gogmorgo

MJ XJ's doors did this to me this winter. Forgot that. I moved it this weekend and the hatch popped open on me... I guess whatever held it closed let go as it warmed up recently. Meh. Don't lock my doors anyway. After moving to Alberta almost a year ago I've got into the habit of pulling the key out of the ignition but not having the door open when I grab the handle is too much of a pain in the @$$.

Make sure all the bolts are tight first. 40lb-ft. Blue locktite too probably. You'll want to run around the circle (four bolts are a square?) a few times just to make sure everything's seated properly.

Yup. I put my Krusty's hitch on just over two years ago. I've used it to be yanked out of places I shouldn't have gone, I've used it to yank 3/4 tons out of ditches, pulled my '01 4x4 Jimmy 80km on a dolly with it, took my Lada from Manitoba to Jasper with it... Great quality, and solid. No concerns about it at all. If I had another MJ to put on the road that didn't already have a hitch, I'd buy another.

Well they didn't start building them anywhere else in South American (Argentina) until '96, so you never know what you'll find.

South American XJ's did supposedly get a HP Dana44 front axle, although again I have no photographic evidence of that. And it's unlikely one would've floated itself north. The deeper I dig into the various projects I've gotten myself into the more I think I'll eventually find myself travelling around the world by hopping from wrecking yard to wrecking yard...

The biggest issue is getting fuel pressure up to the rail. Turning the key on and off will run the pump for a couple seconds each time but if the fuel lines are drained it may take quite a few key turns before it has adequate pressure at the rail. Cranking and using the throttle doesn't really help with a fuel rail full of air either. My suggestion if you're having trouble would be to pull the fuel pump relay and jump it so the fuel pump runs for a few minutes, and maybe purge some of the air out of the rail. You could also use the Schroeder valve on the rail to try to bleed some air out. Using the purge button on a fuel pressure gauge with the bleed line in a container would be safer than just pushing the valve and risking spraying fuel all over the engine bay.

So I get these notifications from time to time that "[username] reacted to a post in a topic [thread title]". All it does when I click the notification is take me to the post in the topic [thread title]. Is this some feature I don't have access to somehow? I can't even see where to see what the reaction might have been.

And then you went and ruined it.

I've used penetrating oil to clean out latch mechanisms, then shot them full of spray grease. Seemed to work pretty well. The door won't unlatch so long as the latch is in the locked position. I'm guessing the rod fell off the interior lock button or something? Have you tried unlocking with the key? Last week at work we had an exterior rear door handle that quit working. When I pointed out to a coworker that the interior handle still worked his response was "maybe it's the child lock" and as I went through the classic "noooOOOOO!!!" lunge, he engaged the child lock and swung the door closed. I managed to get it back open again, I'm sure you will too. Does this help at all?

My MJ drove itself to Badwater Basin. Just saying. Well I guess I mean I was driving it. #notrailer Death Valley's a crazy place. I loved it even though both myself and the MJ (which has coolant mixed for -50°C not +50°C) were struggling with the heat. That old truck got to experience a 155°F temperature range that year... fortunately not within the same trip. Glad you made it home safe!

Don't mean to be rude, but there's a key on your keyboard that says either "enter" or "return"... You might find it helpful. But at least your truck looks good. I like the two-tone paint.

Most people seem to equate "good" with "loud". If I was looking for a quiet muffler I'd ask for the closest they had to the stock unit. When I was picking a muffler for my MJ I spent a couple weeks listening to exhaust notes on YouTube before I finalized something I wanted, but the problem with YouTube is you don't have much reference for volume. The noise levels in the cab with my flowmaster 40 aren't particularly loud to my ear, but idling from outside the truck it's got a bass rumble you can hear throbbing through the walls of a house, to the point where I almost feel bad for my neighbours if I leave it idling for too long, but it sounds great under load. My Lada with the smallest glasspack readily available (cheapest route to noise control) is pretty much the opposite. The valvetrain (and otherwise) rattle of the Soviet lump under the hood is louder at idle than the exhaust note but once you're moving down the highway at 4500 rpm we're talking hearing-protection levels of dBA. But it still sounds pretty good in a hilarious rice-rocket sort of way. Particularly because it's hella-butt-slow. I'm including video of it that you can barely hear (because GoPro) mostly because I don't believe the only footage of a Lada going flat out on the Tail of the Dragon should have collected less than 300 views after a year.

