gogmorgo

Plugs and wires were new in August, maybe 5000 miles on them. I've thought about pulling them to have a look, maybe I will tomorrow morning if it doesn't start. And yeah, that's why it's frustrating. It'll sound like it's trying to go until it quits trying and just cranks away. Yeah, I've been using white lithium grease in the lock cylinder, which was recommended for cold weather by a locksmith but I'm not positive his cold was quite mine. It's good down to -10°F or so but below that it doesn't want to pull itself back. Whether it's a tired old spring or the grease solidifying I'm not sure. It's kind of annoying because until this winter I never had cold-related issues with anything.

So it was -35°F this morning when I tried to start my truck, wound up walking to work. After a while moving the throttle did nothing, but before then it would only cough and try to fire when my foot was in it a bit. Filmed my attempt to start it: After that I went inside, got dressed, and reattempted about five minutes after the above and couldn't get it to even cough. Not two hours later I had to stop in from work to grab my OBD2 reader, and since it was in the MJ I attempted to start it. I did end up touching the gas but it fired up, and while it didn't want to idle nicely at first, it was only about five seconds or so of me holding it at 1000 rpm until it caught about an 850rpm idle on its own. I'll point out for reference that it had warmed up to about -10°F by then. So I drove to work, left it idling for about 10 minutes there so it was up to operating temperature (it's not a very long drive, less than a mile) and shut it off. It started up just fine after work at right around 0°F. I did fill up on the way home, and even though it was only a 55L fill, that's still getting down towards where I've had it start to have running-out-of fuel symptoms ( I really need to adress the Delphi-fuel-pump-adapters-suck issue where it's pulling fuel from the middle of the tank) and while I know fuel volume isn't affect all that much by temperature, it wouldn't surprise me that a drop in volume due to temperature is in fact causing problems. But it's getting down to -20°F again tonight (and it's clear enough it wouldn't surprise me if it goes colder) so I've left the block heater unplugged and I'll see if it starts tomorrow to try to eliminate the low-fuel possibility. It surprises me that the fuel tank would have changed temperature as quickly as the air though, so I'm pretty skeptical. But I've got too much other crap to do what with moving and all that I don't know when I'll get time to actually pull the throttle body off and clean it up. I'm also inclined to wait until it's warmer out, haha. The weather prophets have been staring at the cat's vomit long enough they've come up with a prediction of highs in the 40's by the middle of next week.

Harmonic balancer x2. I had one start going bad, the rubber between the pulley and the inner part started coming apart, and the pulley developed a small wobble that was enough to smack the belt into the timing cover. The alternating squeak that resulted was the belt slowly sawing through the timing cover.

Any sort of lubricant I should use on the IAC and throttle body after I clean it? It was ridiculously hot in 'Bama when I was there a month ago. Seriously, it must have been around 50 degrees. I was down to short sleeves, windows down, sunroof open, hair blowing everywhere, it sucked. Don't know how you can stand to live there. :teehee:

0°F is far from extreme... we don't get extreme cold warnings until -40, so I suppose -30 is getting there. But I guess that's down to personal opinion. It's pretty annoying that the cold is cause me problems this year because it hasn't in the past. I cleaned the ECU connectors and everything off when I was having issues this summer (turns out I was out of gas... oops) but I'll give it a shot again if it acts up tomorrow. I suppose I could be low on fuel again now, but it isn't behaving like it is. At least I haven't noticed any problems during driving maneuvers that implement full throttle and fuel sloshing...

