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e: rough table of contents edited into the end of this post so you can skip the miles of bullshit and complete lack of actual progress on projects for literally years at a time. This is a work in progress, I have only gotten as far as page 13. Pages 14 to 70 you are on your own. I'm just going to put all my projects I never work on in one thread. First one, my white/brown 1991 Jeep Comanche. I bought it in January 2010 for $800 with visions of restoring it and never taking it offroad. RWD, tons of terribly done bondo and house paint applied by the previous previous owner, automatic, rust everywhere. The suspension was in fact so rusty that I was afraid to put new shock absorbers on it until it had been replaced. About to put the new front suspension in:  It decided to become a true jeep and spat the rear main seal out, resulting in a significant oil leak I didn't have time to fix, and a heavy coating of rust protection on the undercarriage and tailgate. A lot of things broke and wore out, including all the brake lines, rear brake cylinders, gas tank, fuel sender, radiator, trans cooler lines... It got deathwobble so badly that the passenger side engine mount broke off the engine block. I jacked it up on the side of a residential street, then used something like 50 feet of cheap rope I happened to have with me to tie a sling together under the oil pan as tightly as I could. Drove the rest of the way home, then to a friends house to pick up the new engine. I'd been collecting parts for a while, and my other jeep had died and gotten scrapped, so I decided it was time to do a lot of upgrades "while I was in there". Several weeks of evening wrenching followed. It got a new engine, a manual transmission conversion, a 4x4 conversion, a front differential locker, a lift, a new rearend, 33" offroad tires, and a rear disc brake conversion, all at once. Making the new rear leaf spring plates. I decided to use 1/2" plate as I don't have a press brake capable of flanging the edges of a piece of 1/4" plate.  Halfway through the wrench-a-thon. Yes, I work on jeeps on my porch. You can see the terrible body rust starting to bleed through the bondo and house paint here.  TADAAAAA!  I proceeded to bend the front recovery hook brackets over the first time I took it offroad, because they hung down a lot and that didn't agree with my rock crawling style ("aim jeep at obstacle, press accelerator until loud noises are heard, repair jeep".) So it was time to build a new front bumper for it. 2x6 1/4" wall box tubing with 1" plate tabs for recovery points, 1/4" plate extending approximately 1.5 feet back on the frame rail. This is about the best picture I have of the front bumper, it's big, ugly, and bulletproof. I built it in late October because the jeep club I'm in requires proper recovery points for all vehicles. The welds cooled in the rain as I drove to Pennsylvania, because my work schedule was hectic to say the least and I had left NYC and driven back to Massachusetts the previous evening, spent all night welding, and just plain ran out of time to paint it or even sleep.  I decided to attend the club's winter event at Badlands Offroad Park in Attica, IN, at the beginning of March. As usual, work schedule interfered with any kind of preparation and I ended up throwing my drill press, angle grinders, welder, and metal stock in the back of the van (which I had gotten running for the first time in 3 years the previous weekend) and towing the jeep halfway across the country, then spent a day welding up a matching rear bumper in the campground. The wind was terrible and half my angle grinder cutting wheels blew away.  Hydrolocked the engine. Being a 4.0L, I pulled the spark plugs, cranked it over till no more water sprayed out, put them back in and kept driving it.  Built a ginpole/crane for it because I needed to do a few truck part-outs and didn't feel like trying to roll an engine hoist around the yard. It will lift approximately 1000lbs before the rear tires start gravitating skyward, which is honestly about the most I'd want to have dangling 6 feet in the air while driving around in the woods anyways.   What's that, you need to load a cast iron V8, a 200lb transmission, and a transfer case into the back of a truck in the middle of the woods? Got it.  It sometimes goes fast. I want it to go even faster. This may not look all that quick, but I peak at around 50mph at one spot in this video and have hit 60mph since then. With proper shock tuning and a frame that I'm not afraid of breaking in half, I'm sure I could do most of this run at 40+ and peak at 70. Either Slow Is Fast or chrisgt tore the passenger oh-poo poo handle off in terror. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENS3VBT6-f0 (pay no attention to the extremely goony commentary) Right now I'm collecting parts and waiting for winter to be over. I picked up a new-to-me welder, a 230A snap-on YA212A a while ago, and there is a set of 8 lug rims, my smittybuilt xrc8 8000lb winch, a CJ7 dana 300 transfer case, a kingpin Ford dana 60, and enough 1/4" wall box tubing sitting around to build a new frame, as well as a Ruffstuff 3-link kit and assorted sundries. The plan is to pick up a cab-n-chassis chevy 14 bolt rear, a set of 36 or 37" mud tires, and possibly some other stuff. Also a new bed as the existing one is horribly rusted, stress cracked, and basically flapping in the breeze at this point. I haven't decided if it will get a doubler or not, and I've got a chrysler 318 V8 and an NV3500 transmission that may also end up involved, but haven't really made up my mind on that yet. As soon as I've got some stick time on the new welder I plan to start welding up the new frame in my basement. When all is said and done, only the cab, seats, and portions of the interior and wiring harness will remain of the original truck. Second project: 1988 Jeep Comanche I've been lusting after a 5.9L converted MJ for a few years, ever since I took a customer's 5.2L Grand Cherokee out on the highway to bed in the brakes I'd just replaced. Being somewhat of a manual transmission zealot, that meant I was looking for a 90s-era gas V8 Dodge 2500 donor truck, preferably in terrible condition cosmetically to keep price down. I spent months watching craigslist like a hawk, only to be beaten to every reasonably priced donor by other buyers. A friend sent me a craigslist link to a project comanche for sale close by. The seller was asking $550 and the pictures were terrible. I got ahold of him and figured I'd take a look, then post the results of my inspection up on the jeep club's forum in case someone else was looking for one. Long story short it was a lot less rusty than any I'd seen so far, and I ended up driving it home for $500. Oops, now the search for a 5.9L/NV4500 donor is really on... One Friday evening I came home from work and just before going to sleep, my Firefox session crashed. Firefox is a piece of poo poo, so that meant it reloaded my session from months ago when it tried to recover. I had completely forgotten I was even looking for a 5.9/NV4500 donor truck at this point, began closing the long-irrelevant tabs that had been opened during the recovery and suddenly saw the craigslist search I'd been keeping open previously. At the top of the list was a listing titled "1994 DODGE 2500 PICKUP / MANUAL TRANSMISSION / 4X4 / BADLY RUSTED / EXCELLENT JEEP DRIVETRAIN SWAP DONOR $900 OBO". I couldn't believe it, so I called the seller (at 1AM) and of course got voicemail. The next morning I called again and the seller said he still had it, and was rather surprised by me worrying about it being gone as he'd only had the listing up for a day. I pulled $900 out of savings and bought it after a short test drive. The transmission alone generally sells for $700, many scrapyards want $1500+, so I wasn't really in much of a mood to haggle. After parting the truck out, scrapping the chassis and selling the plow and axles, I ended up with the complete drivetrain for around $300. Not too bad. That's about where this one stands, I just spent the evening replacing parts on the Comanche to restore it to running driving condition before I start planning the wiring harness and finding more parts. I don't really have any pictures of this one so far, but its future engine and transmission are pictured dangling from the crane further back in this post. e: Jan11 2013 The 1988 Comanche has started and moved under its own power for the first time in over a year! As far as I recall, the last time it moved was mid July 2011. I parked it because the exhaust system rotted and fell off on my way to work one day, then the gas tank ruptured, the straps broke, and the tank fell out and ended up dragging under the truck approximately a quarter mile from home on the way back. Spent part of yesterday, part of this morning, and a significant portion of this evening replacing steering, brake system, and fuel supply components. Wouldn't have gotten it done without ACEofsnett's help, installing gas tanks is a royal pain in the rear end working alone on dirt/snow/mud. Third project: 1958 Kaiser Jeep M54A2 I'd been looking for a deuce and a half for no real reason for several years, and even bid on a few on govliquidation without success. My