gogmorgo

Honestly that seems to be the case for a LOT of mowers. There are lots of poor reviews with similar things said. A few where they had a couple replacements dead on arrival or after a few uses before they got a good one that they love. Once you move up market a ways the negative reviews turn into things like “not enough power” or “battery doesn’t last long enough”. It’s something that initially made me keep looking further up market than I maybe should have been. My parents can pick up some of the big tool names at the local farm supply, but anything else is an 80-mile drive into the small city to return something if we get it home, assemble it, and it’s no good. As it was because my brother’s coming out for a couple weeks on either side of Father’s Day I have to run into the Big city 250 miles away to pick him up at the airport and drop him off again so my plan was to get something there, and at least I’ll have a crack at returning stuff without going too far out of the way. I do love living in the middle of nowhere, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t get inconvenient sometimes.

That’s a good point, replacing batteries. The 2x 12ah in the Milwaukee on their own is ballpark same price as some of the more affordable mowers. Not ideal. Battery life in terms of time between charges isn’t super critical I don’t think. As long as he’s getting at least a half-hour out of them. As it is when he mows he’s not doing the whole yard in one shot anyway, so having to take a break before he gets tired is probably a good thing. Hadn’t really given much thought to Stihl, being a Husqy guy when it comes to saws. But the entry level Stihl self-propelled mower is much cheaper and about 20lbs lighter than the bottom end Husqy, which looks more like a pro tool, not so much one for homeowners. Mowing eight hours a day vs eight hours a month situation. But the rest of you are probably right, the medium-grade stuff I’d sorta discounted is more than likely going to be good enough. And it’s not like he’s already invested in a battery system. Tbh I was mostly leaning towards team red cause that’s the system I want to get into but haven’t yet. Lots to think about. Still haven’t worked out a budget or anything either. Sorta hoping Father’s Day sales might be a thing but don’t know yet.

Some of the cheap stuff also misleads by putting extra thick insulation so their 20awg looks like 16. Not sure about a good key hot. Unless there’s something in the headlight 10-pin. Maybe in the fan temp switch wiring but I don’t know if I’d want to be tapping into that. I might just stick the wire in the same bundle as the relay harness where it runs over to the battery and then keep going to the relay box or something.

I think the only purpose to the high beam indicator wire is to turn on the indicator only when high beams are selected. I’m guessing to prevent it from coming on in 5v DRL mode, via backfed power or something. I don’t think that’ll be an issue for you, it should still come on as normal. And your relays will block the back feeding. You won’t have power back feeding from load to switch side of the relay, at least. I don’t really know how fogs fit into the situation. I don’t have factory fogs in either MJ. But I did install the switch and borrow the wiring to run a light bar… but tapped into a different power source than the dimmer switch so I could use it in conjunction with high beams. And that was getting pretty long ago.

Anyone have recommendations? This little guy maintained my dad’s lawn for 17 years, but about five years back he decided it was too much for him to be pushing around, and too much effort to get started. He’s in his 70’s, I get it. He replaced it with a cheap little 110V corded deal, I think it’s got all of a 12” blade and while it’s definitely easier for him to move around it takes forever to mow the lawn. When I was a kid I could do it in an hour and a half, but just now it was almost four hours. Nothing against electric, that particular one is just way too small a cut for how much lawn there is. But the electric is so much better that he’s never going back to gas now. I’m going to give the old Tecumseh a good tuneup and that’ll be good enough for me, but I live about 80 miles away and I can’t make it back often enough. He needs something better. As it is right now it’s a 2-3 day process for him to mow, and it might take a few days for him to recover. But he likes mowing it himself and it’s some of the only exercise he gets… yeah the sensible thing would be to hire the neighbour’s kids, but I don’t see that happening for a while yet. I’ve been looking at self-propelled stuff. Anything less is going to be too much. Cordless because dragging that cord around is a pain and I’m likely going to be using it too. Right now I’m leaning towards the Milwaukee M18 Fuel 21-inch, 2823-22HD, mostly because I’ve had good experience with the battery system. But it’s got a pretty hefty price tag. Looking at reviews it seems like it might deserve the higher price, but similar products from other brands are around 2/3 the price. And I’m sure most of them will do as good of a job. Something else I’ve noticed for about the same price as the Milwaukee is robotic mowers. Basically a Roomba for the lawn. There’s a Worx brand and a Husqvarna, probably others. Seems like a cool idea but the lawn isn’t the most optimal shape, it’s got trees and flower beds, and narrow paths between obstacles, some steps between front and side yards, I think you’d need more than one to make it work the way it’s supposed to for us. But if the mower can move itself around, presumably that means it could be remote controlled and could be driven between yards? Father’s Day is coming up. I’m hoping to talk my brother into splitting the cost, but we’ll see how keen he is. The one thing my dad likes about the tiny mower is it fits into some spots a bigger mower doesn’t. Which might mean a battery trimmer might eventually need to become part of the package. Looks like every major cordless brand has one of those as well…

I’ve picked up two sockets for doing this over the years. One is 36mm and the other is 1-/38”, which is pretty close to 35mm, so 36mm should be close enough.

