gogmorgo

What’s the permitting process like for travelling between countries? Is it mostly just show up at the border, or does it need planned ahead, visas, vehicle insurance and all? I’ve watched a few travel documentaries going through central/south America where they show up armed with heaps of paperwork, which was a bit of a surprise to me. I’m just used to the Canada/US border where you mostly just need to show up and answer a few questions before getting waved through.

Might be something useful in here? I’m kinda suspecting I got some moisture frozen somewhere on mine. Everything tested fine so I was a little stumped but since it stopped freezing overnight a few weeks ago it hasn’t acted up at all.

Actually after a wander around (the same wander I did waiting on the ZJ) I think it was sitting in this yard before. I’m pretty sure I even posted about it somewhere on here. Funny how memories work.

Stopped in Lethbridge to get the windsheild replaced in my long bed in the middle of a road trip and this one is sitting at the body shop next door It looks really familiar to me so part of me is wondering if it’s been sitting there since I had the windshield in my ZJ done in the same shop in 2019.

I’ll be in the area this coming weekend. I’m about halfway there now after driving out from Manitoba.

They can strap a tractor down but they can’t figure out safety chains?

Can you keep it running by holding the throttle open? You didn’t need to pull the exhaust to drop the trans, did you? Just wondering if something could have crawled in and plugged it up. Is the trans properly seated on the back of the engine? Did it slide on nice or did you have to fight? Nothing pinched in the gap? The crank sensor won’t read correctly if the bellhousing and engine aren’t in proper alignment.

I’ve heard people say it was for clearance, the socket is smaller compared to a hex head that would hold the same torque. But that’s just speculation. We can speculate all we want but you’d still have to talk to the engineers who made the decision to find out their reasoning. And it had to have been at least a halfway decent reason because they got approval from the bean counters to use the more expensive bolts, at a company that was notorious for cost cutting. But at the end of the day it’s still a standard fastener, and not even a particularly uncommon one. You can buy sockets for them everywhere automotive tools are sold. But I won’t disagree that it’s annoying to need an extra set of sockets. The 2.5 starter uses e-Torx bolts as well, but I don’t know off the top of my head if they’re the same size. I bought a set of Torx and e-Torx sockets for $20 at Canadian Tire a long time ago and for the half dozen times I’ve needed them on my personal jobs they’ve more than sufficed. A similar set to what I have is currently $35. I’m sure you could also buy an individual socket dirt cheap. Just do that before stripping them out with the wrong tool.

Yeah I really can’t complain about Torx fasteners either. Seems like the biggest issue is them packing full of stuff, or people trying to use the wrong tool on them. I much prefer them over Allen heads or Phillips. They’ve got an edge over the Robertson as well. And the e-Torx don’t round off anywhere near as bad as hex heads do.

I was asked when I brought my longbed with me back to Manitoba if I wanted to register as a collector because it was over 25 years old, but I said no. Didn’t want the ugly yellow collector plates 😅 There’s also a requirement to maintain it at a minimum value of $5000 which is debatable at 545,000km. They don’t allow you to insure it for daily use either, although they’ve done away with the strict annual mileage cap they used to have. The cost of insuring it is less on the grounds it’ll be mostly parked over the winter, instead of having to change to a lay-up policy over the winter and then not being able to drive it out onto the street if you need to without switching back. That’s about the only real benefit.

I've run into similar frustrations ordering online. Once the ball is rolling there's generally no stopping it until it gets to your door. The shipper won't want to disturb their shipping process by running out, tracking down a single order in probably a very large stack of outgoing orders, risking delaying all the rest of their customers' orders. Your best bet is to refuse delivery when it shows up. You can usually do so with a note on your door if you won't be present, include the tracking number on it if you've got one. You may even be able to contact the courier and have it turned around before it gets to you. There's no profit incentive on a return so they won't prioritize handling it for you. They also make interest on your money so the longer they have it the better, and probably lots of people will just give up fighting after a while, meaning they can keep your money. They can also win by delaying the process long enough it runs out your credit card's window for disputing transactions. If the retailer screwed up and is stalling, your credit card company will usually work things out for you pretty quickly as soon as your dispute window opens. But you don't have much leverage if you placed an order, the retailer did everything correctly, and you're holding the thing you ordered. Disputing transactions exists to remedy shady behaviour from retailers, but unless the retailer made and broke specific promises in regards to cancellations or returns, the retailer has no obligation to accept a return or cancel an order just because you changed your mind on it. You might have some grounds if you followed their cancelation instructions and they didn't follow through, or they advised you to order the wrong thing.

