Rawze's Daily blog...

[Brock]

(04-16-2017 )kryten Wrote:  

(03-31-2017 )Rawze Wrote:  There are just some things that hate the power from it.

I remember an article I read several years ago about inverters. It was stated that a pure sine wave inverter was the way to go but they were very expensive at the time and very hard to find. The modified sine wave inverter was OK if what you were running had a "wall wart", or more correctly a voltage drop converter.

That being said I've had the same microwave in the truck for about 5 years running off first the Volvo factory installed inverter (lasted about 3 weeks longer than the warranty, $2500 to replace), then a 1500 Watt Cobra which was about $300 at the Flying J in Calgary.

I've never even heard of these things until recently.... when I read pure sine a few weeks back, I had to Google it! I've always just ran the cheapest Canadian Tire 2500W inverters and never had issues. I've ran microwaves and crock pots and my coffee maker and even a bar fridge with zero issue.

[snailexpress]

My yellow truckstop inverter 2000 watt working good with laptop, laser printer, fridge from walmart, coffee maker. Only one appliance wont work. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Electric-Indu...3=&veh=sem
Electronic control start going crazy.

[Nilao]

Yup. The induction cooktops will not work on modified sine. They must have pure sine wave inverter. I have been down that road.

[kryten]

I was thumbing through a Napa flyer while waiting to get to the counter today and Napa Canada has pure sine wave inverters available made by Fusion. From what I can get from their website they ranged from 300W / $250, 1000W / $650, 2200W / $1000, 6000W / $1250. There was also some other ratings available.

Since Canada is usually behind the States in most things I'd guess that Napa America will also have them available.

[Kid Rock]

We recently installed one of these. It's pure sine wave and designed to handle household appliances... check it out -we like it

https://www.siglermusiconline.com/produc...-watt-peak

[Rawze]

Ok, been very busy...

Shortly after my truck/wife and son driving it had left out last time, she said she felt vibration in engine/truck when the turbo was between 3 and 8 lbs of boost and it would go away outside of that range. That re-man turbo has about 500k miles on it, so I told her I would look at it when she got back a couple weeks later. In the mean time, i told her to take it somewhere to have the drive-line inspected because we had recently replaced clutch and u-joints for front main drive shaft. I did not replace the back u-joints, there was no play in them and they looked ok.


Well, about a week after she left out, at about 1:30 A.M (Memorial day, early morning) she was going across US-54 in kansas when she hit 2 small deer that damaged the front pretty heavily but no coolant loss. One of them rolled under the truck and trailer and there was no place to pull off, cars and trucks behind her. She kept going and figured she would look everything over when she hit the next truck stop.

About 130 miles or so down the road past that incident, she saw massive sparks suddenly fly out from under the trailer in the rear mirror all at once and all the alarms in the dash went off. She was loosing air real fast so she yanked it to what little bit of shoulder there was. By the time she got stopped, air was at zero and dash was lit with a thousand alarms.

She figured that maybe the deer that rolled under the trailer might have damaged an air line or tank or something. She got out of the truck and disconnected the lines for the trailer, it was pitch black outside. She got back in and started the truck back up only to find it was still building no air and all the lights and alarms were still lit up.

--- I got a phone call shortly after...

She walked back up the road a ways and found this ...

   

and...

   

--> needless to say, it was the truck and not the trailer after all. - A u-joint had let go.

I got on the horn and made arrangements for the trailer to get re-powered and we started investigating all the damage...

it was bad,.. real bad...

The rear drive-line let go at the back differential u-joint and when it did, it went sideways and bent the frame, bent and twisted brake chambers, arms, and caught all the hoses and wiring and ripped everything out of the back end of the truck and even some hoses that went all the way up to the front of the cab. - ABS wiring, ABS Modules, Air lines, Brake lines, hoses, wiring, it ripped everything apart and twisted it into a giant ball back there. The relay valve that controls the entire brake system, located under the fifth wheel was yanked clean off its hanger and was nowhere to be found in the dark.

Talk about a bad night...

Well,... I started making phone calls to some towing companies and shops in the area but everything was closed. It was a holiday, so i resorted to calling someone I knew that lived in that area for some advice on where to have it towed. I called up 389Driver from the forum here and he offered to go have a look, as it was not that far from him.

I cannot thank him enough for what he did. He went out there and spent several hours on his day off on the side of the road rigging up tail lights to the trailer pig-tail and told me to just lock the differential and the front diff would pull the truck. Him and my wife went about folding over air hoses and what was left of brake lines and they managed to get it to build enough air to release the parking brakes. The only circuit that didn't get ripped apart on sheer luck.

She managed to get it pulled out from under the trailer and another truck came and rescued the load. After that, my wife limped that truck more than 1,000 miles on only back-roads to get it home, front diff slipping like mad, getting worse by the mile. Our truck was in really bad shape, front end messed up and rear completely ripped apart. By the time she made it to the house, the front diff in the truck was slipping so badly that she could barely get 30 mph, it popping like mad. Every tiny hill was a severe challenge for it and she only has a little bit of front brakes, so stopping at all was a challenge too. --- i have to give her some serious credit for limping it more than 1,000 miles with it in that condition.

I have spent most of my time since then re-building everything. Damage is very extensive. i had to replace the front diff completely. The rear diff I can save, but the truck needs a lot of parts, wiring, hoses, brake lines hangers, and it even damaged hoses and wiring for the APU. It yanked so much stuff apart that it is not even funny, so it is going to take some time to fix.

Moral of the story ---- when you replace the u-joints in the front drive-shaft,.. The back ones are going to get jealous and throw a fit. You feel a vibration, you check it out and never assume it is a turbo or engine problem, because you could end up just like me real fast.

She regrets not taking it to a TA or shop to have the drive-line inspected after I had suggested it the day before, but thats ok. No one could have predicted this one very well, as it had been recently inspected.

THANK YOU AGAIN 389DRIVER FOR HELPING US OUT ON YOUR DAY OFF! -- HATS OFF TO YOU~!.

[389driver]

(06-21-2017 )Rawze Wrote:  Ok, been very busy...
...
THANK YOU AGAIN 389DRIVER FOR HELPING US OUT ON YOUR DAY OFF! -- HATS OFF TO YOU~!.

Anything for Rawze lol! Like I told you that day, if it weren't for you I would have destroyed my engine running that Puke Diesel Idiot tune! You saved myself and many others thousands of dollars...and have asked nothing in return.

Moral of the story - take care of the guys that take care of you!

[Rawze]

Got the back end all back together except for the drive-shaft. I have to get one made, none in stock after calling the most well-known drive-line shop in Atlanta, they are claiming that eaton is saying 78 days wait on one. I will go tomorrow to that drive-line shop and have them make me one custom.

The front of the truck is still damaged heavily and I need pretty much the entire lower bumper assembly. It is mangled and twisted and both halves of the bumper are shattered with many large pieces missing on the drivers side.

I have managed to plastic-weld all the cracks and split areas of the passenger side carbon composite bumper inner shell fairly well. Passenger outer shell is in good shape too. Pretty sure both can be saved but inner metal framework is toast. The right side is a gonner with many missing pieces too large to bridge and weld. right side outer shell is split in a hundred pieces too.

[Midland]

Hendrickson is always promoting their aftermarket bumpers. Do they make one for the Prostar? Never needed one yet so I haven't done that research.