offroad jeep was becoming more and more of a beater and less and less reliable, so I started looking for a pickup and trailer, only to realize I didn't feel like paying $8000+ for a fullsize pickup and $1500+ for a trailer. So instead I decided that was a perfectly good excuse to buy a deuce and a half, since they are far cheaper and an XJ/MJ will shoehorn into the bed reasonably easily. The search was on. I went looking for a deuce and a half. I found a 5-ton. Ooops, these things happen. It was 550 miles away in southwestern Pennsylvania and the seller said he was more interested in trading for an M715, a restorable CJ or J-truck, or woodworking tools. Since I didn't have any of those things, I checked craigslist and found several running driving M715s ranging from $800 to $2400. So I emailed him and offered to either buy one of them and drive it to him, then trade, or give him $2500 for it, expecting to be laughed at. Instead, late Wednesday I received an email accepting my offer. He said it wasn't really driveable, and that I really should wait until that weekend so he could get some pictures of it for me before I came down to look at it. Unfortunately for him I had already made up my mind and was planning how to get it home, because I am not really automotively sane. I recruited a friend of mine (Chris, not the one known as chrisgt on here) to drive my pickup truck back. Then I remembered that my good friend Jack was on his way home to Massachusetts from Wisconsin, where he had spent an extended weekend at an airplane festival. He knew how to drive a standard (I didn't) so I asked if he could drop by Brownsville PA "on his way home" and give it a spin around the block. He did so and sent me a cellphone video consisting entirely of motion blur and extremely loud exhaust / clipping as well as noting that driving it was terrifying but awesome. I told the seller I would be at his house first thing Saturday morning to take a look at it, but got no response. THE RECOVERY Friday night my friend who was to drive my pickup home (while I drove the 5-ton) was nowhere to be found. This is standard behavior for him; he's not all that reliable, which will come into play later on. I finally located him around 8PM and we began the 550 mile drive. Around 7AM we rolled into Brownsville, having slept approximately 2 hours in 15-minute increments along the way just to keep the truck between the lines. The 5-ton was everything I had hoped for, but the seller was nowhere to be found and wasn't answering his cellphone. Apparently normal people don't answer their cellphones at 7AM on Saturdays. Jack showed up and agreed that yes, the 5 ton was in fact a rather large truck. He strongly recommended I purchase it, probably more for the amusement of watching what I'd do with it than anything else... Around 10 the seller showed up driving a Jeep J10 pickup with a full set of 53" mud tires on rims for his deuce and a half. He was surprised to see us, as he had thought I flaked on him, and just happened to be dropping the tires off. So we took the truck for another test drive with me riding shotgun since I still didn't know how to drive stick. I was sold, even though the test drive consisted of a very narrow two lane mountain road with a sheer drop into the Monongahela River on one side and a sheer vertical cliff on the other, and there was something like a half a turn of play in the steering wheel. We returned to the sellers house and set about fixing the truck up for the drive to Massachusetts. One rear inner dually was completely flat, the temperature gauge was non-functional, and it turned out that several of the rivets holding the steering box to the frame were badly stretched. There was no cab top and the drivers seat was so badly blown out there was a chunk of plywood over it to keep the springs from digging into the drivers rear end. We ground the rivets out and replaced them with grade 8 bolts. Money and title were exchanged and then the question became... how are we going to get this monster back to Massachusetts without a police entanglement? So we called every Notary Public in town and finally found one that was around at 2PM on a Saturday and had temporary license plates on hand. Another $25 and I had my 30 day Pennsylvania temporary license plate. We were good to go. As I didn't know how to drive stick, we decided that Chris (the slightly unreliable friend) would drive the 5-ton out of town, while I drove the MJ. Since Jack had some friends in Pittsburgh, we headed in that direction. I spent a few hours driving the 5-ton in circles in the Pittsburgh Macys parking lot and getting used to the idea of having 3 pedals to play with. Mall security showed up, asked what in the hell I thought I was doing, verified I owned the truck, then asked me to please promise not to drive over anything and let me continue. After a bit more practice it was time for food, so we went to get pizza.  Then we started the trek back to Massachusetts. Since I wasn't too good at driving stick yet, Chris drove the truck out of town, got it onto the highway, we switched places and I took off in the 5-ton. Around 10PM (Saturday) it started raining. I had no roof and almost no sleep. It was miserable. It continued to rain until around 2-3AM, when it stopped raining and started pouring instead. More than once I was woken up by a trucker's air horn. At one point road hypnosis set in so badly that several truckers noticed, boxed me in, and then slowed down enough that the bucking of the engine woke me back up. I wish I knew who they were because I owe them big time. I got my second wind and we continued. It stopped raining. A few hundred miles further and it began pouring again. I realized Chris (again, not that reliable) had disappeared. Thinking he had also probably fallen asleep at the wheel, I doubled back and began looking for my MJ upside down in the median. Having backtracked for an hour I gave up, called his phone one last time (no answer) and continued onward. We had agreed to stop at Rausch Creek for a break and to test the truck out, so I continued on through the rain and finally arrived at Rausch around 5AM, soaked to the bone and completely exhausted. There I found my MJ with Chris asleep in it. Apparently he had decided he was tired of following me at 52mph, pulled over, taken a nap, and then simply passed and abandoned me during one of my bouts of road hypnosis. Like I said, a very reliable guy... We took the 5-ton through a couple of trails at Rausch Creek, but it was still raining. Since there was no roof and the trails are cut to fit jeeps, not cargo trucks, most trails consisted entirely of eating tree branches while trying to keep from ripping the side mirrors off the truck. After a bit of that it was time to hit the road again. Around the junction of i81 and i84, the rain finally stopped. We were making good time so we continued on at a whopping 50mph. The cement highways in Pennsylvania have expansion joints spaced perfectly so that at my blistering top speed of 52mph, the rear suspension would oscillate. First the front tandem would hit a joint, and bounce up. Then the rear tandem would hit the same bump and bounce up just as the front tandem was falling down again. The end result was that the two rear axles spent the entire drive taking turns bouncing 4" off the pavement. It was like riding on a 20 thousand pound pogo stick, and my hips were black and blue from the seatbelt, because I spent the entire time bouncing off the plywood seat cover, slamming into the seatbelt, and then bouncing back into the plywood again. Over and over and over.   The nice weather continued. We had a long traffic jam behind our convoy, since it seemed like every single driver needed to hover alongside the 5-ton and take a picture or two. Dozens of hot women (seriously. I am not kidding) honked and waved during this period, so the airhorn got a good workout. Then disaster struck. Somewhere along i84 there is a very, very long hill in the mountains. I believe it's just after the PA/NY border when leaving PA. It's the kind of hill that doesn't matter in a passenger car, but it's what separates the strong from the weak among truckers and trucks. In fact, there's a dedicated rest stop at the top of the grade just so truckers can pull over and let their poor trucks cool off for a bit. Halfway up the grade I was really starting to sweat. I'd downshifted to 4th and seemed to be holding my own. Then Chris started running circles around me - literally. He'd pull up along one side, cut me off, look in the rear view mirror, then brake, get into the emergency lane, slow down and let me pass him, then tailgate me and repeat this again and again. I was in no mood for this kind of bullshit and was worried enough already. I checked my phone, no messages. At this point the tach stopped working. Then Chris decided it was time to leave me in the dust again, passed me, and got a few dozen cars ahead. Phone went straight to voicemail. I was hopping mad. He let me pass him and fell in behind me again, and we continued. 25-30 miles later, I tried to honk the horn when someone waved and got nothing.  