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IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





Boaz MacPhereson posted:

What are you using to cut your line? I've been putting off renting another one but I really need to get my lines done.

I have a couple of tubing cutters but I get the best results from the flaring tool when I use a dremel with a cutoff wheel. The tubing cutters push a little lip of the tube into the center.

Ferremit posted:

Im so glad I live in a country where we dont salt the roads and brake hard lines last longer than the drat vehicle they are in!

In my case the lines are all perfectly fine, its just that the original flare nuts are soft as all hell and round off if you look at them funny. This truck has never been outside of Arizona or SoCal in the past 44 years - never seen a salted road.

IOwnCalculus fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Aug 14, 2014

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IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





I really need to take some photos again one of these days. Got a bit more time and whipped up the longer of the two hardlines in what felt like five minutes - copper brake lines are the poo poo. Super easy to make the bends, super easy to flare.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





Estimate came back at a tick over $1100 for the "do it right" bodyshop. Who knows what I'll actually be able to get.

Bonus Jeep content!




Rough list of things I want to do to it, in no particular order:
  • Set of five JK 17" alloys plus some all-terrains in the stock 235/65R17 size
  • Bluetooth integration somehow, either headunit or hacking the CD changer cable
  • Speakers all around
  • Backup camera
  • External transmission cooler
  • Maybe an external oil cooler to make life easier on the rest of the cooling system?

BrokenKnucklez
Apr 22, 2008

by zen death robot
Pretty clean truck for the price you paid!

Put a transmission cooler on it with a flush with the correct fluid, and it will last a long time. I would think a oil cooler would be a while your at it thing.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





Yeah, I'm pretty happy with it. Got a gallon of Lucas 75W140 synthetic gear oil for the diffs and two quarts of the special Mopar NV242/247/249 fluid, hopefully will have time to change those this weekend. I need to spend some time poking around up front to see where I can fit an external cooler, hopefully without resorting to those through-the-radiator zipties. I do admit that I have those holding the GMC's aux cooler on, though. The information I've found online is really really sketchy as to whether or not a tow-package '03 V8 WJ should have a factory external cooler.

A wild Toyotiac appears!



Coworker's car. Wouldn't start after work today, jumped it for him, got a call five minutes later that it had stalled out while going down the freeway. He had it towed to my house since I'm a sucker for doing things for friends when I can. After the hill people tow truck drivers managed to take some paint off of the front spoiler unloading it into my driveway, I checked the battery - 11.5V. I popped it on a charger for a few hours, got it back to 12.6. One attempted crank later it was all the way down to 9V, so clearly it's toast. The odd thing is I've never come across a vehicle before where a dead battery alone is enough to make it not able to run on its own, but this is it. I jumped it off of the Jeep again and sure as poo poo the alternator is putting out 14V. Just turning the headlights on with the engine running was enough to nearly kill it, though. Told him to snag a new battery for it one way or another and I'll help him swap it out.

Note to self, grab a free HF voltmeter next time they send a coupon for it, stash it in the Jeep.

mafoose
Oct 30, 2006

volvos and dogs and volvos and dogs and volvos and dogs and volvos and dogs and vulvas and dogs and volvos and dogs and volvos and dogs and volvos and dongs and volvos and dons and volvos and dogs and volvos and cats and volvos and dogs and volvos and dogs and volvos and dogs and volvos and dogs
Sounds to me like the alternator is on it's way south as well.

On those HF voltmeters, they hate the heat! The screen stops working and the batteries burst. I wouldn't leave it in the car, especially in Phoenix.

randomidiot
May 12, 2006

by Fluffdaddy

(and can't post for 11 years!)

Had exactly that happen to my last two HF multimeters. Both times I left them in the car, and the next time I used them... nada.

I'd say the alternator may be weak as well, but that battery had to have a pretty nasty short internally.

When did you get the Jeep?

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





mafoose posted:

Sounds to me like the alternator is on it's way south as well.

On those HF voltmeters, they hate the heat! The screen stops working and the batteries burst. I wouldn't leave it in the car, especially in Phoenix.

Yeah it's probably marginal, but with a battery that far gone I can't be sure. The battery is old enough to be dead anyway regardless of whether or not the alternator is doing its job. I'll do some loaded up tests on it once he gets a replacement battery and go from there. At least it's in a super-easy location if it is done.

Heep: Two weeks ago, same day I got backed into in the loving Ranger. Of course she's stopped taking my calls and it's probably not going to be worth the ~$200 in fees to try and take her to court over this poo poo.

randomidiot
May 12, 2006

by Fluffdaddy

(and can't post for 11 years!)