Is it bolted down all the way, and are the engine and trans fully seated together?

Honestly I'm just as happy with my cheap $30 chineseum bluetooth ear buds as I was with the Raycons I bought. Can't stand the touch controls, I'd much rather have a physical button. Nothing quite like popping them out for a quick chat with someone and putting them back in to discover holding them in your hand turned the volume waaaaay up. Can't say I've ever used the microphone though.

Once you have the rear driveshaft out, you can take it for a rip in 4hi, see if the rear shaft missing makes a difference. If it’s been hammering against the transfer case it may be bent or something, and out of balance. I’m also not sure the standard driveshaft length charts we have necessarily apply to the later sealed output style transfer cases. And I don’t know either that the 242 is a perfect length match for the 231, or just close enough to not be a problem in most cases. I want to say when I swapped my 231 to an early-style 242 the seal was cleaning off more of the yoke than before, possibly by as much as 1/2”. But that was a long time ago. The BA10 vs AX15 may not be a perfect exact match either, Advance Adapters only guarantees their swap kit to be within 1/4”. But with as many variables in configuration as you have changed from stock, I think it’s important to do your own measurement instead of relying on a chart of stock lengths. 1/4 or an 1/8” from stock here or there might not matter individually but together the accumulated error may be too much.

I get pretty overwhelmed on a major project at first. Especially once you’re staring at a big stack of new parts. I find it’s a lot easier to get motivated to deal with vehicle projects when you’re driving the thing. Start with the bare minimum you need to get it operational. Make a list of the things you need to do to get it to that point, get an order of priority, then try to at least look at one thing every day until you get to that point. It doesn’t even need to be something big, as long as you’re making steps in that direction, just put on some wiper blades or change a lightbulb, as long as you’re making steps in the right direction. The obvious metaphor is a thousand mile hike is a huge journey, but you don’t do it all at once, you just take one step at a time. You break it up into small sections and stop and rest when you need to. And every little step gets you closer to the destination. Sometimes you’ll get to a point that seems impassible, maybe there’s a bridge out, and you’ll have to backtrack and find a detour, add some distance to the trip, and it’ll be discouraging and feel like wasted time. But the reality is you wouldn’t have learned what extra steps you needed to take if you hadn’t gone that far, so none of it is ever really wasted. And the more you do, the further along you get, the more confident you’ll be and the easier every step will seem as you build up experience. Once you’re driving it you might also get to the point some of the tasks are less daunting, and maybe you’ll find you’ll want to go a different direction on something, but you won’t know until you’re using the thing. This is a list I put together nine years ago to get through a safety inspection, a Facebook memory that came up the other day. Part of a bigger project. Its safe and legal now, and I’ve been driving and enjoying it and still haven’t quite got through all the items on the greater list yet. Mostly cosmetic stuff left.

Not bad for a 4.11 geared axle. I’ve seen people ask that for just the D30. Bit questionable if it’s been welded though. I’ve definitely driven further than that for parts. 12 hours south to Montana and back for an MJ AMC 20 and non-cad D30, both 4.10 geared. But just remember that your time and money are worth something too. For me I turned it into a recreational trip so acquiring the axles was only part of a long weekend plan. And yeah on the TJ front 44, the pumpkin and inner shafts are bigger but the ujoints and wheel ends are the same as the 30. And those have been the weaker parts of the D30 in my experience. I’d still be interested in it for the limited slip diff with the selectable locker even though they’re a weird system. But I’m a weird guy.

What condition are your engine and trans mounts? Leaf spring bushings? Have you rotated the tires to see if the problem follows to the front axle? What do your shocks look like? You may be onto something with driveshaft length. Looks like you’re running a later transfer case with the sealed output and external slip yoke? They’re supposedly a little longer overall so that could affect your desired driveshaft length. I wouldn’t really expect that to cause vibration on its own, but hammering the driveshaft into the tcase if you run out of travel could damage other things in ways that could cause vibrations.