I checked my gauges again and determined that not only was the temperature gauge still not working, the tach had stopped working, air pressure was well below minimum and my electrical system was at 24V and not charging. This is bad, as in time to head for the emergency lane and stop IMMEDIATELY bad. I got into the emergency lane and the brake pedal was rock hard, but functional. It took far too long to stop. I opened the hood and discovered chunks of belt everywhere. The valve cover was so hot that drizzle was boiling off of it. I shut the truck off and went to ream Chris a new one. He saw me hopping mad and thought nothing of it, just laughed at how ridiculous I was acting, which didn't really help. Turns out he had seen chunks of belt flying out from under the truck on the long grade and thought it was a tire about to blow out. Logically, he decided that meant he should get as close as possible, then run circles around me to make absolutely sure the gator would flatten my pickup. Makes sense, right? When the rubber stopped flying out of the truck and I kept moving he assumed everything was fine and kept driving, never telling me any of this. Of course, I should have noticed but the temp gauge didn't work... the reason the tach had failed is because it's driven by a flexible speedo drive cable from a gear takeoff on the front of the engine, inside the path of the air compressor belt. The air compressor belt failed, wedged into the crank pulley, slung around wildly, wrapped around the tach drive cable, tore it in half, then had the decency to jam itself into the dual belts for the generator, water pump, and radiator fan and shred them as well. Fortunately there were enough auto parts stores around to get some new belts for it. We put the new belts on, poured in four gallons of coolant to make up for what had gone out the overflow, and continued on, after I told Chris he needed to let me know next time something flew out of my drat truck. Around late afternoon Sunday we made it home to central Massachusetts. That's the kind of trip I don't ever want to do again... but as camino said in his 3800 swapped fiero thread, it's the kind of trip you kinda have to make once. What did I learn? Fix the loving temperature gauge before going anywhere, that poo poo is important. And watch your gauges very closely! And don't drive when tired! I drove it to work the next day because, well, what else was I supposed to do? Was a few minutes late to a synch meeting with my boss, apologized saying I had forgotten that my new truck required a 5 minute warmup, could only do 54mph, and a 5 minute cooldown. He's a gearhead, so not only did he understand, he had some questions. Me: yeah, well, it's not really a new truck obviously... it has to be warmed up and cooled down for 5 minutes to preserve the turbo and only does 54mph on a good day. Him: wait, it's that slow and it has a turbo? What the hell did you buy? Me: well, it's a 5 ton military surplus cargo truck. <googles picture> Him:  you mean to tell me THAT is in the parking lot right now?Me: yes. The meeting was immediately over and we headed for the parking lot.  (Prius for scale. That is a 6 ton harbor freight jackstand under the tire as a wheel chock) A few hundred miles later the head gasket blew in a rather serious way. Suddenly the #6 cylinder was venting full boost on top of 22:1 CR right through an assortment of unused mounting holes in the firewall. The cab filled with diesel exhaust and fuel fumes and I made peace with the world. It was deafening even wearing earplugs, which are strictly necessary when driving this truck unless you want severe permanent hearing damage within minutes.   What do you know, apparently engines don't like to be run for 25-30 miles with no water pump or fan. I'm honestly surprised the drat thing didn't seize up or blow out right then and there. I spent most of the winter driving to the friends house where it was parked and working on it. The new head gaskets I got for it were the wrong revision, I asked for the good ones and got the old rev-1 ones that make Land Rover HGs look reliable. The manual didn't tell me to install certain crush rings and the heads may have been slightly warped, so the gaskets blew again and started leaking oil like a sieve a few hundred miles later, but at least it's parked in my yard now instead of 100 miles away in a longsuffering friends yard. The future: I have a set of 46" Michelin XMLs for it. As soon as I get some HEMMT or FMTV wheels for them, I can mount them up and install them to replace the current 11.00x20 (42") NDCCs. Also, I need to pull the cylinder heads again and have them machined this time. I will probably have a valve job done at the same time and drop the oil pan to check the mains and rod bearings, since I'm not sure if the loud knocking I'm hearing is just an ancient diesel/multifuel engine being itself or one of my conrods about to seek freedom. This is a 15" rim for scale.  At some point it will be getting a new coat of paint, a cargo cover, and a winch. I hope to swap a Rockwell T1138 transfer case in to replace the current Rockwell T138 as its top highway speed is what Richard Hammond would call "not brilliant" - the T1138 is an overdrive transfer case, which should improve the top speed somewhat or at least allow me to maintain legal highway speed while keeping the engine a bit further from redline. A proper OTR transmission with more than 5 gears would help as well, but that will have to wait. The biggest challenge on this truck is simply scale. Nothing I've done to it is particularly involved, just pulled the cylinder heads off, replaced the gaskets, did an oil change, changed the fluid in all 3 diffs, etc. The problem is that each head weighs approximately 150lbs, the engine as a whole weighs nearly a ton. Changing one tire when I punctured one took an hour; a stock tire on a rim weighs approximately 300lbs. The lug nut torque spec is legitimately higher than many engines produce at 450 foot pounds minimum. Servicing the differentials required two 5 gallon pails of diff lube and took quite a while even with a rotary crank style pump. It's a long term project, especially seeing as I won't be able to register it antique until 2015 (the military issued it a 1990 title when they sold it, as it was rebuilt in 1990.) It has 3 axles and a GVWR of nearly 40 thousand pounds, which precludes me from registering it in Massachusetts in any way other than antique, as commercial insurance and registration would amount to at least four figures a year, probably more. So until then it sits and I slowly collect parts and work on it occasionally. Other jeeps and toyotas will likely end up in this thread as well, seeing as I'm (at this point) mostly done completely overhauling CommissarGribbs' YJ ("sandbagger") and doing a bit of rust repair and rock slider installation on ACEofsnett's 1991 Toyota Hilux. TL;DR: Cliff Notes / Notable Events Intro, general maintenance on various shitheaps, jeep-crane: page 1 Lots of bullshit plans that never actually happened: pages 1 through 70 and counting Hidden winch bumper for the white MJ, and we break the governors legal order and go snow wheeling, dad-ranger frame repairs, Sandbagger tires, blown up transfer case: page 2 Sandbagger VSS converter, dad-ranger frame repairs, junkyard hooliganry, 5ton-crane: page 3 lawn tractor fuckery, bad tcase shifter design, general maintenance, regeared Sandbagger's front diff, we go four wheeling: page 4 yeeyee AX5 rebuild, nerding about AX5 and AX15 bellhousing pattern interchange, Sandbagger axleshaft swap, Ace's truck rock rails, MJ LSD junkyarding, Tim's dumptruck, fuel gauge adapter PCB: page 4-5 homebuilt shop press: page 6 I get hired by Terrafugia, evil omens of Subaru things to come, MJ LSD install: page 7 new intake and wiring on Sandbagger, poo poo that never actually happened: page 9 freaking out about the 5 ton engine: page 10, 11 toilet XJ heater core: page 11 milling machine, accidental house plumbing pics, dad-ranger frame repairs, blue MJ general maintenance, toilet XJ rear leafs: page 12 AW4 tech support, toilet XJ general maintenance: page 13 kastein fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Oct 14, 2020 |
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Jan 10, 2013 07:26
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I am not really all that hard to find. Hell, if you found that my cell number is probably there too. Just call ahead to make sure I am home beforehand  (Seriously though, it takes like 30 seconds to find my name, address, and cellphone if you're anywhere near skilled with google and whois) Fake edit: what in the poo poo is all that mess in the yard? There are a few parts cars and a pile of demolition debris from the renovations I am doing there right now, but I dunno what all that blue mess is. Also the roof was way worse than it looks in that pic.
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Jan 10, 2013 15:16
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Yeah, completely different Chris. I should have said that.
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Jan 10, 2013 16:07
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Go figure, I say one thing about actually fixing one of my vehicles and my house's water heater decides it's time to blow up and pour water everywhere. Free replacement under warranty, day of wrenching shot to hell... win some, lose some.
