gogmorgo

Yup. And definitely not worth the coin to put onto this grille guard. Case in point, my “straightening” technique: It’s closer to the headlight now by about an inch. And no I didn’t hit it very hard, just nudged up against the tree and pushed in low range. Hockey tape held up pretty well too. And this is an actual product that someone makes: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/370589156066 They just tuck up under the bezel. Aren’t sealed beams great? So many accessories. I’d be more inclined to build my own though. Don’t really care for the stainless/chrome look, or $50 by the time it’s shipped up here for two strips of metal with an edge bent up and a couple corners. Maybe I’ll do it sometime… maybe I won’t get around to it. Hasn’t been a lot of “what others have done” discussion. The hockey tape did more than nothing so I’m okay with that for now. At least it makes me feel like I did something. I’ll see how it holds up over winter, if it’s something I’d want to do if I ever get a new grille guard, if I even need to do it on a new one.

I don’t know that actual reflection is the issue so much as just the thing being very illuminated. Which I guess is techincally light reflecting off it, but I don’t know you’ll change much there without some fancy light-absorbing material. Velcro is likely a similar synthetic material to the hockey tape. I think I’ll try pushing the guard closer to the front of the truck when I get home tonight. Maybe do some digging to see if I can turn up a visor thing too. I’m also wondering if anyone else with the Aries brush guard or any other that isn’t bent all to hell like mine has the same experience.

I mean it does kinda make sense. I had considered some sort of visor kinda thing, similar to a traffic light. But I don’t really want to limit the light output more than the brush guard already does. You do see them on heavy trucks though. Makes me wonder if there’s an existing product out there that would fit. Lots of trucks still running sealed beam style lighting.

Headlights are there for a reason lol

Try this one. I’ve never done it but looks like what you’re trying to do in the thread.

Had to wait until it was properly dark out, Pete Yeah I could have got to it sooner. Part of the reason for the post was to see what anyone else may have done. It’s definitely not worse, but it’s also not better by a huge amount. Here’s the “before” again for better side by each comparison. For what its worth comparing two pictures from different angles in different places taken a week apart in different weather. I’m wishing I’d just done a couple test patches instead of going the whole length right away. Would be easier to compare. I’ll leave it on though, see how it holds up. I don’t know that I’d call it particularly classy, but I won’t kink shame if you’re into it. It doesn’t look worse than before but that’s not saying much with how badly bent, scratched, rust bubbled it is. Most of what I’m seeing online has people painting it a matte black, or using a matte vinyl sticker of some kind. Whether it works better than what I did is something I can’t really test. The only for-purpose product I’ve seen is the ARB sticker and I haven’t found any reviews. I don’t think the issue is really that it reflects light at me, it’s more that it is very illuminated. I think a grille guard that isn’t twisted up like mine would sit closer to the headlight so wouldn’t catch so much glare. It mostly serves an aesthetic function for me so there’s not much point in replacing it until the rest of the truck is going to match a shiny new bumper. I could always just take it off entirely but it’s covering up some collision damage from wedging the truck between a couple trees a long time ago.

It’s coming up to the dark season, ~16 hours between sunset and sunrise around here, so I figure I should do something about this: And I tried something out. More as a proof of concept than anything else. Wrapped the top bars in good old hockey tape. Surprisingly doesn’t look as bad as I expected, although my technique could use work. It’s tough to keep the tape flat as you shove the roll between bats. Yeah I know there’s a specific tape product out there for this, but it’s not exactly cheap for a couple stickers that don’t look like they’ll cover much. I’m also not convinced as to the winter worthiness of a product designed in Australia. It took about 3/4 of a roll to do the entire top bar, and maybe twenty minutes of my time. It’s water resistant, reasonably durable, stays stuck in the cold, and if you don’t have it already laying around like I do it’s available everywhere for like $5/roll, in pretty much any colour of your choosing. I thought about black paints but even a flat black would probably do this, the oxidized coating on the thing is already pretty flat. It’s less the light reflecting off of it than how brightly its illuminated. Short of some sort of vantablack knock-off I don’t really know what else might work. Was maybe wondering about something rubbery like a plastidip but I would’ve had to go out of my way for that. Gonna wait until it gets dark then see how it does I guess. If it seems to deal with the glare okay I’ll see how it holds up long-term. I’m also wondering if part of my problem isn’t how beat up and twisted the grille guard is. Or how my headlights aren’t aimed particularly well. Or maybe the headlight guard bars and stone guards are diffusing the beams and making the problem worse. I don’t really remember it being so bad but I haven’t driven it much for the last six years. Still no complaints about the sealed beams not lighting up the road otherwise though so they can’t be diffusing or deflecting too much light.

That’s going to mean a new distributor, if it’s leaking up the shaft. Had it happen on a couple older vehicles, it results in exactly your symptoms. The shaft isn’t sitting in the middle of the distributor anymore resulting in weird spark behaviour and probably also poor sync signals. Plus coating everything in oil doesn’t help it out.