Safe to assume you didn't get her insurance info, and you only have liability on it, right? I'd still take her to court, but that's me being more an rear end in a top hat than anything (I'd probably pocket the cash and ask for her to pay filing fees too; what's a dent in an older Ranger?)

The Jeep looks drat good, what year is it? I definitely agree that the JK wheels will look better on it.

How old is the Pontiyoa battery? I'm somehow still on the original battery (from 2005) on my car; it's weak and doesn't pass load tests, but at this point I'm holding off on replacing it more just to see how long the drat thing will last. I keep jumper cables with me, and have cash set aside for when it does crap. And it's the special snowflake battery that needs external venting hooked up, so I can't just pop into Wal-Mart to get a new one. Even if I could, last time I looked at group 75 batteries at Wal-Mart, all of them had a thick coat of dust, and dates that put them at well over a year old.

Battery on the F-150 was doing the exact same thing about a year ago - jump it, it'd run fine, and you'd get 14V+ at idle at the terminals. Shut it off, and within a few minutes it was at 10V. Within a few more minutes it was down to 8V. If you loaded it up while idling (after a jumpstart, before driving) it would start misfiring and the lights got really dim (along with the cluster losing its poo poo, a flashing CEL, and the radio shutting off); load it a bit more (fan on high instead of low) and it would stall. Still on the original alternator, and it's been about a year since we replaced the battery.

Battery was only about 2 or 3 years old, but it was from Wal-Mart, and the receipt was long gone. It has one from AutoZone now, so at least when it craps out again, we just need to provide the phone # to get it warrantied.

randomidiot fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Sep 12, 2014

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





"My insurance just got canceled. I wasn't going to keep the car! I don't need a lecture!"

Said car was a 2014 Kia. :psyduck: Since it was in a parking lot it isn't technically illegal and cops won't come out for a non injury parking lot wreck.

Estimate on the damage was $1100 but yeah not fixing it either way, it's a cheap truck and people can deal with minor body damage. I'll take a minor hit on resale and move on with my life.

I didn't find a date sticker on the battery last night but it's dirty enough to be at least a few years old, and the owner doesn't remember the last time it was replaced.

Slung Blade
Jul 11, 2002

IN STEEL WE TRUST

I had two dead shorts like that on my old Dakota pickup. Battery would show fine, but as soon as there was a major load on it, it would drop voltage like a motherfucker and die.


One happened just outside the door of a Dodge dealership's part department (I was a courier at the time), so that was pretty convenient. Other one happened in a parkade at 9pm several years later. Had to carry that fuckin heavy rear end battery two blocks to Canadian tire to get a replacement because there was no one around the office to help with a ride that late.

Better there than out in the bush though.

Still, batteries man. Screw em.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





Oh yeah, I can definitely understand the how of this failure mode, I've just never seen it, and I've dealt with a lot of dead batteries over the years. Everything else that still had a functioning alternator would still run just fine after a jump, to drive straight to Autozone / Checker's / Firestone / Costco for a fresh one.

Also, I looked at the towing receipt again. I poo poo you not, the towing company's name is "Camel Towing".

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
Before you replace the battery on the coworkers car, is there gross poo poo all over the battery terminals? Try cleaning the posts and lugs and retightening them. A thin layer of the white powder poo poo (lead sulfate) can easily simulate a bad battery since it adds a ton of resistance in series with the battery. It'll jump start since you're hooking to the battery leads not the battery posts, and it might even run (badly) till some big load (hvac blower, headlights, radiator fan, etc) kicks in, then the ECU or voltage regulator can't crank up the field coil duty cycle fast enough to handle the load and things go to hell.

If the battery's a couple years old it's more unlikely that this will work, but it takes 5 minutes and costs nothing, so I usually do it anyways.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





Terminals are clean, and the battery itself dumped to 9V when measured directly on the posts. Even if the battery was good, it's not now after being discharged that badly. It seems Toyota won out when it came to top post versus side post (gently caress side post terminals).

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
Oh yeah, that thing's hosed for sure then.

