ThaddeusW

Sounds close to my problem. Though, I never touched my filters before my problem. As other has said sounds like you are loosing prime from the pump to the tank. I would unscrew the new filters and clean the seal and the face of the filter mount to ensure there is a tight seal. Any air between the tank and lift pump and you will lose prime. It is also possible that perhaps the primer handle will let some air into the lines as well, my primer handle on my 673 will bubble and leak a bit of fuel when priming. Though I would look at the filer seal first.

That makes sense! So used to the single filter on a gas four wheeler.

You can still take it around the neighborhood and sell rides but it is much more profitable to rent it for parties and carnivals. Noone has done it since the late 70's after it was apparent you could make more money renting. For two hours you can charge anywhere from $400-$600 and you can do two or three 2 hour jobs in a day. You can make pretty good money with that truck in a season. I have done plenty of marathons in our swing truck in the hot summer heat with a cooler of water and snacks. All manual pushing, good exercise. As for lawsuits, not going to name names but a now defunct carnival company had a worker bring a whip truck to his own party without his boss knowing. During the party a little girl fell out of the car and her head was crushed by another, she died instantly. That lawsuit along with the owners absentee method of letting everyone else run his business for him (into the ground might I add) is why they are defunct.

Holy smokes. We just shut down our family carnival business (my grandfather started in the 40's and expanded to a full business in 54. I spent my whole life working with this stuff. We owned a whip back in the 60's/70's and they were a mechanical nightmare. A PTO shaft ran from the tranny to a deep reduction right angle gear box between the frame rails that drove the drive sprocket. To run the ride a lever in the ride body on the wall behind the cab worked the clutch and another lever shifted the PTO. My grandmother told me a story when the clutch linkage from the pedal in the cab broke and she had to ride in the back and work the clutch lever while my father shifted by yelling CLUTCH! Good times. Another whip is owned by aardvark in Brooklyn, we hired them last year and it broke down after 10 minutes. The drive shaft key machined out the keyway in the drive sprocket as the retaining pin broke. Those trucks were a PITA. There was an older Jewish gentleman, Eugene, who purchased our whip truck in the late 70's. He actually had a number tattooed on his arm from a Nazi concentration camp, he survived as a child but his parents died. He ran the truck independently but worked with us a lot back in the 80's. I remember riding his truck on many occasions. Rumor was his truck is/was sitting out on LI somewhere in a yard after he passed in the 90's. I wonder if this was his truck or another. A former employee owned one of the ferris wheels back in the 80's and sold it around 89/90. Don't know where it went. Another mechanical nightmare with PTO and driveline problems. The Pirate ships (or swing trucks as we called them) are all over and are man powered though I knew a guy with a gas engine that ran a flywheel with a clutch that dumped the flywheel to a chain drive that quickly yanked the carriage up for a jolting start. We still have our one owner swing truck since 64/65. Have to sell it but what the heck, it served us proud over the years. Time to move on.

Okay. So two weeks ago I was working on my B61, letting it run for a while at idle. After about 5 minutes of running the engine at idle I began to slowly bring up the RPM's. It started to blow black smoke, sputter and then die. I freaked out for a second thinking the worst. I tried to crank it but nothing. It was as if it was getting no fuel. Yesterday I spent a full day working on the truck and tackled the engine problem. My first thought was to buy 5 fresh gallons of diesel, pull the fuel filter (I have two spin on filters), bang out any dirt, fill it with fresh diesel, prime and then start the truck. Nothing. Next I thought it was a stuck rack in the injection pump. Pulled the cover, checked the rack movement and it looked fine. Not the pump. I then opened the return line from the injectors, pump and secondary filter, put a cup under the lines and cranked it for 5 seconds. No fuel. Reconnect return lines. Pumped the primer handle with the cup in place and fuel squirted out as it should. hmmmmmm. Last thing, pull the feed line to the pump and put a cup under the hose. Saw a bit of fuel spurt out when I cracked the line and .... And then things got interesting. I cranked the engine and the darn thing started WITHOUT the fuel supply line connected to the pump. I quickly shut it down and checked the cup which overflowed and spilled fuel all over. Well now, nothing was wrong, plenty of fuel! I'm sitting there scratching my head and it occurred to me, it must have been air lock. I reconnected the supply line, pumped the primer to flush out air, cranked it and she ran fine. Little rough at first because she must have sucked some air. But she smoothed out and ran fine after about a minute. Brought the RPM's up and it was fine. I need some help understanding my fuel system. Two pictures: I think I have everything worked out but here is what I know so far: (yes the injector line is unhooked, that was after my cup test) 1) Fuel supply to pump (from secondary filter?) 2) Return line from injectors 3) Return outlet from injector pump 4) Not sure, looks like it comes from the secondary filter. 5) Return line to tank 6) Lift pump, primer pump and fuel lines 1) supply from tank 2) Not sure where this lines runs best guess is to the lift pump? 3) Do these lines come from the lift pump and run back to the engine? 4) bypass/return line? Here is what I think I have worked out so far: ( just spotted my glaring spelling mistake, lol) 1. Fuel is pumped from the tank, through the primary filter and into the lift pump. 2. From the lift pump, fuel then goes through the secondary filter, some returns to tank. 3. Fuel then runs from the secondary filter to the injection pump inlet. 4. Fuel is allowed to return from both the injection pump and the injectors back to the tank. I'm no diesel tech but why is there a secondary fuel filter? My best guess is that "more filtering is better". And why does it allow some fuel to return to the tank, to prevent over pressure from a clogged filter?

Boy, you ain't kiddin. I took a look and see that manuals are about 20-25 bucks each while Gunites are around 80 each and Bendix around 90 each. Think ill stick with the manuals for now. Makes sense as with the low miles I wont be adjusting them very often. Thanks for the input.

