gogmorgo

All I'm going to say is

Glad to hear you got it out. 12-point bolt heads offer better grip in smaller sizes compared to 6-point, meaning they're a better choice for tight places or high-torque applications. I've honestly found that 12-point bolts are more resistant to stripping out than 6-point bolts, probably because you have better grip on the bolt head. We had one for the starter on a Maxxforce engine in an International that we didn't initially think we'd be able to get power tools onto, but we didn't have a ton of clearance for hand tools either. I'm a bigger guy and can lift 200+lbs, but it was every ounce of strength in my body, with feet braced against the front tire, pulling on the end of a 3-foot breaker bar just to budge the bolt. The thing seemed to fight me harder once I got the bolt started. I got it unscrewed maybe two full turns before it stopped dead, and there wasn't anything we could do to move it in either direction. I spent two hours on my Friday afternoon, my boss spent the entirety of the next day. Between us we broke every single 5/8" 12-point socket in the shop. Absolutely nothing worked, heat, penetrating oil, the thing just would not move. Can't believe we didn't strip it out. This truck puts the salt on the roads, so it's rusted to $#!&, it's pretty typical to strip out the 6-point bolts on it. Keep in mind the sockets crack because they're expanding from the force we put on them, so when they fail they spin on the fastener. Again, hard to believe we didn't strip it. Eventually I got it after realizing I could get enough stuff out of the way to sneak a few feet of extension down the frame to get a 3/4" impact wrench on it. I welded up one of the cracked sockets, then slipped a piece of tubing over it to reinforce it, and cycled the bolt red hot about five times before hitting it with the impact, and it barely creeped out. Felt like I sat on it for a solid ten minutes before it was loose but once it started to turn even just a little I didn't want to let off. For clearance reasons I had to adapt down to a 1/2" extension for the last foot, and I'm surprised I didn't break anything with the impact... the gun's rated for 1600lb-ft and it was pretty new.

I've known a couple people who did this. The one guy had managed to find a deal on a smaller mechanic's shop that was a commercial space but sitting vacant, he managed to talk the landlord into letting him use it while it was between operations, basically paying just enough to cover utility bills and property tax, but he did have to move out in a hurry when the place got leased for real. The one other guy who did it had been renting the house and the detached three-car garage facing the alley behind it, but then decided he wanted to live closer to work, and talked the landlord into letting him either continuing to rent just the garage, or else subletting just the house to someone else, and hung onto the garage for his personal shop. When we drove back to his actual residence after using his space to fix my car, it was almost an hour to get across Chicagoland at midnight on a Sunday night, which I don't think I would want as separation between me and my stuff. I just spent the last six months with my stuff 45 miles from home, and it often wasn't worth the cost of fuel or the time to go get most of the stuff I had in storage. When I was living in the city, I occasionally saw ads for just a garage being rented out, although usually they had stipulations about being only for storage, no working on cars inside, and even if they didn't, they often were the sort of space where yes, you could get a car into it, but you might not be able to get the doors open on both sides at the same time. But it's worth hitting up the local Craigslist, Marketplace, wherever to see if such a space would be available.

With the three-spoke steering wheels, the plastic tube for the horn button contact that goes through the lock plate may not allow you to just move the steering wheel the way you want. It was 8 years ago so my memory's a little foggy on the details, but my horn contact/turn signal cam was missing when I got my first MJ, and when I got another one and went to put the steering column back together, I had issues putting the steering wheel back on. Something about the way the horn contact, lock plate, and hole in the steering wheel lined up. For some reason I have it in my head that they would only all line up in either two or three positions, 120 or 180° out from each other, or maybe the lock plate only goes on one way and you don't have much wiggle room with where the horn contact goes through into the steering wheel... crazy thinking about how long I've had this MJ, it was early on in my ownership. Mostly I remember that I got real good at pulling and reinstalling the lock plate by the time I had everything installed correctly.

This one is unfortunately my own doing. As directed at work. Not my own idea process. That’s the initial install of a 1-1/4” receiver to put a 2” ball on the back of a sled. I’ve since cut down the length of the ball mount and flipped the ball around so it‘s not putting more torque on the back of the tunnel than necessary. I guess there’s nothing particularly wrong with having the ball back there, but it doesn’t exactly feel right, either.

