gogmorgo

Trailer wiring seems to be janky as a rule. While there is a standard colour set for 7-wire trailer wiring, you can’t always rely on the person who wired it to get it “right”. And “right” is in quotes because there’s two separate colour schemes in use in North America. In Eagle’s diagram you’ll see the labels (words) don’t match the colours. The labels are the more common RV style, while the colours themselves correspond with the other one. And to add confusions, the made-in-China trailer plugs we buy in bulk at work are labeled in a way that doesn’t correspond with either. I personally would get the 7-wire socket working on the truck and leave it at that. The round 4-wire connector is getting pretty uncommon for actual trailer connections anymore, but the flat-4 connector that is common is pretty susceptible to dirt and corrosion when left on the back of the truck. 7-way to flat-4 adapters are cheap enough if you do ever need one.

Where did they use the welder?

I like the 21-slot grills in that they’re something cool you don’t see very often, but it’s not something I’d want on my own truck. The 10-slots have a little of the same going on, in that they make the front end look “busier” somehow. But probably it’s just that I’m more used to looking at the 8-slot. I don’t much care for chrome, mostly because I don’t really care much for the flashiness of it. I tell myself it will make minor imperfections show up more, and maybe it does. And I won’t pretend my truck hasn’t seen some $#!& in its 530,000km. I won’t say I’m going for a “murdered out” look or anything either, I just guess I prefer my uniquenesses to stand out only to people who know what they’re looking at, not just because they’re flashy. To most people it’s just another old truck, and I’m totally okay with that.

Unless otherwise specified, a manual trans would’ve had 3.07 gears... from the factory. 33 years later, it may no longer be original. If you’re going to the trouble of changing axles, unless you can find one that bolts in, get a better axle than a d35.

My daily duties are split between these two, with bias towards the MJ. ’91 2.5/2wd ax5, and the ZJ is a factory 4.0/ax15/231.

I once hauled a ‘90’s Taurus in mine, in thirds. Unfortunately don’t have photos.

The key switch locks the steering wheel, not the shifter. Good looking truck.

I haven’t had one on individual wheel scales. But a long time back I stopped at one of those roadside single-axle scales, and the numbers that stuck in my head are 700 and 1100 KG. (7-11 is easy to remember). Front heavy. It would’ve been me and some stuff in the truck, just the every day tools and recovery gear, but I can’t promise that for sure. There might have been some snow or something in the bed even... I just don’t remember. Mostly stock ‘91 4x4 automatic longbed.

Uhaul’s guide says to lock the steering wheel with the front tires on it. In theory the dolly itself articulates, but ymmv. Dropping the driveshaft is added protection for the drivetrain. Automatic transmissions don’t necessarily circulate the oil with the engine off, so that can cause issues. Manual transmissions will still splash lube in neutral so that won’t be an issue, but I’ve seen people say they’ve had them bounce into gear. While I find that unlikely, it’s unlikely to be good if it happens. A transfer case in neutral isn’t going to engage itself, unsynchronized gears will prevent that if there’s a difference in shaft speeds, which there will be when the input shaft isn’t turning. But something to keep in mind is the NP231 that shipped with a CAD axle may not actually disconnect the driveshafts from each other. With an unlocked CAD that’s probably not an issue, but the centre axle segment would end up spinning at twice road speed. I can’t see that being great on the highway, but I guess it might still be fine as everything will be splash lubing. However if the CAD has been permanently locked in, then that’s not even a possibility... the front tires will try to spin themselves off the dolly when you try to move. That’s my own personal motivation to disconnect the driveshaft. Piece of mind. But here’s what the ‘91 owner’s manual has to say on the subject: I’ll point out a few things. Firstly, it never talks about tow dollies that lift the front wheels off the ground but prevent them from turning. But it does say a dolly should be placed under the rear tires when towing from the front. It also says towing with the front or rear wheels off the ground should not exceed 15 miles or 30mph. There’s no reason to suspect “off the ground” means anything other than “in the air and free to spin as driven by the other axle still on the ground”. Secondly, when it’s talking about l flat towing, the front tires are rolling at road speed, same as if it were driving itself, and they’re operating under the assumption the CAD will be unlocked with engine off, as set up from the factory. It even tells you to make sure the front axle disengages before flat towing. Thirdly, it does say you shouldn’t disconnect the driveshaft because the transfer case will leak. This is completely true. You can mitigate this by leaving the driveshaft in the tcase, secured so it won’t slide out. You’ll want to tape up the rear ujoint as well so you don’t lose the caps. I personally just tie a rag over the empty tcase to stop dust from getting in, then make sure you check the fluid level when you get the MJ driving again. If you’re picking up a new-to-you unit, it’s in your interest to dump and refill the tcase anyhow so that’s really not a big deal. Lastly, to answer your question about the steering lock, it suggests if the front wheels are on the ground, to make sure the steering lock is disengaged, and if the rear tires are in the air, you’ve got some other way to keep the wheel pointed straight. This doesn’t cover dolly towing, but if the dolly doesn’t articulate, then you probably won’t want the steering locked, but if it does then you should be fine I guess. Interestingly it makes no mention of 2wd. I suppose that might be covered under “transfer case cannot be shifted to neutral”?

