gogmorgo

I got sick. Woke up early yesterday morning with severe heartburn, took a couple antacids, then violently emptied my GI tract out both ends. Couldn't even keep liquids down until late afternoon. Managed to nibble down a handful of crackers by late evening. Woke up this morning feeling like it had never happened. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ My Christmas present to myself is playing with the XJ I abandonned in my parents driveway a year and a half ago, then cruising it back to Jasper. Also, this is waiting for me back home, too.

The trick is getting it to pull sideways, but not interfere with opening the hood. The more I look at it the less easy it seems. I sprayed down the sticky latch with wd40 – strongest stuff my parents have on hand – and it's working a bit better, but still not great. I may just leave that side off for now and see how it goes.

Success! So it seems as though the driver's side latch is sticky, (it's not like it hasn't been off the road for two years... Lol) and that's the problem. As soon as I got the bolts out i tried the release handle again and it popped the passenger side open. The latch will release if I push hard on it so I'm looking to find something to tie onto it as a secondary release. Just in case and all. The aggravating thing about this is I'm ten feet away from a heated garage... That I can't use cause my parents have turned it into extra storage.

It's whatever garbage my parents make... Folgers most likely. Surprisingly this thing still has all the factory rubbers in place, meaning it's incredibly tricky to feed anything up to grab the release rods. I managed to get a coat hanger on it but couldn't get it to release, and I'm getting sick of laying on my back in the snow. At least it's sunny out so I could see what I'm doing! I've got one of the headlight buckets out and going for the latch bolts next.

Well, this thread to the rescue. Its -30°F today so of course this is the day I choose the resurrect the XJ sitting in my parents' driveway that hasn't been touched since March. Day started off great, my parents daily's battery is on its way out and the immobilizer the insurance company had installed doesn't like the cold... So that was interesting. Fortunateky the remote starter bypasses that garbage so it would start after some time on the charger but it took a half hour before the junk was warm enough to behave. Then finally I can get it around to boost the XJ but I'm guessing the XJ's hood latch is frozen, cause as hard as I can pull on the handle, she won't budge. Inside for a cup of coffee, then it'll be back out there for some alternative strategies.

The earth isn't flat, either. Care to elaborate?

Have you checked for trouble codes?

Had those on my MJ when I first got it. They weren't great in comparison to what I was expecting from them. Admittedly they were pretty old and worn, and one of the back ones was a 225/75 vs the 235's on the other wheels, but it was after the first snow that I knew I needed something better. I got the KO2's on the Jimmy because it desperately needed new tires, they were massively on sale, and I wanted to try them out cause they're the only winter-rated AT's in the size I eventually want on my MJ. They're not awful, but they've definitely inspired ginger throttle applications... Even with the G80 it struggles to move from a stop even in slush. It's not like the 4.3 is a massive powerhouse or anything, but I find myself hitting the 4x4 way more often than I did with the Grabber AT2's on my MJ. Frankly the hard-as-rock fleet spec highway tires that came new on our work trucks have been better, even on our new Ecoboost f150 that has zero weigh over the rear axle and will roast the tires on a half-throttle launch on bare pavement...

Which BFG's? I've unfortunately found the opposite to be true with the ko2's on my Jimmy.

From my fairly extensive searching for D30's I seem to remember that looking for a '92 XJ brought everything up. For whatever reason '91 and earlier (or an MJ search) wouldn't bring up the '97+, but '93 wouldn't bring up any MJ's or any XJ before '90. But '92 overlapped everything. Weird though.

Fox never really gave the show much of a chance to develop. In fairness it was a bit of a niche product, a western set in space, frontier living in the 26th century. With a little more production support it could've gone for four or five seasons before starting to wind down, I think. The story arcs that got hastily wrapped up in Serenity easily could've filled out the rest of the season, and would've created a pretty crazy environment for the next one. If they'd let the first season run to its end I'd be willing to bet the show would be more than that quaint little experiment with a weird cult following that it is.

We've been getting snow since September. It's a bit depressing that it keeps melting in the bottom of the valley. Seems like it's finally starting to hand around though. Barely creeping above freezing during the day, finally.

You can't see it any more after the canopy went on, but this sticker is in my rear window.

This is Saint Jimmy. Frequently abbreviated simply as "the Saint." I initially tossed around the idea of calling my MJ "Serenity", in a nod towards Firefly, but it just didn't really fit too well and never stuck. Never really made an effort to name any other vehicle. Saint Jimmy mostly named itself, TBH. Although the paint came after the name...

I'd guess at $50 per wheel, but I'm also guessing shipping out of Brandon, MB won't necessarily be cheap. I've never bought wheels there, but I did get a full set at a yard in Winnipeg at that price.

It may influence my decision to go or not. I don't have anything specific that I need right now, and it is a little bit out of my way.

There's another app I use, NightCap Pro, that allows for better low-light and manual control of the camera than the native iPhone camera app does. You still need a tripod or some way to hold the phone steady. The app also allows a short timer before taking the photo so you don't risk as much shaking by hitting the shutter button, and you can also use the volume controls on the original headphones as a shutter remote. I generally end up propping the phone up on something and using the timer because I never really plan for it before hand. The skies here haven't been all that clear any time I've been out and about about at night, so I haven't really seen too much here yet, not since that night at least. But back home in the middle of nowhere in Manitoba even as far south as I was, with zero light pollution we got some epic shows. Purples, reds, blues... Pretty crazy. And ridiculously difficult to shoot without proper gear, as you say.

There was an '85 or '86 Waggy at a yard back home that I want to say had these sitting in it. Yard in question likes to pull the tires off and put the wheels back into the car they came off. I'm heading home for Christmas and there's a not-unreasonable chance I may end up at the yard. If anyone's interested I can check to see if they're still/were ever there.

