I took the Squirrel out for a shakedown run at Hidden Falls Adventure Park on Friday for a day run. Picked up Brian and the Raisin and made it to the park around 10. Proceeded to hit a few trails and picked up Scott once he got to the park. Truck worked well with a few issues that i need to address before this weekend. Didnt break anything catastrophic and it went back on the trailer under its own power (always a good thing when on its first trip out). Oh and it didnt catch on fire like the last time.
Vid that Scott put together.
https://youtu.be/4xhJPiyli_Y
Some pics:
Loaded up.
Some of the issues that need to be ironed out:
1. It ran hotter than i would have liked it to (around 235). I dont know if this is due to an air pocket still trapped in there somewhere to due to the smaller radiator/fan combo than what i was running last time. More on this later.
2. I guess the arms on the sway bar loosened up causing one side to strip out about 20% of the splines on one arm. The bar is fine, just the aluminum stripped. The rig felt super stable with the sway bar connected, but from the looks of it was limiting my flex in the rear. The front was doing most of it. Im going to leave it off this weekend and see how it feels in comparison.
3. Need to trim the from fenders more as the tires made contact and sliced a few lugs in half.
4. Need to seal off the area where my right leg is near the center console as the exhaust right under there was pretty warm. Its wrapped, but needs some type of barrier and not just open.
Other than those issues, i'd call it a successful shakedown. Had a good time and learned a lot about the rig. The tuned coilovers from Accutune are awesome. This thing floats when bombing down the fire roads. The belly is low at 19" and i did hit it on a few ledges, but it didnt keep me from making it up the obstacle.
More on the overheating issue. Last night i changed out the water pump to another one i had on the shelf. This time around i looped the heater core ports and ran the steam lines back to the radiator. Bled the system and watched it creep up to 215 just at idle. I connected my tablet with the Dash Command App to the OBDII port and saw that the coolant temp was about 190. Thats a 25 degree difference. the gauge is picking up the reading from the rear passenger side head and the PCM is getting the reading from the front of the drivers side head. Which one is right? I still think i have some air trapped in there somewhere so Im going to try to get that out tonight. It has a 160 degree thermostat in it so it shouldnt get anywhere near that at idle. The fan was off.