My guess is the motor arm is on the motor 180° out. The motor has an asymetrical notched tip that fits one way into the hole on the arm, but it looks like it could go two ways. I did this “upgrade” (not convinced it’s not just a new motor with a different plug) a couple days ago and nearly did that until I realized the arm slots on nicely the opposite way I was trying to put it on. Its really the only way it could go backwards.

Hazards and brake lights work fine on that corner, just not the turn signal? You haven’t swapped to LEDs have you? Checked the bulbs were correct for the location? A conventional flasher unit will stay solid if there’s not enough load on it. First step is to check for power and ground at the socket. Use a test light, not a multimeter. You can check a ground with the test light by clamping to a power source and probing the ground contact.

You might get away with just changing the carrier bearings, but if there’s enough play in them you’re able to move the carrier around, there’s probably enough metal floating around to cause some damage to every other bearing in there and the ring and pinion will have started wearing in a new and not-so-great pattern. I would definitely want to pull the whole thing apart, take a good look at everything, and give the housing the best cleaning I could. If you miss any damaged component now, it’ll keep failing and you’ll be doing everything again soon. The shims are generally going to be thick cast iron washers between the bearing and housing, unless there’s also shims under the bearings on the carrier. Also on the pinion gear if you pull the bearing off. Keep track of where everything was and put it all back in the same place… and hopefully no one else in there before you screwed anything up. Especially if it’s just an open diff, it might be good to weigh the cost/benefits of rebuilding the axle vs swapping to something sturdier. I’m on the second full rebuild of the D35 in my ZJ after bending an axle shaft not long after the first full rebuild, which took out the wheel bearing and sent shrapnel through the rest of the housing, wiping out the rest of the bearings. I didn’t think I should’ve rebuilt it the second time but the timing didn’t lend itself for a swap. A junkyard axle shaft and I bought all the bearings and seals individually, best quality I could get next day from the local parts store. I won’t be doing it a third time.

Bringing stuff across the border in bulk gets complicated. There isn’t exactly a shortage of parts up here either, it’s just figuring out where everything’s at. No one advertises anything unless they need to get rid of it.

Don’t remember how far you are out of Alberta, but if you’re on the facepage the Alberta XJ/MJ group is pretty good about coming up with stuff. There used to be a steady supply of sub-$1000 XJs but there’s not a heck of a lot in MB and SK anymore. There is a couple cheap ‘93 ZJs out there, you might get lucky and find one with an AW4, I think they switched them mid-year to the Chrysler trans that you don’t want so know what you’re buying. The ZJ’s not an ideal candidate because of the low pinion d30 and some of the transfer case options, and I don’t know how well the tcase shifter would interface either. But it’s maybe an option.

At least they cancel the order after a few days instead of waiting all week for them to tell you it’s going to be a couple months. I guess it comes down to being open and honest with your customers. In most cases we can order everything direct from the manufacturer or a distributor. Retailers really just provide a convenience of ordering everything from the same place. It’s not so convenient if you have to wait for their monthly order or whatever their process is before they can ship it out.

I suspect this is engine related, and unrelated to the screeching. The screeching when you step on the clutch would have been the release bearing failing. First thought is to test your fuel pressure. Second thought is something to do with throttle position sensor. Test components, don’t just start replacing things. I would also suggest heading over to cruiser54.com and start working on the tips. He also has some sensor tests that would be good to perform. Also doesn’t hurt to check for a vacuum leak.

A bit of a clunk when changing direction of a wheel is pretty normal. Usually it’s just the sum of all the lash in the differential, totally normal. Although it doesn’t hurt to check the u-joint in the axle shaft, hold the wheel end steady and try to turn the axle shaft, there should be no play in the ujoint. Wheel bearings don’t usually thunk when they fail. They’ll make a bit of a grinding noise, won’t feel like they roll smoothly, and like Pete says they’ll have play. Play in the wheel bearing will be a wiggle in all directions, you’ll see the wheel move but the steering knuckle stays put. Wiggle only in the top and/or bottom is going to be ball joints, the steering knuckle will be moving. Left/right is going to be in the steering somewhere. I would also look at sway bar and end links. And both ends of the track bar. And the shocks. And control arms. And make sure the bottom end of the coil springs hasn’t snapped off. Basically look at everything in the front end. Its really tough to diagnose a sound over the internet without more details. Maybe about handling, any shakes or vibrations. Definitely look at where the track bar bolts to the axle, make sure it doesn’t move around. It might help to get someone to turn the steering wheel back and forth, just enough to slightly turn the wheels, and check for any signs of play in any of the steering or suspension pivot points.

