I had a friend come over this weekend and twisted my arm
to turn some wrenches. I felt like taking some personal time and fiddle with the M757 to see if she would breathe fire. She has the rare LDS-2 so there's some funky modifications involved but at her core she's still a multifuel. We pulled the engine and valve covers just to take a peek at the rockers. The two center rockers were fairly rusted but they were also near the fording valve (vent on the LDT) and I assume moisture worked its way back into the system and got to them.
I pulled the dipstick, which the handle was broken, to show it was overfull. I went 100% precaution with this truck and drained the crankcase. I got a gallon of water and 3 gallons of oil so that only confirmed the previous finds. I let it dry and sprayed out any clots with brake cleaner. The magnetic pan plugs were doing their job and looked like they collected the initial break in shavings of the engine. The speedo shows 1016 miles so it may still be the original oil change.
The fuel tanks were dry and so was the tranny. I didn't plan to drive the truck today so the t-case and axles haven't been inspected. I replaced the oil filters and filled the engine and tranny with 10w to push any crud out of the system. I expect to do another service shortly after that too just to be safe. Immediately after filling the tranny I spotted a class III leak coming from the rear of the Allison 200 and it was coming from the filter cover. I pulled the truck forward with my M10 and found the retaining bar over the cover was loose. In fact it was so loose when I applied pressure to unbolt one side the bar snapped in half like gingerbread. I'm hoping that was the cause of the leak so I just made the best of a bad situation and let it drain any fluid out and hope it cleaned out any residue or moisture.
I checked the linkages and usual suspects as we all do. There is no fuel shut off lever but rather a push button that I'm assuming is attached to a solenoid on the IP that was unplugged. I reattached but really to what end? The button was seized so we planned for a run away situation regardless and I kept my pocketknife ready to cut the main injector line and bail out of the truck if it went critical. The lines are all soft like wet noodles and need to be replaced so it wasn't that much an issue and we had a board ready to block the intake too.
We did some electrical tests which gave us low air buzzer and voltage read outs. Even on the first crank the IP was pushing fuel to the injectors and self identifying a leak along the way. We gave her a little starting fluid to make sure she has compression in hopes she would take off on her own but no luck. We have a fuel supply issue possibly related to many things: bad fuel filters, in tank fuel pump in-op, possible bad fuel lines, etc. It will take a full overhaul to get it sorted out. Even cranking she was still drawing fuel from a filter likely behind the cab and she smoked at the stack but no fire. Ugggghh.. anticipation!
I didn't want to push her too hard. I know I'm working with history and thrilled to have this unique beast in my motorpool so I'll give her time and she will come around. I made a thread looking for a copy of the TM 9-2320-230-34P so I can start tracking down parts. It's a needle in a hay stack but knowing how all MVs of this era were made of similar components there will be cross overs. Heck, the generator (yes generator) is the 100 amp unit from the Mutt with radio upgrade kit. Who'da thunk it?
