mjeff87

OP, there's a pretty good pic of the equalizer setup in this thread:

The joys of working on an old vehicle that wasn't really taken care of......whenever I touch one thing to fix it, something else related to it breaks. I put a new serpentine belt on it, and the OEM tensioner and idler pulley both crapped the bed. I put new (junkyard) knuckles on, and now the outer CV boot on the passenger side is slinging grease everywhere It's not torn, but the oetiker clamp that holds the boot on the large/knuckle side is loose. I don't have the crimper tool needed to tighten it, needle nose pliers aren't strong enough, and I can't get a pair of larger pliers to work (you really need the actual tool to crimp it properly and noone around here stocks one). I have to take it to the tire shop tomorrow to get the wheels re-balanced, there's missing stick-on weights all over the place on them LOL, and asked them if they could tighten up the clamp. They said they would just throw a new clamp on it for me, for free

Once THAT was done, I started to try to track down the source of the exhaust leak I had. Everything looked great, including the donut gasket at the cat converter and the flex pipe under the body, and I was stumped. I was just lying underneath it looking up at things under the engine, and I spotted the problem. The darn EGR pipe nut unthreaded itself from the fitting on the manifold. And it was in the most gawd awful place to try to get a wrench on. I ended up having to unbolt a couple brackets that hold the tube to the side of the engine and was able to get it rethreaded, and was able to get a 6" crescent wrench on the nut enough to tighten it. No more leaky exhaust, or exhaust smell inside the cabin. Yay.

So, while the other knuckle is soaking, I thought I'd tackle a couple other little issues on it. The washer fluid reservoir has been leaking slowly, so I figured that would be a quick little fix after work last night. Wrong. The tank is actually molded into the inside of the driverside fender. I ended up pulling the inner fender to get to it, then had to spend 20 minutes figuring out just how to get the darn thing out, then another 20 minutes cleaning my garage floor from the 15+ years of detrius and mouse nest material buried inside the fender. Turns out the grommet where the pump fits in was leaking, so I pulled the pump and RTV black'd the ever living snot out of everything and put it all back together. Altogether, it took me about 2 hours to fix this "easy" thing, LOL.

^^^^yep I ran the yellow Ford ones in my MJ (Renix). I was quite happy with them, considering I picked them up for free from a guy who used to be a member on here.

OK.......take whatever you got last year and, ummm....add......20 percent. (movie reference)

Everything I own is technically for sale, I just don't advertise it. Including my house. If some schlub comes along with a big enough bag of money, I'm you're huckleberry lol

That's probably not a bad idea.

Steve, here's the thread over on Pirate: https://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/general-chit-chat/2621154-road-chose-me-jeep-wrangler-around-africa-2-years-30-countries-80-000-mi.html If you can suffer through the misery of Vertical Scope. Jeff

I stopped using Craftsman after breaking about the 4th 1/4" ratchet. That's when I started buying Kobalt, lol. I was just successful at swapping out my recoil air hose It took a little bit of doing, as the cashier at the service desk looked at my old one with everything but a magnifying glass to try to find out what was wrong with it. I finally told her to go get a compressor and put some air pressure on it and she'd find the leak quick enough. Guess she didn't want to go through all that and just took my word for it and exchanged it. I had to give my driver's license again (got a little worried that it was going to turn ugly at that point), but everything worked.

Glad you made it home safely....... but that's not a sketchy load. THIS is a sketchy load, LOL.

