gogmorgo

These are factory bumper brackets: The "factory" hitch uses spacers that may or may not be permanently attached to clear the bulge you can see between the bolt holes. As you can see from tim's pic, the Fey brackets don't have the buldge: I would assume this won't matter, as you'll still use the spacers for the width, and just have a gap of sorts. You may not need to run spacers if they're not permanently attached, although since the brackets on the factory hitch are welded to the cross bar, then you could encounter issues with proper spacing. The other (probably bigger) issue you might run across is that the factory hitches are designed to sit right up against the bottom of the factory bumper (and sometimes is bolted to it). If the bottom of the Fey bumper is higher than the bottom of the stock bumper, then you'll simply have a gap, but if the bottom of the fey is lower, then you may have an interference fit of sorts. Don't actually know how the two compare. I should add a disclaimer, this information is entirely based on some fairly extensive research I did before deciding to try building my own hitch. Beyond pictures, I've never actually seen a Fey bumper or its brackets, or a factory hitch. I think it would work, but maybe look a little funny, but again, I don't actually know it will work. If someone else who does know, or at least could address one of the two issues above, that would be great.

And some of us wish they didn't have to learn things like this from experience... the only parts of my cooling system that haven't been replaced due to failure of the parts themselves in the last six months are the heater core, thermostat housing, and the parts that need the cooling...

Couple things I've encountered with rad hoses, although this is not intended to be a cure-all just some suggestions: Sometimes the end of the hose isn't cut perpendicular to the "nipple" it's shoved onto, so a hose clamp at the absolute end of it may only be clamping part of the hose. Try moving the hose clamp up the hose a bit, away from the engine. The "nipple" may not be entirely sound. I just ran across someone who claimed to have corrosion/pitting issues on the thermostat housing of his nearly new 4.0 XJ back in the late 80's. Check it for holes and cracks (note that this requires removal of the hose, and you will lose all your coolant if you pull off your lower rad hose). Apparently he fixed it back then by applying a coat of JB weld and it's held up ever since.

:popcorn:

Doesn't look like the greatest setup, but I can't say I've got much clue how it's put together. In the rear, it looks like a pair of air shocks mounted to the bump stop locations, with sort of a two-link kinda deal... except then there's that link connecting the swing arm to the forward leaf spring hanger... and that other link... Couldn't even begin to guess what's going on in the front. There may even be some kind of subframe installed. And something broken and dragging on the ground. But I too am very curious about this...

Side pipe(s)? Stacks? Couldn't find a decent MJ pic, although I did find this, er, thing that also provides another solution for added fuel capacity... :doh: 'Mur'ca!

Clearance is definitely the reason the swb tanks are smaller. The LWB tank goes most of the way to the rear axle. Don't remember what stops it in the front... back of cab? tranny x-member? I'd have to crawl under and check. It's been a year since I dropped my tank. If you're just looking for an extra fuel distribution tank, the exact thing you're describing goes by the name of "slip tank" up here. Lots of farmers etc run them, people who have greater fuel needs, or need to carry fuel out to equipment in the field. You can buy them commercially built, but they tend to be on the pricey side, so lots of people weld their own. Basically just a steel box that sits behind the cab. Lots of them have pump handles on them to dispense into other vehicles, and I've seen some wired to pump fuel into the truck's regular fuel tank when it drops below a certain level. I used to work at a full-serve gas station, and there was a guy who came around every month or so with an old 7.3 F350, and I had to trickle-feed 280 to 300 gallons (probably the biggest one I filled) of diesel into his home-made slip tank because he had a 90-degree elbow on on the filler neck. It's particularly memorable because he always seemed to come in during the most inclement weather... but at any rate, he once showed me how he had a fuel pump in the tank that was wired into the low-fuel light, so instead of the light coming on, it fired a relay that sent power to the fuel pump and transferred fuel into the regular tank, at least until the level was sufficient to shut off the light, at which point the pump shut off. Stupid system, but I didn't tell him that because it meant due to store policy I could no longer fill his tank with marked fuel because I was technically filling his truck... But something like below. You can see the filler cap on the left side of the tank, and that's a pump and filler nozzle/handle on the right, for pumping into other vehicles.