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Jan 10, 2013 19:03
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I have a full basement with a dirt floor... no cement here. Ace helped me get the new water heater into the basement and it's all hooked up and working again now. Also, tore the old steering box and power steering pump out of the 88 MJ. The pump was completely full of water but somehow still turns freely, the box I didn't even bother to check. Broke the horribly designed, terrible, not-nice, piece of poo poo tensioning bolt so that was that, I need to spend a few minutes with the angle grinder and drill press tomorrow and throw together a quick tensioning knuckle replacement so I can get it driving again. Will probably start work on the brake lines and put the gas tank in tomorrow as well. The weather is nice (it's up into the 40s!) and I've missed working on this truck, just had no real motivation to start... The water heater fiasco shot to hell most of a day of wrenching, but at least it's warrantied until 2021 now, and only cost some gas to get to home depot and back.
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Jan 11, 2013 00:19
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Except when I do dumb poo poo like forget to connect the drag link to the pitman arm and wonder why the wheels aren't turning  Power steering pump is in, new pressure hose is in, steering box is in... WHY ARENT MY WHEELS TURNING ... oh.  I can't wait to tear all the RENIX crap, 4.0, and auto out of this thing and put a proper drivetrain in. I knew I was in 80s emissions territory when I found a vacuum solenoid controlling a flap door in the intake to draw air over the exhaust manifold during startup, controlled by a metering orifice on... the other side of the air filter. Not even manifold vacuum. ~ if I were a RENIX man, ~ chugga clunka chugga chugga chugga chugga chugga All day long I'd feel a little glum ... There would be one long vac hose just going up, and one even longer coming down! And I'd fill my bay with cranks and levers and hoses and servos For the EPA to see and hear ... I hate 80s vacuum systems so much! 
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Jan 11, 2013 20:18
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EightBit posted:Just get an OBDII 4.0 from a junkyard. More power than that crap and more reliable too. There's an OBDI 5.9 waiting to go in. And an NV4500. And a chevy 14 bolt (as soon as I pull it at the junkyard.) And the 8 lug brakes off a dodge kingpin dana 60. That's phase I. As soon as I have that all in and working well, I'm tearing the entire interior, the front clip, and the doors off, removing the engine harness (really every harness forward of the seats) and doing an OBDII swap using an ECU from a 98 5.9L ZJ with the auto trans code stubbed out, building another full custom harness for it, and installing a late model XJ interior, doors, and front clip. I've already got everything sitting in the parts pile except for the 14 bolt and a good set of late model XJ doors, which is about $230 in parts at the local yard any day I want to pick the stuff up. My general intent is to turn it into what jeep would have sold as a 1999 metric ton Comanche R/T, but with a manual transmission because the 46re can suck a fat one. Oh, and it runs and drives now. Brakes leave something to be desired (since I haven't actually run the rest of the lines) but we threw the tank in, pumped the tires back up (3 were flat), put together enough of the brake lines that I don't have to dig behind the gas tank to do them, put a new battery in it, I put the steering box and power steering pump back on this morning, got the belt tensioner fixed up, jumped it, and it started for the first time in a year. If I finish the brakes, put some better tires on it, replace one idler pulley, and throw the new exhaust on it, I could daily drive it next week. I've had the parts sitting around forever, I just got pissed off and didn't feel like working on it... and that seal has been broken.  e: I forgot to say - it also will be getting one of the few remaining bolt-on 2" receiver hitches in existence because chrisgt is awesome and found one in the junkyard last week, called me up, asked me if I wanted it, and pulled it for me. I could weld one up, but it wouldn't be anywhere near as neatly fabricated. kastein fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Jan 12, 2013 |
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Jan 12, 2013 02:12
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It's a giant ball of rust. Basically, look at a stock dana 30 front diff from an XJ, then replace the differential casting with a straight piece of tube and weld another upper control arm mount on that's a mirror image of the sheetmetal one on the passenger side. Oh, and they use actual forged or cast spindle knuckles on the 2wd models until 1992.0, at which point they switched to the same knuckles as the 4x4 axle and the same unit bearings just with a dummy stub axle through the bearing assembly to preload the bearings. I'll take some pics when I pull it to convert it to 8 lug... no idea when that's going to be. I have to disassemble the dodge donor axle first and (hopefully) find local buyers for the rest of the parts from it. edit: more for my own reference than anyone else's because I'm never gonna remember all this poo poo if I don't put it somewhere engine/transmission/transfer case/driveshafts/partial wiring harness donor: 1994 dodge ram 2500 1B7KF26Z8RS697637 1410 series rear driveshaft ujoints already have full FSM rearend donor: some loving chevy with a 14-bolt, who cares (ujoint yoke size: 1350 series) front brake parts donor: 1992 dodge ram 250 1B7KM26C0NS686658 interior exterior & partial wiring harness donor, phase 2: 1999 jeep cherokee already have full FSM chassis 1988 jeep comanche 4.0 aw4 2wd shortbed pioneer need FSM? only for wiring diagram for rear lighting & fuel pump. Probably not necessary. steering box stock? 98/99 Durango? steering pump stock for 94 dodge ram? WJ pump? A/C system ?????????????????????????????? rearend donor 80s/90s chevy 1 ton 14 bolt rear disc brake donor? adapter U-joint for rear driveshaft to 14-bolt: Spicer U-1435 (1410 to 1350) $37 or get High Angle Driveline 1410 yoke for 14-bolt $195 (alright, adapter U-joint it is!) kastein fucked around with this message at 05:32 on Jan 12, 2013 |
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Jan 12, 2013 02:44
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Coasterphreak posted:I love reading about your I'll have plenty of time to sleep when I'm dead.
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Jan 12, 2013 04:47
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Slight hitch on the 8 lug front brake conversion, it looks like I may need to remove the inner knuckles from the donor axle, turn them out to sleeve over the recipient, and weld them in place, or possibly machine some custom spindle adapter flanges or custom knuckles. The latter is almost certainly not going to happen, I'm looking at how annoying the first and second options will be. e: knuckle dimensions info dump 92 dodge 250 spindle pilot 4.5" OD (approx. 114mm) 92 dodge 250 spindle mounting bolt circle 5.5625" 92 dodge 250 spindle mounting bolt angles: 2 on horizontal plane, 2 @ 60deg below plane, 2 @ 55deg above plane (mirror image 6 bolt pattern, horizontal and vertical symmetrical) XJ dana 30 knuckle pilot bore 100mm ID XJ dana 30 mounting bolt circle 120mm on center (even 120 degree spacing) XJ lower balljoint taper 1.5" TPF (same as 1 ton tie rod end taper, XKUT reamer #6952) XJ upper balljoint taper 2" TPF (used 1.5" TPF reamer and calipers to verify) XJ lower balljoint tapers from .702" @ bottom to .815" @ top (taper depth: 1") = approx. 1.5" TPF XJ upper balljoint tapers from .587" @ bottom to .75" @ top (taper depth: 1") = 2" TPF XJ upper to lower balljoint taper distance (milled lower face to milled lower face) 8 5/16" XJ steering axis inclination: approx. 9 degrees back from plane of spindle mount 92 dodge 250 ujoint axis to rear spindle mounting face: ??? need to measure 92 dodge 250 rear spindle mounting face to wheel mounting surface: ??? need to measure XJ steering arm radius & ackermann angle: ???, ??? XJ knuckles are cast, machined steel. The thickest portions are 1" where the balljoint tapers go through, the rest is mostly 1/4" to 3/8" thick. I believe custom knuckle fabrication won't be all that difficult since most dimensions will simply be duplicated and the remainder will either be deleted (brake caliper slide bolt and support arms) or changed (unit bearing or spindle mounting face + bolt bosses.) The unfortunate part is that it doesn't appear there will be space for a 5-806x dana 60 size U-joint within the knuckle, so this is definitely limited to RWD or 5-760x 30/44 U-joint applications only. I need to see if there is a 5-760x U-joint outer stub shaft for this application or if I'll have to have custom ones made; if custom is required there's a much lower chance of this ever becoming a 4x4 vehicle again. e2: wheels wheels to be used are 16x6.5" dodge steelies, 8x6.5 lug pattern, reportedly 4.75" backspacing. kastein fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Jan 26, 2013 |
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Jan 13, 2013 00:14
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Question - does anyone know what the steering axis inclination / kingpin inclination on a Jeep XJ/MJ/TJ/YJ/ZJ/WJ Dana 30 frontend is? How about a Jeep Wagoneer/J-truck Dana 44? This is going to be quite annoying to measure accurately and I suspect it might be listed in the alignment specs on alldata or something.
