mjeff87

I also got the new pendulum light hung, what a colossal PITA that was. The builders just started jamming screws into the fixture cover plate everywhere until something grabbed. I took out 9 screws until it came loose. And of course the new light plate was half the size and didn't cover up the booger holes, so I had to fill them all in, sand and paint them. All on the top step of my rickety contraption. I also etched/frosted the top pane of the window (fixed, so I couldn't take it out and do it on the bench). The morning sun blows thru that pane right into our dining room while we're trying to eat breakfast. Problem finally solved.

Well, despite everyone's warnings of doom, I got it all done. And didn't die, lol.

My birthday was this week (yesterday), and I decided to take the week off for a staycation to get a bunch of crap done around the house. The big project was to finally paint our split staircase and upstairs hallway. June will officially be 10 years since we built/bought the house and we (mostly I, lol) have painted everything except these last two spots. The hallway isn't so hard other than the fact it has six doorways that have to be cut in but the stairwell is a giant PITA....it's a split staircase with 2 landings and 18 foot ceilings and walls (hence the reason it hasn't been painted yet). We got a quote from a pro painter of $1000 to paint it and the hall, but my cheap side wasn't gonna let that happen. I'm now 3 days and about 2 cases of beer into it, but only because I decided to paint all the trim work first before the walks and ceilings. I've got everything done but cutting in the tops of the walls to the ceiling which I'll do tomorrow along with finally hanging a new light to replace the POS builder grade fixture that came with the house. I bought it like 5 years ago and it's been sitting in the box in the garage ever since I came up with an ingenious, if not completely redneck way to reach the upper walls and ceiling. I built a platform out of an old pallet and some scrap lumber/OSB I had to level out the landings on the staircase so I could plant a ladder on them safely, plus grabbed a 2x10 and a couple 2x4's to make a janky scaffolding. Combined that with every ladder I own and am able to somewhat safely reach everything. I do have my cellphone on my hip in case it all goes to hell and I end up falling and breaking my neck So far, I'm into this project for $127, which includes paint and the lumber from Lowes.

Richmond here

Shipping to 23831? Noice.

Not too much going on with the Focus right now, I've been showing my poor KJ some love by driving it. It's been sitting in the garage for the last couple weeks, LOL. I grabbed a bunch of front suspension hardware along with those axle nuts down at the junkyard last weekend just to have for spares and they were all a bit rusty. I tossed them in a small container of vinegar and am letting them sit all this week. I popped the lid off the container last night to check on them, and I've got a pretty good science experiment going on I'm on vacation next week (it's a stay-cation, my birthday is Tuesday and I need to get a bunch of crap done around the house without my wife being there to nag me.....). I'm sure I'll end up doing something to the Focus along the way. I know I need to put a new muffler on it, at least. the bubbling crude (sorry for the sideways pic):

^^^do this first, then consider the booster upgrade. The self adjusters on the rear drums are anything but that. FWIW, I now run an 02 KJ with drums on the rear 8.25. Nothing makes the brakes work better than manually adjusting the rear drums. About every 6 months I crawl under the back and adjust them.

I just shipped out a parcel to a club member in Sweden. He emailed me his shipping info and I couldn't figure out anything past his name as far as street address, city, state, zip code. I just copied everything down and took it to the post office and politely asked the clerk to figure it all out. As far as I know, it's supposed to deliver tomorrow or Friday, lol.

Does that unit have a hitch plate on the back? That's a tractor, not a mower.. I had a Noma (rebadged Murray) mower with a hydro trans, it was pretty much a POS (my wife's grandmother gave it to me, so I can't complain too much about it, but it was a mower nonetheless). Lady I worked with who lived out in the country gave me a Craftsman 18hp lawn tractor......it was dead. Ended up being a shot fuel pump, which I replaced for $20. The valve guides were worn so it smoked like a SOB, but that thing was a beast. I yanked out tree stumps with that thing, lol. Ended up giving it to my neighbor eventually.

Sway bar links good/tight? I had a very similar clunking happening in this beater Ford Focus I'm working on, tracked it down to a a worn sway bar end link. The link ends are ball-in-cup (like a tie rod end), not fixed bushings like XJ/MJ's, but it's worth a look. I ended up finding it by unloading the suspension (jacked it up under the "frame" and not the knuckle). When the suspension was loaded, it was nice and tight and I couldn't feel any play, but as soon as I jacked it up and let the knuckle hang free it became very obvious.

There are no words in the English language to describe just how hideous that looks. If that thing was a horse, I'd shoot it. Where did you find that?

That's some cool looking old iron ya got there OP Nice turf tires on it, too. Guy down the road from me has an ancient rear tine tiller chained up to a tree in his front yard with a for sale sign on it. It has been sitting there for about 6 months now, all rusted up. About a month ago, he spray bombed the whole thing with a can of red spray paint (I guess to hide the obvious surface rust and try to help sell it). I don't need a tiller for anything, but I'm half tempted to stop and see how much he wants for it. (Probably too much, that's why it's been for sale so long). I would just buy it as a project, strip it all down to the frame and rebuild it. I love old machinery.