Unfortunately that box of stuff didn’t make it into my basement during my move last fall. I’m guessing that means it’s sitting in the back of my MJ at my parents’… but hard to say. I’ll have to check next time I’m there. Work insisted on hiring movers for me and it definitely only made the move more stressful. Everything just kinda got unceremoniously dumped into boxes with no obvious organizational logic and then piled in various places at the destination. Seven months later and I still can’t find half my $#!& and so much of it got damaged. Super frustrating. But enough of that rant. If memory serves the early headlight bezels are two pieces, one to go around the corner marker and the other for the headlight, and I believe the marker portion has the upper bit of chrome built into it. I want to say that was my first clue the stuff wouldn’t fit my ‘91, the hole to receive it simply isn’t big enough, but that was ten years ago now so memory of the details is getting a little fuzzy. I think to make the newer chrome parts work you’d need to swap the header panel. I think there’s three generations of header panel/trim, and while it visually looks the same and some will mix and match, not all of it does. I wanna say it’s ‘83-‘86, ‘87-‘90, and ‘91-‘96, eventually reducing the complexity and number of pieces. But I haven’t dug into it much since trying to figure out why the pieces I pulled didn’t fit ten years ago. I’ll keep trying to track that stuff down. I know it exists somewhere, it’s just figuring out where.

Looking at their website they claim they can ship orders within 24-48 hours. Seems more likely they’d be building them. But you never know. Rear axle rating on a metric ton truck is 3400lbs. The springs don’t carry the weight of the axle or wheels/tires although 400lbs seems like a touch generous estimate for stock components… but not outlandish, I’d guesstimate at closer to 350. Would be interesting to know where they’re pulling specs. They do mention doing their own forensics, and building springs based on old broken stuff, and I can see an older worn spring testing 12% shy. Or AMC excluding unsprung weight in their original design and the cheap aftermarket suppliers simply pulling from axle ratings to design their product. I’m sure they’ll be fine, unless you regularly put 2000lbs in the bed. If it’s not originally a metric ton truck you still can’t legally exceed your original axle weights anyhow no matter what mods you do, so it may be moot if that’s the case.

The second number is the important one, the first is just when cold. 75 vs 80 shouldn’t be an issue. If you off-road it, climbing rocks or even just steep hills in low range, you’re also putting a fair bit of stress on the axle, so likely just as well off with the 140 anyhow. In my mind if switching to synthetic does anything to your seals, your seals needed changed anyway.

If it was running lean due to a failing fuel pump then yes, fuel consumption will increase. Something is definitely up with that idle speed. Is the truck still stock? Cruiser’s tips at cruiser54.com are a good starting place.

I think I’ve got a full set of chrome off an ‘86 that I picked up a long time ago before I realized it wouldn’t fit my ‘91. Don’t remember what I did with it. I’ll have to do some digging.

I do it on all the old fleet vehicles when I bring them in for an oil change. Although there’s not too many of them left. Mostly small trucks from the mid 2000’s.

If you’ve got somewhere you can do it safely, big parking lot or otherwise, get up to some speed in reverse, 10-15mph, and give it a good solid stop. Repeat a couple times. Should adjust up your brakes for you. Rear drums never work because no one ever stops hard enough in reverse to adjust them. When installing new drums/shoes what I typically do is adjust them up until I can just barely slide the drum on, then give it a few good stops in reverse once everything is reassembled to make sure they’re adjusted.

Seems like a lot of the replacement internal slave leakage seems due to reusing the old lines, potentially causing problems for sealing the new connection. When I went external on my 2.5 I collected parts online, with a used bellhousing but otherwise all new from the master down to the front bearing retainer and seal, which was cheaper than getting a full kit. I think most parts came from Rockauto and Summit (won’t buy from them again if I can avoid it). It was definitely a ton more expensive than it would have been just to put in a new internal slave, and knowing now easy it was to drop the trans, I think I’d chance it on the internal slave if I were to do it again. But then a 2wd ax5 isn’t a lot of work to pull, and I do throw wrenches for a living. And a 2wd isn’t going anywhere that I’d be uncomfortable getting out of without a clutch. If I was going to be paying someone else to do the swap and likely would be paying again to pull the trans if the slave failed again a year or two down the road, I think it would be worth the trouble to go external. Or even if I was going to do the job myself but wasn’t fully comfortable with it and didn’t want to risk the do-over.

