M1008 restoration and repair thread.

[Durango_USMC]

Well I finally got a piece of green iron, its an '86 M1008 that spent its formative years in I'm guessing the Ohio National Guard and later retired from public service with the Indiana Forestry Service. Its a bone stock M1008, its older, a little rusty, slow, and loud so naturally we have a love hate relationship. I've always loved the old box style Chevy and GMC trucks and SUV's and I love diesels. But this being my first diesel, its going to be a learning experience to say the least. I already know I have some electrical gremlins, read the FAQ thread a dozen times, and have finally started picking my way through it with the help of some TM's.

The Good:

Body is pretty much straight and only has a rusted cab corner, I will need wheel wells, a passenger side fender, and to beat out the dent in the door.
It starts and runs pretty strong.
4 wheel drive works, as do the locking lugs. I was incorrect in saying this. 4x4 is unknown at this time
I really like this truck.

The Bad:

I think my garage is the first time its had a roof over it for more than a day or two...
Voltmeter is inoperable
Coolant Leak - Found out it was about 3 cracks in the coolant overflow tank. I replaced the tank no more coolant leak.
Gen 2 light does not turn on
Electrical gremlins
2 Oil leaks - At least 2....
1 transmission leak
Power steering leak - Turned out to be steering stabilizer. Replaced with Tuff Country stabilizer from Off Road Design

My Goals:

I'm going to start with attempting to sort out if I need a new voltmeter or not.
Sort out the coolant leak if there is one (fluid is very low, and could use a flush). - Done
Oil change.
Replace black out drive light and read black out light.
Then move onto the Gen 2 issue and the electrical gremlins in the headlights
Address the two oil leaks... Not sure if I will do this myself or farm the work out. I'd like to do it but I dont have a lot of space, time, or equipment.
Its been suggested that I go ahead and just redo all the gaskets in the engine so hopefully I dont fix one thing just for another to fail
Body work and paint. I'll probably keep the same 3 color woodland paint scheme but it could use some freshening up after I replace the cab corner, fender, fix the door, patch sosme rust holes in the tailgate (or a new tailgate, havent decided.
New lock cylinders and ignition.
A few more gauges (tachometer, engine temp, pyro, trans temp), a CB, and soem additional lights.
As well as whatever else seems to pop up.

I'll be asking a lot of questions, yes I know some answers are in the TMs and some are not and some of you have devised better ways to get things done with a little less headache than the TM's let on. Please feel free to chime in with anything helpful. Forgive my spelling, I will do my best but sometimes my phone is a real pain in the rear to type with correctly. While I encourage discussion, please dont drag my thread off into some wild tangent to get it locked or so that anyone else reading has to flip through two pages of bickering over 12v vs 24v. Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to learning a lot and sharing my experiences with everyone here.

I'm going to attempt to upload some pictures shortly... I'm having a few minor technical difficulties.

 

[Durango_USMC]

Alright I'm still figuring out the picture thing. Post 1 has a picture of the back of my voltmeter and a picture of the truck. I'm going to start here. Does the wiring look correct for the voltmeter? or should there be an additional one? The gray/white wire goes into the bulb correct?

looks like i need to check fuses too.

 

[Warthog]

You can check to see if you have 24v at the red wire. Typical issues are the 24v fuse is bad or the resistor needs to be replaced. Since the GEN2 is working I would say the fuse is bad.

headlight issue more than likely is the fuse also. You may want to do the headlight harness upgrade.

 

[Durango_USMC]

Headlights and service lights work, but the high beam doesn't. It has the LMC headlight kit installed. I should've been more specific, Gen 2 doesn't appear to be working as the light doesn't come on. Voltmeter doesnt work either and I'm definitely scratching my head on a starting point...

Looks like the 10 amp fuse in the 28v slot at the bottom of the fuse block is actually blown. Somehow I dont have large fuses on hand... looks like a walmart run after work...

