gogmorgo

Yeah. Definitely weighing my options here. I don't think I'll pull the trigger on anything until I've pulled the head to see just how bad things are, though. I do however have a complete 4.0/ax15/231 drivetrain sitting in the garage. I just really like the idea of this thing as a 2.5/RWD. It's not knocking, and makes okay power when it's not trying to die. So I'm kinda optimistic about it. But definitely prepared for more bad news when it comes apart.

Yup. Total milkshake in the oil. It was only a block uphill then downhill the rest of the way so I got it to the top, shut it off, and coasted the rest of the way. But at least now I know, I guess. There's social functions at my house that I didn't plan or really want to have happen, so I can't really do much about it now. Hopefully it doesn't end up parked for too long, but I don't know if I'll have time to pull it apart for further diagnosis for a while. I'm headed to school in a week so that's sort of a priority. I really was hoping to use the poor little guy as a commuter while I was there, but now This sucks.

Abandonned the poor little guy on the side of the road. Again. I'm less than thrilled.

Did they not sell it down there? They're pretty ubiquitous here. Obviously there wasn't a Yaris on that trailer in the photo.

This is mostly just documenting the fact I did these things for my own reasons. New radiator (went through six gallons of water in <100 miles if highway) in Lake Louise parking lot. The one that was in there was crumbling, almost no fins left. The one in there also had fittings for the trans heat exchanger, left unhooked. The replacement obviously did. The parts store had a listing for manual trans but naturally couldn't source one. I kept telling him just to get me the automatic but he spent twenty minutes calling all suppliers first, so that was annoying. I also did pads/rotors/shoes/drums all around, because I embarked on an journey to get this: And needed to cross a continental divide via one of the steepest and highest passes in the country. Going down was fine, stuck it in third and occasionally used brakes to reign it in a bit. Going up was another matter, 1st gear, 3000+rpm was all I could do going up a grade better than 10% with 5500lbs in tow, but coolant temp stayed rock steady the whole way, despite 40°C heat, tracing the same route I ended up changing the rad partway through on. I wouldn't do it again though without heavier springs in the rear end though.

I've got a set of junkyard horns off a '70's Mercedes alongside the factory horns. It honks. I grabbed chunks of the merc harness to make it easier too.

Welp. I think I've got a bad head gasket... Or worse. I got the cooling system plumbed and filled (it took 9L so I'm pretty sure it's full) last night, and then after some hard starts during the burping process it wouldn't fire at all when I tried to go on a test drive. So this morning I swapped out plugs, wires, cap, and rotor. Everything looked good except there was what looked like water (but smelled a bit like gas) on plug #2, which was also suspiciously clean. I then got it started (still took a bit) and it's blowing grey smoke. I was hoping it's still just crap burning off from having sat, but it's about a five minute drive to the gas station and it died on me twice (clutch in coming to a stop) on the way there, but started back up again (although the second time I just let the clutch back out in second and floored the gas pedal) and then pulling up into the gas station it died on me and took quite a bit to get going again. It also pegged the temp gauge at this point (idiot light sender still), because it's blown out most of my coolant. I left the overflow hose off because the bottle's still full of junk and I didn't want to suck it back into the engine, and I don't have a great way to drain it at home. #2 plug: After crawling into the station I filled up with gas, and ~5gal brought the gauge up from just under 3/4 to full, so I guess the functioning gauge is working. I also overfilled the power steering which seems to have quieted it down a bit but it's tough to say, cause I was more focussed on not stalling or running over idiot joggers who yes I stopped at the stop sign but that doesn't mean you can come pretty well sprinting out from behind a hedge and expect me to see you and stop after I've started moving... Incidentally the horn actually does work if you push it right. But I'm writing this while sitting parked somewhere that isn't really a parking spot because after a few blocks of stumbling below ~1500 rpm, the temp gauge pegged itself again, the engine started running like absolute trash, then died. I didn't attempt to restart. I'm gonna go grab a coffee or something and come back in a few hours, at least limp it home. But I'm really not optimistic. Where she sits: I'm pretty bummed.

Another crazy wheel: Space-saver on a Festiva. How much space are they really saving? I guess every little bit helps in a car that small.