If everything is above board you at least have a chance of fighting your case. But if you’re overweight it’ll be your fault every time because you couldn’t stop in time, whether or not that’s really the case.

It doesn’t look to me like a legitimate site. Just a clickbait headline with enough content to attract attention so they can collect ad revenue. There isn’t even much actual content there, just “other manufacturers are doing it and there was that concept a while back… makes sense they might” fluffed out to look like they’re saying something.

You might get lucky with a half inch socket, but they’re not a ton smaller than the 13mm. It’s critical to have the socket seated all the way with no angle. I’ve also cut the heads off the bolts in the past, as well as welding nuts on. Before you’re at the point of stripping the head out, getting heat onto it will definitely help. Heat the bolt or the hub where it threads in, not the knuckle. You have access to the back of the threads for heat, also penetrating oil. But both those options require you having something that will grip the head of the bolt to turn it. In terms of professional level tools, an induction heater is a huge help in this situation. They’re $$$$, but I use mine far more often than I do a torch. It’s just so much cleaner, more precise, you don’t have to worry about heating things you don’t want to, or setting things on fire… but again it is $$$$. Slide it over the bolt head, get it hot enough things start smoking (no real need to get it glowing hot unless you’ve tried a few times with no success), then clamp the bolt head with some vice grips and spin it loose while it’s still hot. From experience, hot metal looks the same as cold metal, so let it cool down before touching. My experience with extraction sockets is they often will do more damage than good, especially the spiral fluted kind. They do sometimes work, but if they bite but don't turn the fastener because it’s seized, they’ll turn your slightly stripped bolt head into a smooth, shiny cone. I’ve also had bad luck with lesser quality ones not really wanting to grab and losing their cutting/biting edge.

If your a/c works, don’t crack the lines, just unbolt the compressor and carefully set it off to the side. X2 on draining all the fluids before pulling. Ensures that in seven years when you’re trying to move all the horded parts you don’t end up with oil pouring out the pcv when you flop the engine on its side in your brand new trailer.

Comparatively warm day up in Winnipeg. -22°C, although the wind has some bite, -37. Just picked up the ZJ from the airport where it’s sat for nearly two weeks. Cranked a little slow but fired up under its own steam, although I’m learning the charging system doesn’t have the jam to run both the headlights and rear defroster at idle… trying to decide if that’s something I should be concerned about or if maybe the battery is just discharged from sitting. I definitely chose the wrong week for doing laps across western Canada but only 300km to get the ZJ home and I’ll have finished moving. Hope you guys are all doing alright down south. I know this is ridiculously cold for you.

Did all four in the chair in one session when I was 19. Top two came out okay, but the lowers were badly impacted, basically had the roots pointed straight back and deep in my jaw. No anesthesiologist on site so all they gave me was freezing, but they gave me the full dose right away and the lowers took an hour each to shatter and dig the roots out, by which point the freezing had long since worn off. Said they couldn’t legally give me more without the anesthesiologist present so I got to experience the whole process for the last one, and they had a hell of a time on those roots, they’d grab a piece and it would break off on them. Two stitches on both sides to close the bottom holes, took a week before I could chew solid foods again. I was spitting blood when I brushed my teeth a few times a week up to a month later. I haven’t been back to that dentist.

If the stud itself spins, can you not just unscrew it the rest of the way? Or is it a captive nut underneath hat broke free?

That’s kinda the way things are done. They say the program is to do this or that for whatever cause, but in reality right out of a big recession no one was spending money, especially on expensive things like cars. And then people who make money selling things to people who can’t afford them stop making money. What does the government do? Launch programs that hand taxpayer money over to huge corporations in an attempt to keep the upward flow of wealth going. The right side of the political spectrum lies and tells you it trickles back down to the working class, the centre of the spectrum lies and says they’re saving the planet, the left side points out what’s going on but they’re evil so you shouldn’t listen to them. Doesn’t matter what label the politicians wear, the wealthy keep getting wealthier, and the people generating the wealth end up with less and less of it.

Saskatchewan anyone? Not clouds, just the ground.

There was a guy in France who had what he called a ‘93. I think it even had a 2.5 diesel but I could be wrong about that. His basis was something about the first registration, but iirc the vin put it as a ‘91. What I meant was sometimes for whatever reason the title is off by one relative to the 10th digit of the VIN. There were a bunch in the registry that were put under the wrong year, you can find them if you sort by alphabetical, none called out as a ‘93 though. I’ve definitely seen mismatched titles though, whether the DMV person who first issued the title grabbed the production date off the door, or a purchase date, rather than the model year from the VIN.

