My CDS died. What coulfd be wrong?

[gimmeagig]

Hi,
Recently I was lubing my 1999 CDS machine and i found a lot of play in the U joints.
It was a holiday weekend and LPM was closed . So I had a local mechanic replace them. The machine ran fine after that.I ended up doing a bunch of jobs after the repair was done.
Today I went to LPM in Spokane to have something unrelated fixed and I had the mechanic there check the U joints out and he told me that there was play because a clip was missing on the U joint and that that was an easy fix. I had them do it and we tested it and my CDS ran great after that.
So I went to my next job. At first it had a little trouble coming up to speed but then it ran like it should. After about an hour I was going to make an adjustment on the machine and I heard it squeaking really bad ( I was doing an apartment on the 3rd floor so i couldn't hear it while I was working) and before I was able to shut my CDS down it completely died on me.
The driveshaft to the machine can normally be rotated but now it is completely frozen and I have a bunch of jobs coming up. LPM was already closed when it happened but fortunately i have no jobs tomorrow and I'll be able to take the truck back to the shop. Then I'll find out what is going on.
But in the meantime I'm still freaking out a bit, wondering how bad the damage might be. I really don't need a 1000.- repair bill right now.
From what i just described, do you guys have any idea what i might be facing here? Is it the clutch, or can it just be a frozen U joint? Or a broken drive shaft? Or something else even worse?

 

[Studebaker]

Sounds like a belt.

 

[gimmeagig]

I sure hope that's all it is but that sounds too simple.
I cannot turn the driveshaft to the machine by hand anymore. If it was just a broken belt would I not still be able to turn the shaft?

 

[Studebaker]

When you key it what happens?

 

[gimmeagig]

I don't know, I've kind of been afraid to touch it because of the stuck driveshaft.It happened so fast,but I think when the machine stopped so did the engine of the truck. With the machine off the truck drives fine so I guess the clutch must be OK.

 

[Becker]

Sounds like the blower seized. that causes the belt to squeele. and van engine to die.

 

[gimmeagig]

Is that fixable or do I need a new blower now. When i had my truck at LPM today I had them also change the oil in the waterpump and the blower. Could it be they did not fill it enough?

 

[Becker]

check the blower level, remove the belt holding the bower to the shaft, see if each will spin.. if the blower spins but no the shaft it is not the blower, so work the other direction, if the blower does not spin, ouch could be extremely costly.

 

[gimmeagig]

That doesn't sound good. Is it not possible to repair a blower? How much are we talking?

 

[Jim Martin]

sounds to me like the drive shaft was not lined up right..........
If memory serves me.........those things do not have to much forgiveness on how much they can be off........
the noise you heard was the belt slipping when the u joint locked up............
I would be willing to bet that if you pulled the drive shaft apart everything will spin again and you will have a damaged yoke........

 

[gimmeagig]

I suppose that would be the lesser evil.I think a driveshaft is 700.-

 

[Jim Martin]

I suppose that would be the lesser evil.I think a driveshaft is 700.-

If this is the problem....isn't it under warranty from the people you had fix it....

 

[gimmeagig]

OK bad news....its the blower.
Steve at LPM was able to start the machine up this morning and it ran OK at first but then it started to drop in RPMs and after a few restarts it really had problems coming up to speed. The driveshaft is OK but when you turn it by hand there is a definite grinding sound in the blower. It's a Tuthill MD4007 model with 6800 hr on it.I was told that was really high for a blower.
So to replace it is 3572.- Steve, the mechanic, recommended doing the pillow blocks at the same time but that would add 700.- to the price tag and there is no way that i can swing that.
LPM will let me pay half now and the rest in 30 days, which is cool but this is killing me.
I think the blower might have frozen up before and that's what damaged my U joints in the first place, what do you guys think. Steve says that if I tried to do another job with it as it is, the blower could seize up and take out my driveshaft.
So tomorrow at 3:30 AM I'll be leaving from Coeur d'Alene to Hydramaster in Mulkiteo (about 7 hrs) pick up the blower and get it to LPM in Spokane. (Shipping it would take over a week and still cost 125.-) Steve is going to install it on Friday and then I'll be back in business, hopefully. The customers who I had scheduled already will wait for me fortunately.
I hope I won't regret not doing the pillow blocks but I have not way to come up with the extra money.
So now I'm committed to this old machine. Other things will go wrong, I know but I'll just deal with it as it comes. The price of the blower is definitely a shock. Can't those be rebuilt?

 

[Becker]

Dang wish I was coming to I'm less that 10 miles from hydramaster and my other house is off the barker exit near liberty lake. Not taking into account traffic you can make the drive in 5 hrs. From here to barker 4.5 hrs. Beware between ritzville and Moses lake state partol camps in the median all the time.

 

[Becker]

That's a used d a burns unit right? How many hour on it now?

 

[Becker]

Friday I'm coming as far as George wa your side of vantage. On I 90. About 1/2 way fir ya. I could meet ya if it would help you. Leaving here about 2 pm. Be in George about 5 headed to coullee city.

 

[Lee Stockwell]

That blower in HM dual shaft option is 2x the price.

 

[gimmeagig]

Friday I'm coming as far as George wa your side of vantage. On I 90. About 1/2 way fir ya. I could meet ya if it would help you. Leaving here about 2 pm. Be in George about 5 headed to coullee city.

Hey thanks so much for offering, but i'm just going to stay with the plan and do this drive.
Steve at LPM has me scheduled for 8 AM for the swap and I have a customer on hold for that afternoon. Yes the truck is from DA Burns and the machine has 6800hrs and the truck around 90000 I think. It's been good to me , I don't regret buying it and I knew a certain amount of problems would come my way. And I was OK with that.There is probably never a good time to have a blower break on you. But right now is especially bad.
I just hope nothing else goes wrong. You know that song "Born Under A Bad Sign" ? There are times when i feel like that.