 

[2002ford]

I pulled the voltmeter out of mt M1009 and put it in that truck. I also switched the relays out from my M1009. Nothing worked in it but it did in the Blazer. The back battery had 24 volts while running if my memery serves me right. I didnt see any blown fuses? The switch in the coluhm may have went bad for your high beams. I know it was working when I loaded it. Almost every bulb is new in that truck except headlights. All the grounds were cleaned and greased including behind the tail light assembly. Hopefully this helps with your search. Call me anytime if you need any more info or help.

 

[Durango_USMC]

The fuse looks a little funny... so i figure ill sawap it out and see if that helps. Not sure how the light bulb in the voltmeter goes back together, the black wire is is there, not sure where this odd grey one goes.... it wasnt attached to anything when i pulled the voltmeter out. Or it became detached when i pulled the board out a bit.

 

[Abbylind]

IIRC The grey wire is for the light for your voltmeter. It appears it pulled out of the socket next to the black wire, if Im looking at your pic correctly

 

[Durango_USMC]

Thats what I was figuring, Thanks Abbylind.

Well I replaced the 10amp fuse in the 28v slot, it was blown and I got the fuse tester out to verify because it was pretty hard to tell. Gen 2 light still doesn't pop on. I'll try to see if the bulb is good to go sometime soon and then get into testing everything out. I did find out the 10 amp fuse in the 28v slot goes to the voltmeter so maybe I'm on the right path, but what would cause it to blow?

I found the fuel filter by accident... spilled a little diesel I'll have to bleed it when I can before I get the truck out again.

Got around to replacing the slave cable recepticle cover after taking the grille off. that one screw on the bottom of the grille elluded me for a while. Attempted to change out the Black Out Drive light with a newer one, I'll have to figure out a different way to wire it, pretty much the same part number, 12v and all but the way the wire connects is different. My old one has the wire go through the housing and back to the light, the new one has some sort of plug right on the housing. I'll have to figure that one out.

I also discovered where my coolant leak is coming from. The overflow tank on the driverside of the radiator is cracked. I'm glad its just a plastic tank and not the radiator. I may try to patch it for the moment until a replacement can be found.

 

[Durango_USMC]

I thought I would resurrect this thread and add a few things I've learned along the way and a lot more questions to stop cluttering up the "what did you do with your CUCV today/lately" thread.

First off, I now have Death Wobble in the front axle. I bought a rebuild kit from Off Road Design - Havent installed it yet. I also have an issue with shifting, more on that in a moment.

1. I tracked down the coolant leak to three small cracks in the coolant overflow tank. I replaced it with a tank from www.hillbillywizard.com No more coolant leak!

I also ran into an issue where the parking brake got stuck on the driverside rear wheel. Again I tried to smack it with a sledge wiggle it, etc... Well I finally got some great advice. The parking brake was way out of adjustment, when I had used it recently it froze in place. On the back side of the drum there is a little access port for adjusting the brake adjustment wheel. These can have a small cover that is usually similarly rusted/tarnished to match the surface in perfect camoflage.

Once this little cover is pried off gently you can see inside the brake drum and there is a little spur looking wheel which is how to adjust the brake.I used two medium-small sized screw drivers to adjust the brake. One to push the latch that keeps the spur in place and the other to hook into the slots on the spur to back off the screw and release the brake.

2. Steering stabilizer was actually the leaky culprit. I tired almost everything I could think of to get the original off. The problem was that tapered bolt on the piston side of the stabilizer would not budge. I smacked it with a sledge, put enough heat in it to catch the rubber bushings on fire... twice. Wrapped it in foil and soaked it in PB Blaster. Nothing helped. Then I took a sawzall and cut the bolt between the piston and the nut part of the bolt. 19mm socket and a breaker bar got it out in about 2 minutes total (including the sawzall cutting time). The sawzall and breaker bar is the easy button if your new stabilizer comes with the bolt like mine did.

Picture 3, see the difference?

