mjeff87

Ouch on the ants, lol. I feel your pain on the axle swaps.....I spent the better part of yesterday in my buddy's driveway trying to swap UCA/LCA's, shocks, ball joints and a bunch of assorted little bracketry on the front end of his Suburban. Holy HECK are 1/2-3/4 ton suspension parts heavy. I'm used to little lightweight stuff on Jeeps and my Focus. At one point, one of the knuckles/unit bearings slipped free and I grabbed the falling mass of cast iron...just about broke my arm And torsion bar suspensions are not friendly. At all.

Google up "nutter bypass".

My 87 MJ (base model) had the cigarette lighter delete panel on it. The wiring for the socket should be there behind the plate. (It also had an AM-only radio.....it was a very "base" model, lol) I can't imagine a 2.5L running anywhere near good with a 2BBL carb on it, regardless of brand. I'd think way too much CFM.

AutoZone just called......they want their entire system inventory of vacuum lines back.

I'v got those same 12 ton stands....they are beastly. And they are currently holding my buddy's Suburban up in the air......

I'm still kicking myself for selling mine, but.....it was just sitting in my garage for long stretches at a time. I kinda screwed up, built it up too much to be a DD in any kind of practical way, but then the couple local clubs I was in around here folded up. Nowhere to wheel it legally, and worse yet, noone to wheel it with. I sold it for less than I probably could have gotten, but the guy I sold it too was a good 'ol country boy that I knew was gonna get the use out of it that I built it for. He and his wife showed up in their econobox sedan, jumped out, looked at it, and handed me a wad of cash. I gave him the keys and they drove away. I keep checking craigslist every once in awhile to see if he ever puts it back up for sale, but I've never seen it again.

Hindsight will be 20/20 for you on this one, trust me. My wife works for the VA here in Richmond.....you were wise to walk away. Good luck on finding something else to complement your skill set.

I'd definitely swap (at least) the front axle when you install the new springs. No need to unbolt all that stuff twice.

I know you don't have the same luxury, but I screwed around with those bushings for way too long back in the day. Took them to an industrial spring shop and they chucked them into a 100T press. They sounded like a shotgun blast when they broke free. I think I remember paying them $20 each, back then. It was good money spent, lol.

A- for injunuity.......C+ for execution.

I wish I knew more about the CRD's. Wanna talk weird electrical stuff? Changing the fuel filter on the Focus last weekend, I pulled the 15A fuel pump fuse to run it and depressurize the system (like normal). It keeps running. So I put it back in and pulled the relay....and it still kept running. I actually had to pull both the fuse and the relay to kill power to the pump. I'm not even sure how that's even possible. No shorted/crossed wires anywhere, either.

Yeah.....fan should not be running continuously. Do you also have a mechanical fan on yours? Being a diesel I imagine you would, but I dunno. Only the "heavy duty"/towing package 3.7's got a mechanical fan also (mine does not have one). Those relays are controlled by the ECM. The only trouble I ever had with that circuitry (and it really wasn't THE actual problem) was when my alternator died. It threw a code for bad fan relay.....go figure. Gotta love 2000-era DC electronics. Try turning out your dome light.....that might fix it edit: just spitballing here, but 2 other things come to mind. The fan relays get energized by two things: A/C operation and/or engine temp. A/C operation is obvious, to control head pressure in the condenser. Try unplugging the high-side pressure switch and see if the fan turns off.....switch may be stuck "on" sending a signal to the ECM to energize the fan. On the temp, it appears there are actually 2 different inputs to the ECM for this. One is coolant temp, which should be above 230F for the 2.8. The other temp input is battery temp (the sensor under the battery tray). From reading, if it senses less than a certain battery temp (I think it's low, like 15 degrees), it sends a signal to the ECM to not energize the fan. I'd check both the coolant sensor and the battery temp sensor to see if either is messed up. Or, like I said, it could be something completely unrelated, like the dome light. Lol.

From the little bit of internet sleuthing I've done on the CRD, the 2-speed fan is related to the A/C. Apparently, the low speed circuit is energized when the A/C is engaged, and the high-speed is energized via engine temp input (around +230F for the 2.8, and +255F for the gassers). Not sure that any of that is a clue, but I thought it was worth mentioning. What happens when you plug both relays in and turn on the A/C? You "should" get the low-speed to function, at least.

Could very well be an early model thing. I've never had any issues with the fan (aside from it taking a LONG time to turn on) so I've never really studied the circutry much. Which means "never".