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Jan 14, 2013 07:08
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More work on the blue MJ today. I replaced the rest of the brake hardline on the chassis for the rear wheels, the front left brake hardline, the two small lines between the proportioning valve and the master cylinder, swapped in an XJ proportioning valve to do away with the stupid load sensing valve and dual brake lines to the rear, then flushed and bled the master cylinder. Then I went to break all the bleeder valves free to start bleeding everything. Front left and both rears (shockingly) came free without any trouble, but the front right bleeder rounded off instead even though I was using a 6 point socket on it. Damnit. Not only that, I noticed that the hardline where it goes into the front right brake hose is now leaking rather vigorously. There was some rust spotting on it but it's a pain in the rear end to replace (buried under emissions equipment and wiring harnesses as it runs along the firewall behind the engine) so I was going to leave it alone. I guess I don't have that kind of luck. Hopefully I can replace just a few inches of it where it's in the wheel well and gets blasted with salt, which is where it failed... I need to check for rust along the rest of the line now though. Hopefully I have a spare bleeder valve for the front right caliper, and hopefully it comes out with heat and vise grips instead of twisting off like I suspect it will 
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Jan 14, 2013 23:32
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Started the day by jumping the blue MJ off the white MJ, because the blue one has the old battery from my first XJ in it, and that battery sat uncharged since last winter. Then I spent quite a while in brake line hell (see last post.)  Some heat and a pair of vise grips got that little bastard out.  What loving idiot forgot to put the flare nut on before doing a perfect flare in an annoying spot?  Got all the brakes done, half-rear end bled (the pedal is super soft, though they do function, I think the rear drums are pooched) and  drove it out of the yard for the first time in a year and a half It needs some other work but at least the drat thing goes, steers, and stops under its own power again.
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Jan 15, 2013 03:09
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Brake lines are easy, but I hate doing them anyways. The feeling of brake fluid on my hands just annoys me. I decided to try and get the 5 ton running again today. It laughed at me. Had borrowed a battery charger from a friend of mine, so I put the probably hosed batteries on it for a week to see if they'd hold a charge. It sure seemed like they did, so... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH2GEyGZkh4 And then I tried to start it, after priming the fuel system, flushing the filter, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqbtXVC6Sao It didn't agree with that plan.  So it looks like it needs two new batteries plus engine work. Oh well, 2 weeks ago I thought it needed two new batteries plus engine work, so I didn't really lose anything by trying, though it was a bit annoying to wash the acid off the battery box and underside of the cab. kastein fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Feb 5, 2013 |
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Feb 5, 2013 00:00
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 The blue MJ still starts on its own and moves after a few weeks. I'm pleasantly surprised, I thought that battery was junk and was about to scrap it.
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Feb 5, 2013 22:33
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You mean like this?  (took that July 4th)
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Feb 5, 2013 23:51
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Well with WINTER STORM NEMO bearing down on me, I decided I probably should get around to reinstalling the winch and maybe put the snow tires on. As such, I tore the front bumper off the MJ on Tuesday evening, spent most of Wednesday evening using up a spectacular number of cutoff wheels and inhaling the dust, scattering weld spatter all over my basement, then cleaned it up for paint. Preheated it today, painted it up, stuck it in front of a spaceheater going full blast to dry... then spent this evening installing the bumper, cutting out much of the stock front frame crossmember to clear the winch, installing the winch, and repairing the winch's electrical system, which hadn't been a fan of sitting on the porch for several months. The solenoid/contactor pack was badly corroded inside, I think it's repairable but in the interest of getting the project done, I simply swapped in the contactor pack from my $50 broken parts/spares only winch I bought from a friend. It's great to have a winch again, I'm no longer really afraid of getting stuck. And I only reduced my ground clearance by about 5/8", and only in two little spots on the bottom center of the bumper. Things I've learned: Hammerite paint is available in the US! At least at my tiny local hardware store 3 blocks away. It's awesome stuff, goes on like peanut butter with a brush, and seems pretty drat tough after curing for a while. Don't leave a winch sitting outside for 6 months. The winch can handle it (no surprise there), the solenoid pack can't. gently caress that bumper is heavy as poo poo. gently caress, that winch is heavy too. 2 gauge electrical wire with heavy insulation is about as easy to bend as concrete rebar when it's 20 degrees out. Took it for a test drive through some local abandoned dirt roads, and drat have I ever missed driving this POS. The second one had a gradually sloped section at the end that was completely covered in black ice on the left side, which meant I had to get a hundred feet worth of running start to make it up the hill without putting it in 4x4, so I'm most definitely taking my snow tires down to the local shop tomorrow to get them studded before I bolt them on. With an 8000 pound winch, front differential locker, and studded snow tires, I should be drat near unstoppable in this thing  Pictures tomorrow. It was way too drat dark to take any good ones when I got back from test driving it. kastein fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Feb 8, 2013 |
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Feb 8, 2013 06:54
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Jeep Trail indeed. (not all jeeps pictured) I'd say this is a significant improvement, both in function and form. Looks a lot better painted.  I need to push the boots over the winch motor terminals and build a skid plate for it sometime, but it will work for now.  Had to grind about 3/16" to 1/4" off the freespool knob, slightly clearance the elbow in the lever, and flapwheel the steering box a bit to get full range of motion here, but it was worth it. Most people clock the freespool lever all the way down or all the way up when mounting a winch behind a bumper - all the way up and I wouldn't be able to get to it, all the way down and it would definitely be risking rock damage given my driving style. So I clocked it a bit back from straight down and clearanced everything that got in the way. Totally worth it because now it doesn't even come close to hanging below the steering box, frame, bumper, and winch gearbox when it's engaged, and I won't be driving around with it in freespool mode.  The garage was way too busy to stud my tires today, so they're just chilling in the back until Monday or Tuesday. Guess I'll be on baldterrains until then. Even so, it only took a little throttle to get out of my driveway in 2wd with an inch of snow on the ground, so I'm not all that worried.
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Feb 8, 2013 17:57
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... and then our rat bastard governor banned all vehicle traffic after 4PM by executive order, making the whole reason I busted rear end to get this done moot. GOVERNMENT I WANT TO GO HAVE FUN IN THE SNOW drat IT
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Feb 8, 2013 19:42
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The 5 ton's tires are terrifyingly bad in the snow. Even if it was fully repaired, had batteries, and was registered and insured there is no way in hell I'd take it out at the moment. I ended up calling/facebooking everyone I knew last night and finally found a neighbor who had to get to work a few towns over for a plowing company. So he hopped in and we took the most convoluted route possible and hit every unplowed dirt road within 5-10 miles. God drat that was totally worth it. I just found out via another goon that the state police have been instructed to not ticket people for violating the ban, so it's high time I went and did some more incredibly stupid things. One of the roads we took last night is a development, it claims to be a dead end but the road legally goes way back into the woods and comes out in another town, just not paved. When we got to the end of the pavement last night the plow trucks had piled snow into the dirt road, it was between 4 and 5 feet deep... so I gunned it and went right through in one shot. Had to stop because there was so much snow piled on the windshield the wipers stalled. I wonder how much is piled up there right now?
