wamcneil

11 hours ago, tmw188 said:

Fleet School is having a live online seminar on Coolants coming up 2/21 this week.

I'm registered, thanks!

21 minutes ago, dennis.mcdonaugh said:

I’ve been running Final Charge in my coach since around 2008 .... 

If I ever need to drain my cooling system again, I might do that also. It bothers me to have coolant that can't be obtained at walmart or auto parts stores.

4 hours ago, Gary Petersen said:

I see the two Solenoids off to the right side. As I was pushing the wires aside to get a …good photo of their terminals, my finger touched the metal  cases. Particularly the Solenoid farthest to the right was so hot that I can NOT keep skin contact.  Is that to be expected??  

Gary 

 

 

Yes. The coils in those continuous solenoids consume about 750ma each. They will be warm/hot. 
If you bypass the salesman switch you’ll want to disconnect the coils so they’re not continuously wasting battery power. 

Mine had two salesman solenoids. One latching solenoid that fed one branch of the loads, and also triggered an automotive solenoid for the other load branch. 
Maybe the regular solenoid failed?

If you replace(d) the halogen lights with LED, the remaining loads can be combined on the latching solenoid and just remove the normal solenoid. 
Cheers

Walter

If I were doing it again, I would go 24v. I think it’s just silly to have gigantic battery cables to deal with 3kw@12v amperage. 

That's the one in our Monaco parts list:

Advanced Auto Parts 5970857 for 1973 Chevy C10 truck
AC Delco D1588

That's what I used for 2003 dynasty

Wow. I would think that aftermarket lifters might have long-term durability problems, but not immediately defective, engine-not-running issues!

What an ordeal. I'm glad you've got it running right now!

Oh, I finally clued-in on the term “register” in the original post. So we’re talking about a coolant line from the aqua hot. Sorry, I thought OP was talking about a WATER line.  

2 minutes ago, Tom Cherry said:

Yes,

Quite a dissertation....

Ha! That's funny.🤐

Cinch tool is just about $25!

It’s just feeding the bathroom?  Surely no need for tubing as large as 5/8.  Maybe cut it back to some place where you have good access for crimping and replace the entire run with 1/2”? 5/8-1/2 crimp reducers should be available. 
Have you considered cinch clamps instead of crimp rings? Cinch might work in tight spots easier than crimp. 

I don't remember how configurable the RV3012GS battery charging was... You don't really need a "lithium" setting as long as you can manually set the voltages for absorb and float, and disable equalization. 

Sure, the BMS will cut off charging at some point, but that cutoff voltage is 'if all else fails' kind of protection and it's a higher voltage than you'll want to charge your expensive lithium batteries. More specifically, the BMS will cut off charging when one cell hits the protection voltage. When approaching the fully-charged state, it'll be the same cell hitting cutoff voltage every time (ie- the one with the lowest capacity) and that one cell will take a beating. The BMS will have some kind of balance function, which helps, but the cells will never be exactly the same capacity and one will spike and hit its upper or lower limit before the others.

Have you found diysolarforums.com? lots of great information on lithium batteries.

Personally, I have my lithium bank completely isolated from the chassis batteries and intentionally undercharge it a bit.

How long did you let it run? Maybe that one lifter is just taking a long time to pump up? 

I remember having to go back and re-seat one of the pushrods that got lodged up on the side of the lifter. But that was obvious before I got the valve covers back on. 

Regardless of why a valve isn't opening, if a valve isn't opening at all it should throw a misfire CEL very quickly. If the hydraulic preload isn't full, it'll still open the valve some significant amount.

Sounds to me like the lifter just hasn't filled with oil yet? Seems pretty unlikely to me that your PCM developed a new problem while you had the engine torn apart.

Regarding "The pins are not locked in."

There's a subtlety that I left out of the MDS explanation. Those pins don't actually lock into the holes. That part inside is the lifter is free to rotate. The holes let the oil pressure in, and the pins actually lock into a groove around the inside of the lifter body. That can be seen in the cutaway that Frank posted yesterday.

