Sir Sam

Going on CL tonight!

Mine had 92k on it when I got it, fairly low for the age.

Holy crap! You guys got snow already!? It just got below 60 here during the day for the first time.

Ok I had a cel 1391 - tested the cps and it tested fine. Then I went about tracking it down from other problems. I did more research and reading, the resyncronization stuff I was reading had to deal with the tone ring inside the distributor having gotten out of place, the toothpick in the hole was meant to realign the ring so that it fired at the correct time. I then read another thread that talked about the little bit of play when the bolt is loose, you can turn the distributor a whole whopping degree or two with the bolt in place. Someone said to try the other end of the spectrum and see if it was any different in reference to a renix XJ. Well I tried that, turns out at the one end of the just few degrees difference I had it would just stall and not start or run. So I took the bolt out, rotated it past where the bolt hole aligned and used a screwdriver to hold it in place. Started it up, ran smooth and idled nice, no more missing and hunting idle. So that means I was off a tooth on the distributor (just one) and had lucked out(or not lucked out because it caused me more problems) with the one or two degree's that it can be adjusted and would barely run, had I tightened the distributor down just slightly different it would not have run at all, and I would probably have tried to adjust it by one tooth at the beginning of the day. So I looked at it, saw which way made the improvement to the timing, and then saw that meant I needed to "retard" the timing by one tooth. Now because the oil pump is driven off the bottom of the distributor shaft that means you cannot simply pull the dizzy up, turn it, and put it back down. IF you do this you get the tooth alignment right, but the end of the shaft will not re-engage the oil pump(unless you then have a helper to just tap the key and turn the engine over a little untill it engages and the dizzy goes down all the way, or you have a helper to turn the engine over by hand with a socket and breaker bar on the engine crank pulley bolt.) So that means you have to pull it up, stick a straight screwdriver in, and turn the oil pump by hand untill the shaft direction seems to closely match where it needs to point on the dizzy. Took me a few tries, but I got it, Jeep runs smooth and sounds good! Glad I didn't blow $50 on a new CPS - which also tested fine BTW. Lesson learned, even one tooth off it would still run, but just one more degree and it would not.

Got the engine running and warmed up today, running straight water and then gonna flush it out tomorrow, the old coolant(from the previous engine) was pretty nasty, hopefully I will be able to get the remaining bit of crap outta the system this way, plus I get to check and make sure there are no leaks before dropping a little bit of money into the coolant. Gauge temp sensor relocated: Crap I knocked outta the radiator(also got lots of out the AC cond): New engine sounds good - but the old crap on it does not. It has a miss and the idle kinda hunts around weird, got a CEL that I will start tracking down too. Might route the plug wires around differently to make sure none of them are crossing and causing an inductive misfire. The gas also smells really old, need to get my tags and drive it around and get some fresh gas in it. There's nearly half a tank of old crap in there.

Engine/trans/transcase in and bolted up, still need to connect driveshafts. Got it all wired up and started it up for the first time on the new engine, fired up quick and runs smooth. I still need to do something about the gauge cluster temp sensor, the 96 has the ECU sensor on the housing, and it has the gauge cluster sensor on the back of the head, the newer head does not have the hole drilled and tapped for the temp sensor. I debated drilling the head for it, you can see the blanked off area where it would have been, but I didn't know if the internal water passages had changed at all. So I guess tomorrow I try to track down the correct tap for the temp sensor. Anyone know offhand what the thread is? (from using my digital calipers with a dead battery it looks like the major diameter is .4 inches with 26 TPI, so maybe it should really be reading 3/8" = .375?)

rear bumper looked pretty nice, I've given up on finding a straight stocker.

Just flipping the red XJ, bought it for a profit turnaround. The old block, prolly just try to get a little bit for it on CL, would make a good block for someone to build up into a stroker. I'll also be selling the 99+ intake and the AW4 off, gotta get whatever cash I can coming in.