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Feb 9, 2013 18:09
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Just got back in from "plowing" my road with the MJ. The city doesn't plow the section my driveway is on because it's one of those roads that's on the map, but technically no one has a real street address on it, and it's a narrow dirt road so they just don't bother. It was so deep and slick I had to do loops going downhill to pack the snow down, tried going uphill and there was no way that was going to happen. Ace and I are probably going to go hit a few of the local dirt roads and see how bad we can get this thing stuck in a bit. amenenema posted:I was doing donuts in a HUGE parking lot with my XJ and a cop drove by slowly and just gave me a thumbs-up. It's about 1.5 feet on the ground here in West Michigan, so there was no way he was even getting in the lot if he wanted to. his thoughts were probably "he's doing that in an empty parking lot where he can't run into anything instead of where I have to deal with him, gently caress yes! He probably knows how to drive in snow and won't cause problems on the roads afterwards either" I guess the 5.9 MJ project is on ice until spring, then...  No big deal. It'll be fine.  I guess my camera isn't smart enough to auto rotate. kastein fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Feb 9, 2013 |
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Feb 9, 2013 19:48
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Bucephalus posted:Not to cross-pollinate your threads, but it appears your house repairs have passed the snow-load test. funny story. I put that roof on two winters ago - you know, during that last massive blizzard season January/February we had. It had 2-3 feet on it at one point, on bare plywood (I put roofers felt down, but it ended up in the next county about two days later), and not only did it hold up to it, it was more waterproof than the original roof. Just got back, we broke trail through a road I ran last night without any real problems and it was brutal. Had to do 4-6 runs on the longest hills because I simply ran out of momentum, but did finally make it through without any winching. Either my front diff locker, upper control arm bushings, or transfer case are extremely displeased with me right now. I'm hoping it's the UCA bushings but afraid it is the locker... hopefully it just needs more lube. I was afraid I spit out a ujoint cap or tore off an axleshaft ear, but checked those on my way home and they look fine.
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Feb 9, 2013 22:44
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Disregard extremely goony commentary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVM3TuK-lGA Didn't actually end up needing the winch, just shoveling the pile of snow out from in front of my bumper to get at the winch did the trick. Funny thing is I wouldn't have gotten stuck if I hadn't slammed on the brakes to give the wipers a chance to catch up so I didn't drive into a tree. Return trip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jatTzIDmsMk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm8oN9uht7c I really, really need to build a proper camera mount for this thing, the "passenger holds a cellphone while bouncing around in the woods" method doesn't work too well and a suction cup mount tends to shake a lot. This is one of the two roads I ran with my neighbor last night at around midnight. There was only around a foot to a foot and a half on the ground at that point, I'm not sure how deep it was today but it was about to the top of my bumper, which isn't all that low. I'll have to measure sometime if I remember to. We didn't run the other road because the 5 foot snow pile I blasted through last night was several feet taller than that by today, and a lot thicker, and I was pretty sure I'd end up badly stuck if I tried. kastein fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Feb 10, 2013 |
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Feb 10, 2013 02:55
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After that last run in the snow, something was definitely a bit squirrely in the drivetrain. Every mile or so on the way home (on packed snow covered roads) in 4x4 part time*, it would sorta pop and hop/skip to one side. At first I wasn't sure it was actually happening, but by the time I dropped Ace off at his place, it was doing it every quarter mile or so. By the time I got home (maybe 2-3 miles) it was doing it every few hundred feet. Not good, something was clearly wrong. So I set about checking the drivetrain. Pinion bearing on my front differential is completely hosed, there's something like 2mm of side to side play in it, and the former slow seeping of diff lube from the seal has turned to a torrent. Also, I checked the transfer case and apparently at some point the slow leak in that became a fast leak... there was almost no fluid left and the chain was noticeably stretched. Fortunately, I have spares, and good friends in the local XJ/MJ community, so I ended up buying a pair of dana 30 alloy axleshafts (two inners, two stubs) with good alloyUSA ujoints preinstalled for $120 and the same guy gave me a 3.55 geared dana 30 with much better gears/bearings in it for... free. So I'm gusseting the brackets and inner knuckles on that**, swapping my aussie locker into it, bolting on the ruffstuff diff cover and lubelocker from my old dana 30, installing new upper control arm bushings, stuffing the alloys in it, and sliding it under the jeep tomorrow (hopefully.) Today I focused on the transfer case issue. Got the transfer case out, only to find that the new seals I bought for it (you have to destroy one to get at a circlip so you can split the case, and I figured I'd do the other while I had it out) were completely wrong. Thanks, Consumer Auto Parts! Therefore this has turned into a slapdash last minute patch-up job that will start at 8AM when I bum rush the local NAPA and buy the proper seal. Business as usual! * "part time" is sadly a quite accurate description. When you engage it, it will soon be time to buy parts. ** between the previous owner (of my current front axle housing) and me, this dana 30 has not been treated very well. It had 3 degrees of camber on one side and 5 degrees on the other when I bought it, a combination of bent inner knuckle forgings and bent axle tubes. I got it for a song, so I didn't really care, and just bent the inner knuckle forgings back into shape with a 4 pound blacksmiths hammer until it was a more respectable ~2 degrees of camber on each side. Since then I've had too much fun driving offroad as quickly as possible, and it appears that the inner knuckles are bent nearly as badly as they were when I got it. Between the housing being bent and the diff bearings being trashed, it's simply not worth screwing around with it, swapping in a good junkyard/takeout unit from someone else is a far faster, easier, cheaper option. kastein fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Feb 16, 2013 |
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Feb 16, 2013 05:43
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Well, I got balls deep into the transfer case only to find that the chain is... very mildly stretched. Nowhere near as bad as I thought it was. That's not a good thing, because I had a spare and it would have fixed it right then... Then I spotted an odd bit of blue material in the bottom of the case that looked like RTV or a fel-pro gasket. That's odd, I could swear the case was put together with black RTV...  Oh dear, that is not a good sign. That's 2/3rds of a shift fork pad. Checked the 4x4/2x4 shift fork and... (click for big, zoom in on the upper end of the shift fork)  First of all, there are supposed to be 3 pads on that shift fork, and there are none. Second, it looks like it's real close to the shift collar, and there appears to be a burr covered sharp edge there. That's not good at all. So I guess I'm not getting it back together today, nor going wheeling tomorrow, because this means I need to source a new shift fork (that hasn't had 1/16" ground off of one face) and a set of shift fork pads at minimum, and may need to also get a new high-range/low-range shift fork and pads for that one as well. The annoying part? I gave the shift forks and pads out of my spare-parts NP231 (the one I was going to take the chain out of) to... the dude who sold me the alloy shafts! Oh well, poo poo happens. kastein fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Feb 16, 2013 |
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Feb 16, 2013 19:13
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The fork's all done too as far as I can tell, unless I can build it back up with AlumaWeld and file it down. It's not worth my time to screw around with it, I guess I'll see if I can pull that stuff at the JY Monday if we hit Sams on the way back from getting your new front axle.
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Feb 16, 2013 20:31
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They don't actually leave alloys in the yard - those get pulled and put in either a recycling bin or their rim warehouse. I'll try to remember to check for one.
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Feb 17, 2013 07:34
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PSA for junkyard employees: if you list a differential as having 3.55:1 gears, it might be nice to loving verify that it has them before doing so! No, we won't buy a 3.07:1 or a 4.10:1 diff, the whole point is to avoid regearing... That was a wasted trip to Walpole.
