Sapper:
My slagging of the Iltis comes after 20 years of maintaining them. Many of the repetitive problems we had to fix on them were unknown to the operators, who didn't seem to show up to work until 10:30, took an hour and a half lunch, and rarely stuck around until 3:30 in the afternoon. When your greatest concern of the day is "what time can we go home?" , I guess mechanical problems come a distant last place in the scheme of things. My apologies if the above doesn't apply to you, or your unit, but it seemed to apply to most of the 1st line combat arms units I worked with, and certainly any militia.
Below I'll list the top dozen or so repetitive failures that I recall on the Iltis. How many do you recall?
1) Burnt out headlamps: early versions alternators were wired wrong, which would kill the batteryies. Upon removal of the slave cable, the alternator voltage would spike, and burn out the headlamp bulbs. It did not help that early replacement bulbs were of the 12volt type.
This defect was later corrected by the removal of a small bridge on the alternator, and the installation of a capacitor near the master cylinder.
2) torn CV dustboots: these seem to have started tearing from the day we got them. Later installation of an extra set of guards helped.
3) Batteries under the seats. What an operator doesn't see, he doesn't worry about. Loose or dirty terminals resulted in over charging and eventually burning out the regulator and the batteries. The driver would report that he smelled something funny for the last 100 miles, by which time it was already too late.
4) Upper ball joints: A later modification had us install grease nipples on them, but the driver usually didn't catch these. These wore beyond acceptable limits way too often.
5) Broken bolts on the axle shafts to the diffs: Not too big a deal; the operators would merely keep the truck in 4 wheel drive and keep going. The frame would generally keep the shaft where it belonged. I have seen frames worn almost paper thin from this.
And if the bolts weren't broken, then they were sure to either break or strip when you went to remove them to complete the task listed in 2)
6) Fuel pump failures: It wasn't until we had changed our millionth fuel pump that we discovered that you could just whack the old one with a hammer, and it would start back up again. It would last as long as a new one.
7) fuel tanks: the explosafe foam balls would disintegrate and make their way into the carburator. (a later fuel filter installation cured this problem). Also the necks of the fuel tanks would collapse and leak, requiring replacement of the tank. This was a big job; requiring removal of the radios, and removal of all floorplates. To prevent theft of the radios, the operators would normally lock them in place, and it was often difficult to get the key during the 3 hours that they were actually at their workplace.
8) Bent linkage for the 4wd/2wd: operators like to force this into position. The proper way was to leave the lever forward and it would engage when it was ready to.
9) Broken hood latches: whoever decided to make these out of rubber instead of the old M-series jeep style hood latches likely had shares in a rubber plantation somewhere.
10) 8" long wheel nut socket: the wheel wrench issued with the vehicle wasn't long enough to provide enough leverage to remove the lug nuts. Many a recovery call was to merely change a tire for the operator.
11) Plastic parts: things like seat belt latches, door cups, fuel pedal bushings, seat rail bushings, and a myriad of other snap in plastic/nylon pieces ensured the guy in the tool crib was kept busy ordering these little pieces (except the seatbelts of course; these had to be ordered on a work order) Also, there was nothing funnier than watching the roof fly open at highway speeds when those flimsy roof latches, which used a compressible rollpin for it's hinge points, decided to let go.
12) Ignition system: 9 out of 10 times the failure was the TCI. There was also a year long period where spark plugs were unavailable. There was also a year when air filters were unavaiable. Then there was a couple of years where the speedometers were unavailable. Near the end, you couldn't get exhaust parts or differentials either.
13) Radiators: the same company that made the MLVW radiators also got to make the Iltis rads. It took about 7 years with each fleet before the DND had another contractor make the rads. It is unlikely that you would find an origional radiator in either vehicle after that time period.
14) Broken/worn alternator mounts: the cdn version used a north american alternator, which featured an under engineered mounting system. The top bushing would also wear out rapidly, so the driver couldn't tighten the belts properely.
I'll agree that the Iltis was far superior to it's predessesors when it came to highway travel, and it certainly had the range (about 300 miles to the tank of gas) and speed (could reach 70mph) . But cross country it lacked the torque of the older engines. I remember the 2ppcli guys complaining that the engine would cut out when the vehicle would become airborne. (There was a governor built in to the rotor). Oh yeah, that reminds me:
15) rotor would climb off the distributer shaft and sit uselessly in the distributer cap; I had more than a few recovery calls for this, including a 2 in the morning call in no mans land in cypress. First time I ever had live guns pointed at me, thanks to the turks, and the iltis.
Best of luck to those that want to buy one of these. In fact, a wise man would buy two or three, cause your going to need the spare parts.
Oh, and I won't even get in to the brake systems. That was a whole nuther batch of migraines.
As to hating the LSVW, boy, now theres another can of worms. Thats not to say the 5/4 was perfect either, I think we flogged that fleet for about 10 years too long.
Maybe the real problem comes with trying to keep a SMP fleet vehicle, which is constantly driven to it's endurance point, going for 2 to 3 decades.
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