gogmorgo

I’m also starting to lean towards the OGR body kit for my short bed, but that project is a long way out yet. Be cool to slam it and make something fast (ish). Possibly roll cage for auto crossing… I’ve mostly wanted to try for a super clean, super base model, super economical small truck but I’m not really beyond the wisps of dreams in the wind stage yet.

TJ Ravine wheels in a 15x8. The centre bore should be 71.5mm. They’re a tight fit from factory, and it doesn’t take much corrosion to make the fit tighter. I usually wire brush and then wipe some antiseize around the hub surface when I mount the wheels to try to prevent that from happening.

Doubt it. Any patents on the lights would have long since expired, and considering the original manufacturer isn’t making them at all, it would be a pretty hard sell to get any legal traction on it. If legal reasons were involved you wouldn’t have a dozen brands repopping aftermarket lights for other vehicles. More likely they want their product to look more noticeable theirs, combined with making it work with the technology they’re putting into it and the manufacturing techniques they use in their existing products.

There's a place just across the border from me (in North Dakota) that accepts and holds packages for pickup. Depending on what it is it comes off cheaper to drive down and pick it up than to ship it up to Canada. Have to declare and pay duty on it if it's over the daily limit. I don't do it often because it's a couple hour trip to the middle of nowhere just to drive back, but it's an option. But what I would suggest is seeing if you have a local spring shop. Most can custom make you leaf springs, but may or may not have proper dimensions on file. Purchase price might be slightly higher, but you'll save a ton on shipping.

Where is your ground when checking for 12V? Did you try jumping power to the blower motor to see if it comes on?

The XJ and KJ had similar wheels but not identical. Offset’s different. The KJ wheels sit slightly inboard compared to the XJ, by maybe 1/4” I don’t remember specifically. For me that was ideal because it means less salt spray on the side of the Jeep, but some might not want that.

For a cheap temporary solution? Find a set of KJ 16” wheels and a used set of tires in the 225/70R16 to 265/75R16 range. Maybe keep an eye out at junkyards, some will leave wheel and tire sets out front. When I was getting oversized winters for my ZJ that’s what I ended up doing, I picked 265/70r16 because that was used on Chevy half tons and Colorados so I figured I’d be able to find them for a while yet. But I bought new tires then. I’ve pretty much given up on looking for used tires myself. Seemed like everyone wanted more than half what new tires were worth for 5+ year old tires with less than half tread left the last few times I looked.

My short bed was… but the same guy who thought it was okay to use only two deck screws each to hold in NOS taillights is also responsible for removing the radio delete. Blanking panel was carved into by careful application of peanut butter and leaving the doors open for the squirrels to do their work, from the look of it, and the door panels had speakers put in that stick out so the window cranks smack them. The wiring is interesting to say the least.. It always works when I turn the head lights on, sometimes it works without them. At one point it lost sound during a road trip and I pulled out the head unit to check the speaker wires, there was one going to each side of the truck and I found the one going to the driver’s side was shorted so I just disconnected it to get it making noise again for the rest of the trip. Tug on it and it wiggles the wires going into the driver’s door… and yet the driver’s door speaker somehow continued working. I keep intending to correct things, but it keeps working so…

Mine’s doing the same thing. I dosed it with a block repair in a can product and got about a year out of that. I looped the heater lines together to avoid filling the core but otherwise followed the instructions to a T. Trouble is stress pulls the crack open when you’re accelerating. Made it tough to find my own leak because it only came out when I was on the throttle and the crack opened up. Brazing with brass is probably the best semi-permanent fix as a result. Welding can work, but you can increase internal tensions as it cools which might make it just pull apart again under engine load. There’s also a block repair system that’s more labour intensive but used somewhat commonly in heavy industry. You start just outside one end of the crack, drill a hole and tap it for a pipe thread plug. Install the plug with some sealant, crank it down as tight as you can. Drill another hole that overlaps the first plug, and keep repeating the overlapping plugs along the length of the crack until you’re past the other end of it. The drilling usually stops the crack from progressing and the pressure from the tapered plugs counteracts the tension that opened the crack. Overlapping the plugs ensures you get the whole crack and stops the plugs from spining loose under vibration, but also means you don’t get a second chance at tightening them if it still leaks after the fact. As an aside, late this fall I used a different stop leak because I was shipping it and didn’t want it making a mess for the shipper, and didn’t have the time for the thorough flush the block repair required, and didn’t want to dump water everywhere in the cold either. Bypassed the heater core again for the running period specified on the bottle and hooked it back up before parking. Started it up at -20°C a couple days later to load it and had zero heat. Block heater plugged right solid and no time to deal with it before it went on the truck. When I eventually flushed it out after it came back off the truck I mostly just pushed an entire bottle of stopleak goop out of the thing. Also it was leaking again right away when it came off the truck, probably because the crack wasn’t opened far enough to push the thick radiator stop leak into it. So maybe don’t use a goopy orange stop leak… don’t remember specifically which one it was though.

I just counted them up because of the meme going around that the average person owns eight vehicles in their life. I’m up to 11, and only ~15 of the way through average car ownership years.

Definitely look better as a real item than a rendering.

Could potentially be ground down and welded back up, then cut out for a valve seat insert to be put in. Depends on how deep the crack goes. Properly rebuilding the head involves a trip to a machine shop to have it surfaced. If you ask a shop they’ll probably want to look at the thing before giving you an answer.

I interpreted this as meaning there’s only the two options, the ones with coloured lenses and then the dark lenses. I think what was being suggested here was we might be able to peel the black casing off and add the OE lens or the Key Parts repops on top and have LEDs underneath factory lights. I personally doubt it would be as simple as that, and it’s a lot of extra work and money over just putting LED bulbs in the factory sockets.