Awesome Steve....welcome to the addiction. Glad to see international presence! I notice your controls are on the "other" side over there. Cool. There's a big running thread on Pirate 4x4 from a guy who's trying to drive a Jeep through every country on your continent. Many interesting things going on in that thread, but the most interesting thing to me has been the complete lack of standardization between countries regarding what side of the road everyone drives on. Seems like every time he crosses a border the rules change

Yup, where the plastic hose joins to the brass threaded fittin (I had to add my own barb to the threads). This was on the side that I connect to the regulator, not the working end. That part just sits there and doesn't see any "action" per se. It just blew right the hell out. Max working pressure per Kobalt is 160, I was only at 125. Hell, my compressor only puts out 150 max, and that's if I crank the regulator WFO. I did swing by the lowes on the way home just to check something. They only have one of them left on the shelf and have it marked down to $14.99. Packaging still has the same warranty info printed on it, but the same tool department idjit from the other day was working there again. I didn't want to end up with a felony charge today, so I just left with my Intel info gathered. There's a lowes right by my work, so I'm just going to take it there tomorrow at lunch and ask for an exchange. I know, it's only $15, but at this point it's the principle and not the money.

You know, I just have to laugh at this point. Yesterday I was using my air compressor in the garage with my KOBALT 25' PVC air hose (running 125 psi fighting with that steering knuckle on the Focus) and the damn hose split right where it connects to the fitting for the regulator. Just for fun, I searched Kobalt for the warranty info, and the original packaging for it says "hassle free lifetime replacement" on it. I only bought it about 3-4 years ago, and just use it mainly for light duty tire air ups or cleaning things (engines) up with a small blow gun. Quite the conundrum here. I think I'll just chuck it in the trash and go buy another one, from Home Depot or Harbor Freight.

I managed to get the passenger side knuckle and hub off yesterday afternoon. I knew I was going to have problems after I had to take it down to the shop to get the strut pinch bolt taken out.....and I was right. The LBJ pinch bolt was rust-welded in harder than the strut one was, but at least it was thru-bolted with a nut on the other side (strut bolt threaded into the top of the knuckle), so I could wail on it with a hammer. Ended up hammering the heck out of it, using my air impact on the bolt head side (which is a T50 torx) and my air hammer all around the knuckle at the BJ location. Left little pock marks all over it with the hammer, but it finally budged and I beat it out the rest of the way with a mini sledge and a punch. Knuckle #2 going into it's vinegar bath for the week.

Wow, that's a lot different looking than my intake/TB on my 02. The IAC is pretty easy to spot on it, driver side.

So I had this chunk of brisket flat I wanted to make for dinner tonight, but didn't feel like messing around with the smoker and whatnot because the weather here is/has been crappy. An online search for an "authentic Jewish brisket" recipie led me to this: https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/onion-braised-beef-brisket.html Holy mother of brisket recipes. I can't swear to it's authentic-ness as a real Jewish recipie (I'm a recovering Catholic, lol), but holy hells bells is it good. It's just about finished cooking now, and I'm going to let it rest for a few hours before eating but I had to sneak a taste. The only changes I made were omitting the carrots (I'm going to roast them on the side separately later on....I hate mushy carrots) and I added a couple extra garlic cloves and a tsp of beef base when I started braising. I'm either going to make potato pancakes or mashed potatoes to go with....not sure we're going to make it 'till dinner though. The whole house smells like every grandmother that ever lived is here cooking Sunday (Saturday?) afternoon dinners here right now.

Lots of picture warning.....I finished up side #1 this morning. Pulled it out, brushed off the last hard spots, rinsed it and let it all dry. Flash rusting started almost immediately so I doused it all in WD40 and wiped it down. Then I generously brushed on some used motor oil and let it sit for an hour or so, rotating every so often so the oil could creep into everywhere. Finally wiped it all down and wrapped the whole mess in plastic bags to sit while I work on the other side. Once done, I'll press new hubs/bearings in, paint them and reinstall (hopefully next weekend).

I was pleasantly surprised when lowes did call me back yesterday. We all had a good talk about corporate and Kobalt policies and how sometimes both make it difficult for store employees to offer good customer service and actually help customers. Everyone agreed that I should have just been given the 2 pieces I needed without any hassle and allowed to go on about my day. They offered to let me go back to the store and pick out any tool kit I wanted for free to make up for things, but I politely declined and thanked them for the gesture. I've been made whole at this point and saw no point of taking advantage of the situation. All I asked them to do is evaluate their policies and work on supporting their staff when they need help. That said, I did swing by northern tool yesterday and grabbed a 1/2" metric socket set in 6-point version. My kobalts (metric) are all 12-point (the SAE's are 6's). I really don't like using 12-points if I can help it. $17.99, on sale now, if anyone's looking for them.