And I completely agree on side posts. It'd be one thing if the threads were like 1/2 or 5/8 diameter, but they had their heads up their asses and went with a 3/8-16 thread... yeah that's not gonna get packed with corrosion or strip out in softer-than-butter grade electrolytic lead, nope. :jerkbag:

I don't really like the conical top post style either, since they lose grip after a while and require a shim, but they're a decent compromise between manufacturing/expense and good design. Eye lugs (like most 17Ah 12VDC gelcells for UPS/fire alarm usage have, for example) are by far the best design technically speaking.

kastein fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Sep 12, 2014

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





New battery fixed the Matrix, at which point my coworker pointed out that his left front has "for a long time" been lower than the right front. A quick check shows that yes, that thing is leaning over hard. I didn't lift it up but I'm pretty sure it's got a busted coil spring on that side, since I didn't see anything unusual on the strut tower. So I'll probably end up installing a couple of quick-struts for him eventually.

Changed the transfercase oil in the Jeep. I was worried a bit that the last change might not have been the right Mopar poo poo, since the shop only charged $30 to do it (and the right stuff costs that much) but sure enough it was a nice golden color, not ATF. Oh well, it was easy enough to do. Both plugs are looking a bit worn out on the hex (I suspect someone didn't get the key fully inserted before torquing on it one way or the other) so I'll look for a couple of new ones before it comes due. I also got one of the struts done for the hatch glass. The other - exact same part, exact same manufacturer - came with the wrong ballstuds in the package that are way too big to thread in, so it'll have to wait until Rockauto figures out what to do.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





Sounds like the Toyotiac is getting replaced instead of repaired, so that's one potential work day off the books. Spent some time in the interior of the Jeep today and got two USB ports wired in the center console cubby, and one off of the overhead console for my dashcam. Just need to grab a super short USB cable. Tomorrow's plan is to attack the rear driveshaft with the U-joints that got delivered today.

Also, Rockauto customer service kicks rear end. They didn't make me ship back the incorrectly-packaged strut or anything, and they sent me a full replacement part. Even came from their in-town warehouse via Priority, so it was effectively next-day service. Honestly that's less of a pain than going back to Autozone two miles down the road.

Seat Safety Switch
May 27, 2008

MY RELIGION IS THE SMALL BLOCK V8 AND COMMANDMENTS ONE THROUGH TEN ARE NEVER LIFT.

Pillbug
Yeah, RockAuto's returns are amazing. I ordered two Moog problem-solver ball joints, one of them arrived without the hardware baggie (I suspect customs inspected it, helped themselves to some magnets, and then reassembled the box without the baggie, since the packing slip was also missing). I live in Canada: I need the hardware baggie because any fastener on the car is not guaranteed to survive removal.

I raised a claim as soon as I noticed and a half hour later they had a new one on the way to me. I got to keep the old, useless one in case someone else has better luck with fasteners and worse luck with ball joints than I do.

No in-town warehouse though, and it got held up in customs for a long time, so it took over a week to get here. But that's not RockAuto's fault.

gileadexile
Jul 20, 2012

I guess your WJ didn't come with a factory tow package? There is a pretty decent write up here:

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f310/wj-radiator-replacement-write-up-w-pics-530365/

Hope to see more pics of your rust free WJ. So jealous!

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





I've found conflicting information but it seems that the factory WJ tow package doesn't actually include an auxiliary transmission cooler - just the one in the radiator. I do have an aux cooler but it's for the power steering. It's definitely got the factory tow kit (factory hitch, 7-pin adapter, and the build sheet includes "AHX Trailer Tow Group IV").

Second round of replacement U-joints went in fine when my buddy with a shop did it with a vise / press, instead of loving with hammers like I did. No more vibrations coming up through the floor!

And if you must, here's some shots from underneath before I started any work on the driveshaft. Gaze upon a slightly grimy NP247 and a slightly less grimy Dana 44A!

Astonishing Wang
Nov 3, 2004
Jesus that thing is CLEAN!

Ghosts n Gopniks
Nov 2, 2004

Imagine how much more sad and lonely we would be if not for the hard work of lowtax. Here's $12.95 to his aid.
It's like skipping the plumber coming over to fix the pipes (worksafe) and going straight for the moneyshot.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





Antiarchival bump.



I ended up having to replace the driveshaft since somewhere along the lines in my failed UJoint replacement journey, the yoke got bent. The one shown above has a longer yoke with a giant dampener on it and a slightly shorter actual driveshaft; the one I replaced it with has a more typical yoke and a slightly longer shaft to accomodate. Still fit fine, and given the relatively fresh paint on it I'd say the WJ it came from had it refreshed sometime before it got written off.

Zero progress on the GMC, the Jeep has eaten up what little time I've had to work on cars lately. I need to put in a JGCParts blend door fix this week since it's starting to get cold (okay, vaguely brisk) in the mornings and the driver's side has no heat.

