Deere Mack

It has always sit right on the edge of an awning and only gets wet in a blowing rain.  That green circle on the lid is a vent and I'm not for sure what the bigger contraption hanging down is.  That seems to be where the mystery powder is born. All the brass parts have turned green, but I'm thinking that's normal.

Also, I don't think this tank was ever used for fuel.  I believe it was used to transport water.

8 minutes ago, JoeH said:

Salt?

Not sure, maybe I can talk my neighbor into tasting it..lol  The tank was clean when i got  it, then I washed it out with a brush and water before I put it to use, no chemicals.  I keep a lock on it too.  My fuel man says he's never seen anything like it.  I'm a little worried if a 10 micron filter will catch it.

I've got a 550 gal military storage tank I use to store diesel.  I have it filled about twice a month so it doesn't stay in there long. I've been using it for about the past 3 years.  This year is started doing something a little weird at the lid where you raise to fill it.  Its got a very fluffy powder like substance and it seems to have accelerated corrosion setting in.  Any ideas?

8 hours ago, Mack Technician said:

Nasty, if you don’t have your anti-capillary jumper in the coolant sensor circuit you certainly need to get that updated once you have this fixed. Just last week I found another truck without the harness. I popped the plug and it was full of coolant. In that case we caught it before it made the ECM trip.

I do not have an anti-capillary jumper but you can bet I will soon!  Thanks for that tip, I've never heard of such.

No other fuses are blown that I'm aware of.  Until I removed the connections and cleaned them at the ECU the fuse on the firewall would blow immediately.  I cleaned up the connections today where it was toasted and it started, ran for maybe a minute and died with a blown ECU fuse.  Pulled it apart, cleaned it again, replaced fuse and got it to run long enough to dump the bed then it started missing really bad and I just shut it down.  I figured it was getting ready to blow another fuse so I was hoping to save enough of the ECU to get it loaded tomorrow. 

2 hours ago, ivanuke said:

I was just about to message you, I spent some time looking through the schematics. If you disconnect the J2 line and the fuse keeps blowing you have a short in the harness. If it doesn't blow and it blows when you have J2 connected, your ECU is probably bad, but now it looks like you have pretty good damage on both sides. If you determine your ECU is bad I'll offer to buy from you, I want to take a stab at repairing one. If i were you, I would clean that connector as good as I could, and make sure there is no visible shorts (use your multimeter on ohm setting to make sure theres no short from pin to pin) and if it looks good, put another fuse back in and see if it pops (which it shouldnt if all pins were good during the ohm check) This would help determine if it was the harness or the ECU, the connector looks pretty destroyed, hopefully its salvagable. Not sure if mack sells connector parts.

I went back out to the truck. I cleaned the connections the best I could.  The harness connector and  the pined connection at the ECU are both toast. Managed to get it running long enough to dump my load off. It kept blowing the fuse and when I would unhook the bottom connector on the ECU gas/pressure would escape.  Going back in the morning with the lowboy truck and hopefully get it running long enough to load it up.

1 hour ago, Mack Technician said:

Dirty Road Goat! 😡 

The reason we picked “Taking Back Our Neighborhood” as this years theme is because last week a local fella, Timothy Rowe, got killed by a deer. We’re treating every ziplock bagged goat as an act of public service. 

Man that's horrible! Was it domestic or in the wild or car accident?

43 minutes ago, j hancock said:

Well, that sucks even with getting fixings for some venison stew.

With this plate on your truck, stupid deer wouldn't have jumped in front of you.....

LOL.  I agree, time for a change!

23 minutes ago, ivanuke said:

I was just about to message you, I spent some time looking through the schematics. If you disconnect the J2 line and the fuse keeps blowing you have a short in the harness. If it doesn't blow and it blows when you have J2 connected, your ECU is probably bad, but now it looks like you have pretty good damage on both sides. If you determine your ECU is bad I'll offer to buy from you, I want to take a stab at repairing one. If i were you, I would clean that connector as good as I could, and make sure there is no visible shorts (use your multimeter on ohm setting to make sure theres no short from pin to pin) and if it looks good, put another fuse back in and see if it pops (which it shouldnt if all pins were good during the ohm check) This would help determine if it was the harness or the ECU

It had leaks from the coolant tanks when I got it.  I replaced those and the sensor etc.  I'm thinking the coolant leaked down on it and caused the corrosion and short, especially since all the trouble is at the bottom.  I'll take a closer look tomorrow and check the pins out. The pin connector/harness looked to be toast.

I'm not electrical engineer but this doesn't look right.

That's a great pic.  Christmas card worthy.  lol   Does hitting one with the truck count?  It could have been worse, but with $700 worth of plastic damage I should at least have meat in the freezer!

One of the few fuse descriptions I can make out from my panel is ECU and its blown. Replaced it and immediately blew again. I've heard of the firewall fuse panels giving trouble. Think its possible or it's the other. I haven't had time for a full diagnostic test due to rain.  Gota brief break and found this.