Front wheels up on the dolly works just fine, probably better than rear cause then you don’t have the rear overhang over the dolly tongue, and you don’t run the risk of snapping the steering lock and having the front of the truck swing out into traffic, or a guardrail, or something. But you’ll want to drop the rear driveshaft. People get away with putting them in neutral, but if you’re going any sort of distance it’s just safer to disconnect the shaft.

I like to use the box end of a wrench on them. A socket would be better, but you may have to spin the driveshaft to get the socket on straight. If you can’t grab it with vice grips, Heat. Get that bolt head as hot as you can get it. A propane torch or larger butane torch might work for something that small. Hit it with a welder, maybe. You might not have clearance to weld a nut on in this specific case, but maybe a bolt would work instead, or something else you can grab onto and spin. The heating and cooling stretches and shrinks the bolt, which can help break the threads free. If heat isn’t really an option, you can take a punch or chisel and give the bolt head a good smack with a hammer, on either the face or the flats, or if you’ve got a through hole, even the tip of the bolt – just take care not to mangle threads. The shock on the bolt can also help break free any corrosion or whatnot on the threads. It’s less successful than heat, but might just be enough. Your bolt is mangled anyhow, so it needs replaced. A new ujoint strap kit will come with new bolts. These bolts will have smaller heads than the standard ones out of the bolt bin for clearance reasons, so it’s worth getting the “correct” bolt. Before you run a new bolt into the hole, chase out the threads to clean them out. Don’t use a tap, you’re only trying to push stuff out of the threads, not cut new. If you don’t have a set of thread chasers, you can make one with one of the old bolts by cutting slots into it, perpendicular to the threads.

Yeah, seems every shared set of ratcheting wrenches I’ve encountered has one or two where the ratchet got blown out by someone who trying to bust something loose. The shorter wrench also means you’re swinging less weight around, and if you’re in tighter quarters you’ll get more angle on each swing. The GearWrench ones are nice, but a bit pricey. I’ve found though that some of the store brand wrenches are actually made by GearWrench, and the lesser brand names make for lesser cost without really losing much quality.

Nice. My dad likes recycling his calendars from the 80’s as well, although none of them are as cool as that one.

Adding my $0.02 regarding the mention of circuit breakers, my own personal experience with them has me extra cautious about using them. This summer, the main power feed wires for the accessory control panel on our vacuum truck rubbed through and shorted to the frame. The self-resetting circuit breaker left the power flowing long enough and the cool-down and reset interval was short enough it turned that 6awg cable into a PWM heater element, that then lit up the wiring harness. Fortunately we were having a staff barbecue (burgers, not trucks) at the time within eyesight, so it got noticed before it couldn’t be put out with an extinguisher, and then it still flared up a couple more times again before we got the batteries disconnected. Otherwise we might have had the whole thing burn down, and probably the garbage truck parked next to it as well.

I doubt you’d have many scenarios like that. I imagine far more where someone forgot a fastener and pulled the panel off anyway, then the dealer needed to replace it before giving the vehicle back to the customer.

A bit late, but no further progress has been made yet, unfortunately. A week after the last post I relocated about an 8-hour drive away for a couple months of school, and my buddy was getting new neighbours (our boss’s family) so we couldn’t leave the truck parked in their driveway anymore. If got shuffled over to the back of the staff lot at work, and then as you forewarned, the snow was flying when I got back from school. We figured we’d make progress over the Christmas break while the shop was empty, but then my buddy got sick of his landlords and living next door to the boss, so he bought a house the next town over, and ended up moving over the holidays instead. Then by the time spring rolled around and I got the MJ back out from under its glacier again the world went to hell. It’s been a small blessing in that with staff gone we haven’t needed the last row of the lot so I haven’t been hassled about it sitting there, but our work schedules have been screwed around with and now we’re on opposing shifts. Basically he’s working whenever I’m not, and vice versa. His home shop isn’t quite set up yet, and he doesn’t have driveway space, so I can’t dump the truck at his new place for him to work on when he’s off, and I‘m sure my own landlord won’t be happy if it shows up back in my yard unregistered again. I really do miss driving the truck. The five-speed ZJ has been good, but the 2wd MJ doesn’t always cut it for winter driving when I’m commuting before the plows are out.