There’s a lot of people here getting pretty offended about the suggestion a company shouldn’t be making money off a name they don’t have the rights to use. The political right is just a parody of itself at this point. I’m sure you all would have a different view if they called it the Jeep Boeing and the good people over at Boeing weren’t super keen on Jeep using that name. If there is a Stellantis competitor to the Maverick and Santa Cruz coming it’s probably going to be very similar to this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Rampage It’s currently only produced for the South American market, but its the same platform as the current Dodge Hornet and also the Compass. I have a hard time seeing a Jeep variant but you never know. I’ve definitely seen Gladiators pulling much bigger trailers than you’d want to tow with an MJ. But you’re correct that most of them just have a bunch of junk strapped to an “overlander” cage in the bed. Not much different than a JLU.

Lots of scams pulling pictures from Copart auctions lately, in all kinds of groups. If you’re seeing copart stickers (or some other online auction) on the vehicle in question you can usually search the auction number and find the old listing. If the pictures are straight from the listing or it’s not within reasonable driving distance of where buddy says the parts are, it’s probably a scam. No one trying to make money is burning $500 on fuel to go get a wrecked car.

Xjjeeps.com has parts manuals. You might not find much with the factory part numbers anymore, but you never know. At the very least it gives you something to call it. Crown also makes a lot of that stuff, it’s reasonable quality, and they tend to use factory part numbers too, which makes it easier to find.

Someone who is currently 52 didn’t have LED headlights to contend with when going through driving school 😅 Anyone getting spooked by someone passing them isn’t paying enough attention to what’s in their mirrors, and it’s on them for getting spooked. If I’m doing 10 over and you’ve been sitting behind me for a couple minutes and I signal and move over to let you by when a passing lane appears, you don’t need to flash your lights at me before you go by. If you’re passing me in the oncoming lane on a 2-lane, I’ll see your turn signal before you pull out. Lighting up my mirrors and making me see spots is just a straight up dick move. But going back to my original question, when using flash to pass in an MJ, is that just when you pull on the multifunction stalk part way but not far enough to lock in the high beams? Pretty sure both my MJs and my ZJ do that but I didn’t think it was a deliberate feature that required additional parts. My 3/4 ton has the stalk you push forward to lock in high beams, so I’m constantly hitting the flash-to-pass because I’m so used to the MJ. The Ladas are… different. Definitely don’t have flash-to-pass. There’s a second stalk behind the turn signal stalk that you flip up and down for low and high beam. Definitely haven’t smacked that by mistake while signaling. Nope, no way.

Saw my second this year, in Brandon, MB. No photo cause I was in too much of a hurry. Its one I’ve seen before, actually spoke to the owner about eight years ago. Grey long bed with I think an S10 canopy on it. Guess he still works at the same place. I got directed to the guy when I was first trying to find a back door for my factory Leer canopy, see what size his was. Still don’t have a door for mine…

I don’t know this for a fact though. It was suggested during a diagnostics discussion on here a long while ago when I put a ‘93 XJ computer in my ‘91 MJ when I was facing a crank-no-start but I never really confirmed it, just that the later PCM didn’t fix anything for me. The problem I was dealing with at the time turned out to be that my fuel pump wasn’t pulling gas off the bottom of the tank anymore, so unrelated to the PCM.

Part number brings it up as being for an XJ/MJ, doesn’t seem like anything special going on anywhere I look online says with auto trans and federal emissions although the parts manual notes Leaded Fuel which I think is odd. Don’t know that it means anything, don’t know that it doesn’t mean anything. There’s a ton of different parts numbers and lots of them say Leaded Fuel. If your alternator isn’t hooked up, what’s the state of charge? Could a low voltage or eddy currents from a charger be making the ECU wig out? But if the thing still starts and runs, I might try correcting the known issues and go from there. Then once you know your setup is running as best as you can get it and there’s still odd behaviours, then maybe try a different computer, or try this one in a different vehicle. From memory I want to say the ‘91 and ‘92 computers are interchangeable but the ‘93 onward had a different pinout.