There's an outfit in Wasagaming, where I used to live, that rented out similar four-wheel bikes. Tourists loved them, but they were a pain in the @$$ in traffic. Imagine a bike that's as big as a car so can't run anywhere other than the road and you need a full lane to get around it, operated by the typical cyclist by which I mean completely ignoring traffic rules, blowing through stop signs, etc. If the speed limit wasn't 30km/h I imagine there would't be many of them left to rent out...

It also means I'll need to find another donor for the MJ project. But having moved to Alberta that's suddenly a lot more feasible. Something about having four times the population and not having 1/6 XJ's stolen and written off must have something to do with that. I mean they don't run quite as cheap as they did back home because you can actually register a rusted-out deathtrap here so long as it was registered in AB before, but there's definitely more XJ's to be had.

Gotcha. One more hole, then I'm done. Does the health of the ballast resistor matter? I would expect they would degrade somewhat over their lives which means a change in resistance. Would an ohm value be at all helpful there? It's laundry day and somehow I've managed to put in ALL of my pants. As soon as I have something to wear I'll go out and fire some machines up.

I wouldn't really rank Coors Banquet any higher than the regular Bud. Or the High life. I also wouldn't consider 5% ABV as all that high, being it's pretty typical for anything other than the "lights"... My favourite beer so far is an Icelandic stout, Garún, which is 11.5% ABV, but that's not always easy to come by. Old Engine Oil is another of my favourite porters at 6.0%. Usually I'll try to get some Unibroue, which range from 7-9% with some outliers. But I guess we're still talking craft beers. For just regular "warm day" or "hangout" beers any of the mass-market beers will do... Pil, Keith's, Kokanee, Molson, Bud, Coors banquet, Moose Head, etc... there are some slight differences but most of it is pretty similar, and all close enough to 5.0% not to really make a difference there either. Although I do have a preference towards Big Rock Trad and O16 Copper... which I guess technically count as craft beers again, but they're everywhere where I've grown up so I forget that. But for sitting and enjoying the beer I'll go with a porter or stout, which don't really come in the mass-market variety, except for Guinness, which in it's standard variety is alright I guess but not great, much like the mass-market lagers and ales, just a bit more different from them.

The ballast resistor should be on the driver's side inner fender, inside the engine bay. It looks like this: You can tell from the picture that this one (I believe off a Renix) is closer to the front of the engine bay (the spring in the lower right corner of the photo is the hood latch) but on my '91 MJ and '92 XJ (both HO's) the resistor is up closer to the firewall. It's typically bypassed just by connecting those wires together. It would be helpful knowing what year/engine you have, as the electrical systems are very different between the early Renix Jeeps and the later Chrysler HO's. The initial few production runs of Renix MJ's didn't have a ballast resistor either, it was only added later on as customers complained about the noise the pump made. it would also be helpful knowing what steps you've taken towards solving this problem as we'll all be asking to start over at the basics. Such as have you tried swapping the fuel pump relay with a known good relay to eliminate it as an issue?

Yeah that's exactly what you said before so I'll ask more clearly because I'm trying to clarify what you're asking for. Where should we put the voltmeter probes for each of these readings? Do you want us to probe both of the terminals on the ballast resistor for voltage going into it and voltage going out of it with one voltmeter probe grounded, or do you want it somewhere else? I won't profess to be an expert in electrical systems, so I'm making sure I'm interpreting your instructions correctly. The reason I'm asking is that when you're doing something semi-scientific like this you need to be specific or your results will be all over the place and pretty much meaningless. When you say "battery voltage" that tells me to either read it off the dash gauge (probably not useful) or take it directly off the battery (which wouldn't account for any voltage drop before it gets to the resistor) but it makes more sense to me to take it going into the resistor. I'm also curious how the data from the ballast resistor will be helpful for measuring fuel pump health, which is why I was asking about crawling underneath (I would expect voltage drop across the pump itself to be more useful). In my mind all that the output of the ballast resistor would show is voltage drop across the resistor which I don't think would be affected much by what's going on downstream from that point. Unless you're expecting the higher draw from an "unhealthy" pump would cause the resistor to heat up more than it would with a "healthy" pump, affecting the voltage drop across it, which leads to my question about how long you want the engine running for (and presumably how close to operating temperature the resistor gets) to try to quantify that particular variable. My MJ hasn't been started for over a month and it's been below freezing that whole time (not to mention it hasn't seen power for a few years) so that ballast resistor and the fuel pump will be stone cold until it's run for a bit. I can take an IR temp off the resistor too if you'd want that I guess. I'm not trying to pick holes in your project, just trying to make sure as many variables as possible get eliminated in the data I'm giving you to ensure your project's accuracy. I'll take the measurements however you want them, I just want to be sure I'm taking them exactly the same way as everyone else.

