Re: [MV] M880/M887 Questions

From: kuhrick (kuhrick@comcast.net)
Date: Wed Jul 21 2004 - 09:54:08 PDT


At 07:00 AM 7/21/2004, chance wolf wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "John Doherty" <mofta@hiwaay.net>
>To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2004 7:21 PM
>Subject: Re: [MV] M880/M887 Questions
>
>
> > My 1977 M886 was from a NG unit. It was missing the 3 lever light switch,
> > and my dash insert was also broken.
>
>Mine was ex-9th Infantry Brigade (then stationed at Ft. Lewis, WA) "HQ33",
>and I got a laugh when I saw that the dash insert had been screwed back on
>with three nice, new, bright, shiny Robertson wood screws. Heh. The
>Robertson (square head) is a Canadian thing!
>
> > As far as the military wiring harness goes though, it was very
> > professionally done. It was a well designed add-on, that simply plugged
>in
> > between the factory connections and the military added devices. It was
> > quite simple to remove and double check the factory connections with a
> > wiring diagram from a Haynes Dodge pickup service manual.
>
>I found the actual plug-ins and stuff seemed well thought out. It was just
>the nasty torpedo hole in my firewall that seemed really unnecessary. I've
>seen other 880/886 vehicles where the wiring was strung through decently
>though, so maybe mine was an anomaly.
>
> > BTW, the Dodges are notorious for the ammeter gauge going bad and killing
> > ALL the power at any given moment. That was the reason the former owner
>got
> > frustrated with this unit and I got it. I simply bypassed the gauge to
> > eliminate the problem alltogether.
>
>Yup. I did the same. The contacts at the back of the ammeter basically
>melted themselves out of the ammeter casing. There was also some
>high-resistance in the ignition circuit causing low voltage at the ballast
>resistor which I never did quite figure out, though I strongly suspect it
>was the ignition switch itself.
mine has a part way melted rubber plug that plugs in too the brain for
the spark pulgs
left side fire wall i think
ken m886
> Started well enough if you had a decent
>battery though, so I never bothered tracking it down.
>
>Just off the electrical topic for a moment, but if anyone's driving his (or
>her) Dodge M880-series truck and feels the accelerator pedal moving around
>all by itself beneath your feet - you'll find the two front clip bolts
>holding the front of the cab on (bumper area) will be missing entirely.
>I've now seen three vehicles like that exhibiting exactly this system,
>and/or creaking and flexing and moaning through fairly basic cornering and
>what-not. Sure is a weird sensation you get from the gas pedal when you
>have this problem. Very hard to describe.
>
>Also, one other M886 thing I found out the hard way is to keep your battery
>connections nice and clean. I had a bad one I didn't know about which went
>open while the engine was running and blew the "computer" (electronic spark
>control) directly after. Swell. I invented several new words that day -
>none of which are repeatable in polite company.
>
>
>
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