Well yesterday was interesting. Pulling off the lower rad hose revealed there was still some coolant in it. The murkiest, nastiest, siltiest looking coolant ever. Just shy of a quart. After it had completely drained, I started pouring clean water through to flush the block some, this is the last bit of the third gallon that went through. The water pump was surprisingly good though. But I replaced it anyhow because I had the new one sitting there. It also may have been weeping a bit, but it was really hard to say with all the schmoo coming from the valve cover and thermostat housing. The tstat had been replaced once before, but whoever did it didn't get it quite seated in its home, so the two seal surfaces weren't quite touching. They made up the difference with RTV, which sorta worked, I guess, but not really. I had to dig a bunch of crud out of the groove in the block before I got it to sit nicely. The new gasket I got from Napa also had a sticker backing and adhesive to hold it in place on the housing for install, so that was cool. I don't think I've seen that before. I do wonder though how many of these are going to leak because someone didn't peel the backing off. I also found a couple things I wasn't as exited about. Such as where is my air filter? Why is there rust on my dipstick? And how? Why did something expect this rubber elbow to make any sort of a seal to a vaccuum line half its size? I fired it up after changing the oil, which I hadn't been planning on doing until I saw the no-air-filter bs, and if I put my thumb over the end of that vaccuum line, it drops the idle by about 250rpm and smooths it out pretty well too. So I'll be doing something about that. I'm guessing that fixing those PCV lines will stop the accumulation of oil in the airbox as well. Fortunately it was parked in a suburban driveway not done random field, which makes it less likely something crawled into the intake. The oil residue likely made for some deterrent too. That's as far back together as I got it last night. Nice, simple belt routing, too, with no a/c and no fan getting in the way or biting knuckles. Don't worry, I still have the fan, I just didn't put it back on yet here. There's a stack of ignition parts waiting at Napa for me, and everything else to put back in. So that's gonna be my Saturday. Seeing no air filter gives me zero hope for any other wear items. But one thing at a time I guess.

UHaul's policies are a bit off sometimes. Sure it's to protect themselves from liability, but it frequently leads to people just lying about what they're putting on the dolly/trailer, which will probably cause worse problems when something totally inappropriate goes onto them. The latest BS is that they won't let you pull anything when the tow vehicle weighs less than 80% of what the loaded trailer weighs, with some arbitrary weights from their system that don't necessarily reflect actual vehicle weights, and rated towing capacities just go straight out the window. They wouldn't even let me put my five-speed ZJ on a dolly behind my Jimmy because of that, despite the fact that the Jimmy weighs more than the ZJ and dolly combined. I showed up just before closing at the only place with a trailer within 200 miles, and wound up going away with a 15' box truck to pull it with, at no small expense. I threw the Jimmy on the trailer when I went to drop them off, just for a ride home, and couldn't believe how much heavier it felt. After that runaround... This has got to be the sexiest 2010 Yaris out there. I know that because of how many thumbs up I got on the way home, from people standing beside the highway, too! And it still pulled fine up to 65mph, it just took a bit to get to that speed. Also if UHaul's so concerned with liability, they should figure out a way to keep the @$$ end of the vehicle on the trailer tied down. With no way to tighten it, that safety chain doesn't do $#!&amp; to stop it from hopping around. After watching the ZJ moving sideways every time I hit a bump, I brought extra straps for the back of the MJ.

Yeah, I'm still recovering from the trip, haha. Not so much the length itself but just doing it without adequate sleep. Getting to work at 6:30 this week has been rough for sure. By the time I made it into my bed Saturday morning, it was about the same time I got up on Thursday, and I can't have had more than four hours of broken sleep in the driver's seat, pulled over somewhere safe of course. Theres a bit of rust bubbling in the fenders and under the cab corner/rocker areas, but no holes. Although the driver's floor does feel a little soft under the rubber/vynil. I may get it up on the hoist at work next week some time to check it out. I want to swap the tires back over to the stock wheels at some point, and something definitely needs done about the sub-par braking... I'm pretty suspicious about what the lines look like. The parking brake's flopping around uselessly too.

My bed liner has double-sided tape under the rail caps, but also self-tappers into the side of the rails, and a strip of small angle iron bolted down along the bottom edge at the back, where it meets the tailgate. It's the way it came, and it holds down great up to 115mph.

So in an act of hilarious foolishness with almost no planning on any good reason as to why, nearly one week ago to the hour I set out on a mission to collect another MJ. I came home from work, did a full brake job on my ZJ, and around midnight hit the highway for a seven hour drive. It took me just over eight, but there was a nap in there somewhere. Then I ate breakfast, reassembled the exhaust on the ZJ not once but twice, then drove through 100°F heat with no a/c another couple hours, winched the MJ onto the trailer, and hit the highway headed homewards with way more weight than I should've been pulling. But we made it over the continental divide and the ZJ doesn't seem any the worse for it. So here it is, '91 SWB, 2.5L ax5 2wd. Bench seats, no a/c, nothing fancy at all except a silly aftermarket stereo and speakers. Fortunately I still have the old ones out of my other MJ (and door panels!) to replace them. ZJ was riding a bit low... I knew it was extra weight but I went with the trailer instead of the dolly because of the surge brakes, and I definitely put them to the task. After having it home almost a week I finally got it registered today (PO has no idea what a vin is or how to copy it into a bill of sale) and drove it to work and back. The brakes are sketchy, the horn doesn't work, and the radiator is tragically corroded. Also there's zero coolant in the system from what I can tell. It died twice on me on the way back, I'm thinking because of overheating. The gauge cluster was swapped from idiot lights and I don't think the senders got changed, so no coolant temp until the gauge pegs, the truck starts running rough, then shuts down. None of the classic boiling over symptoms when there's no coolant. But the PO did say it was parked because of an overheating problem, But I've got a new radiator, water pump, tstat, etc sitting at Napa for me to pick up tomorrow, so once that's in we'll go from there. It also looks like the temp and oil pressure senders interchange with the 4.0 so I've got those in the horde somewhere. I'll get that in and go from there. It's a bit of a hard start, too, and the power steering screeches like a banshee, so I'll give it a full set of ignition parts as well, and probably ignore the power steering beyond checking levels, cause it works great. And I'm gonna have to investigate the brakes, the LSV and linkage are still present, although flipped over-centre, so that's likely part of it. But the failure light is on so that warrants investigation.