Got the old engine out, new engine out, got the intake and exhaust switched over The new motor is pretty clean inside(guess thats what happens at 44k miles): 96 exhaust mani vs 01 mani with all the extra cats and 02 sensors: 96 mani top, 01 bottom, I am keeping the 96 mani on the jeep to sell it, then will sell off the 01 for someone looking to upgrade: Gonna try and sell the AW4 with the TCM and other stuff needed for someone to convert a TJ to an AW4. Dunno what to do with the old longblock, just get rid of it I suppose.

$200 seems like a pretty good price to haul it off for him. Personally I wouldn't haul off a 2.8 for anything less than $500, but I have standards.

I agree that cloth is more comfortable overall, swampa$$ with leather seats.

Seems to me like your lens was also dirty.

Ya I think they did stop with the black interior at about that date. Good score on the seats, I have only seen one XJ with the leather and black interior, EVER. And it was pretty trashed inside.

Oh man, ain't that the truth.

HEHE, I was wondering how long until we came together in a discussion here after they banned you on LOST. Seems like all sorts of $#!& went down there while I was on vacation. That's another point as well - "Expectation of Privacy" Basically they said since it was the front yard there was not an expectation of privacy, and then we get into a grey area. I remember a case from 4-5 years ago where a stolen vehicle was parked in a driveway, you can just walk up to it and read off the vin numbers without touching anything and just looking in the window. I seem to remember the outcome was that since it was public and there was not an expectation of privacy that a warrant was not needed to read the vin number. The same logic applies to reading a license plate(though you need not even enter someone's property to read a plate number. The question is does that cross over to placing a tracking device to watch where someone goes all the time. What if that vehicle then entered an area such as a privately fenced and marked property - the tracking would continue, then you could make the argument that a reasonable expectation of privacy existed - yet the tracking would continue(though it would be reasonable to allow any evidence recorded via observation on a public street to and from such property).

I think that mentality is the kind of thing that allows things like this to happen.

I'm not frustrated, I'm mad(and not at you). Will be watching this case as it progresses. Plus, it's only paranoia if their not really after you.

No, I don't think your getting it. This is saying that regardless of your criminal activity they can put it on your vehicle at will, whenever they want, without a warrant. It is also saying that just because your on your own property you cannot have an "expectation of privacy." You're not getting what I'm saying. They can come put a tracking device on my truck whenever they want. But it would be a waste of money to do so, and it would be a waste of time to track said device. For these reasons, plus the fact that I am not involved in any illegal activities, nobody is going to be putting a device on my truck any time soon. Nobody cares who I am and where I go. The trackers would get bored really fast. If authorities want to put a tracking device on the vehicle of a suspected criminal, I see no problem with that. As long as you abide by the law, nobody is going to take the time or expense to track you. Yarg! Nobody cares who I am and where I go, however I reserve the right to do so with impunity. Yes, even though your not doing anything, you probably won't get tracked like this, BUT you could. If this sets a precedent it means that in the future the police could randomly track you just to see if your doing anything wrong. Again, just because your not doing anything wrong doesn't mean it right for them to invade your privacy and property. You probably wouldn't care if you were forced to wear a recording device all the time to make sure you never spoke a revolutionary word, you probably wouldn't mind the secret police to abduct family members in the middle of the night to interrogate them about who they know to have anti-government sentiments. The point here is that this is being done without a warrant. Part of the process of getting a warrant is to ensure the rights of the people are not trodden on and abused. When such a check is removed from the system the potential for it to be abused by those with power is greatly increased. The police state of the former east german DDR comes to mind. To paraphrase a famous quotation "when the rights of the few are abused, the rights of all are abused."

No, I don't think your getting it. This is saying that regardless of your criminal activity they can put it on your vehicle at will, whenever they want, without a warrant. It is also saying that just because your on your own property you cannot have an "expectation of privacy."