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Feb 19, 2013 17:11
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Close. It's standard for 4.0/AW4 combo in XJs/MJs and 4.0/auto combo in ZJs. Also standard for 2.5/4 speed manual combo in XJs/MJs from the 80s. 4.0/auto or 4.2/auto in YJs? 3 speed chryco auto. So to make them not tach out on the highway in 3rd they put 3.07s in them. There's massive misinformation all over the internet about what YJs came with 3.55s. Some say tow packages, some say all autos (WRONG), some say other nonsensical things. Basically after hunting around on the internet for too long and checking car-part it looks like I am learning to do diff gears and we're putting $120 worth of bearings and setup kits plus a takeout set of XJ 3.55 gears into Sandbagger's front 30 and calling it a day. The axle we found that supposedly had 3.55s already in it was listed for $150 so we figured the extra $30 was well worth the spare shafts and such it would come with just to not have to deal with regearing. kastein fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Jun 15, 2014 |
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Feb 19, 2013 21:56
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Yep... problem is, YJs are spring-under and fairly narrow leaf spring perch spacing. The only leaf spring perches I can find premade for spring-under are the RuffStuff ones (and a few others of the same design) for a 3" or 3.25" axle tube. Problem is, the dana 30 is a 2.5" axle tube, so there'd be a lot of booger welding in there to make up the difference. Also, the driver side perch would end up something like 1/8" from the center cast housing for the differential and there's absolutely no way I can get a MIG gun in there to stick it on properly, so I'd have to 1. weld to the cast iron (I'm not a good enough welder for that) or 2. cut back the cast iron flange a bit and weld to the steel tube (weakens the differential housing.) There are specially made perches that have an offset vertical web on one side designed to solve this problem, but they're the long style spring-over-axle setup that would severely reduce suspension flexibility and ride quality if used in a spring-under application. Basically, putting an entire XJ dana 30 under a YJ is a pain in the dick unless you're doing a hillbilly lift and spring-over-axle, is what I'm saying. I've got a free set of 3.55s lined up from a friend on NAXJA that I'm hoping to pick up on my way through town later this week since I'll be up there welding a patch into my dad's Ranger's frame:  Looks like this will involve Cardboard Aided Design, some cutting, and a lot of welding. Sam, we checked the rim warehouse @ sams pull a part and no dice on the wheels. At least nothing I saw. they only had about two warehouse racks worth of rims, it seems most of the alloys they pull are either hosed and end up in the aluminum recycling bin out back, or good, and end up on eBay/car-part.
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Feb 20, 2013 11:08
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Ferremit posted:I was going to say, where the gently caress did you find brand new Old School Wrangler MT/R's? Yep, treadwrights. MT/R tread pattern... on Dueler AT carcasses Confusing to look at, but it already has gone through some things in RWD that would have required a lot of throttle and 4x4 before. The only time I've wrecked a treadwright AT was when I accidentally backed up into a 4.0L block and tore a 3" gash in the sidewall. I think that's somewhat excusable on the part of the tire, definitely not my finest moment though. Pulling that trailer up the hill out of the yard right before that video with the old tires required low range and (due to the open diffs) modulating the clutch with my left foot, the brake with my right foot, and the throttle with my right hand, while steering with my left. I didn't think it was going to make it, got stuck the second I tried to move the trailer but after shoveling a little more snow from in front of the tires and rocking it a bit while 3-pedal braking, managed to get it moving. Oh, and all the stalling is due to the fact that it still has 3.07s in the front and 3.55s in the rear. Unless the surface is VERY slippery, that's an "emergency only" time to use 4x4, and I had to back up and shift out/in of 4x4 every couple feet to keep it from binding up and stalling or stretching the chain. As you can see, I wasn't completely successful...
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Feb 20, 2013 18:45
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Further - for anyone looking for a cheap source of 16" rims for jeeps with a 5x4.5 lug pattern, Fords are a great donor. Rangers, Explorers, Expeditions (I think), Crown Vics... all 5x4.5 and all came with 16s in some models. My winterforces I'll be putting on sometime this decade are on crown vic steelies, the rims on Sandbagger are alloys off an Explorer. They do require a very slight bit of filing or die grinder usage on the centerbore to fit onto Jeep axle hubs, but it's fine (at least on the alloys) because the part that gets removed is just a small ridge that comes off pretty quickly. It's even on the inboard edge so it shouldn't affect tire balancing machines if you're careful with the grinder, just grind the ridge down flat and it'll fit over a d30/8.25/d35 center hub. My steelies are never getting balanced again so I wasn't worried, I threw airsoft BBs in them for autobalancing. Oh, the best part? 16x7" 5x4.5" alloys, 5 for $200 in decent condition. That required some haggling, their list price was $100 each but the guy realized we weren't looking to match a factory rim on anything, weren't going to pay that, and he had so many in stock that he just wanted to clear some space out so he was willing to negotiate.
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Feb 20, 2013 19:24
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Motronic posted:What ones do you have and how long have you had them/how many miles? I completely missed this somehow. Around 20-30k on them on my XJ, probably around 20k on them on the MJ so far but I'm honestly not sure. That includes wheeling with plenty of wheelspin, too (  open differentials!)Still around 1/4" tread left iirc. That's the 285/75r16 BFG AT knockoffs. I test drove sandbagger last night the second we put the tires on and it sounds like a loving TIE fighter on the highway now. Some probably think that would be annoying but I think it's awesome. Any decent MT with good offroad performance is going to make a racket going fast, not much to be done about that IMO. kastein fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Feb 20, 2013 |
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Feb 20, 2013 21:31
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Motronic posted:Yeah, that's what I'm trying to avoid in excess. I used to have a set of Swamper TSX-SXes that were louder than the (390 with 12" cherry bombs) engine above 35 MPH. They were also death traps on wet roads. I have an excuse in that I was young and stupid. So I'm trying to not repeat that particular one. jesus christ, TSLs are just ridiculous. At least you didn't have Thornturds Found the issue with the VSS signal conversion circuit I designed, it's one or two things: * the LM1815 adaptive sense amplifier chip I used is designed to convert a mag pickup/VR type 2 wire sensor signal to logic levels. That's all well and good, but it produces a constant width pulse output for each input pulse rather than a constant duty cycle pulse output. I computed the duty cycle one-shot RC time constant such that at 90mph, the pulse train would be 50% duty cycle. I'm pretty sure the ECU isn't happy about that at lower speeds - probably should always be 50% duty cycle no matter what speed it's traveling at. * the speedo jumps around a lot, which makes me think the cable from the sender (it's an older design vehicle that only had a VSS for cruise, so the setup is speedo gear pickup -> speedometer cable -> VSS -> speedometer cable -> speedometer) to the dash is binding, which probably explains why the signal from the VSS is 100% perfect and the LM1815 picks it right up and runs with it on the bench, but the signal is total dogshit and the LM1815 has no idea wtf to do when it's installed in the jeep. It looks like it's reasonably simple to build a flip-flop/SSI logic stage to convert from constant pulsewidth variable frequency to constant duty cycle variable frequency, though, so hopefully that and possibly a new speedo cable will solve the problem. I may drop the whole thing back in and just take it for a test drive with the speedo disconnected to see if that solves the issue all by itself. e: to complete the schizophrenic post holy trinity, here's a destroyed NP231J mode shift fork and melted fork pad to go along with the redneck tire discussion and electrical engineering nerdspeak: 
kastein fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Feb 20, 2013 |
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Feb 20, 2013 23:32
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A significant improvement, I'd say. Next up: install proper speedo gear, troubleshoot VSS conversion circuit some more, install newly "rebuilt" transfer case in my MJ, regear and lock front diff in sandbagger, weld more bracing/endcaps onto the transfer case crossmember I built for my MJ and paint it (while the transfer case is out, might as well...) and get my snow tires studded. Hoping to get that all done tomorrow, but I suspect it's a lofty goal. e: parts aren't even on hand for the regear, so that clearly isn't happening 
kastein fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Feb 21, 2013 |
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Feb 21, 2013 06:39
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The MJ lives again I think I scared Ace on the way to the junkyard today. Apparently lifted MJs aren't supposed to be driven like rally cars? Got a basically brand new wheel bearing for the MJ at the junkyard*, so now I have a new-to-me dana 30, my locker and diff cover, alloy shafts with alloyUSA ujoints, and two newish unit bearings for it (installed one a year ago, it's still fine.) I will probably jam all that under it in the near future after installing new bushings and gusseting the inner knuckles and control arm mounts so they don't get torn off. Also, we lucked out and there was a stripper model XJ there, 4.0/4x4/2 door/5 speed manual/no rear wiper/no tint/no center console/no tilt wheel/no cruise control. So we tore the pedal box, master/slave cylinders + hydraulic line, complete transfer case shift linkage and bracket set, shift boot, trans tunnel blockoff plate, and some other random required parts out of it. He's already got a 4.0 to AX15 bellhousing on hand, so basically the only parts left to get before we can manual swap his XJ are the driveshafts and the transmission itself plus one adapter plate and the transmission crossmember. My dad called me up last week with a... problem. Apparently the rear shock mounts on his 2000 Ford Ranger rotted out a few weeks ago, so he brought it to Meineke to have new ones put in (he supplied dealer-bought replacement mounts.) They butchered the rivets holding the old ones in with an O/A torch, then haphazardly bolted the new brackets on. About a week ago it started making a funny clunking noise so he checked and only one of three bolts was remaining, plus there was a lot of cracking/damage around the whole area...  Before:  After:  Not my best welding, nor my best photography, but it's way better than it was. Welded a new piece of 1/8" plate in from both sides, then gave it a good solid coat of Hammerite paint and bolted the bracket back on properly. Hopefully it stays together this time, we'll likely give the other side the same treatment when it starts cracking or loosening up. * running junkyard wheel bearings is pretty ghetto, but this axle is going to be pounded on, cost me almost nothing, and will be replaced by a dana 60 in the future so it's basically just got to hold until I have the parts collected to swap the 60 in. If I actually gave a poo poo about it, I'd put new unit bearings in it.