Same way you started this one, just in the "Member projects: Comanche" forum, not this one ;) Then introduce your truck, talk about what you're doing, and post pictures to document it all.

What exactly are we looking to do? Like, where are we taking these voltages? My ballast resistors have been bypassed, but I didn't remove them so I could easily plug them back in. As I understand it, you're looking for the voltage going into and then out of the ballast resistor, with everything hooked up, running, with the engine (and presumably the resistor as well at that point) up to operating temperature? Or are you looking for battery voltage across the battery terminals and then voltage at the fuel pump connector? Cause I could get the former later today (probably) but if you're looking for me to crawl under my MJ you'll have to wait two-six weeks for the snow to melt out from under it.

I mean, the full-strength mass markets aren't completely awful on either side of the 49th... Not good but not awful. I'll drink them when they're on tap for half the price of something decent. It's the proliferation of the "light" beers at nearly the same price point that I've never quite understood. I mean, I've sampled puddles with better flavour profiles than bud light, and seemingly similar alcohol content... But that said any time I've been south of the border recently I've picked up something just before coming back and have rarely been disappointed. Simply because of where I've been crossing it's mostly been Montana and PNW products, and stuff you can get at Walmart, but still pretty good. But segueing back on topic, even the beefier Canadian beer bottles don't make great cheater bars for a ratchet handle. I've got scars on my hands to prove it...