The Locator
Sep 12, 2004

Out here, everything hurts.





We Arizonan's are such wusses about the cold. Hehe.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





Well, I don't stay here because I enjoy freezing to death and slipping on ice every five minutes. So yeah, 66 degree lows means I want a working heater :v:

mafoose
Oct 30, 2006

volvos and dogs and volvos and dogs and volvos and dogs and volvos and dogs and vulvas and dogs and volvos and dogs and volvos and dogs and volvos and dongs and volvos and dons and volvos and dogs and volvos and cats and volvos and dogs and volvos and dogs and volvos and dogs and volvos and dogs
I love the fall here!
Warm enough to work outside during the day, cold enough at night to make turbo cars awesome!

Parts Kit
Jun 9, 2006

durr
i have a hole in my head
durr
I've got to do some work on my truck before winter, including fixing the heater, and was waiting for the weather to cool off. But apparently I've waited too long as now it's gone from hot as gently caress to cold as gently caress.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





mafoose posted:

I love the fall here!
Warm enough to work outside during the day, cold enough at night to make turbo cars awesome!

Anything NA with an aggressive enough tune wakes the gently caress up too... but yeah it was ridiculously obvious in the MS3 when it cooled down and stopped pulling timing constantly due to hot air.

LloydDobler
Oct 15, 2005

You shared it with a dick.

66 is still top down with only a sweatshirt weather.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





LloydDobler posted:

66 is still top down with only a sweatshirt weather.

Maybe, but with the heater on!

I swapped out the blend doors without much trouble. Unfortunately... my old ones weren't broken. The horrible noises / slipping are the result of the output shafts of each actuator cracking so that it can't get a good grip. The driver's side actuator is easy enough to get to and will take five minutes when it does go completely (though oddly enough, just swapping the doors and tightening the screws got it working most of the way again). The passenger side actuator is buried deep within the dash. So if/when that one fails, there's a good chance I'll just epoxy the two doors together and set it up to drive both from the driver's actuator.

While airing up the tires this morning (lows down to 48 degrees now) I noticed that the insignificant dryrot had accelerated a bit; one seemed like it was in the extremely early stages of tread separation. So, $100 on Craigslist later and I have a set of five JK Moabs:



Got them from a guy who bought them just for the tires that were on them. If I had a Wrangler I'd never buy new tires, there's too drat many takeoffs on Craigslist for next to nothing. The wheels fit the WJ, but without a significant lift I can't clear the 32" tires they have stock. Going to pick up some fresh tires at Discount some time this week.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





Moabs are on the Jeep. Spent some time cleaning the garage out today to get room to work on the GMC again, and pulled it out / back in again. Sta-bil clearly works, it fired almost instantly after months of sitting.

Before I fired it up, my daughter spent a solid twenty minutes sitting in the drivers seat, yanking the wheel and making engine sounds / demanding that I get in so she can take us for a ride. She loves that thing even more than my Jeep. :3:

Unfortunately I clearly messed a flare or a fitting on the rear brakes, because it started pissing fluid everywhere right as I was running out of daylight. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

shy boy from chess club
Jun 11, 2008

It wasnt that bad, after you left I got to help put out the fire!

Yea every time I redo brake lines I have a leaker or two. It was happening on the 56 and I didnt know until the pedal almost went to the floor. Single zone brake system too :stare:

When it happened on the C10 I ran over my lovely Harbor Freight angle grinder, haha.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





I didn't even get it out of the driveway and I didn't even bother bleeding it after I got it together - I just mostly wanted it to not leak everything from the master cylinder once I moved it.

So much for that plan. Not like the rear brakes do much anyway.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





Took the day off to get some progress in the garage. Turns out the leak was just one fitting I didn't quite have tight - I have a tee on the rear axle bolted to the tab that clipped onto the original-style soft line, and the one washer I had between the two wasn't quite enough gap to let me rotate the flare nut wrench all the way and I didn't notice it before. A few more washers and got it torqued down and bled.