I've been noticing the symptoms for a few months now, but only when it's really cold out, approaching -30°F or so, and the block heater wasn't plugged in. Basically it'll crank over fine but won't fire, maybe the odd cough but not really trying unless I open the throttle to 1/4 or so, at which point it sounds like it'll go but just takes a while before it actually fires up. I figured this wasn't unusual for an old vehicle in the cold, but it didn't do this last winter or any other winter from my memory. My guess was something was causing it to dump in too much fuel due to the cold, maybe a failing coolant temp sensor that was getting fuzzy toward the bottom end of its range or something. But this morning it took a hell of a time to get it started. Nothing if I wasn't on the throttle, and only the odd cough if I was. Then when it did eventually start, it didn't want to idle, unless I had the throttle open a touch, until it was warm. When I took my foot off, it would drop down to a very rough 500rpm and then stall. The second or third time it died on me I checked trouble codes and just got 12 and 55, so not really significant, the battery would have been disconnected two weeks ago when I put a new starter on it. (Starter was replaced because the old one would spin but not engage the flywheel, when I pulled it there was about 1/4" of play in the drive gear). At lunch I had to run an errand and it still didn't want to start. It had warmed up almost to 0°F by then. It idled rough and wanted to stall again but after 30sec or so of holding it at ~1200 rpm it held a 750rpm idle. Needless to say I didn't shut it off till I was back at work. Leaving work it was the same story, wouldn't idle till it warmed up a touch. I went and got the mail, leaving it running the whole time, and when I got home I shut it off and started it again a few times and it was fine, so I checked the codes, and got three new ones, in this order: 12-battery disconnected; I'd expect that to have cleared by now but NBD. 53- PCM fault, requires specialist diagnostics tools/diagnostics 76- fuel pump bypass relay circuit, requires specialist tools/diagnostics 42- Auto-shutdown relay, check relay and circuit, requires specialist tools/diagnostics 55- end of codes. After pulling the codes, I let it cool down for 20 minutes of so, and then ran to the hardware store. It started fine both at home and at the store. I picked up a new cord end so I can actually plug it in tonight, it's supposed to get down to -30°F again so I'm not optimistic about it starting without the block heater. So we'll see how it goes. I'll definitely be heading out early for work in case I end up walking. I haven't messed around with anything yet, but beyond pulling relays and checking them I'm not sure what to do really. I've got a working-when-pulled '93 ECU I could swap in I suppose, but it runs fine and I can't really see the ECU warming up much at all in 30 seconds. The other thing is that none of those codes triggered seems to have much to do with something opening the throttle would cure, or have any effect on. If it was starving for fuel because the pump wasn't getting proper power, you'd think opening the throttle and leaning out the mixture more would just make the problem worse. I can't see any way the throttle would affect either the ASD relay or the ECU, unless maybe the TPS is sending wonky readings but I can't see that going away after running for under a minute. The only thing I really can think of the throttle helping is if it's dumping in too much fuel. I was also wondering about the idle air control, but I can't see that triggering any of those fault codes. Any ideas? This isn't the best time for this to happen... Found out yesterday I'm moving across two provinces in a couple weeks, got tons of crap to deal with and don't need more!

I've had a dying flex plate make an intermittent knock, if it's an automatic, that sometimes went away under throttle and sometimes got louder. You might be able to see a crack if you pull off the inspection cover, shine a light in there and look for shiny hairlines. Make sure your exhaust isn't banging against anything too.

So, uh... :hijack: Looks like I'm moving to Jasper in a couple weeks (not 100% unexpected but the suddenness was) and that's gonna mean dragging the Niva with the MJ. On a dolly most likely, ballpark 1000 miles. And that means the MJ probably should have working brakes, which means the easiest way to do this is fixing the drums. But (bringing this thread back on topic) I've got a disc brake 8.25 out of a KJ in storage. Can I (easily) rob the disc setup off that axle to work on the MJ's D35? Ideally without having to irreparably modify any of the components on it? The plan was to swap the 4.10 8.25 into the MJ which would be great for towing but holy hell do I not have time for that and I don't have a matching front axle yet so that's out of the question for now. I haven't been able to find anyone who's put KJ brakes on a d35 yet, seems like all the KJ brake write-ups are for 8.25 XJ's, and everyone swapping d35 drums out is just using a d35 ZJ setup. And my MJ is my only street-legal vehicle right now so if I blow the rear axle apart I can't exactly run to a parts store if I forget something. Umm... TL/DR: can you put KJ brakes on a D35 without significant modification?

I hate people like that.