I've mentioned it a couple times so I figured I should show it off. Well, not that I'm bragging much about it. This is a '92 2-door Sport, AX-15, 231. The story starts a couple years back. I picked it up off a cattle farmer in May of 2016. The last registration on it having expired in December 2015. I don't know how much it actually got used as a farm vehicle, the older gentleman (he has an English accent) talked about taking his daughter and all her musical gear to shows in it. It's a Manitoba Jeep, although I picked it up about a quarter mile from the Saskatchewan border. Middle of nowhere kinda place with a view for weeks. I think there's a thread somewhere about it, bunch of enablers that y'all are talked me into buying it. Er... here. I drove it about 45 miles home to my parents', parked it in their back driveway (they were out of town for a couple weeks and I may have accidentally on purpose forgotten to mention it. Got a very confused phone call when they did get home...oops) but then I pretty much abandonned it there. Sure I fired it up and moved it around a couple times but mostly it just sat. Initially my intent was just parts to manual swap my MJ, maybe practise rust repairs on it before attacking the MJ's problems, but I was living and working 75 miles away, which isn't that big a trip, but it was enough to prevent much from happening. Fast forward to Christmas break, 2017, I've ended up moving ~1100 miles west, which was only supposed to be for six months, but six turned into 12 and around month 9 they made me an offer I couldn't refuse and now I'm stuck in Alberta for the next four years. My Jeep horde stashed out at a friends's place back home was causing patience problems, my parents weren't excited about having stuff sitting around at their place either, so I took a train home, dug the XJ out of the snow, hooked up a UHaul, and drove the whole mess 1100 miles west. First time it had started in 9 months after not being on the road for over two years, and with extreme cold warnings all it took was a new battery and a couple hours with the block heater plugged in, and it fired up like it had just been running... At -30°F. Didn't really feel like doing more than absolutely necessary in the -60 windchill (especially as I was just getting over a flu bug) so the new battery was it, until I discovered the trailer lights weren't working too well, so I cobbled a harness together as quickly as I could (electrical work outside in -60 windchill is one of my most favourite things... ) but it survived the 200 mile return trip to pick up the UHaul (that thing I said about middle of nowhere) with no issues except some major square-tire-itis for the first few miles, then the next day did the 150 miles to pick up the horde without issues, so then I hit the highway for the 1100 miles home. Only issue I had was the alternator going out (coasted into the only town between saskatoon and Edmonton that would have one and be open at 5pm on a Sunday that happens to be New Year's Eve. Ended up in a buddy's girlfriend's parents' garage to put it in, because in -50 windchill in a crappy tire parking lot after dark there was no way in hell I would have managed to retain my fingers. I also discovered at this point that the line to the vacuum reservoir was broken behind the battery, which I repaired with a couple layers of heat shrink tubing, meaning I actually could get some heat onto my feet... holes in floorboards are great at -40... Or well maybe not great but the other word that means the same thing as great but exactly the opposite. Which brings me to my dilemma. I'd always assumed this was a totally rotten piece of garbage. But as I got more acquainted with it over the trip out, I've realized how original and unmolested it is, and I've become pretty attached to it. Hell, all the rubber trim bits under the front end are all still there and none are torn or anything. This Jeep was looked after. It's got a new windshield, and had some rust repaired about ten years ago, although more has since developed, some maybe in the same place. More photos: (yes that's the carpet underlay hanging through the floorpan) both rear quarters look like this although there's not much in the fenders. passenger rocker is bad. Also my garage is too small but I'm living in staff accom so I guess I'll take what I can get... last summer I was wrenching out on the street. This was the first time I've been under it to check things out, and it's honestly not as bad as I expected. I mean sure it is a 26-year-old, 200,000-mile Jeep that lived a life of gravel roads and seven-month winters so there is quite a bit underneath, but not a huge amount of through rust. This is the only structural looking stuff. Althoygh I'm not actually sure how structural this component is... It's a kind of gusset I guess, a brace for the bit behind the driver's side rear wheel. It looks like it could be factory but it also looks to be bolted on, possibly with self-tappers, and there's no symmetrical component on the passenger side. Here's another photo without flash that shows the rust a bit better. Theres also a questionable spot in the bumper/hitch bracket which I'm not sure I would've hooked up a 3500lb trailer to, and then pulled it over the highest pass on the Yellowhead highway quite so eagerly had I known about it. Quite a few layers have flaked off there. Floorpan holes exist, driver's side is by far the worst with one on either side of the main frame section Although the rear floor looks mostly intact so far. That funky wire is part of the hastily hacked trailer harness. It's for the tail lights, and runs straight to the fuse panel, it was the only wire in the Jeep's harness I couldn't get power out of, and the easiest one to hack. For the heck of it, the -60 windchill wiring job: I mean, I only needed it to last about a week... The passenger outter and inner rockers look like they both will need done, although my phone's battery died so that's the end of the pics for now at least. But it now the dilemma. So I bought this thing to part out to swap the ax-15 into my MJ, in place of the AW4. But now I know that it's maybe not as rusty as all that... Definitely within the fixable realm even for someone not super comfortable with a welder yet, and it runs and drives so nicely, and it's basically unmolested, so it's pretty hard for me to wrap my head around just parting it out. I think I have a problem...

Depends. If I let it idle until the coolants's at operating temperature it does okay, maybe it's a little slower to shift but nothing catastrophic. If I don't give it the warm up though it really hangs between gears long enough the engine will rev up then it'll slam into gear with the extra pressure for the first dozen or so shifts or couple minutes of driving. The heat transfer from the coolant in the radiator is definitely noticeable below ~0°F, to the point of critical when the temperature really takes a dive, which I'm guessing is what you're wondering about. The block heater also makes a fair bit of difference in shifting... the hardest shifting was definitely on those mornings when I discovered that the breaker for my exterior outlet blew so the block heater wasn't getting power. Which is totally awesome when you're like me and tend to roll out of bed maybe 15 minutes before you need to leave for work and don't realize until you get that painfully slow crank when you hit the key.

I'm not convinced on automatic dimming masks for beginning. They're definitely convenient, but if you've got some lesser skills and you loose your arc, or you're constantly stopping and starting, my eyes kinda hurt a bit by the end of the day when I was learning. But definitely go for quality masks... Your eyes are pretty important.

Motorad 195 in mine as well, sits at 210 and heats up nicely even at -40 with completely open grill. I just wish I could heat up the diffs a bit so it doesn't feel like it's driving through glue for the first few minutes...