Sent out letters demanding the titles and plates back.

You must register your vehicle in the state you reside.

I found a less-anal state that registers them, started an LLC in that state, licensed the cars, and they are now my "company vehicles" legal in all 50 states (reciprocity).

Not relative to the discussion here, of course.

<cough> <cough>

btw: while doing title work on another truck this week, the supervising numbnuts in my county title office stated flat out "those trucks are not meant to even be on the road" to which I just nodded and didn't mention that I drove mine to the courthouse

 

[BERZERKER888]

I'm done jumping through their silly hoops. I wasted four hours of my weekday (as a customer facing business owner with employees this is costly and inconvenient). If Oregon is so stupid they can't realize that the interstates were built and paid for by the federal government in part FOR the armed forces to use by this vehicle and others and just take my money...... fine I'll give my money to a state that isn't run by a bunch of idiot liberals.

Rick

sorry bro... but living in Florida we have guns, sun , fun and freedom.....I have to laugh and cringe for those of you who live in Blue states....

 

[frank8003]

If the engine has serpintine belt then is has an automatic tensioner which do fail.
They fail to hold at different RPM, decrease/increase in RPMs and such insiduious stuff.
Look in the TM,s for the tensioner and put a new one on, they are waster pieces.

Serpentine belt, tensioner: problems, signs of wear, when to replace, noises

What are the signs of a bad serpentine belt? What happens if a serpentine belt breaks? What are the common problems that can cause a serpentine belt to squeal, come off or shred? When should the belt be replaced?

www.samarins.com

 

[GeneralDisorder]

I found a less-anal state that registers them, started an LLC in that state, licensed the cars, and they are now my "company vehicles" legal in all 50 states (reciprocity).

I believe this is effectively what these guys do. I'll have an LLC in Utah to which the vehicle is registered rather than being registered to me personally. But as the owner of the LLC I'm of course legal to operate the vehicle belonging to my business. In many ways a "corporation" is considered a person - just without a body to imprison nor a soul to save so they have no problem doing extremely immoral things..... I digress - and as such the corporate entity will own the vehicle and also reside in Utah. So it's all legal on paper.

The reality is that I drove the truck from Houston to Portland (2700 miles) and was seen and even followed by the police on enough occasions that I lost count, and not one of them wanted a piece of what I was offering. No plates, no tags, no trip permit..... nothing. Of course I'm sure most assumed they had a high probability of pulling over a couple of military dudes for which they would have no jurisdiction anyway.

Also I was carrying the title, bill of sale, and already had the truck insured before ever stepping foot in the state of Texas. I'm no dummy.

Rick

 

[GeneralDisorder]

If the engine has serpintine belt then is has an automatic tensioner which do fail.
They fail to hold at different RPM, decrease/increase in RPMs and such insiduious stuff.
Look in the TM,s for the tensioner and put a new one on, they are waster pieces.

Serpentine belt, tensioner: problems, signs of wear, when to replace, noises

What are the signs of a bad serpentine belt? What happens if a serpentine belt breaks? What are the common problems that can cause a serpentine belt to squeal, come off or shred? When should the belt be replaced?

www.samarins.com

Thank you for this. My truck has 5700 miles on it and seems fine but I'll keep my eye on that whenever I have the cab up and engine running.

Rick

 

[Lostchain]

I believe this is effectively what these guys do. I'll have an LLC in Utah to which the vehicle is registered rather than being registered to me personally. But as the owner of the LLC I'm of course legal to operate the vehicle belonging to my business. In many ways a "corporation" is considered a person - just without a body to imprison nor a soul to save so they have no problem doing extremely immoral things..... I digress - and as such the corporate entity will own the vehicle and also reside in Utah. So it's all legal on paper.

The reality is that I drove the truck from Houston to Portland (2700 miles) and was seen and even followed by the police on enough occasions that I lost count, and not one of them wanted a piece of what I was offering. No plates, no tags, no trip permit..... nothing. Of course I'm sure most assumed they had a high probability of pulling over a couple of military dudes for which they would have no jurisdiction anyway.

Also I was carrying the title, bill of sale, and already had the truck insured before ever stepping foot in the state of Texas. I'm no dummy.

Rick

Did you ever get your truck registered in OR? Just ran into this today at the DMV in Sherwood. Will not even title it, let alone register..

 

[GeneralDisorder]

Did you ever get your truck registered in OR? Just ran into this today at the DMV in Sherwood. Will not even title it, let alone register..

Nope. I have Utah plates. Screw Oregon - they don't want my money then I'll give it to Utah.

 

[Lostchain]

Nope. I have Utah plates. Screw Oregon - they don't want my money then I'll give it to Utah.

So I had my wife take the LMTV to a more rural DMV today and they didn’t batt an eye!!! Did the VIN inspection asked how much weight we were hauling and out the door she went with truck plates/registration!!!! “Title is in the mail” they said!!
Guess they didn’t like my ugly mug at the first place I tried.

gotta love the arbitrary enforcement…

 

[Ronmar]

It is not so much arbitrary enforcement but knowledge. More rural office used to registering more industrial vehicles and they understand how to do it. Have heard same thing out of WA. One office says cant do it, rural office says sure did 3 like it last month…

 

[GeneralDisorder]

It is not so much arbitrary enforcement but knowledge. More rural office used to registering more industrial vehicles and they understand how to do it. Have heard same thing out of WA. One office says cant do it, rural office says sure did 3 like it last month…

There's a listing in the Oregon DMV database for the "Stewart and Stevenson 1078/1079," under RV's - Sean Filner got that added after a wrangle with the DMV and his lawyer and it took a while to get that sorted out but he finally did......