When I had my cam (sync) sensor go out on me in my ‘91, it came with a code 54. I haven’t read through the entirety of the thread, but have you checked for fault codes? I don’t really remember doing anything for diagnostics other than pull the codes. I just swapped in the ‘94+ distributor. As Green Mesa points out, it really is just a drop-in swap. I did have to reclock my plug wires on the new distributor, because the newer style has a fixed ear for the hold-down bolt that only allows it to go in one way, as opposed to the earlier style with a hold-down clamp that allows for turning the distributor housing. There is potential for the cam sensor to cause running rich, I imagine. My understanding is the cam sensor is what controls injector timing, and when the signal goes bad it supposedly uses the crank signal and batch fires injectors. Don’t quote me on that though, I don’t know what leads me to think that, the research I did at the time of the incident was a good six years ago.

That looks delicious.

Oh yes. I have absolutely no intentions of needing to depend on it. Ever. But other than the severe hantavirus risk, and the fact it won’t idle, it’s a pretty fun little car, despite all of 60hp from the 1.3L. When I’m sitting in it I account for a hair over 10% of the weight. It’s not fast and never will be (owner’s manual quotes 16 second 0-100km/h times) but it’s pretty nimble. It’ll take corners with no drama at speeds that’ll have my 2wd 2.5 MJ’s far newer tires howling in protest.

It’s a ‘93 Lada Samara. I bought it over Christmas from someone who hauls away scrap cars. He said it was in a barn for the last ten years, which coincides with the last registration date. From the limited documentation in the glove box I think it was owned by an elderly couple who mostly just towed it behind an RV, which is likely why it’s not completely rotted out like most of the remaining handful of the tiny number that were sold new in Canada. I suppose I should start a build thread, although there’s not a ton of building going on until I get more parts in.

The tires on it are 23 years old, but there’s minimal age cracking, tread’s decent, and they’ve held their air since I filled them in January. I balanced them last night, ended up adding less than 2oz for the full set, but it took care of pretty well all the shakes and shimmies. Seems to sum up the whole car pretty well... sketchy AF but still surprisingly functional at highway speeds and somehow holding together.

I’ve been putting a little work into this steaming turd. Now that it’s warm enough to drive it without having to run the heat. The heat actually works just fine, it just blows mouse poop into my face. I was wearing an N95 mask to drive it back in February, but apparently I started a trend or something and now they’re so popular everywhere sold out? So far in the last couple weeks I’ve fixed the hood latch (now it also opens in addition to closing... my initial attempt resulted in closing but not opening, positively worse than opening but not closing), addressed some wiper issues, finally got around to changing out the decade-old engine oil and filter, and now I’m mostly trying to put miles on it to figure out all the idiosyncrasies before putting in a massive parts order with my guy in Ukraine.

Not that I’ve noticed. Are you thinking about a rudimentary waste disposal system? During a landscaping project in the back yard we discovered a few ~3’ diameter “plugs” you could say of rich organic soil in stark contrast to the sandy and somewhat rocky almost glacial-till-like soil that makes up the rest of the yard, which is pretty suggestive of what made up the original sewage disposal system. Interestingly when the sewer was added to the house, they repurposed some of the plumbing for the rainwater catchment system for the sewer stack. There’s also an ornate grate over a hole on the main floor directly above the 10’ cube cistern that I guess would’ve essentially been an indoor well.

I think I saw four others when I was in Saskatoon, kept seeing them from time to time. There was at least one I saw in Lethbridge when I was down there this fall. There was a half dozen or so that I saw from time to time in western MB as well. I’ve seen a couple come through town as well here. It’s a tourism destination, and also a bit of an oasis in the middle of nowhere on a busy highway so lots of stuff comes through. It’s just being in the right place at the right time to spot it. Any time I’ve been driving south of the border on a road trip I see a few, not always so many on Canadian roads, but there’s less traffic in general here. Rolling through the backroads of the eastern seaboard states I think I was seeing two or three a day, tbh. Not as many out west but again there’s less population density.

My parents’ house, built circa 1904, has the same knobs on all the interior door handles. Pretty sure they’re cast iron. But we’re pretty sure the plumbing isn’t original, unless it was normal to have a bathroom the same size as the bedrooms back in the day.