Are you rearranging current space or adding new? If you’re building new space I would strongly suggest future proofing with suitable floor and ceiling height for a lift, whether you currently plan on installing one or not. I’m in the early stages of house shopping and I’ve come to the conclusion that the only ways to get a shop suitable for a lift are either to build it from scratch for the purpose, or to buy an old farm yard with a machinery shed. If you’re building anyway and there’s a chance a lift is in the works, best to make provisions now. If you’re planning on using one end of the same room that your wife parks in as a work space, it might be to your advantage to build a wall to keep the two spaces separate. This will save coming and going in your work space and help to keep your workspace from spilling over or dirtying the parking space. If you’re welding, it means you’re cutting and grinding, which will get metal dust everywhere. It will also mean you’re not blowing all the heat out of the workspace every time the garage door is opened, if that’s a factor where you live. On a similar note, hand washing facilities within the work space will definitely be helpful to keep the work space from spilling over into the house. I go back and forth on cupboards vs shelves. ADHD monkey brain hates cupboards because they’re an extra step to getting at things, and if I can’t see where everything is I lose stuff. My cupboard doors almost always get left open which defeats the purpose. But cupboards keep everything looking tidier and everything in them cleaner which is a huge plus if there’s other people accessing your space, and the lack of the clutter of open shelves makes it easier to work. I’d avoid pegboard. It’s really annoying. If you’re not careful lifting tools off you’ll pull the pegs out, and if you push them back in a hurry, you’ll damage the pegboard. Hooks or other things that screw solidly into plywood are a much better solution if you’re doing that sort of tool organization. Adam Savage has some really good advice on how to cram small workspaces full of way to much stuff and keep it all organized and still useful as a workspace, on the Tested channel on YouTube. Something that I picked up from there was using clear plastic totes to turn shelves into “drawers” you can see things in to help maximise space in a cupboard. He’s got a bunch of tips for maximizing vertical space for storage, prioritizing putting high-access things where they’re most easily accessed, building storage solutions where whatever the standard or factory packaging is bulky and impractical, etc. I can’t really point to any one specific video because it’s mostly little tidbits scattered throughout the Ask Adam Savage segments, but it’s interesting for other reasons, especially if you were a Mythbusters fan.

As much as it’s cool to see new MJ products becoming available, I don’t know about this one. It’s just too chunky looking. There’s some nod to 1985 authenticity with the lens design, but the chunkiness makes them look a little too 2020. Doesn’t seem consistent with the aesthetic of the rest of the truck. Maybe it would help to see them installed. I dunno. Hopefully it’ll be a good product for those that want it.

Upfitters can change legal weight ratings without changing the VIN, so long as they’re following proper procedure to do so. I won’t say it happens all the time with commercial trucks, but it is a thing that happens. But it’s definitely easier with truck frames where the frame is the same between trucks, and you’re just adding more or beefier axles and suspension underneath them. But I won’t make any pretense of having any idea what these guys did or didn’t do.

The upward loop shouldn’t cause problems for bleeding. Yes, air can accumulate there if there’s air in the line, but it’ll get pushed out while you’re bleeding. The inner diameter of the lines is small enough and brake fluid is viscous enough that air bubbles will move down the line, and brake fluid won’t scoot around them. And a good solid push while bleeding moves the fluid far enough that bubbles don’t really have a chance to creep back to where they were.

Dumb question, with the disclaimer that I’m not an electrician and don’t know much or anything about well wiring, but if all that burnt connection is doing is connecting two wires together, could you not just marette them? I also wonder if it might not be hooked up wrong or something. Or it it’s a result of a surge from the magnetic field in the pump motor collapsing, if you couldn’t put some form of surge protection in place. I just feel like it shouldn’t really be doing that, but again, not an electrician.

Harmonic balancer doesn't even need to be that bad to cause a squeak. I had one that took a while to track down, intermittent chirping. I put a new belt on it with no effect, cranked the snot out of it, that did nothing. Turned out to be a bad harmonic balancer, it had just enough wobble that the belt was slapping the timing cover, slowly sawing through it. Didn't even look like the rubber was coming out like the above.

How do the MAC ones work for you? I’ve had a couple sets of Irwin branded extractors due to generally being the best available at whatever place I’m in, and I can’t say I’ve been super impressed. The flutes don’t seem hard enough to bite particularly well or emerge without damage. That said I’ve only used the internal style, never the ones with the flutes on the outside.

A friend of mine was talking a while back about building rockers for various vehicles by harvesting the top bed rails off junkyard trucks. I’ve also seen diamond plate aluminum rocker panel covers… I suspect more decorative that protective, but it’s a thing. Doesn’t look bad either.

You're not wrong, they're not available as fitting an MJ. They do have a listing for the Cherokee, although it lists as fitting 84-01, which I don't know is accurate, unless it's the only thing in the knuckle/hub/brake assembly that stayed the same between the early and later setups. But they're not super expensive, and Rockauto is good about refunding parts that don't fit.

The two-spoke steering wheels used a wire going trough the steering wheel rather than the contact pin thing. Don't know how easy it would be to rig that up to work with the three-spoke horn button tho... might be easier just to elongate the hole for the contact pin if you need to. But it wouldn't surprise me if Crown was making the shafts wrong without realizing. Worth reaching out to them at least. But the incompatible parts for minor variations is definitely frustrating. GM stuff is definitely pretty bad for that... even into the 2000's seems like every assembly plant had its own set of parts that didn't fit with parts from the other plants, let alone making changes for different feature sets.