 

[gimmeagig]

That blower in HM dual shaft option is 2x the price.

I'll remember that when I look for another truck but I'm hoping I'll be able to keep this one alive for a few more years.

 

[The Great Oz]

You can have the blower rebuilt and save several hundred dollars but you lose income in the time it takes to do the rebuild. New is probably the best option when you're busy.

Blower expected lifespan used to be quoted at 10,000 hours, and a lot of our units have more than that when we sell them, so I'd say this is bit of a premature failure. Might have nothing to do with maintenance and everything to do with "stuff happens" sometimes.

PS: Need cheap and quick shipping? Go Greyhound. Someone has to get it to - and get it from - a bus station, but it works.

 

[gimmeagig]

You can have the blower rebuilt and save several hundred dollars but you lose income in the time it takes to do the rebuild. New is probably the best option when you're busy.

Blower expected lifespan used to be quoted at 10,000 hours, and a lot of our units have more than that when we sell them, so I'd say this is bit of a premature failure. Might have nothing to do with maintenance and everything to do with "stuff happens" sometimes.

PS: Need cheap and quick shipping? Go Greyhound. Someone has to get it to - and get it from - a bus station, but it works.

I'll remember the Greyhound thing next time something happens. I talked on the phone with a guy in the midwest "Airblower Services Inc"
He was familiar with the Hydramaster blower and thought that 6800hrs was a good lifespan for the blower. His minimum for a repair was 1000.- depending on what failed. The the shipping to and from and the time....
Bryan is there a shop in Seattle or maybe even in my area that could rebuild a blower like that? I might rebuild mine and have it as a spare or try to sell it.
What part of my machine might go next? The waterpump maybe? Those are probably also very pricey but maybe easier to install? I know my tank maybe next but I can't afford to buy another truck so I'll keep this one going.

 

[Becker]

Costs me about 90 each way in gas every week. Or more if I'm pulling the boat or hauling building supplies like this weekend.

 

[Becker]

Ahh Bryan is in the mix. I'm pretty sure he is very familiar with the dodge CDS set up. That's why I asked if it was a burns van.

 

[Becker]

Ahh. For some reason I thought read you were doing the trip Friday. 3:30 am leaving time will put you right in the peak of commute. At least hydramaster is in the burbs not dt Seattle. I fact easy to get to from i90 and 405.

Best of luck on the repair.

 

[GeneMiller]

What the heck 6800 hrs is a lot. Don't think so. It's the strongest part of the truckmount. I only had one problem when a rear bearing seal came off other than that all passed 10k no problems at all.

Gene

 

[gimmeagig]

I'm back in town, that was a long drive and I'm dead tired,but I got the blower to LPM before they closed and tomorrow morning I'll drive my truck down for the repair. I'll have my first job tomorrow afternoon. I'll be pretty nervous for a while. I hope it's going to be OK because I'm completely out of money now and if something else goes wrong I'm toast..
So 6800 hrs is not a lot? I wonder why my blower died.I lubed it regularly.
I always thought that the intake filter system is really crude. I don't know how it is on your machines but mine has a metal tray with a mesh screen sitting inside it.I keep the screen clean but sometimes there are these slimy globs sitting in the tray behind the filter.I don't know where they come from or what kind of damage they could to if they got sucked into the blower but it kind of shows that the screen isn't super effective and it worries me now. Is there a modification that might keep the air that gets into the blower cleaner?
The Tuthill MD4007 blower is a beast at 180 pounds!!! I will call Tuthill tomorrow to see it there is a place in my area that can rebuild it. Shipping it somewhere seems tough. I hate to just throw it away. But if there is now way to fix it I wonder what I might be able to get for the scrap metal at a recycler?
Anyway, thanks for your help guys and I'll let you know how things turn out.

 

[Becker]

Blowers normally last "forever" but they can fail in the 1st few 100 hrs or at 12000 hrs and anywhere in between.

Your old one is surely worth more than scrap. I'd say rebuild it and have it as a back up, but you'd not be likely to ever need it.

I've done that round trip drive in a day more times than I can count. Really wish they'd bump the speed limit to 80 in central WA.

 

[gimmeagig]

here's the latest:
I had the blower installed and got the truck back at 11:30 AM today. I was able to do two jobs with it already and now I'm slowly staring to work myself out of the hole.
Steve, the mechanic told me that the blower itself does not to be greased anymore, an upgrade that the Tuthill company did. One thing that I'm wondering about is the lube port. I used to always lube the blower before shutting it down. But i tried that today and there was no vacuum at the lube port.It was too late to Call Steve and I'm wondering it this lube port is no longer necessary on the newer blowers. Does anybody here know? Tomorrow morning I'll take the cover off because I want to see what everything looks like.I'm hearing some kind of metallic mechanical friction noise that I have not heard before so I need to check where it comes from. The blower comes up to speed really quick now and when it shuts down it is almost instant. My old one would sort of putter along for a few seconds before shuttling down with a groan. Not this one.
Right now I'm too burned, those were some pretty stressful days that I just went through. I'm just kind of shell shocked now, expecting something really bad to happen at any point. I'll get over it.
So I'm now relaxing having a microbrew. Sierra Nevada Red IPA, first time trying it.I think I'm going to have another Tomorrow is a music day for me. I'm playing with my band at a local winery, really looking forward to that.

 

[Becker]

I bet the new blower is sweet. One wonders if the vac line for the blower lube was not connected. Or like you said not required but not likely.

Being placed out of service is never fun!

Hope the new blowers makes you a million.

 

[mirf]

Glad to hear you are back up and running.