Slight update on Bruce. My wife and I drove him from Asheville to Mooresville for the Piedmont Traction Cruise And Cookout last weekend. We logged over 400 miles in two day’s and shook a few bugs out while we were at it. The drive down went really smooth. The only slight issue we had was at one of our rest area stops I noticed some smoke coming off of the transfer case. I pulled the fill plug out and watched atf dump onto the ground. I guess I need to plan on new seals in the future. After that little adjustment the smoke went away and everything ran fine on the way down.
Once we got there I helped my dad move some trucks around his property and put the 4wd and tow hooks to work.
On the way to the first cruise meet up location I noticed my battery gauge dropping left of 12:00. Once we got there I pulled out my multimeter and measured 11.2v on the battery while the truck was running. Thinking maybe something odd just happened I let the truck idle and charge the battery for about an hour while we hung out. When we left that stop we drove about 15 min to the next meet up and I turned the truck off. Thankfully she started right back up when we left that location with no issues. The next stop the truck wouldn’t crank so I had to get a jump from another truck. At this point I was a little nervous but we had to keep going. The last stop we hung out for maybe an hour or so and I knew it wasn’t gonna start so I got a jump. At this point it was 10:30 and we were heading back home. This was the first leg of the trip where I needed headlights so of course the battery started draining quicker and my lights were extremely dim. The truck died probably 5 times on what should have been an hour drive home. Needless to say it took us over 4 hours to complete the entire drive back.
So my only guess at the issue is the charging system. I put a brand new ac delco alternator on the truck before the trip but I used the old voltage regulator that was mounted to the firewall. The truck was charging fine before we left the house (over 13v while charging) but I guess the regulator could have quit working mid ride. The old alternator was internally regulated so the voltage regulator hadn’t been used in a while. I ordered a new voltage regulator and hope that fixes the problem. I also started hearing a slight knocking sound from the power steering pump so I’ll add that to the list.
All in all it was a great trip and despite our troubles I am trusting this old girl more and more.