Well, after years of borrowing a dump truck for various projects, I finally bought one for myself. 1992 International 4900 DT 466, Allison MT653 trans, live hydraulics. I've been looking for a nice municipal truck for awhile and this one fit most of the markers. While I'm not a huge fan of the automatics, I wanted one for farm use so I can have my wife haul stones/ dirt/stumps while I run the hoe to load. Picked it up at an auction cheap because the Allison is burned. The fluid stinks, trans slips bad in forward gears. Seems to shift firmly into reverse, I didn't notice any issues there. Planning to drop the trans and get a rebuild kit.
That's A nice find colson ! Look's in pretty good shape .
Oh, it's a 20 ft job, but will work fine for me. Someone at some point did spend some time and money cleaning, degreasing and painting this rig. It has a full length double frame that is showing some signs of rust jacking in the rear half. I will have to address that before it gets our of hand, along with the transmission. The engine starts nice, half a crank and she fired off cold the other day. We shall see how it does once I put it to work this fall
Most generally those Allisons are pretty tough. I am sure you will only rebuild it once in your lifetime.
That's what I'm hoping for
Nice find! I need one like that for my ol' lady!
Anybody got any good tips cleaning up the paint on the doors? There's remnants of 2 different owners information on the side of the door and I would like to clean it up without having to repaint, if that's possible. I haven't done much body work so I don't know if rubbing compound would be enough, or wet sanding, etc. Thoughts?
I would try buffing it out with some buffing compound first. Worst that can happen is repaint the doors.
If its sign painters paint, easy off oven cleaner will take it off. spray on let sit a few minutes rub off. may take a few times Nice little truck for running around the farm.
There were a couple of ways I thought that title was going, and this wasn't one of them Regarding rust jacking double frames, the way I see it you have two or three options. 1. Remove the rust, not typically practical, would usually require taking the frame rails apart. 2. Attempt to remove as much of the rust as possible, hammer it, use freeze thaw to your advantage, pressure wash it etc. 3. Leave the rust in place and try to slow it down, the only practical way in most cases. Obviously lightly used vehicles in the salt/snow belt are the usual victims of rust jacking, the salt being the critical factor that has to be controlled. Even if you never drive this thing in salt again, the salt will never leach out on it's own and the corrosion will continue. I've never done this, but in this situation, I'd like to set up a pipe system to drip water into the top of the crack, hook that to a rain barrel and leave it hooked up for a season. Once dry, seal the top and bottom of the rails except for ports to add rust preventative of your choice, diesel with added wax, old motor oil etc. If the pipe irrigation system is too much work, at least put a sprinkler under there for a few days to rinse the salt off before oiling it, the oil makes it harder to rinse the salt out of the rust.
You will find the Allison delivers more power to the wheels than a standard. Manually shift down when needed, service it when you should, It'll last forever.
I would say not more power, just steadier power. The 653 Is a second gear start transmission and has to be manually shifted to first gear which is a deep reduction ratio. Real easy to just lay in the power you need to get it moving.
possible solution for the salt issue is ( chlorid) used on bridge steel to eliminate salt rot expensive stuff but it works look it up
I have had good service on parts from TKT Sales. If it gets real bad check army surplus. There were some remans in storage containers floating around for about $3000.
I have to get it pulled and torn down to see the damage. I'm thinking it is burned frictions based on how it slips only in drive, but I won't know til we get it apart. Locally, there is a running take out for $990 plus tax, a reman from Valley Truck in Grand Rapids for about $2800 plus tax, a master rebuild kit for $670 but that is backordered or a donor truck of same vintage with DT466 and MT653 trans for $1500. Many options. Rebuilding mine is probably cheapest, getting a reman and swapping would be fastest. I'll have a better idea soon
Pretty easy trans to rebuild. Probably a burned out forward clutch behind the front support/pump housing. When I say "forward clutch" that is the front clutch in the stack, not just for forward gears. I think I still have service and parts manuals for them, if you want to borrow them. Oh, the absolute MUST after a rebuild is to check the adjustments on the shift cable against the "clicks" on the shift arm. Any pressure on the pin will low pressure one clutch or another and you will have the same result you have now.
Not sure how mechanically minded you are. but it is possible to remove the forward clutch in situ if you are careful. I scanned my books to pdf if you want some info. Mark
I Appreciate the offer, but I found the Allison Service Manual online and was able to download it. Publication SM1317EN from August 1996, revised July 1999. I've been reading through it to get familiar with what I'll be seeing when I get this one apart. I've got a couple projects for the wife to complete first, then I'll be tearing into this one.
Nice choice Colson. That model featured a mechanical injection system. Looks great
I ended up ordering a reman transmission from Weller in Grand Rapids, MI. I don't have time to do a rebuild and they were the only company that could have one built this week. Mine has 3rd gear hold and, from what I was told, it's not that common unless it's a plow truck, which mine is. I pulled the trans Monday afternoon. Easy peasy. I squandered 5 hours on it with a buddy, but probably more like 90 minutes of doing any actual work. Picked up the reman at lunchtime today and will be putting it in this evening. My goal is to get it in and flushed tonight so I can haul gravel tomorrow. My driveway needs some work
They say a picture is worth a thousand words:
Ouch
What happened there? on the pallet? or? That was the return from the cooler/Lube port that is broken off. That's a main case replacement job there.
Reman transmission $2135.00 New case for reman trans: ~ $500 Learning a life lesson without getting hurt: Priceless. Transmission was on jack. Rolling it up the incline to the truck, the steel wheel on the jack hit a pebble and came to a stop. Load teetered, chain came loose and down she came. It happened so fast I couldn't do anything more than watch. Why I didn't have it secured with 2 chains or straps , I don't know. I'm just glad nobody got hurt while I learn a lesson the hard way. Another 5 or 10 minutes and I would have been under the truck laying beside the jack. Weller is doing a case swap on the trans tonight and hopefully I'll get it back tomorrow.
Wow... $2135 for a reman trans? thats a steal in the first place. The Allison master kit with plates, seals, bushings, and bearings was over $750 the last time I did one of these 10 years back. And well hindsight is 20/20, but I always use 2 ratchet straps handling any transmission on a trans jack. Had to do a few in those 3 wheel Terragator fertilizer spreaders that I had to build a 10" extension to get high enough to reach the trans. Triple strapped that one.
Yeah, I was very angry with myself when that happened. Especially since I had used a ratchet strap when I pulled the old one out on Monday. I have no idea why I thought I needed to do it differently putting it back in. Weller Truck Parts - Automatics department did a fantastic job though. I was able to rush back up there right after it happened, drop off the trans during their 2nd shift, and by end of 1st shift the next day they had it done and waiting for me. I was able to pick it up fairly late on Thursday and we put it in the truck yesterday. And yes, we used 2 ratchet straps this time.
I have not been able to fill trans yet as whomever owned the truck before me butchered the dipstick tube and it needs to be fixed correctly. Any recommendations? I have a hydraulics shop about 2 miles from my house, I was thinking about having them build me one unless there is a better route to go. Once that is done I will fill trans and flush cooler and cooler lines. I also need to replace a cooler line as it is degraded badly under the truck.
Finally got this truck on the road. Went for a quick drive last night and truck seems to run good. Tire guy comes tomorrow morning to put on new drives, and then it's off to the local pit. Hopefully I can be more productive tomorrow. Lots of small piddly l things kept me from getting much done today.