No worries. Usually I would have got the pinouts and gone through everything instead of just guessing. But I was running low on daylight and wanted it together so I took a shortcut, and this is what happens when you take shortcuts ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I’m also not entirely convinced this is such a massive upgrade as all that. Just kinda feels like I replaced a worn out part with a newer one. Maybe if you were pulling a newer motor out of a later vehicle vs an old one at a junkyard. But considering the motors look nearly identical less the connector… it would be interesting to compare an old style and new style directly. But I needed a new wiper motor anyhow. This one stank of electrical smoke and imminent failure when I pulled the condom off it to check the wires. I doubt it would’ve survived the winter. I also took the opportunity to replace the linkage bushings, so everything should be good down there for another 30 years or so I hope.

Just did this today. Something to note. I got lazy on this and just made sure I got the high(yellow) and low (green) correct, based off this picture, then just matched up the other three wires based on their positions on old and new wiper motors because the picture isn’t fully clear and one of the threads on this mentioned just matching up wires based on where they went. Except then I plugged it in and nothing worked. This is the Valeo wiper motor that has been on the truck since I bought it: And this is the Cardone 85-4470: Had I been paying attention to what was going where I might have noticed that the keyed power and ground had been reversed, but I just charged ahead. Fortunately the wipers are on a self-resetting breaker so I didn’t even need to go hunting for a fuse when I turned the thing into a dead short. After pulling the motor back out it was a simple matter of swapping the power and ground around and now I’ve got full function, and wipers that will actually push themselves across a dry windshield.

Something we don’t really think about as a tool, but hand cleaners are worth talking about. I’m sure everyone’s got their go-to citrusy pumicey flavour. But I would strongly recommend going waterless. 97% of the time you don’t need pumice, either. Just something to carry the grease and oil away. I’ve got this stuff at home right now, and it’s pretty good. Every other brand of waterless cleaner I’ve tried has also been excellent. I’ve used Joe’s at work, as well as a permatex thing that had aloe, but I’d pass on that one. Makes your hands smell funny. Rub it on your hands before you wet them, and then either rinse them off or wipe them with a shop towel. It’s great to have in the tool kit in the truck because you don’t need the water if you don’t want it.

But why has it become normal for that to happen? I’m particularly frustrated right now because I can’t find winter tires I want to run on my longbed, so I’ve been trying to source a small lift for my longbed to make my ~31 Hakkas off my ZJ fit with zero rubbing, considering the ZJ’s going to be parked for the winter. I just want it on before the snow starts flying. I started trying to get the thing winterable again back at the end of august. But with it being a week of back and forth with suppliers before they tell me things are months away, I’m kinda wishing I’d just sucked it up the first time at this point, cause I don’t really want to be doing suspension work in my driveway in the snow. I’m kinda lucky we’ve had a late fall this year, but time’s running out.

If you’re buying a donor rig it’s not going to be a ton more work to pull the trans out of it as well. If you get both trans and tcase out of the same donor then you don’t need to mess around with tcase input compatibility. Assuming the parts rig isn’t completely trashed you should be able to take everything you need apart from the rear driveshaft. 4.0/auto xj should have 3.55 gears as well to match your rear axle. I ended up scrapping my old working 4x4 aw4 last spring. Couldn’t even give it away, but I was moving and couldn’t bring it with me. Otherwise I would have offered it to you. Pulling the trans might seem daunting if you’ve never done it, but it’s not that bad a job. The low-lift transmission jacks at Princess Auto are cheap enough and go on sale pretty frequently, and they’re a huge help if you’re doing it on jackstands.

Getting a 4x4 aw4 is generally going to be the easiest way to do it. Hypothetically you can convert the 2wd trans if you really want to, but you’d need to change out the tailhousing and output shaft, and my understanding from a quick glance through service manual a long time ago is the output shaft comes out the front of the transmission, meaning you’re completely tearing it down. Definitely less work just to put in the 4x4 transmission. Your stock gears are probably 3.55’s but it would be better to double check. I’m a fan of the 242 for winter driving (also not original to my ‘91 automatic) although I usually leave it in 2wd for the most part unless I actually need the traction. I suppose it might just be that something in my truck is wore out, but there’s some noticeable extra load on the engine when I put it in full-time, and I’m of the opinion that my mpg suffers. Not that I’ve done a proper scientific comparison there, it might be more related to the other variables that lead to the shift into full-time. But otherwise full time is significantly better for driving on the road than part-time. My ‘91 doesn’t have the circuits in the instrument cluster to make the full-time light work, even if I put a bulb in. I think I still have the cluster from the 242 donor kicking around but I didn’t want to swap it out because I would have been knocking about 260,000km off the odometer, and it didn’t occur to me when I did the swap that I could just move the speedometer over to the other cluster. It took a little figuring to get even the part-time light to work, because the 231 puts the switch on the CAD, where the 242 has it on the tcase itself. But going from 2wd should be more straightforward there.