Rockauto sells stock tanks and fuel pumps, but you'll still need the sending unit. Don't know if they're interchangeable between engines/tank sizes, but unless you get extremely lucky, the only place to get one is off another MJ.

I'd make sure all the connections are good and corrosion-free before messing around with fuel pressure, and if that doesn't work, try bypassing the ballast resistor. Then start worrying about your fuel pump.

Can't say I've ever done that, but I have been known to have the window rolled down at -20°F as I'm driving so I can hear better...

I'd worry about getting a decent mixture in there before anything else, except maybe the thermostat. Like I said, they're cheap and it only took me ten minutes to do mine, and that was mostly due to the cold. (see the above scenario) If it regularly gets down below freezing, then it's highly unlikely the truck would have survived very long running water unless it was never parked outside. Rusty water tends to mask whatever colour the antifreeze mixture is, and my limited experience is that people usually don't bother thinking about their coolant unless it's all over the road. My "chosen" antifreeze is the green Prestone extended life (in a yellow jug), but I really only go with it because there's always a huge display right inside the door of my favourite parts chain so it's convenient to grab. Oh, and I like the bright fluorescent green in my overflow bottle...

No guarantees this is normal operation, though. This is a 23 year old 305,000 mile vehicle we're talking about here. All I know is that I haven't noticed fuel delivery issues.

When I checked mine back in the first week of may, I let it run for a few minutes with the gauge on it, shut it off and walked away. Twenty minutes later I came back and the pressure on the gauge had dropped to zero. But then my tank straight up has a hole in it, so I don't know that that's normal.

I've got a '91, build date 1/22/91, although I don't know for certain mine's got a pawl issue. It acts as though it's setting (there's even some resistance when pushing the pedal down) and it releases normally, but even with it "set" I can still push the truck around myself while in Neutral.

Yes, the a/c compressor cycles in the defrost. But it DOES NOT cycle below a certain point. Mostly it's just pointless to do so, as your a/c system won't really be able to make it any colder than outside temperature, and you're wasting fuel, and as pointed out above you're not really doing much dehumidifying. Below a certain point, however, it becomes dangerous to run the compressor, so it won't cycle. With decreasing temperature the refrigerant pressure decreases and eventually becomes liquid, and your compressor isn't designed to handle that. Is there an actual temperature switch? I'll admit, I don't actually know. It's probably the low-pressure safety shutoff. Some GM owners' manuals have a temperature given. This is from the owner's manual for a 2004 Impala. I realize that this is a r-134a system, not r-12, and many years newer, but that doesn't really make all that much difference. R-12 boils at -22°F. R-134a boils at -15°F. Basically an insignificant difference. Pressure will be far too low for operation of either system long before that point. Older compressors will also shut off. This is also normal operation. Perhaps if the a/c was overloaded with freon, it would work down to a lower temperature. But I'm not going to be the one finding out, as the risk far outweighs any possible advantages to running the a/c at lower temps. Sorry OP for the :hijack: .

:dunno: This morning I opened my door, reached in and started the truck without actually getting in, unplugged the block heater and brushed the snow off. I'd left the vents on heat (the floor) last night, and even though I started out with a clear windshield, it had frost on the inside by the time I got back in, although not much. It doesn't much matter what the dew point is of the warm air, as it will cool down almost instantly when it hits the cold windshield, and deposit some of the humidity. At any rate, it doesn't much matter what's going on at 30°F. As I said above, if it's that cold, your a/c compressor won't be running anyhow. It's simply too cold for it to function safely. But say you're in a hot, humid, environment, like 95°F and 95% humidity, and it starts raining. The rain cools your windshield, so the warm humid air inside the cab fogs up the windows. The air coming in is still roughly the same temperature and humidity, and won't really do much to clear the windows, if anything at all. And you're not going to be warming it up, cause it's already 95°. But if you have the a/c compressor running, it will dehumidify the air which will definitely help clear off that windshield. And this, in my opinion, is the only reason I can see that the a/c would run in the defrost. Anything else is just a happy coincidence.