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Feb 24, 2013 03:20
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Fluxcore The factory frame is ~1/8" thick. I figured it's risky, but it was junk otherwise, told him to keep an eye on it. I did taper the ends of the fishplate (so it's shaped like < > instead of [ ]) to make the welds at the ends as long as possible and spread the stress out a bit. He doesn't really load the truck heavily, about the most it has ever carried was half a dozen 16 foot 2x12s. It's mostly a daily driver and light construction materials hauler.
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Feb 24, 2013 03:42
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I've decided it's high time I actually had a working transfer case shift linkage in the woods beater MJ, after one too many times having to lie under it in a muddy road to shift with a prybar or even worse, reach through a mudhole filled with slabs of ice to do the same thing with one thumb. So far I've hosed around with it a lot, gotten a lot of parts from various donor vehicles that won't work for one reason or another, lost patience, and thrown it in the corner. Tomorrow at the junkyard I'm going to pull a mid 90s V6/5 speed Dakota shift linkage, lever, and bracket, I intend to heavily customize it to match up with the MJ center console and floor opening. Chance of success: nil Today I brought it to safelite and had a new windshield put in it because it cracked months ago, and I have full comprehensive coverage with no-deductible glass... while I waited, I finally figured out where to splice in the RWD wiring harness to get my 4x4 Part Time indicator lamp working. Of course, it didn't work, but shorting the two wires I chose illuminates the correct lamp, so I'm reasonably certain the (rather beat up) transfer case shift indicator switch is simply FUBAR. Put one on the list of stuff to get at the junkyard tomorrow because I don't feel like paying $30 or waiting days for it to show up. For those doing a 4x4 conversion on early 90s (91, 92, and possibly 93... but probably not) XJs/MJs - to get the part-time light working you wire it to the two unused positions on a 4 pin inline connector located below the main wiring harness along the firewall on the passenger (distributor) side of the engine compartment. It's the same connector that also has the wiring for the vehicle speed sensor / "distance sender". Here's the connector (the side going to the transfer case switch and VSS) looking into the pin cavities:  Here's the side:  What I did was find a 91 donor at the junkyard (it had an NP242 tcase, which inexplicably has the transfer case switch wiring running through a completely different harness, but still has this connector for the VSS), grab that harness, then take the pins and wires out of it and install them in mine. To disassemble this kind of connector all you need is fingernails or a toothpick, a reasonably strong paper clip, a pair of pliers, and a rather small flat blade screwdriver. 1. pull the blank pin plugs out of the rubber back-gasket in the connector shell. 2. pry the rubber back-gasket out. 3. bend a ~1mm long right angle hook into the end of the paperclip wire. Use it to pull the red pin retainer lock tab out of the front of the connector (see the first pic.) 4. use the tiny flatblade screwdriver to gently pry the pin retainer tabs out of the way (from the back of the connector, where the rubber gasket was) and slide the pins and wires out the back. 5. reinstallation is the reverse of removal! Remember to snake the wires you are adding through the rubber gasket (from the right side... since it's probably still threaded over the two wires for your VSS) BEFORE you crimp or solder anything to the other ends. It's pretty easy to tell which 2 pins are the ones you need to install, there are 4 pins and 2 are taken already for the VSS. You want the other two. Oh, you'll need to install the part-time indicator lamp in the cluster, they didn't put them in from the factory if the vehicle was built as a RWD only model. Grab one of the sockets at the junkyard when you get the connector/wire stuff and the rest of the parts for your swap, I believe the bulb itself is just a type 37 you can get for 20 cents at the parts store but the funky twist-to-lock base is slightly harder to find. I had a spare cluster sitting around so I just borrowed one from it.
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Mar 2, 2013 04:20
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That's one of the things I was planning on doing, in fact I've had the parts around to do it forever Problems: 1. My transfer case and transmission are slightly dropped due to the custom crossmember I welded up. Not ideal, I mis-measured when making the crossmember. No easy way to fix it now. 2. I have a manual transmission not an automatic. The AX-15 is about 1.4-2" shorter than the AW4 including bellhousing AFAIK. Between these two issues, my linkage angle would be MUCH more steep than what's shown in that writeup. I got as far as installing everything except the linkage itself (without welding up the holes in the arms, I basically did a testfit to measure how much rod I should cut) and then realized that the linkage would be moving mostly perpendicular to the rod rather than parallel to it, meaning it would do gently caress all and any sort of engine and trans mount flexure would make it go out of alignment and pop out of gear. That's when I started looking at Dakota shifter parts, having already installed one in CommissarGribb's YJ with decent success. I much prefer the Dakota/YJ/fullsize Dodge linkage design, it introduces more NVH since the entire linkage and shifter is mounted to the transmission instead of being mounted to the trans tunnel and linked via a complex series of rods and bellcranks to isolate the shifter from the drivetrain, but it never goes out of alignment, always works, and the whole thing can be removed with two bolts and a bushing. The only downside is that it requires a bigger hole in the floor and a more flexible shifter boot, which is why every single Dakota floor shifter boot in the junkyard is loving trashed. To me this isn't much of a downside, I've been meaning to upgrade my engine mounts recently anyways (which should fix some of the problem) and I'd rather have a leaky shifter that works every time than a waterproof rube goldsbergian hinky-shifter that mostly usually sometimes works if I adjusted it recently.
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Mar 2, 2013 06:10
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I've been entirely too unmotivated to pull one of those drat shifters every time I've hit the yard since I said that, they are somewhat of a pain in the rear end to take out if the truck is resting on its axles. Today I was all fired up to do it but forgot my 5/16" socket in the jeep, so ace and I just pulled a dana 60-ISU and threw it in the back of my truck. We pulled it intending to throw it up for sale to turn a quick profit but by the time we got back to town, we'd both considered installing it in our trucks  AI is a curse.Sell it and turn it into beer farts and truck parts? Install in Jeep Comanche? Install in Toyota Hilux? 
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Mar 5, 2013 04:28
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