Yeah that. Too bad MJ's didn't back in the day So here's the knuckle after about 3 days of soak. There's a couple deeper spots still not clean and I need to pick up a tiny wire brush tomorrow morning to get a couple nooks and crannies, but it's about 95% back to bare metal (which starts to flash rust in about 5 minutes after it dries). It's back in the bucket now for an overnight sleep, lol. I'll probably do a separate thread in tech on the whole process, in case anyone else is interested and has never used vinegar as a rust remover before. It's cheap (I'm into this now for about $6 for the vinegar and $2 for a Wally World 5 gallon bucket/lid). It just takes time, if you have it to spare like I do on this project, thankfully.

What's really funny is my KJ came from Chicago (I'm the third owner per car fax), and the only spot of rust on it is a 1/2" section at the bottom of the passenger side front door on the inside lip. The rear swing gate latch on the body side is a bit corroded and the trans pan has surface rust on it. That's it. This focus came from GA as a single owner vehicle that never left the state all of its life, where you wouldn't think rust would be an issue but all of the front suspension and steering parts are rusted up pretty good. You'd think it would be the opposite with both vehicles.

Well, mission accomplished but not without incident. Went to a different store this morning with just the two pieces. The kid at the service counter says no problem, go grab the new ones while I start ringing things up in the computer. Great. Grabbed them, came back and he looks at the ratchet in comparison to my old one (the handle design is slightly different) and asks how old my ratchet is. I said I didn't know, maybe 5 years (I had already replaced it once in the past with no hassle, and it was slightly different than the original one). He says he can only exchange it for the exact model....which I said no longer exists. Please call the store manager down here to help (he honestly didn't know what do do and I wasn't upset with him). Manager comes, says the same thing to me about exact replacement and again suggests I call Kobalt direct and figure out my own problem. I said ok, since you don't have one in stock here now, go ahead and order me one from Kobalt and I'll come pick it up. She fusses around in the computer for about 5 minutes and finally it dawns on her what the problem is. Hallelujah. She then just scanned the UPC's on the new ones as a return, gave me a credit, then scanned them again as a sale and applied the credit. I suggested that to the first store that I went to yesterday but they said they couldn't do that. Anyways, I finally got what I needed. I kept the store managers name in case Lowes actually does call me back, and will let them know how good she was to work with. Unlike my local store manager yesterday who couldn't be bothered to come out of his office to help his staff fix a problem. edit:. And as far as Craftsman goes, I chose Kobalt over C when I bought this set so many years ago because their crappy ratchets kept breaking (especially the 1/4" drive ones). I do have a Craftsman 1/2" ratchet (V-series) inherited from my wife's grandfather when he passed. It's got to be at least 50 years old and still works like the day it was made.

Yeah, they did redesign the ratchets. I warrantied out the original one about 5 years ago and noticed the change on the new one (the one I have now that the pawl is shot on). They got a lot beefier, which I liked. The ones hanging on the shelf now are yet another design, a bit skimpier too. I don't really care, I just need a new one along with a new 15mm socket. That said, I did just order and am picking up tomorrow a 14 PC set of 1/2" metric sockets that are 6 point (kobalts are 12 pt) from Northern Tool. They are bobo brand (Klutch), but almost any 6 pt is better than a 12 pt IMHO.

That's what I've done in the past, just took the individual pieces in for exchange...never an issue. Theres another Lowes about 20 miles south of me (right by the junkyard I go to), I'll probably try taking the ratchet and socket there tomorrow by themselves and see what happens. I guess I'm just more upset with the way I've been treated as a customer, with such an easy and obvious resolution just staring everyone in the face. I guarantee if I would have done anything close to what they all did to me to one of our customers, I'd be looking for a job right now. Sorry to seem so worked up over this, but I'm really upset right now.