Radiator fan relay.

There is a fan relay, it's on the driver side inner frame rail, below the battery-ish. Check it, it might be fubar'd. I'll see if I can snap a pic on mine...BRB. edit:. Here it is, at least on a gasser. I can't imagine it would be different on an oil burner

So far so good. I've been tooling it around the hood all afternoon without any issues. I'll drive it around tomorrow and then take it to work on Monday (60 mile round trip).

That makes sense to me. My KJ only has an electric fan (single), no mechanical. It barely runs......I can idle it for 25 minutes and it won't turn on, unless I turn the AC on. Weird.

And it lives again. Turns out it wasn't so much the MAF at all (but I did replace it, along with the MAP sensor and cam sensor). Did some research on this thing, it has a return-less fuel system. Fuel pressure is modulated by the pump, which is fed varying voltage from the ECU by way of a pressure transducer on the end of the fuel rail. That sensor has manifold vacuum applied to it and pulls down a diapraghm inside it based on engine status. On mine, that little diapraghm failed, and it was sucking raw gas back thru the vac line directly into the intake manifold, also while the injectors were firing. Hence the super rich condition. So I replaced a bunch of stuff courtesy of the junkyard for $35, and she's a purring kitten once again.

Might have to put the Focus repair plans on hold.....I just remembered (and so did the wife, so I'm not a dead man) that tomorrow is our 27th anniversary. She wants to go out to eat somewhere. That ought to be a real adventure.

I never had a need for one until now, lol. I can pull codes on the KJ with the key-cycle trick and read them on the odometer (same as the TJ I had). Focus doesn't have that luxury, you have to have a code reader. edit: this thing doesn't even have a schraeder valve on the fuel rail (or anywhere else) to check fuel pressure. You have to use a scan tool to read it.

Focus is down... I'd been noticing some random hard starts recently, and some stumbling for a few seconds when it did start. Had a strong unburned fuel smell when it happened too. So I started checking/replacing some obvious things (fuel filter, pump relay, ignition coil, CPS), dumped a can of injector cleaner and a can of dry gas in the tank (thinking I had a clogged injector). Picked up a cam sensor on the way home from work on Tuesday, it was starting/running fine....stopped at a grocery store on the way home for some potatoes for dinner and when I got back in it she barely started. Missing on one cylinder, I limped it up to the house and parked it. Pulled it into the garage last night and pulled the plugs to do a compression test (thinking blown head gasket, dropped valve seat, or some other terrible thing) and the plugs were completely gas fouled. Did a compression test anyway and they all checked out around 190 psi (+/- 5 psi), so there's nothing wrong inside mechanically. I pulled the harness off the MAF sensor while I had it running, and absolutely nothing changed......which is weird. I've forgotten to re-plug it up a couple times in the past when I had the airbox off and it will NOT run at all if the sensor is unplugged, so I think I found my culprit. I'm picking up new plugs today, and going to grab a new (to me) MAF off a junkyard Focus tomorrow, so we'll see what happens. It's not throwing a CEL, but that's typical of these engines....it might be storing a pending code right now, but I don't have a code reader to check. I might grab a cheap one from Harbor Fright too, just to have on hand.

I'm still kicking myself.....I went to a new junkyard a couple months ago, just to check it out. Didn't take my full complement of tools because I wasn't sure what would be there, if anything. They had an 04-05 KJ in there with completely brand new (shiny paint and stickers still on them) front strut assemblies on it. They couldn't have had more than a couple hundred miles on them. I didn't pull them because I was lazy and didn't have the tools needed with me (they were about 45 minutes away back at the house). I thought about running back to grab them but didn't. I'm assuming the CRD springs are a bit more "robust" than the gasser springs, yes?

True story.....I never knew you couldn't board a plane with a beer that was purchased from the gate area (past TSA). We were flying back home from Puerto Rico several years ago and had a long delay at our gate. There was a little storefront there selling Medalla in 12 oz cans, so I had a couple. Right when they announced we were going to start boarding soon, I ran over and bought 2 more cans, unopened, which I threw into my carry on bag. Boarded the plane, got to cruising altitude where the attendants were coming around with the drink cart, and popped one open. Attendant got to me and pitched a royal fit (they didn't serve Medalla on the flight so she knew I brought it on with me). I finished it, then when she went past me, I drank the other one Sure enough, right there in the handy little info card thingy in the seat pocket, in very fine print, it does state that you can't consume any type of alcohol unless you purchase it in-flight. Ooops.