I've got to say, I'm pretty impressed with USPS. I checked the tracking this morning, and the parcel just left Denmark last night en route to Sweden.....Hakan should be getting them pretty soon. I also signed up for e-mail updates on tracking and delivery, and as I was typing this I already got an e-mail status update. I had my reservations about using USPS, but I'm feeling pretty good about them right now. I probably just jinxed it by saying that, though It'll probably fall out of the plane somewhere over the Swedish countryside and never be seen again.

I had my KJ at the dealership last year for a safety recall, and just decided to hang out and wait for the work to be done (that was a mistake, lol). I got to wondering around looking at the new dodges and jeeps for sale in the outside lots, then wandered back into the showroom out of boredom. There, inside, sat a beautiful Grand Cherokee, SRT edition. Gloss black, huge orange brembro disc brakes....the works. Then I saw the window sticker. $78,000. There is no way on Gods green earth I would ever pay that for an FCA vehicle, even if I had the money to do so. The Jeep name is utilitarian by its very nature....that's what makes them special. If you are a really die hard jeep owner, you know the trade offs you are (were ???) making when buying one. Lots of other brands are more comfortable, have better on-road manners, get better mileage, etc. but aren't as capable. IMHO, FCA is trying to enter a market they don't belong in, including the new Gladiator.

I think I just had a seizure watching the first part of that.......but good job man

I absolutely can't stand a clutch safety switch. I remember on my TJ all you had to do was insert a fuse in the auto trans slot in the fuseblock (manuals didn't come with a fuse) to bypass it. That's not an option on the Foci. And I swear Ford didn't spend an extra .00001c on wiring when they built these things. There's just an exact amount of wire on most plug in things for the connector to connect. Like the washer pump....which I replaced yesterday too (my homebrew RTV job on the original one didn't hold up). I pulled the whole inner fender again and installed the junkyard bottle/pump, got it all reconnected and plumbed and put it all back together, THEN decided to check to see if it worked. It didn't. So I had to pull the inner fender for the third time.....only to discover that the connector on the pump detached itself. If only there was like an extra 1/2" even of wiring, it never would have disconnected itself.

Had a very productive weekend on the Focus. Hit the junkyard Saturday and picked up 5 new axle nuts, a pair of swaybar links, a center console cover, clutch safety switch, rear wiper arm, front wiper arm covers (stupid plastic thingys that break every time you try to remove them), a passenger door speaker, and a washer reservoir with pump, all for $30. Spent the day Sunday swapping all that out except the axle nuts (I just wanted some spares....they are $17 EACH, new). I also replaced the fuel filter....what a sumbich that was. All Ford had to do was install the plastic clips that hold the filter on the fuel lines 180 degrees opposite and it would be a 2 minute job. But, no...it ended up taking the better part of 30 minutes and I got a sweatshirt arm soaked in gasoline, LOL. I do have an annoying exhaust rattle on cold startup that I tried to fix. It ended up being the muffler, the insides are slowly starting to die and the baffles are loose. I'll probably end up swapping on a new one. If I'd have known it was the muffler, I would have taken the sawzall with me to the junkyard and grabbed one edit: I ended up not using the clutch safety switch. I got it so I could take it apart and jumper the contacts inside (I didn't want to cut the wiring and splice it) but it's a sealed plastic POS that can't be taken apart without destroying it. I ended up just jumpering the wire connector on the car. Works like a charm, and I no longer have to push the darn clutch the whole way to the floor to engage the starter.

Lookin great Rich

That MUST convey with the sale!

Package shipped today via USPS.......$78.35

Mine was bad, but I caught it in time. The only slot that got really eaten up was the 5A instrument panel light fuse slot. I ended up having to shim that fuse into the block to get it to work. Nothing like intermittent dash panel lights while driving home in the middle of the night, lol.

You're clutch master is leaking.....replace it quickly. If the fuseblock isn't too fara gone, you can try to pull all the fuses and relays out and hose it down with contact cleaner. It's a ticking time bomb though.....the longer you let it go the worse it will get. Eventually the block will get ruined. Swapping a new block in isn't impossible, but it is a PITA. The block is integrated into the cab harness, you can't just simply unplug it and plug in a new one. You have to swap each wire from the old one into the new one.

I've got a fully dressed '87 long block sitting on a pallet in the barn up in PA......it's been there probably 10+ years now. I'll give the whole thing away to anyone who can use it, but I won't/can't ship it. It would need to be picked up.

So much this. This site, and to an extent the Garage Journal and NAXJA are the ONLY sites I can visit (that I have an interest in) that aren't chock full of advertisements, pop-ups, no page loads, and general pain-in-the-assery things that come with "for profit" websites. THe best/most extreme example is Pirate 4x4, probably the most infamous board ever created for tech (and other things I won't mention LOL). The original owner let it grow organically, like we do here, and when he sold it off to Vertical Scope the site turned into straight up junk all in the short span of about 5 years. All that VS cares about are page hits and ad revenues, and it clearly shows. I don't want that to happen to CC, ever.

Holy hell dude. Loosen up the tinfoil a bit.