I've got an ISS tracking app on my phone. Yeah I know I'm a nerd. Lol. This was back in May. Not the best quality photo, but not bad for my phone, that's the clearest I got of the ISS at least. The greenish light in the background is the northern lights. They put on a pretty decent show that night, this is looking towards the north, over top of my town, the first pic was looking south.

Seems like it only happens in sharp turns? Maybe? What do the ujoints look like, driveshaft and axle shaft? Could it possibly be the tires rubbing on something, possibly lower control arms? Having the CAD locked in place won't cause shaking in 2wd if the driveshaft is turning free from the transfer case, I.e. is in 2wd.

I saw stuff about refurb pumps when I was looking to replace my POS Delphi. I'm pretty sure that's the pump I saw, although I couldn't find any reference to them actually being done by/for Mopar. And any reviews I saw for reman units said they were cheap junk that either didn't work out of the box or else failed right away. I'll acknowledge that when a product just hits the shelf the only reviews will be the negative ones before the product's been stress tested in the field, and the users who had the product fail generally shout the loudest, but I still wasn't sure I wanted to take the chance. I got the Bosch 69302, but I've only put 50 miles on it, and like I said I have no idea how the install went... All I know is the truck runs and the new fuel pump box disappeared from my passenger seat.

I've only seen one '97+ 4-cyl XJ as well... You're far more likely to find one that someone else already regeared, but it'll be $$$. As far as I can tell, the 8.25 from the Libby is the same as the '97+ XJ variant, and way more available. There's just more stuff to cut off before you weld on the perches, given the KJ's rear coils. The 4-banger KJ's also came with 4.10's, and as a bonus most of them also have disc brakes. Just a suggestion. I've got one sitting in my stash that I intended to swap in but didn't get around to, now I've picked up an MJ AMC20 so I don't think I'll be using it in the MJ, at least not immediately. If you were closer than SC I'd offer it to you.

Interesting. My local Napa said they couldn't order me the Bosch pump. Ended up getting it online. I paid a shop to replace it, or rather my insurance company paid, replaced the gas tank after mowing down a whitetail, got them to swap out the Delphi for the Bosch while they were in there. They didn't say anything about issues installing it, although you're not the first person who said they had to do some modifying to make things fit. I'm almost tempted to go pull the sending unit now just to see what the shop did.

I'll add a few of my more favourite subscriptions, in alphabetical order: Bad Obsession Motorsports: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHvBHWBzzB7NyU5tIiEZHBg These guys have an original Mini stripped down to bare steel, and are working on getting a Lexus (Infinity maybe? It's been a while) engine into it. They don't put out huge amounts of content, one video every few months, but still good stuff. BBC Earth Lab: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdsOTr6SmDrxuWE7sJFrkhQ Random weird sciency stuff. Intended for maybe a younger audience but I'm a nerd. Occasionally James May (Top Gear, Grand Tour, etc) has appeared. The channel's been through a few iterations, called itself Head Squeeze a few years ago. coldwarmotors: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoculxk4_H8XzjPS_zbYUpQ This guy and his crew do super home-video style productions, but they're into oddball cars and saving ancient cars from wrecking yards, getting them running after they've sat outside for 40+ years, that sort of thing. His latest video is about the Kaiser Fraser he used as a daily driver for the last year. Finnegan's Garage: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1IdPylqngGiuHFLJqHbG_g Mike Finnegan from Roadkill. Fairly educational, with fabrication and hotrodding stuff, it's mostly him working on his own projects, some of which have appeared in Roadkill episodes. Soup. George Karellas https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl9I7RgD0i7JZ58CK17kKHQ A little overproduced (stop motion car disassembly is weird) but it's a guy with some classic cars going through the journey of teaching himself how to restore cars by restoring them on a budget, with some other interesting automotive stuff tossed in. He's currently working on an older Range Rover and a Lotus Elise. He's Irish with some kind of Greek connection. Grand Touring Concepts: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUpmR1ydr6OQ8LrccIARSPg These guys based in Edmonton can be a bit difficult to watch, a bit like a highschool theatre production. But they've been doing some cool stuff with a Lada, among other things, and anyone making new Lada content in English is a thing I'll watch. Hagerty: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLgEVx4mzk3T3mzgbKG54Eg Yeah, the insurance guys. Well produced stuff on classic cars. I'm a big fan of the Barn Finder series. Lots of cool and unique stuff. Maximus Ironthumper. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5iNSo8ml7fq31t3K6m5Vgw I only started watching this guy recently, and haven't really figured out what he's about. Some offgrid living stuff it would seem. But the draw to me is he's got this old Zil 131 (soviet army truck) that he calls Project Awesome. Again this thing with English content related to Soviet vehicles...

https://www.partsgeek.com/catalog/1987/jeep/comanche/driveshaft_-ar-_axle/axle_assembly.html?brand=surtrack Links are good. I've had the SurTrack cv's in my MJ for a couple years now. No complaints, but they were cheap so my confidence has never been super high, although I only do small amounts of light wheeling here and there. Stock truck. I did notice this summer that I'll need to replace the boots, but that could've been anything, I do a fair bit of pushing through snow with my MJ and sometimes the crust on top will be sharp. But CV shafts massively improved steering feel in 4x4, eliminating the "wobble" you get from u-joints. It's a huge gain for driving on snowy roads, getting rid of quite a bit of the understeer, especially now with my 242 tcase, 4x4 is almost invisible. One thing I'll note, the axle nut that came with them isn't the same size as the one I took off. One was metric and a touch smaller but I can't remember which... I was just annoyed because my socket set didn't go that big so I had to go out and buy the socket, and then when I had it apart I had to go out and buy another socket. If you're going from a CAD axle, you'll also need to do the other things to convert to the one-piece shaft.