Took it for a few shakedown runs around the neighborhood. Some fuckass in a yellow Charger thought he was racing me so he got ahead of me, jumped halfway in my lane, and stood on the brakes as if to declare a "win" when I was just trying to turn right anyway. So now I have a stainless line on the rear, and I have two more to go on the front. Still to do:

*Front brake lines
*Hook up column shifter, rip out floor shifter
*Transmission output shaft seal (Autozone lists it under "Transfer Case Seal", :wtf: )
*Figure out where the leak is that's getting power steering fluid onto the belt. Pretty sure that's what it is, at least; it's either that or engine oil and I really hope it's not that.
*Fix up my seat mounting, the passenger seat isn't as firmly bolted down as it should be.
*Paint the door panels, reinstall
*Headlight relay harness / H4 swap
*Inner tie rod ends, center steering wheel, get a Firestone Forever Alignment
*Investigate exhaust leak (sounds like I might have one on the driver's collector-to-downpipe joint)
*Change oil, change ATF+filter, possibly swap 4L60E pan for a Dorman with a drain plug
*Probably install a drat dashcam

In more boring-ness, changed the oil on the CR-V and the WJ. Some more in-depth inspection of the WJ shows that it's had at least one rotor swap in its life on the front (Duralast Gold on the rotor hubs) and the shocks look too clean to be original. They don't have any visible stickers, though, and the part numbers return nothing on Google. Silver metallic paint. Probably going to change out the gear oil in the diffs tomorrow.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





Anti-archival bump. All I know for sure on the GMC is that the leak is definitely not power steering fluid. The dye made it blindingly obvious where I had a fitting slightly loose on the gearbox, but whatever is spraying from the belt has no dye in it. I'm pretty sure at this point that it must be engine oil, and the front main seal on the LS1 is a bit of a bitch. :sigh:

Found out from some of the nice people I wheeled with yesterday that one of my WJ's brake lights was out. Turns out it wasn't burnt out, at least not in the usual way...





A wee bit toasty. Cleaned off a bit of the melted plastic with a pick and shoved a new bulb in there, and it works for now. If it pops again I may splurge on some of the aftermarket LED replacement housings because I really would rather not get rearended in this thing.

cursedshitbox
May 20, 2012

Your rear-end wont survive my hammering.



Fun Shoe
I've found a lot of WJs with that exact same failure too. :(

The LEDs would probably be better off in the long run.

Do you know if the flasher relay is body controller operated or if its an actual flasher? if its a flasher you can get one of the electronic ones that play nice with LEDs.

IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





I ended up being cheap and just replacing all of the sockets and the rest of the bulbs with regular bulbs. So far so good. I did use some Dorman sockets. The bulbs click in much more solidly than they did in the old ones, but I used some of the old gaskets since some of the Dorman ones left the socket itself kind of loose.

Did the transmission fluid and filters on the 545RFE in the WJ. Reminded me how much I hate prying off pans slathered in RTV; there's not much room to get anything in to pry, since you have the engine, exhaust, front driveshaft, and transmission crossmember all hanging out below it. It didn't fight me too much, but I did spend a stupid amount of time doing it.

At least I saved my future self some time. Replaced the pan with a Dorman pan with a drain plug, and used a rubber gasket instead of RTV.

gileadexile
Jul 20, 2012

IOwnCalculus posted:

I ended up being cheap and just replacing all of the sockets and the rest of the bulbs with regular bulbs. So far so good. I did use some Dorman sockets. The bulbs click in much more solidly than they did in the old ones, but I used some of the old gaskets since some of the Dorman ones left the socket itself kind of loose.

Did the transmission fluid and filters on the 545RFE in the WJ. Reminded me how much I hate prying off pans slathered in RTV; there's not much room to get anything in to pry, since you have the engine, exhaust, front driveshaft, and transmission crossmember all hanging out below it. It didn't fight me too much, but I did spend a stupid amount of time doing it.

At least I saved my future self some time. Replaced the pan with a Dorman pan with a drain plug, and used a rubber gasket instead of RTV.

Loved the rubber gasket myself! Wish I'd bought the trans pan with a plug myself, but it wasn't in stock and my pan needed changing like, bad.

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IOwnCalculus
Apr 2, 2003





Other nice thing about the gasket is it holds the bolts in their holes while you get the whole thing put together. Just wish it was a reusable one like the 42REs or my lubelocker on the Dana 30, but we can't win 'em all.

Put a transfer case skid plate on it tonight before doing a group run tomorrow:


It's seriously easy, you just have to install two rivnuts and then bolt it on. The mopar kit (part 82204489, should be $50 or less at any decent dealership) even includes the tool to install them. Hardest part was trying to hold the 9/16" wrench with one hand while torquing it down with the other, while also keeping the torque wrench from falling straight into my face. My safety goggles from rx-safety saved me at least once tonight.

Going to be the first time I take my kid with on a group event, though she's done quite well with the ~hour long runs I've done with her on my own.

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