In addition to the engine taking a short time to warm itself up, the windshield also doesn't warm up immediately, so even that 10% humidity would still deposit itself onto the windshield somewhat. I do agree with you that the effect is minimal, especially since at 30°F (an atypical and extremely warm winter's day up here) the compressor shouldn't even be running. Typically the safety switch shuts them off around 35-45°F. A 100% RH at 45°F would still work out to ~15% RH at 100°F. But what if you were trying to defog the windsheild when it's warm out, say at 90°F and 95% RH? The effect of dehumidifying the air first would be much more noticeable. You could end up in this situation if you were in a warm humid environment and it started raining. The rain would cool down the windshield slightly, leading to the warmer air in the vehicle condensing on the windshield. With this in mind, I'm pretty sure that the a/c compressor running in defrost is really only for dehumidifying and defogging in warm weather, and "lubrication in the offseason" is a happy coincidence that only affects those in nice, warm climates. You don't benefit from the a/c compressor running when it's not running. ;)

I've got a peppermint scented pine tree hanging from my parking brake pedal cause that's all it's good for. Do I need to provide video evidence or something? Cause I can do that.

When you decrease the temperature of the air the amount of water vapour it can hold goes down. The water falls out of the air (like rain but on a much smaller scale) and if you have an issue with the a/c drain tubes, into your lower vents and onto your feet when you go around a corner. Same principle that leads to water droplets appearing on the outside of a cold beverage container. When the air is heated, it can hold more water, so it pulls the water off your windshield. Also, the heat melts the frost on the windshield and the warm windshield in cold air prevents water from condensing on either side of it. If the air isn't dehumidified, you're relying mostly on the heat to do any defogging/defrosting. This morning, as on many occasions, with the defroster blowing at full blast I observed my breath freezing onto the inside of the windshield before the engine was warm enough that there was enough heat in the coolant to warm the cab. Having some kind of dehumidifier might have helped prevent my breath from condensing and freezing, but since the a/c compressor won't operate below something like 35°F, and it was about -20°F outside, I just had to sit and wait a few minutes like I always do. Your a/c will get cold a lot faster than your engine warms up, so if it's warm enough outside for it to safely operate, it'll be faster to use the a/c as a dehumidifier than to wait for the heat. While I suppose either or both the lubrication or dehumidifier theories could be correct, I personally thought both were crocks of $#!&. Running the a/c in the "off season" up here for either purpose would destroy the compressor, as it would be trying to compress liquid freon that wasn't evaporating in the evaporator because it was just too damn cold for it to be a gas, especially not at the added pressure of the a/c system. In fact there's a temperature switch that prevents exactly that from happening, too low a temp and no a/c. I even went out last week and stared at my a/c compressor clutch for five minutes with the truck idling and the fan set to full defrost and it never kicked on. Then the other day I had the truck running in a nice warm environment with the defrost going by chance, and noticed that sure enough, the a/c clutch was engaged. Who woulda thunk, right?

And some NOIIISEEE. Awesome.

Yeah, I was asking if that was the pic you wanted posting. But I think it's a $6000 kit and you install it yourself. Or you can pay a dealer to do it. But installation apparently involves a sawzall, so I don't know how hot I am for it.

Something I learned the hard way this week: always know exactly what you're running for coolant. It might not mean much in your climate (don't know how cold it gets there) but an insufficient amount of antifreeze due to me not properly labelling my emergency stuff and assuming it was properly mixed lead to me stuck on the side of the highway in -30F windchill for several hours while I fixed three blown hoses and walking a couple miles to a gas station to get more anti-freeze. My heater and overflow hoses were frozen solid. Thermostats are reasonably cheap (less than $15 up here got me both the thermostat and gasket) and are easy to change. It's pretty well standard procedure up here that "oh, your temperature is weird? Here's a new thermostat." Also, I've experienced similarly fluctuating temperatures while low on coolant. The temperature would climb, the aux fan kicked on, and then the temp went back down. At higher speeds, there's more air flowing through the rad and thus more/faster cooling. I had a hole in my rad which leaked about a gallon an hour, and when the temp gauge started doing that, it was usually down about three pints. Because it was pushing pressure out of the hole in the rad and then sucking air in through the same hole, the level in the overflow bottle never changed.

This one?

:thumbsup:

So there are three u-joints in the front driveshaft. All three are the spicer 5-135x, right?