Does anyone happen to have the diagram for the fuse panel on the firewall.  Mine's smudged up and I cant read it.

1 hour ago, ivanuke said:

Sorry to hear that, if you have Code 6-4 thats loss of communication to an ECU. Attached are the troubleshooting steps from the V-Mac III manual for this code, go through these tests and it may help you find the fault, there is a paragraph in there if you lose both communication lines the engine wont start. Let us know what you find!

CV713_6-4_Troubleshooting_Guide.pdf 2.39 MB · 1 download

I can't thank you enough.  I'll let you know what I find out. Let the fun begin!

On 11/20/2019 at 5:00 AM, Mack Technician said:

What does You fluke meter say when your testing at the battery(s) and at alternator?

I appreciate the help!  I'm reading 14v at alternator.

I've got bigger problems now. Truck shut down today on job site. ABS and traction control light are on with lighting bolt, 6-4 code.  Everything seem to be getting power, it cranks over fine but will not start.  I've read a few forums about this, it doesn't look good. I'm pretty sure I smelt electrical smoke when it happened.

On 11/20/2019 at 1:51 PM, ivanuke said:

Try removing the dash and see if you can get your meter leads to touch Pins 29 for power and pin 35 for ground (cant remember if the wires had boots or if the crimp is exposed enough to get leads on it. or maybe get sharp leads to poke the wire). If you have 14 volts I would get another dash. Pins 29 and 35 are somewhat close together, just be careful they don't touch when checking voltage.

Thank you for that information! I'll check that first chance I get.

47 minutes ago, mrgumby said:

What does it read if you just turn the key on without the truck running    Does it still peg the meter

Gives same reading, almost pegged out

10 hours ago, Mack Technician said:

Full disclosure?

You’d have cooked batteries or the alternator would have probably given up the ghost by now if my scenario was correct. I’ll check my diagram when I get home and see what you need to be reading. 

There’s the distinct possibility that our previous owner, Mr.Chucklehead, took your dash apart, drank a 40 of Molson Ice, and relocated gauges to holes they aren’t suppose to be in????? Maybe? Crackpipe theory? How many empty holes do you see in the dash? Any other gauges not reading with a sound mind? Voltage gauge has a pretty easy job, he’s not a rocket scientist. Hard to blame the dash since he’s only reading a predetermined vital. Can’t picture the dash producing a magnified voltage.

The possibilities of the previous owner are endless. For example, he welded my gate pins in place. I mean come on now!

Had to carry it back to mack today because they turned off my engine oil temp gauge from the previous update 🤦‍♂️, so I had them to look at while it was there.  He said it had to be the in the dash because everything else checks out.  All other gauges work fine except my fuel gauge, it can be squirrely at times but I'm sure that's probably the sending unit.

I've attached a photo showing my arrangement with the voltmeter circled in red. If it's right or not I couldn't tell you.

I'll check it out again when it gets back this evening.  It's been like that since I got it earlier this year.  The only problem I've had is one time it "glitched" and the lighting bolt and ABS light came on with loss of engine power for split second.  Then it cleared up almost instantly but I honestly feel like it hasn't run the same since. Mack said it did have a stored code, cant remember what it was. but basically something had shorted out somewhere, but unless the code was active it would be hard to pin down.

I've got a voltmeter pegging out.  I've checked all the grounds, replaced the meter itself with no luck. It's charging normal, everything checks out with my hand held. I'm sure its grounding out somewhere but I was hopping someone might point me in the right direction.  Thanks in advance!

1 hour ago, JoeH said:

Most of the ones I've done on our trucks the bolts have been seized to the nut so we have to torch them off. Be careful you don't cook airlines and wires.

I'll plan on that since every nut and bolt I've tried to remove on this truck was seized.  Did a king pin job on the thing and couldn't get the nut off the king pin. I promise it was a last resort but I had to cut the spindles to get to the nut in order to torch it all off.  Luckily I've got a good graveyard close by that had some spindles.

11 hours ago, j hancock said:

Atro may have a polyurethane mount for your application.

https://www.atrobushing.com/search?q=&manufacturers[]=mack&underhood_cab=Engine+Mounts

I appreciate that lead. Here's exactly what I need.  https://www.atrobushing.com/product/MM62-622M2

On 11/2/2019 at 11:41 AM, Mack Technician said:

Not good. Knuckleheads didn’t save your customer data before they uploaded the new program. More gray engine amnesia.

If you had the level 9 throttle issue you’ll know if it’s still there? Is your engine power fluctuating? 

It's been wet here and I haven't got to run a load yet, but running lite it doesn't seem to have any issues with throttle. 

I'm going to try and find those motor mount bushings and put them in myself. Will the engine have to come up very much for the new ones?

I'm a little worried my update didn't go like it should.  It needed the latest update and I ask them to check the throttle control update etc. Went to pick it up and I had ask to remove the 5 min auto shutdown that couldn't be over ridden, didn't and some how the engine brake got disabled and all the sudden the engine oil temp doesn't work. Had to take it back. Can't tell any difference in performance with the new update.