2 hours ago, Frank McElroy said:

...When the MDS solenoid is energized, the oil pressure and the check valve will then build up internal pressure which will be enough to overcome the strength of the valve spring and open the intake valve.

I'm not sure if this is a super-important distinction... but that's not how the MDS system works.

Those components on the pushrod end of the lifter are the hydraulic preload system and that's separate from the MDS system. The hydraulic preload section does work with a check valve and oil pressure supplied through the pushrod just like the normal lifters.

But the MDS system acts by separately applying oil pressure around a channel on the outside of the lifter body, from the sides. This separate oil pressure drives in the cross-pins that allow the lifter body to collapse each time the cam lobe tries to open the valve. Then when MDS pressure is removed, the cam rotates to base circle, the lifter extends and the cross-pins snap back into their holes and lock the lifter body in its normal extended position.

If the hydraulic preload system collapses, the engine will still run fine and it won't damage the cam. It just creates a LOT of valve lash and noise. In my case, a normal lifter failed (differently from yours... no parts fell out...). It made a clacking noise that sounded like it was coming from the bottom-end. Sounded more like a rod bearing than a valve-related issue. But the engine still ran fine and as long as you have some reasonable valve lift, there will be no misfires. 

If the MDS section of the lifter somehow failed and the lifter was totally collapsed, that would certainly cause misfires.

W

Yeah, I was horrified by the cost of new mopar lifters. It was about a year ago, maybe things have changed, but I found sets of 4 new factory lifters on ebay for $200 ea ($800 total). Search for 5038786AD and 5038785AD

It looks like aftermarket may be a good option now. I couldn't find aftermarket MDS lifters at that time. Mine was a 2014. Pretty sure the 5.7 engines were all the same since MDS came on the scene 2004-2021. 

If you're getting a head gasket set, it'll probably include the valve stem seals. The felpro 26423 kit I used did.

I replaced the valve seals when I had mine apart too. They come with the gasket set, so why not, right? Mine were pretty loose at 175k.

Why would the cam need to be changed to eliminate MDS? The system is regulated by the ECM via oil pressure selectively collapsing lifters. I'm sure the MDS cam lobes are identical to the non-MDS lobes. Seems like you would need to have a custom tune to disable it one way or the other.

I found that aftermarket lifters were much cheaper than mopar, but I couldn't find any aftermarket that were MDS, so I bought all new factory lifters. Not cheap...

One redneck way to eliminate MDS might be to run a thicker grade of oil... If the computer can't confirm the right oil viscosity it will throw a soft code in the background and disable MDS. I'm not sure that would be reliable, but the guy I bought mine from ran 5w30 oil in it and the MDS system wouldn't start working till I did the first oil change!

Edit: oh wow. Must be new options available now. Just did a quick search and looks like aftermarket MDS lifters are available at a reasonable cost!

If you're planning to eliminate MDS, why not install the MDS lifters and run it like that? If the MDS doesn't give you any more problems, then you're done. If it does still give you problems, then eliminate it with a custom tune

Ugh. I sure didn’t enjoy going through this process… Then 6-mo after I got it fixed the wife drove it into a culvert and totaled it 😕

I was impressed with how good the motor looked inside after 175k mi. There was still crosshatching in the cylinders.
I hope yours looks that good inside and reassembly goes smoothly!

 I think the main failure mode of hemi cam is bad needle bearings on the cam rollers. That allows the body of the lifter to hit the cam and tear it up. Otherwise I don’t think cam wear is really a factor.
At 170k miles, all 16 of my lifter rollers were tight and smooth-running. 

Oh boy… what an adventure! I went through a similar exercise with a 2014 ram hemi last year at about 170k mi. Mine was a sized normal lifter. Not one of the MDS lifters.  No codes or running issues. Just a tapping that sounded a lot more like a rod bearing than something valve related.
It was hard enough working on that engine in a truck. I’m sure it’s a lot worse in the WK. 