I couldn’t help but notice a little while ago how close the dimensions are to a RCLB GMT800. I should probably just fix the rockers on my 2500 instead… but that 6.0 and NV4500 would be pretty cool under an old Jeep body. As long as it’s not going to be a major rust removal project I can’t really come up with any ideas to talk you out of it.

Took this last night. The ice on our lake is finally breaking up, may be gone this weekend. This isn’t even late, it’s actually earlier than some years.

I would definitely not trust these as a winter tire. Summer or off-road only. Tread pattern is wrong for slush, and there’s not anywhere near enough siping for ice. You make a good point, 12-year old tires are a definite question mark. Some shops would refuse to install them. Not the end of the world if they still hold air and aren’t cracking, but UV exposure screws with the compounds and decreases traction. That said I’ve got a car outside sitting on tires from ‘97 (three digit date code :/ ) that are holding air and so far haven’t exploded, and I’ve even driven it in winter conditions (exciting) but it’s mostly because I just haven’t got around to replacing them. Been waiting for them to shrapnel but just hasn’t happened yet. It’s not a daily driver, just a fun fair weather car or I would’ve got rid of them a long time ago. Sticktion is tolerable on dry roads and acceptable on wet, less so snow and ice, even though they are ostensibly winter tires. I haven’t fully given up on finding used tires, but I haven’t really been able to find anything worth running. People want waaay more money for used tires than I think they’re worth. I find I can typically buy new tires at wholesale price for not much more than what people want for five year old tires above 50% tread remaining. Anything that’s actually a decent price is ten years old and 25% remaining, not even worth the effort to me. Obviously you don’t need the absolute best rubber you can get, but you should still keep in mind that those four small patches of rubber are the only things keeping you on the road or trail, and the cost of finding out you maybe should’ve spent a little more is likely going to be higher than the little more you would have spent.

You might get $100 for the wheels if you can find a buyer. Emphasis on might. If the tires are worth running that’s not a terrible deal for $100. But they do look like they’ve got some funky wear on them.

Just make sure it moves in and out normally and doesn’t hang up. What sometimes happens is the cable will get a kink or rub through and pack with grit or rust. It’ll apply normally because there’s a lot of tension in the cable, but then it won’t release. I guess I should ask for more details on the skidding. Is it locking the brake up and releasing when you take your foot off the brake or does it hang up and drag for a bit? I’m wondering about brake proportioning and adjustment. Anything that might cause the opposite brake not to work, like a wheel seal leak, or incorrect assembly.

Is this a part they’re producing? Only thing they have listed for Jeeps of any year is a turn signal switch.

Is the parking brake cable seized and keeping the brake applied?

Is this for a D30? I haven’t really looked at them, but iirc the rear one is a fancy threaded barbed fitting that also holds the rear brake T to the axle. It tore the threads out of my ZJ’s D35, so what I did was drill and tap for a larger bolt that still fit through the hole in the T, drilled down through the center of that bolt to hollow it out and then drilled the bolt head out to accept 1/8 npt threads for a hose barb. The end product sure wasn’t pretty, but it did work. For what it’s worth, I’m seeing 83504653 for the D30 fitting.

You should be able to re-bleed the master after the lines are hooked back up and the rest of the system is bled, same as you would at the wheels by stepping on the brakes and cracking the fittings, letting them squirt. Just make sure to wash all the fluid off or it’ll wreck your paint. I’m running out of ideas. Unless the master cylinder is toast, or mismatched size to the calliper/wheel cylinders, or maybe the brake booster is over boosting, but the brakes should still work. Could also be a mechanical issue with the pedal I suppose.

You should be able to re-bleed the master after the lines are hooked back up and the rest of the system is bled, same as you would at the wheels by stepping on the brakes and cracking the fittings, letting them squirt. Just make sure to wash all the fluid off or it’ll wreck your paint. I’m running out of ideas. Unless the master cylinder is toast, or mismatched size to the calliper/wheel cylinders, or maybe the brake booster is over boosting, but the brakes should still work. Could also be a mechanical issue with the pedal I suppose.