At this years Macungie there was an R model crew cab that was custom made by putting two cabs together. I forget who did the conversion but it was real professional and you couldn't tell it was two cabs.

Okay, So I got the chambers off this weekend. Yesterday I devoted about 4 hours to getting just the bad chamber off. At first I tried to be gentile and came to realize that everything is rusted up and frozen pretty good. The bad spring chamber I took off by applying air from a big compressor directly to the quick release valves for the spring brakes. I then removed the spring can from the service half thinking everything would be easy after that. I was wrong. The cotter pins on the clevis to the slack adjusters were frozen, even a punch wouldn't drive them out. I tried filing them down until the ends were flush with the pin and drive the pin out but again, the pin was frozen tight. I then said screw it, im going to replace everything. And cut the clevis with a angle grinder. Thankfully the bolts holding the slack adjusters were coated with anti-seize, they came right off with no problems and just a wrench. Today I took the second chamber off and again I had to cut the clevis but I learned from yesterday and got the chamber off in under 30 minutes. Big difference in time. I will use this chamber to measure the stroke. I have come to learn long stroke means 3 inches of stroke and regular means 2.5 inches, only a 0.5" difference not that much longer. At work I can better rig up air lines to release the spring and apply the service brakes to take a good measurement. I want to switch to auto slack adjusters, anyone have any input on that? I figure that while I am at the rear brakes I should be smart and replace as much as I can seeing how this truck had sat for 7-9 years. No sense in taking chances with the most important part of the truck, brakes. And anyone have any recommendations, Bendix, Gunite, etc?

Thanks for the help. Tomorrow I will tackle the chambers.

Okay more questions. The other day I was trying to start my truck and it was a bit cold, 40's I think and I had a hard time getting it to start. So I had a somewhat (not-so)brilliant idea to use my 10,000BTU blowtorch as a starting aid by blowing the flame into the intake to warm the air as I cranked the engine. And sure enough it fired right up, the torch stayed lit and the flame grew dim as the air sucked it in. The engine didn't sputter or sound as if it wanted to stall. That warm air did the trick. So I got to thinking about making it easier for me to start the truck weekly during the winter by adding an intake heater of some kind. I dont want to plug in the block heater, first off I am not always near the truck and second I don't trust the old block heater to not start a fire. And I want to avoid ether, its an old engine and I dont want to blow it up. Heating the intake air makes so much sense that it almost seems like a no-duh answer to the problem of cold starts. The one thing that stands out in the Dodge Cummins intake heater which is a spacer block with heater elements. They aren't that expensive and look like they might do the job but I don't know the dimensions of the Dodge part. If its inner opening is big enough for the air flow required then I can fab an adapter plate to make it fit on the intake manifold. Then from there its a simple task of adapting the intake tube to match the new height of the heater+adapters. Another thought would be to use one of those Perkins style intake heaters that use diesel fuel from the return line to run a small burner lit by an electric filament. Or perhaps weld a threaded bung onto the intake pipe and use a Ford/GM style electric coil heater (seems less elegant and powerful). Anyone have any thoughts? Im hoping someone here has a Dodge intake heater lying around and a tape measure or caliper handy.

Okay, dumb question ahead. How do I remove the cans when the spring brakes are applied? I know there is a way to manually back them off but I don't see a bolt head, only a hole in the middle of the can. Do I have to insert a bolt and if so what size and thread pitch? The only cheating way I can think of is to chock the wheels and release the parking brakes. Then again with a blown diaphragm I might have to get creative and jerry rig an airline from a compressor or cap off the line to the leaky chamber to build pressure.

Thanks guys. The truck was upgraded to newer style chambers so it shouldn't be an issue to swap them. There is a truck parts place close to home and work so I will pull a chamber and bring it along with me.

Hey all You could say I have been on hiatus from the forum. Between work, moving and then moving again I was stretched for cash, working on the B just wasn't an option. Time is another enemy of mine but things have smoothed out a bit for the past few months. I am doing better and even though its fall I want to get a few things fixed before it gets too cold. My problem is I think I have a blown diaphragm in the spring side of the drivers side drive axle chamber. It leaks air from the hole on the back of the chamber and from the clamp around the chamber. I can barely move the truck before the knob pops out when it drops below 60 PSI. I have never done this before and I want to know if there are any gotchas or precautions I should look out for. I also have no idea what size to get either. I am also thinking to buy two new complete chambers as they are very rusty and I think its time for a fresh set. Any particular brands to buy? I see that some say long stroke and some have long rods. Should I replace the slack adjusters as well? What to do what to do.... Thanks!

From Wikipedia: In order to maintain as politically neutral a role as possible, Interpol's constitution forbids it to undertake any interventions or activities of a political, military, religious, or racial nature. Its work focuses primarily on public safety, terrorism, organized crime, crimes against humanity, environmental crime, genocide, war crimes, piracy, illicit traffic in works of art, illicit drug production, drug trafficking, weapons smuggling, human trafficking, money laundering, child pornography, white-collar crime, computer crime, intellectual property crime and corruption. So they don't take part in political problems.

Paul, Sorry to hear you were robbed. What town was your garage in? If they knew what to take then someone knew what was in there. Reminds me of when we had our machine shop, every there was a big brass or aluminum job our yard was broken into and the scrap stolen the day it was put outside. We always figured is was some neighborhood low life (the area is full of em). Then after we sold the machine shop off we still had some scrap left over, some aluminum mostly steel. Those barrels sat there for a few months before we gathered up enough junk to have the scrap guy come one last time. It was then we knew it was one or more of our workers who was in on the scrap theft. That or they told some scum bag when to drop by.