I went ahead and pulled both heads and replaced all of the lifters. But I wish I had only replaced the one that failed.  
I hope the rest of the project goes well!

Cheers

Walter

On 12/14/2023 at 11:27 AM, Jobert said:

 I do have a 1 1/4" Square tube running across the front above the tv opening and the larger cabinets on each end.  It does not seem however that they use the tube for support of the cabinets.  I

  Bert

 

Originally, mine didn’t really attach to the steel tube and had 3/4” plywood all the way across the front which had sagged under the weight of the old  crt tv. 
I reworked that area to cut the CRT cabinet back almost flush with the side cabinets and tie up into a 2x2 that is fastened to the steel tube. 
Does yours have a 2x2 behind the steel tube?

On 11/13/2023 at 8:45 AM, Jim McGarvie said:

I have installed three 12V 100AH LiFePO4 batteries. Initially I just disconnected the relay between the engine and house batteries to avoid the potential alternator issues of charging the lithium batteries while driving. I have solar, so depending upon available sunlight I might get by this way, but I am considering installing a DC-DC charger. What is everyone's favorite? I would just as soon not need to run a wire to the alternator if possible, simply replace the solenoid with the charger.

Wow! Lots of discussion in this thread. I didn't read it all... 🤐

To answer your question, I have a Victron Orion-TR DC-DC Converter 12 VDC to 12 VDC 18AMP Isolated ORI121222110 from House>>Chassis.

I'm not trying to charge the house lithium batteries from the alternator while moving, just keep the chassis batteries floated while parked. I figure if I really need to charge the house batteries while moving, I'll start the generator.

My first attempt was to put a small noco battery charger on the chassis battery, plugged into the block heater outlet. But that charger was a little too smart and would occasionally go into an error state and let my chassis battery go dead. The victron has been 100% reliable.

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that you made the wrong decision... and I hope the remflex gaskets last forever. My comment was aimed at those that that might recommend thick gaskets as the best solution.

Everything is a compromise, right? Sometimes a bandaid is the best choice available. Plenty of bandaids on my rig, that's for sure.

There's actually a set of unused remflex AMC 360 gaskets hanging on the wall of my shop that I bought about 15 yr ago before deciding to have the manifolds surfaced. I replaced blown-out exhaust gaskets (not remflex) about every 6-mo for 10 years before having the manifolds surfaced and installing them with NO gaskets. 

On 12/8/2023 at 8:28 AM, zmotorsports said:

…especially after they have become "seasoned" with tens of thousands of miles and many, many heat cycles as I feel they have already moved around as much as they are going to and hate to start over with new "green" castings….

That’s my feeling. I’ve been really surprised to find how much a new cast iron manifold can change very soon after being put in service. Much better IMO to flatten an old manifold. And I feel like thicker gaskets are a bandaid approach. 
 

10 hours ago, birdshill123 said:

Kevin. You should not add SCA to an OAT coolant. Not required. Unless you are a chemist I would not fool around with anything other than distilled water and that coolant.

I think he’s saying you should use a filter without DCA

On 10/27/2023 at 11:08 AM, timaz996 said:

This sticker is on my battery compartment door.

I’d sure be interested to talk to an Allison engineer to understand how a destructive voltage potential could result from welding on the chassis…

Other than welding right up against some wiring, melting through the insulation and arcing directly to a sensor wire, I just can’t imagine how applying a fairly low voltage potential to the frame could possibly generate a voltage potential between the ECM and the chassis. Even if the welder is a complete idiot and has a bad ground, far from the welding location…

I would think that a faulty shore power ground would be far greater risk to the electronics .

In my old body shop days we welded on hundreds of cars and I’m pretty certain the guys never once bothered to disconnect a battery, much less an ECM  

Of course… carelessly starting a fire behind the panel was sometimes a problem. 😞 But never once had a problem with sensitive electronics 

W