3. Electrical Gremlins... Oh how I loathe thee. Insulator on the Gen 2 Alternator was cracked and since the voltmeter was working on another unit as were the relays, again, on another unit, I figure maybe the alternator is the issue. I ordered a rebuild kit for the alternator from aps wholesale, kit arrived and I got to the point of pressing out the bearing and I ended up cracking my alternator case. So I ended up ordering a new Alternator off of amazon, looks good Delco-Remy made/remanufactured. I had a little snafu when installing. I made a bonehead mistake and let connector that is crimped to the wire on the positive stud make contact with the case of the alternator... So when I went to reconnect the batteries SPARKS FLY. So I dont know if the alternator is toast now or not, I havent started the truck again. Gen 2 still doesnt light up on pre-start up So I think the plug might be crispy on top as its pretty rough looking. I may try to switch the Gen 1 and 2 alternators around and see ig the Gen 1 light wont light up but we shall see.

Any ideas?

Picture 1 shows where I let the wires touch the case... DO NOT DO THAT! It also shows the kind of crispy alternator plug.

4. Transmission issues... I told you I would speak more on this. It would appear that the transmission fails to upshift from second to third gear. It just seems like the engine is running at high rev's from about 35-40mph on up. I dont have a tachometer yet so I can't really verify this but there is no real discernable shift like there is from park to drive or one to two. So far its looking like it may be the vacuum actuator or the tubing. Well I looked at the actuator and the tubing no fluid and no cracks at the transmission. But... I finally started tracing the rest of the metal line up to where it becomes rubber again on top of the engine block. I do believe I found dry rot and cracks. I followed it to the point where it joins with another rubber vacuum hose (on the front of the engine) that goes to what I think is the vacuum pump (on the back of the engine). So I think I need to find replacements. Also the rubber tubing on the vacuum pump seems to be compromised as well... The leaks are minor that I'll get to them after I get it driveable again.

Thoughts?

Pictures 2, 5, and 6 in the picture I have the vacuum line disconnected in the pic.

5. Oil leaks... I dont know where to begine. the biggest one appears to be at the front of the oil pan, however. I have found oil on the back of the block (on the corner of the engine nearest to the fuel filter), and some oil under the air cleaner, I'm not sure how normal that is. It appears it has been leaking for a while and there is a light to heavy coating of old oil that appears to have been sprayed all over everything in the engine bay at some point.

I'm really hoping this isn't going to be a big issue.... but somehow i think it will be.

Picture 4 is whats under the air filter

6. Misc. items and issues. Does anyone know where to get the rubber piece that fits under ther CDR valve? Mine is having some fitting issues and is dry rotting but I'm not sure if its leaking yet. I noticed the CDR valve is wobbly on its mount so hopefully I can locate some new rubber as well. I've been doing a lot of cleaning lately, the oily mess and the wasp nests, and decades of mud and crap that is covering everything under there. Turns out the front might have been replaced at some point because when I was cleaning the king covers its all red primer under the mud. Do you think I might be able to get away with just new king pin springs and bushings? Also the front tie-rod seems to rotate forward and backwards when the steering stabilizer isn't installed and only slightly when it is. Is this normal?

Picture 6 the boot under the CDR

Any other suggestions or advice? I would appreciate it. I will try to get pictures up and attach or insert them where they need to be.

I'll try to put more pictures up and I'm sorry they're out of order. I was going to imbed them using photobucket but couldnt make it work.

 

[epitts]

Trans issues

Replace all your rubber vac lines from the pump to valve. Remove the rubber elbow looking item, mine was cracked. Run the line from pump to bottom input on valve, run top outlet on valve to trans hard line. Replace small rubber line to the modulator valve on side of trans, mine was new but had cracked on top and looked fine. If you have vac test gage check setup at trans with small rubber hose, should get about 8psi of vacuum. If all is working but still shifts hard, adjust the valve on side of IP and/or replace modulator valve on side of trans. This all worked for mine.

 

[Durango_USMC]

Replaced the vacuum lines as best as I could, I ended up having to use fuel line of three different sizes. The vacuum hose connector at the top of the vacuum hose regulator had to be removed and there is no replacement available. So the hoses are directly attached. I'm not quite ready for a test drive yet but hopefully soon.