Still nothing. I've responded pretending to be much more local to him, but at this point, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Google sucks for posting images here. I imagine it'll be the same with video. They don't give you a proper URL for the image so you can't embed it here. In my mind Imgur.com is one of the better hosts out there, but realistically anything will work. Other members here had success using photobucket, but it's just been a headache any time I've wanted to use it and I'm not alone in that. I've used Facebook as well, but they have a nasty habit of changing their image urls every so often. As far as posting videos goes, if it's a YouTube video (or if you upload it there, it's free), just copy the URL and paste it directly into the post box, no fancy stuff necessary.

^^^That's a cool idea. I'll definitely be giving it a shot the next time I need to do such a thing. But my concerns about putting my mouth on a hose that's been used for gas have nothing to do with germs and more to do with several days of belching gas vapours. I've always just pulled the fuel line and jumpered the pump relay, although if you've got pump issues that won't work so well.

I haven't pulled anything over 3000lbs yet, my rear springs and brakes aren't great and I'm not wired for a trailer) although I've used it as a recovery point and I've yanked 1/2- and 3/4-ton trucks out of ditches with it (shackle mount in the receiver) and it's held up just fine. I'd trust it for the 5000lbs the Drawtite is rated for, easily. When it showed up at work everyone who saw it was impressed with the quality of it and how beefy it looked. And yeah, powder coating's a good idea. There's just nowhere close to me that would do it at the time.

I also recommend Krustyballer's hitch. http://comancheclub.com/topic/49608-krustyballer-fabrications/ Especially with shipping to the Great White North it didn't come as cheap as the Reese universal hitches may seem (I think when I got mine just over a year ago it worked out to around $350 and I don't think the exchange rate has improved). but the fit is perfect, no-hassle bolt-on with existing holes, as if it were a factory part. 100% worth it in my mind. I just wish I'd put a couple more coats of paint on mine, but I suppose it now matches the aesthetic of my truck a bit better than something shiny and new-looking.

Well I'll respond to the ad I guess. Maybe more demand will create more response from the seller? Fingers crossed.

What are you asking him? He might not want to deal with shipping internationally (really its not that big a deal...), and might respond to a fellow Canadian? I'm about 1000 miles away from being local though...

That's also the difference between poly mounts and rubber.

12 pairs or just 12 springs? Any other time he's mentioned a number he's been talking about individual springs. Seems silly to me not to sell them in pairs, but oh well. I never got around to calling him because other stuff came up and my money had to go somewhere else. Hopefully there's still a few kicking around when it comes time for me to order.

If you're only talking about the fuel pump, yes. If you're talking about the whole sending unit, the float arm, etc, there are physical differences in the unit itself. Members have made them work, but it's not a simple drop-in affair, if that's what you're asking.

Fuel pump, yes. A Renix XJ and Renix MJ use the same fuel pump. I don't know if an HO fuel pump is the same. The sending units are mirror images of each other. HO and Renix are physically compatible (I.e they fit) but the fuel guage will read backwards.

Trip meter? All of my fuel gauges work, but I have zero confidence in any of them. Especially in the MJ since the $#!&ty fuel pump I put in while I was at the side of the road didn't fit properly, and pulls fuel from the middle of the tank somewhere. There was a post not long ago about very carefully taking working guts out of an XJ sending unit and sticking them into the MJ's. Might want to give that a look before committing.

^^^This wasn't an issue for me :dunno:

Yeah. It's not a bad deal. The bus itself stops a block from my house, but it's a 60-mile run into the city where the closest actual station is. No sweat off my brow, though, if I order a new window then I'd be headed there to pick it up anyhow. But after having to fix a couple other things on my MJ, being informed by my landlord that I'm loosing my storage space for engines and axles and other things I can't carry down the basement stairs, and possible impending relocation between provinces, I've put this project on a back burner for the time being. Maybe something will come up.

Yeah, we didn't get as much coverage as some of the other teams. After losing 5th gear we were down to 55mph (or risking permanent hearing loss) so in order to hit all the checkpoints we were leaving well before first light, watching most of the teams go by during the day, and showing up among the last stragglers at the day's end. So we didn't really end up hanging out anywhere for too long.

Oh yes. It definitely lived up to its reputation. It also takes a huge amount of concentration to stay on the right side of the double yellow, unfortunately not many cars on the rally were doing that. Probably why that Bronco caught up to us as easily as it did, he was all over the road.