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Bull$#!&. So you wouldn't mind me coming and putting a GPS tracking device in your vehicles right now? If you don't do anything illegal you don't have anything to be worried about - oh wait, you didn't stop for 3 seconds at that stop sign. Here I'll just send you can that ticket now. Oh wait, looks like you just speed 5 over in a construction zone, WOW thats a triple fine, don't worry we are taking it right out of your paycheck - oh wait, you still owe us a little. Maybe thats a little bit of an exaggeration, but the fact still remains, the logic that as long as your not doing anything illegal its fine is crap. The point is, I AM NOT doing anything illegal, therefor you have no reason to intrude in my life. It is my home, it is my property, you have NO RIGHT to enter my home to check and see if I am doing anything illegal. Such actions would typically be associated with a police state. With that kind of attitude you might as well encourage a new Gestapo to come into your home at any hour of the day rifle through all your things, and make sure you have nothing illegal or are doing nothing illegal.

I think I found the holy grail of LED lighting solutions for my van. I have looked for years and never found anything quite like this. Costco sells these: With: Without: Cost $30 for a set, comes with a wireless(IR) remote to turn them on, 4 90 degree pieces and one flex piece plus 6 LED tubes. Tube, attaches to the base where the switch IR receiver is on either side. Great little lights for under cabinet use, they run off of 5V so with a 5V regulator they can be run in vehicle off of 12V. The power supply is a 5V 2amp so two LM7805 5V regulators would be needed if it really pulled that much, maybe even three depending on heat issues. Now if the power supply is over designed and they pull less than 2amps then one or two regulators would probably work. Now here is where the van comes into play, when I did my westy swap I never used the original light - it was missing bulbs and the cover, I decided in this day and age it wasn't worth messing with that ugly old light, and decided I wanted to use LED's. I had a little LED pod thing that sat over the stove area - the light output was pretty feeble, but good enough when its dark out, but it always left me wanting more, I had a couple of other LED lights I used around that had far better light output. One of them which I like in particular was another costco item, a 120V rechargable LED light, it is meant to be an emergency light, it comes on when power goes out, leave it plugged in and its always charged power out, light on. OF course it also has a switch on it, and two settings. Lasts about 8 hours on a charge, then I use inverter to recharge them while driving. Glued a couple of harbor frieght rare earth magnets on to the back and I can stick em around different places in the van. But its nice not to have to recharge lights, and your limited to where you can stand them up, or magnet them on. In come the tube lights. They come with 4 90 degree peices: With those you could make a rectangle, 1 tube x 2 tubes(using all 6) and place it over the rear sleeping area(below the AC unit). I have always found that to be a particularly dark area of the van, would be nice for reading etc. The two options I'm mostly interested in are using the lights in a long tube along the "spice rack" and its twin "curtain track" over the slider door: You could put the light switch at the back by the speaker, where its easy to turn on when sitting in the rear seat, and then run the tube forward, here is a rough illustration: This are(where I have my modified AC tube), would be another good place for a rectangle or square loop: Now these lights come with all the mounting stuff you need at home, they come with clips that hold the tubes and allow them to rotate, and are back with a peel and stick backing. However these don't hold super tight, use glue to hold them on, and would probably let the tube rattle out, get bumped by heads etc. My solution to this is .5" cable clamps: The .5 inch clamps are a little tight, but the 3/4 inch are WAY loose, I need something in between, might run to ACE and see if they have some that are a little larger. Anyways, next up is me playing around with the 5V regulators and seeing if 2-3 7805's will be enough or if I need to hunt down something else.

Placing a GPS tracker on your vehicle, on private property, without a warrant. http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/08/27/ore ... tml?hpt=T1

I think the only thing that will allow you to see my perspective is time and experience. I just don't think there's any other way around it. Don't worry, we were all like that at some point, and at that point we all thought we were not like that. I heard the same thing from persons older than myself when I was at that point, and I didn't really believe it until some years later.

No, it made a stereotypical immature teenager story. I don't think anyone here cares about the tree you plowed down. I don't think anyone cares about your bumper. I don't think anyone cares about your whiplash. I don't think anyone cares that your buddy thinks he's faster/better/whatever more than you. Combine it all together and it makes for the typical BS teenager stuff.