I also took apart the dash to test the Gen 2 light bulb and clean the contacts on the voltmeter to see if that would solve my Gen 2 issue... The Gen 2 light bulb is good, just not getting the power to light up when I turn the key.So I'm thinking a new alternator plug or I ended up actually frying something when I wired the Gen 2 alternator wrong and had the positive lead touching the case

 

[2002ford]

Hang in there Durango. This is what make these trucks so much fun. When you fix it all you know you did it. Thats what makes it your truck. Call me if you need anything.

 

[Durango_USMC]

Everytime I call you I end up with something... I have to time it when you dont have anything in the classifieds like that really nice looking M1101 trailer. which would look great behind it this truck...

 

[2002ford]

Lol, I will help you with anything you need. I promise I wont sell you anything. Hehe.

 

[Durango_USMC]

I talked to my friend cat today (her M1008 is something to seriously drool over... once it gets out of the shop) and she talked me through a few things. Also some gracious members here have been PM'ing me some great tips, tricks, and information. I'm getting spooled up to do the king pins, I've never torn apart an axle or hub before so it should be an interesting project to say the least. I got the big socket for the hubs so all I really need is time at this point. If everything goes right I'll have a quick test ride on Wednesday to check the transmission and dump all the crap out of the bed(been filling it with boxes and other bulky items to go to the dump up the road). So wednesday afternoon I'll tear into the king pins and hopefully make it happen. I'm still looking for some 7/8" hex stock or hex wrenches and some DOM tubing for the breaker bar. Hopefully it'll be driveable by Thursday afternoon and all I will have left are little things.

I can't help myself... How well does that M1101 trailer pull behind a CUCV and with the different tires do they sit about level when hooked up? I'm getting tempted to make an offer if you still have it at Haspin.

 

[2002ford]

I would ask around about pulling one. I know they are wider than your m1008. Weight wouldnt be an issue and it should sit more level without the big tires. I have heard that the covers turn it into a big wind sail. LOL.

 

[Durango_USMC]

I'll definitely have to consider that. I'm also looking into trying to track down a M101A2 as well. Basically something for me to haul an extra ATV around and do a few things my utility trailer won't or can't. Anyways today I got the pintle hitch back in action, greased it really well at the zerk and PB blaster at all the moving parts.

I also went for the first test drive since I deadlined it way back when for the death wobble. The transmission doesn't like to shift up into 3rd from second despite the vacuum hose replacement. I think I'm going to try to track down some actual vacuum hose and some smaller hose clamps to fit everything tight. Although I may just try replacement of the actuator as well. I'm not sure if its bad or not though. It still shifts nicely from 1st to second so I dont think the vacuum pump is bad. Any suggestions?

Also today the Gen 2 light came on! I'm not sure how or why but it came on.... voltmeter still doesnt appear to be working though so I'm scratching my head a little bit on that one. Also the Gen 1 light went on after starting the truck for a few seconds then shut off. When I restarted later neither light came on I'm a little lost with that one at this point.

I havent started the king pin rebuild due to a number of things... but also I have been to every box store and almost every autoparts store around me and I can not find the 7/8" hex wrench or socket insert to do the king pins. I think I'm going to have to find and order one online. I also need to do an alignment at some point soon.

 

[Durango_USMC]

Looks like Gen 2 is working normally, voltmeter is still dead for the moment but Im going to follow the advice of cpf40 (I think I got the screen name right) and disconnect the batteries, disconnect and remove the voltmeter and rig up a couple jumper wires to connect the voltmeter to the batteries to see if the needle moves.

Ordered a new cdr valve due to the oil that seams to have sprayed all over the engine, it looks leaky, and the oil in the intake manifold.

Looking for a new vacuum actuator for the TH400 transmission I see a red stripe, a black amd red stripe, and adjustable models and I havent a clue which one to get. Ill try to dig up a part number tonight.

 

[Durango_USMC]

Well I did the manual test 2002ford suggested, it works, its just a really soft transition from 2nd-3rd gear. I've also noticed since the new CDR valve has been installed the oil leaks have diminished greatly so far.