WahooSteeler

Got the truck back yesterday from the upholstery shop. Come to find out the owner is a guy I went to high school with and his real specialty is restoring old British cars, mainly Triumph and Jaguar. He's got a talented crew of 17 people working for him with a 5 year waiting list on restoration projects. Pretty cool, but I digress....... Really happy with how things turned out. New cloth inserts on both seats, replaced torn vinyl and piping in a few places on both seats, new headliner and recovered the visors. I also had the guy install 80 mil sound deadening material on the roof since he had it apart. I was going to put it in myself but he didn't charge me anything to do it since I already had the material. Most importantly, he was able to recover the cloth inserts on the door panels so everything matches. As expected, it would have been a little risky to try to "deconstruct" the sections on the door panels so he installed the new material over the old and did a really good job IMO of rolling the edges up to the vinyl trim edge above and below the cloth part.

Jeff, I replaced the bushings when I pulled the linkage out to replace the motor, and sprayed in some Liquid Wrench White Lithium before I popped the ball joints back in.

Nope, just assumed it was because the old motor was worn out as it barely moved on low speed.

Yes and yes

Location?

Installed a new wiper motor and bushings this weekend, old motor could barely move them across the windshield. Anyhoo, not really a big deal but there is no change in speed from low to high. In my 35+ years of driving I can probably count on one hand the number of times that I used the high speed in any vehicle I drove, if it's raining that hard it doesn't matter. But I'm anal enough that since it's a new motor, I want it to work 100% correct. I double checked the connectors and made sure they were fully mated. I have intermittent wipers if that makes a difference. Good news is the intermittent function works and the regular speed works, so at least I have function. Any suggestions on what to troubleshoot?

That makes a lot of sense Don, shifter definitely has plenty of slack between gear selections.

So now my reverse lights will come on, but only if I pull the shifter back enough and hold it to where I can feel it getting ready to go in to neutral. They do not come on with the shifter just sitting naturally in the reverse position. Would this be more likely to be the NSS or the backup switch as the culprit?

Don I'll keep this post updated as to what we come up with. I'm still considering the idea of black cloth instead of the burgundy/gray tweed and "painting" the door inserts. Better yet, what I think would look outstanding is perforated black leatherette on both the seat and door inserts. I think the 2 tone would look super cool and match what I plan to do when I paint it next spring.

Pete, that's what I was saying in the post above yours, the guy might try that. My other thought is instead of going with a red tweed again, although I really like that old school look, is to do black inserts on the seats in a nice cloth, preferably woven for durability and somewhat of a matching look texture-wise. Then, paint the cloth door inserts with black upholstery paint. Since I plan on painting the truck two-tone in the spring, this approach could look pretty cool too I think.

That's what we think. It will take more work but I think he may be able to roll the edges up tight to the vinyl trim and just glue and stitch on the new fabric over the old. I may try to find an extra panel for him to experiment on first.

Has anyone recovered door panels that have the cloth insert running from the door handle across and down behind the arm rest, specifically just the cloth part? I'm getting the seats recovered, actually just the tweed cloth inserts in the middle of the seats, and while the cloth pattern the upholsterer was able to find is pretty close to the OEM tweed, I'd really like to have him do the door panels too for a true match. We looked at the panels (mounted) and the question is, the border/heavy trim where the vinyl on the top and bottom meets the cloth, is that glued on or stitched on or what? Pics attached are not my panels but show what I am talking about. The upholstery guy said he's not sure if he'll be able to put in the new cloth if the border is just glued on. Hoping somebody has dealt with this before..............

Reviving this thread as I had to replace a reverse light socket on mine. There are several variations through different parts brands, i.e. BWD, Napa, AC Delco, and many of those ARE in the $18-30 price range. But the Dorman 85869 is also a direct replacement 2 wire socket for our reverse lights. Best prices are Rock Auto $7.61 and..............O'Reilly for, wait for it.........$3.49!