Unfortunately my 2008 truck is NOT a Stewart and Stevenson according to the title. The title says "BAE Systems Truck" so it could not be found in the DMV's database which led them to wanting a letter from the manufacturer stating the vehicle meets national highway safety standards. That just pissed me right off so I gave my money to a state that doesn't question whether the truck bought by the US Government and is clearly safe enough for out troops is safe to be on the roads paid for by the US Government and built specifically (in part) to transport men and material for the US armed forces.

The almighty Oregon DMV knows how to piss off veterans that's for sure. They can suck it as far as I'm concerned. Aint no cop in his right mind going to pull me over anyway so Utah plates will do just as well as any. I'm insured and I'm legal and other than that my new goal is to not give Oregon any money and let them suck it up on how much damage my HUGE ASS TRUCK does to their roads.

 

[GeneralDisorder]

Update:

Have never quite resolved all the "weirdness" of my charging system. The alt will at times shut off (flashing amber indicating low voltage), and at times it will go into what the Niehoff troubleshooting refers to as "OVCO" or Over Voltage Cut Off (flashing red on the 28v LED).

After quite a bit of testing, cleaning and replacing connections, going over and over the troubleshooting guides, and talking to some experts at Niehoff and one of their largest repair facilities I believe I have found the issue.

Upon testing the alternator output for AC ripple, I found the rectifier in the alternator seems to have issues and is allowing a LOT of AC to get through. Usual acceptable levels are about +/- 0.20v. I'm seeing +2v and up to -5v spikes in the scope trace (AC coupled). I believe at times this is confusing the regulator. Especially during periods of rapid engine acceleration or deceleration - I can often cause an OVCO with the fast idle switch which causes a fast but very slightly surging idle.



Unfortunately the "rectifier" portion of the alternator is the entire drive end bell assembly (rectifier is potted into it) and the cost is about $1200 - coupled with other rebuild parts and labor it would put the cost to repair the unit too close to the cost of a replacement given that rotor, stators (4 of them) and regulator would be reused - a new unit would contain all new parts for not that much more.

So I'm not sure what I want to do at this point. Suggestions?

 

[Third From Texas]

24v alt solution !

 

[wheelspinner]

24v alt solution !

If I didn’t have so many spare parts laying around I wouldn’t even hesitate to do this solution

 

[Ronmar]

Yep, straight 24v alt and a 100A bussman or Vanner battery equalizer/converter. All used commercially and readily available thru multiple sources…. Or even with a 24v only mil alt(more available and more reasonably priced). Which may even bolt right into the existing bracket…

 

[GeneralDisorder]

Well I spoke with an engineer at Niehoff (amazing what a few phone calls will get you), and the brushless design of their alternators lends itself to quite a bit more AC ripple than a typical alternator design and they consider ripple up to +/-2v to be normal - so my readings don't indicate an issue in this world (they would absolutely be an issue with a typical brushed alternator design).

The engineer I spoke with believes the only way for the alternator to produce this over voltage condition is to have an intermittent short between the F+ voltage regulator output (field excitation) and one of the B+ wires leading into the alternator - probably an issue with the harness from the VR into the drive end-bell. So my next move will be to carefully inspect that harness - I already changed the Amphenol solder cup style terminal to the regulator - possibly to include removing the drive end housing.

 

[Ronmar]

The way I understand it, that only makes sense if they put a resistor in the field circuit and the short somehow bypassed that resistor, but then the regulator should compensate for it.

As I understand it F+ is already at B+, and the F- side is fed to the regulator and pulsed to ground to control field current flow. You can measure the B+ voltage on the F- terminal when the alt is not running. It is the modulation of that path to ground that controls the field/alt output. The LBCD measures this pulse/duty cycle to determine load. If a short was bypassing a inline field resistor on the F+ end, the regulator should correct for it on the F- end by altering the duty cycle…

Now what does make sense for an overvoltage is if the F- terminal, which connects back to the LBCD, or the LBCD itself developed a short to ground along that line. An alternate path to ground would be something the reg could not compensate for and would cause an overvolt condition…

shorting the field/f- winding to ground drives the alt to full output…

 

[GeneralDisorder]

In the Niehoff troubleshooting for the N1224-1 (https://www.ceniehoff.com/Documents/Ctrl_Hyperlink/TG0045A_uid12172009146362.pdf), it has this schematic:



The Field in this design has a constant ground inside the alternator chassis and terminal A on the regulator harness is labeled "F+" and is PWM to B+ to excite the field.

So the engineer I spoke with is positing that my three regulators are not likely to *all* be bad (and they are shutting down the alt correctly when the over voltage occurs - further evidence they are functional) and so the most likely source of my problem is an intermittent short from pin F+ (pin A) to B+ (pins D or E) somewhere in the harness of the alternator chassis.

 

[Ronmar]

Hey thats a cool drawing, my info was for the previous designs(1506,1509,1511)that were configured with the traditional ground path control and no data buss interface…

 

[Third From Texas]

In the Niehoff troubleshooting for the N1224-1 (https://www.ceniehoff.com/Documents/Ctrl_Hyperlink/TG0045A_uid12172009146362.pdf), it has this schematic:

View attachment 865993

The Field in this design has a constant ground inside the alternator chassis and terminal A on the regulator harness is labeled "F+" and is PWM to B+ to excite the field.

So the engineer I spoke with is positing that my three regulators are not likely to *all* be bad (and they are shutting down the alt correctly when the over voltage occurs - further evidence they are functional) and so the most likely source of my problem is an intermittent short from pin F+ (pin A) to B+ (pins D or E) somewhere in the harness of the alternator chassis.

Thanks for that pdf link !

Adding that to my A1R files....