I just pulled an MJ on a trailer (~5500lbs) 300 miles over and along the continental divide with my ZJ. 4.0/Ax-15, 3.55's. I could've used deeper gears or more power on the hills, but on the flat it wasn't too bad. Ive also dollied an '01 Jimmy behind my MJ for about the same distance you're headed, stock brakes, and it did okay too. I'm not the biggest fan of the flat-tow myself, but it's a thing that works. I'm assuming your CJ will be set up properly for flat towing.

Were you ever working on roll pans? I might be interested in one with an integrated hitch if that's a thing.

Arguably going from a bench to buckets is an increase in the number of seats, just not the max number of legal belted occupants. It makes sense that suspension and power mods would automatically bump you into higher classes, because those are the two biggest ways to make your ride a ton faster, and it would get tough to draw a line between things that won't help much and things that will help a ton, because a lot of it is stuff that, depending on what you do with it, could do both. Going with 4-cyl springs would lower you a touch without violating the non-factory parts rule. The wider wheels can make a huge difference too. I just picked up a 2.5L MJ that has I believe Core racing (per the PO) wheels on it, that look like they add almost two inches to my width.

Another old entry but per the vin this one's an '89?

Old entry but this one's a 92 per the vin, which is consistent with the Nov '91 build date.

1991 Sportruck (I'm guessing from the remnants of the squiggle stickers) 2.5L, ax-5, 2wd, 4.10 d35, SWB. Door sticker is AWOL, will attempt to learn build date through other means. Location is 60 miles from the hydrological top of North America. It's been parked, hopefully soon to have a small glitch with the paperwork solved so I can register it and get driving. Cloth bench seat (I'll get back to you on head rests), grey interior, pretty bare bones truck so nothing fancy. Current owner: yours truly.

That's what I meant by normal people.

Maybe on the tailgate where the "4.0 Litre" badge went?

I did this bearing on an RCMP Tahoe PPV a couple months back. Apparently it had been making noise and vibrating for a couple weeks... the "junior officers" apparently assumed it was a tire balance problem and didn't bother saying anything until the supervisor came back from vacation. Pretty sure the caliper was the only thing holding that wheel on the axle too at that point. The unit bearing separated pretty easily once it was off the car. Cops are normal people too

From what I remember the SCCA has a width/height ratio they abide by to determine whether or not something can run. I know my 4x4 MJ was too tall, likely a 2wd at only an inch lower would be as well. But there was a bit of a kerfuffle a couple years ago when it was discovered the Fiesta actually didn't meet the criteria, disqualifying some very competitive racers. I don't know if they've changed anything because of it though.

I've got a Mastercraft flux-core welder that I got cheap. Pretty well It'll stick metal together, but I still haven't made anything approximating a good-looking weld. Supposedly it's got the ability to run gas like a mig but didn't come with any explanation on how to do so. I managed to get the driver's door striker back onto my Jimmy with it, and it's held up for over a year now. I've also done done exhaust work. Thin metal is tough though. I learned to weld on a 220V Miller. Couldn't tell you which one, but it could stick 1/2" steel together in one pass. It came with a chart for how to set it up, and welding with it was pretty well working with a hot glue gun. I think I've learned more about welding with my flux-core though... or mostly I've learned that I never learned the first thing about welding. Without much guideline as to what settings to use, I've had to experiment quite a bit.

By the time I was pulling up the mountain passes it was well after dark and it had cooled down quite a bit. Also the middle of the night meant I had the road mostly to myself and I could go as slow as necessary. The "toilet bowl" is a tight 225° corner at the bottom of a 1200' climb in just over two miles, along what's not quite a cliff face but steep enough there's no room for switchbacks. But here's a couple more photos: Those core racing (what I was told) wheels will be going away. Too much poke for what this truck is. It almost looks like there may have been bumper brackets on it at one point, even though there aren't now. This thing needs its own thread. It'll be forthcoming.