Problems solved. Reverse lights are working, gauges working. Scratching my head on the reverse lights though. Last night while working on them it seemed clear they were not getting power. Trans fuse was good, all other fuses were good except for gauges fuse. At the end of messing with it last night, having been popping 7.5's and a 10 on the gauge fuse slot, I brought them inside to look closer if the all popped because some of the ones I used had really dark red plastic and it was hard to tell if they popped unless I shined an intense flashlight on them. I guess I pulled the trans fuse too but that one was good. So tonight I start probing with a test light and I'm not getting anything. Then I remember, duh, I pulled the fuse last night and took it inside to double check it. I also realized at that point that last night I never heard the electric fan running and I planned on upping the amps to see which fuse would "hold". I put in a 15, my fan came on and the fuse held. So now I know the PO wired the electric fan through the gauges fuse, which explains why 7.5A or 10A wasn't enough juice. Now that I know it's the electric fan that is requiring that slot to have a 15A in it, I'm reasonably comfortable it's not going to melt the block. So then I also put the 7.5 back in the trans slot and......reverse lights! Not sure how they suddenly worked, but for now I'll let it be and just be happy they do. I DID rake the gear selector through all gears and jiggled it between park and reverse a few times, but I'm not convinced that did anything. I'm still going to begin the process of cleaning up the rats nest of unnecessary taps, but after I get it to pass inspection next week! My son was pretty stoked tonight that it's ready to get inspected and should pass. He'll be eligible for his license next Thursday.

Yeah, notice the 2 fuses he had jumpered in. For some reason I think one of those is wired for the radio. Since I am not running any kind of accessories I am going to pull both of those and hope that nothing stops working LOL.

I see references to the "back up switch" and the "NSS" in a lot of the searches I looked at. I'm aware of the NSS, is the "back up switch" the same or another part, for my clarification.

So the PO on my truck had several questionable electrical connections. He had fog lights and an external stereo amp to my knowledge, and a hard-wired electric fan, which remains. (it comes on as soon as you turn the key to the "on" position). Fog lights are gone, he kept the amp and I replaced the stereo with just a new head unit. My truck has the heavy duty cooling option so I assume this electric fan is factory and was supposed to be thermostat controlled. I don't mind the "always on" electric fan, just giving as much detail for any feedback. I want to remove all of these excess connections as I believe they may be causing other problems. Truck is an 88 4.0/AW4. Other info.....gauges work with, I think, a 15 or 20 amp fuse. Don't want to do that. It pops 7.5's and 10's. So not sure what to look for on that, I assume if it was a short it would pop any size fuse, not just the small ones. That's what's making me think the panel is overloaded somehow with the PO's wiring crap and asking for some direction. I am also working on the no reverse light situation. It was losing all interior lights and no tail lights when I pulled the headlight switch. Rear brake lights and turn signals worked. When I pulled the tail lights recently to start looking for the problem, I noticed the pass side reverse socket had a rusted out connection on the hot lead inside the socket. Once I disconnected that and put in a new fuse (proper size too), I now have all interior lights and tail lights. Still have brake and turn signals, but after replacing the socket still no love on the reverse lights.Traced the wire loom best I could and did not see anything obvious. Need to check the connector behind the driver rear tire as Pete often suggests. Has a trailer harness, will check over those connections again also. Hoping I don't have to mess with the NSS. Have not tested for power at the sockets yet. I searched and read lots of "no reverse light" threads last night, so I think I have good direction there. Thanks in advance.............

How much lift do I have then?

I'm at 33.5" front and 34.5" rear..........

Need to do a basic tune-up, plugs, wires, cap, rotor etc. which looks like it will run $60-75. Being that I am trying to get this thing road worthy asap for my son when he gets his license in 10 days, I may take it to a shop to do this as time is very limited for me. What amount of labor time should a good mechanic need to do this? I tried to look up what dealer "book time" is but couldn't find anything. Called the dealership and that was a waste of time. Have a local shop I would use, just trying to get an idea on what to expect, or look out for! Thanks...........

Kept searching and came across Hornbrod's post in DIY............all good

Curious to see anybody's setup that has fabricated or used something different than the OE metal rod with plastic ball caps on the load sensing valve. I know there is a lot of debate on using it, disconnecting it or eliminating it altogether. I prefer to keep it but my truck never had it since I bought it. The arm is there and zip tied to a parking brake cable, but I'm doing a lot of work to get it back on the road for my son who gets his license in @10 days and this is on my "to do" list since the brakes have always seemed to be a little touchy. Don't need my new driver locking up the brakes his first day out. Thanks for any pics and suggestions.

Reviving this old thread as I need a replacement floor anchor bolt on the driver side shoulder harness. Old one was rusted and stripped and had to be drilled out. I do believe the retractor bolts and the anchor/static bolts were the same length when I removed the others. Top pivot one was longer, as were the ones for the buckle anchors I believe. Anyhoo, anybody got 1 or 2 laying around that I can buy? No pick n pulls around here to grab out of an XJ.......