I’d guess a typo. But I also have encountered a few cases on here where someone thinks the year is other than it is because the model year on the title doesn’t agree with the VIN.

Boggles the mind a little bit. Up here the only people running strictly summer tires are driving sports cars. Most of us are running all-seasons in the summer. Probably half the people who don’t switch out tires are just running winters year round. My “summer” tires that I do switch out are all still 3pms all-weathers. By lettre of the law they’re still winter tires. Different climate, different world. But it goes both ways, we have severe issues with intense heat levels that are just normal down south. The only time I’ve overheated a vehicle that wasn’t mostly due to an absense of coolant was in Death Valley, where my coolant mixture was too rich for the temperature. And I don’t think it was much more than 100°F then.

I drove from Buffalo to Pittsburg about five years back in early Feb in a snowstorm. Everyone on the interstate was doing 30mph in the right lane. Road was fine, just some in the air. Wasn’t even a huge impact on visibility. I was doing 50 in the left lane confused why everyone was going so slow. Would’ve been going faster if I wasn’t already blowing past everyone as it was. Something something winter tires. But you see the same crap up here every time it snows. Edmonton had almost 400 reported collisions on the first snow day this season. Takes a bit for everyone to figure out what’s up. Lot of people don’t have winter tires on yet, etc. I can’t imagine what it would be like for people who haven’t had much experience with low traction where no one has winter tires.

Take the two wires off the ballast resistor and connect them together. See what happens. The ballast resistor is bypassed while the engine is cranking, and back in the system with the key in the run position. Only getting 9v to the fuel pump while cranking is probably due to the load on the battery from the starter and it being somewhat discharged due to lots of cranking and not much charging. But having zero volts with the key on could very easily be due to a failed ballast resistor. Without the engine running it’ll only run the fuel pump for a few seconds just to prime the system, so you’ll need to be watching for power right away when the key is turned on. A bad ballast resistor, or one that’s suddenly unplugged, doesn’t really make the engine splutter. It takes a few seconds for the pressure to evenly bleed down then it quits. Very much as if you just shut the key off, other than everything other than the engine still being on.

Saw one in Brandon, MB. not too long ago. Happened to walk out of the store just ahead of the owner. Talked to him for a bit. He told me he bought it new. Also told me he could lay a 4x8 sheet flat in the bed and close the tailgate. And a bunch of other …interesting… stuff to the point I was kinda regretting having stopped to talk. But it seemed like the guy just didn’t have anyone else to talk to and it absolutely made his day seeing mine parked next to his.

Does the HO speedometer even go through the ECU? It just reads off the tail shaft of the transfer case, or trans for 2wd, so there’s no gear calculation necessary. It also can only be recalibrated by changing the speedometer gears. None of the other instruments in the cluster are reading ECU data either.

Just a reminder again that just because you can get away with doing something doesn’t make it safe or legal. If you get pulled by the DOT and they bust out the scales and decide you’re overweight, the ticket is going to be significantly more than the cost of renting a truck legally capable of the weight. If $#!& goes south and someone gets hurt or worse, you’ll be defending your actions in court, and could be up for criminal charges and possibly jail time. The people determining your truck’s towing capacity aren’t going to be looking at what you’ve done to the truck, or what someone on the internet told you, they’ll be talking to the manufacturer about how it was equipped when it left the factory, and what rating they gave it then. Stellantis won’t have your back even a little bit. If they come back with your truck only being rated at 2000lbs and you were found to have exceeded that by more than double, you’re getting the book thrown at you. Your insurance may not cover any liability you incur, either. Most vehicles are physically capable of vastly exceeding their rated capacities, because they’re built far stronger than that with large safety factors built into the design. Yeah, there are people out there hauling space shuttles with half-tons and 747s with medium sized SUVs... under massive supervision and away from the public. The ratings of the components and assemblies exist for a reason. Personally I’ve hauled loads far bigger than my vehicle was intended for twice, and twice I’ve had to do major repairs shortly thereafter. I now own a 3/4 ton, because I don’t need a repeat.