terrawombat

red wings suck this year Right. Considering their flurry of injuries and their subpar record midseason it's pretty remarkable they were able to finish where they did in the standings. Gary Bettman calling the Pittsburgh Penguins the "model NHL team" is an f'ing joke. The Penguins were awful for half of the 2000 years and kept earning themselves high draft picks until they were able to draft enough raw talent to finally win games. The Wings have been consistently good for the last two decades and have never garnered a good draft position. The Red Wings find and create talent - the Pens just take the best available player on the board. How is that a model team? Probably because Bettman's closet queerbait posterboy Crosby is on the team. Trivia question: Which team holds the record for the most consecutive playoff appearances of ANY professional sports team? I'll give you a hint - it's not the Pens!

I've had 8 0331 heads, none of them have ever been a problem. I think naxja overstates the 0331 head problem, lots of people pick up on that and then repeat it like every 0331 head is seconds away from total failure. I agree that NAXJA overplays the 0331 head problem, but having had one fail and crack in the exact spot that it was "supposed" to, I've got to somewhat jump on the "0331 heads suck" bandwagon. There are a number of people that have also reported the same. I'm sure it's not as widespread as NAXJA makes it out to be, BUT, it is still an issue with some heads. But even with one of my own 0331 heads cracking and all of the threads on NAXJA that talk about it, I STILL bought an '00 4.0L engine for a spare. I'll take my chances...head swaps are easy.

Keep in mind that the the 4.0L that came in the WJ from '99 to '01 were equipped with the oh-so-famous 0331 head casting that is known for cracking between the #3 and #4 exhaust ports and allows coolant to mix in with the crankcase oil. I have had three 0331 head'ed engines in my lifetime - one is at 83k miles (no problems), another went to 154k miles (before spinning a rod bearing, but the head appeared to be fine), and another went to 150k miles before the head cracked and the crankcase slowly filled with coolant. Jeep/Chrysler never owned up to their mistake, but I believe they changed cylinder head manufacturers in '02 as the later 0331 heads are stamped with TUPY, which I believe is the revised version of the head that does not crack. I dunno - it's a toss-up. Just go over to the NAXJA forums and search for "0331 head" and you'll get allll kinds of fun info!

Tempting. I'd have to find out if my little buzzbox can handle an 10lb spool. Good price, even with the $11 shipping. Thanks!

You can thank Gary Bettman for my hatred of the Penguins. East - Go Flyers! West - Go Wings!

Haven't been able to work on the YJ as much as I would like in the past two weeks - weddings, work, and life have all gotten in the way. Been sneaking in time here and there and tackled some rust repair. First up, rotted side panel under the JEEP logo on the drivers side: Rotted right through... Why does it even rust out here? Fender flare removed Grind out the bad stuff Weld in the good stuff and blend it in Coat it with POR-15 so you never have to do this again Next rust repair will be under the roll bar behind the drivers seat Somewhere down the road I need to do the same repair on the passenger side If I get some time tomorrow, I will weld in the new floor for the drivers side, seam seal it, and probably paint the passenger side with POR-15. The passenger side metal is in pretty decent shape. I can tell it's thinning some, but if I hit it with POR-15 now, I should be able to save it. I intend on painting the entire front of the tub with POR-15 and eventually I'll hit the rear. The rear is in really good shape though...almost looks new, but better safe than sorry.

I'm curious - what about the '87 Renix will make it difficult to swap in a later model 4.0L? I honestly don't know, that's why I'm asking!

Short answer - Yes Longer answer - You'll need to swap over all of your accessories, obviously, but the engine mounting bosses should all be there. I believe the water pump will be different - I think the WJ fan is attached directly to the waterpump and it's not as simple as just swapping waterpumps since the mounting holes are different between an XJ and WJ waterpump. Also want to check on the exhaust ports, but I think you'll be fine. The later 4.0 I6 used smaller exhaust ports so you should be fine as the MJ exhaust header will completely cover them up.

Yesterday was another adventurous day for me and the YJ. I met the previous owner at my local bank and we had an 'odometer disclosure' form signed and notarized. I'm lucky this PO is a good guy and was very willing to help me out with all of this. I think he is just happy to see his Jeep go to someone that is going to take good care of it :) I began cutting out the drivers side floorpan as well. It had been repaired before with a sheet of galvanized steel pop riveted into the rusted, rotted body and smeared along the edges with silicon. Of the 15 or so pop rivets, I only needed to drill out two - the rest were in rotted pieces of the body. Now I have a Fred Flinstone Jeep! I also got a new drivers floor pan from Quadratec - the $65 one - and I'm very impressed with the fit. Even has the holes for the drain plugs, e-brake cable, and two bolts that go into the side-step brace. I can use those two bolt holes to line the new pan up and trace out what metal I need to cut. I think it should go relatively smooth and the final product should look real good. Also drained the old transmission fluid and put in 3.25 quarts of Pennzoil Synchromesh and my 3rd gear grind is gone, however, the trans is still really notchy and hard to get into some gears. I'm going to try and bleed the slave cylinder and see if there is any improvement. If not, the trans is still a heck of a lot better than it was before.

Whew - what a day. Just about everything that could have gone wrong did. I hit the motor vehicle commission up at lunch today. The place that is (somewhat) close to my office has got to be one of the strictest agency's in all the land and I knew this from a couple of previous experiences, but I was left with little choice since the next closest agency is about 20 more minutes away. I had the title in my hand and everything was filled out correctly. I had my drivers license and proof of insurance on the vehicle so what could possibly go wrong? Well, I guess someone was having a bad day today or they just really felt like ruining mine. For some ridiculous reason the lady thought I altered the mileage on the back of the title. She said it looked like I went over it in a different color pen and, therefore, it was void. I politely explained to her that the first pen we tried to use didn't have any ink so I got another one (a different color...was all I had with me) and the seller wrote in the mileage on the title. I guess it wasn't a good enough reason for her as she called her tightwad manager over to confirm her decision in making the title void. The title was sitting between myself and the tightwad agency clerks...maybe about a foot and a half away. Upon hearing all of this, I reached out to grab it, but tightwad clerk #1 pulled it back and gave me a classic look. I wanted to take the title and walk out the door because I could easily just go down to my main agency where the people that work there could care less. Unfortunately, tightwad clerk #1 wrote all over my title and insisted that I get a notarized letter from the seller claiming the mileage is correct. I'm really lucky the seller is a good guy - he had a bit of a laugh over the situation and agreed to meet me at my bank tomorrow to fill out the odometer statement and get it notarized, but honestly, what a PITA. I love how the tightwads act like what I need to do is no big deal. Yea - now I have to bother the seller, get him to meet me at a bank, get notarized letter, go back to tightwad agency, and finally get my title, registration, and plates. Yea - no big deal. So since I couldn't legally drive my new Jeep around, I decided to take the old wheels and tires off and put on a spare set of Jeep rims with 31's I have. Three of the four wheels came off with no problem, but wheel No. 4 decided that two of the lugs were NOT coming off. I completely rounded the lugnuts and wound up drilling the studs out and replacing them. Then one of the rear brake lines on the axle sprung a leak, so I removed it and busted out my Snap-On double flaring kit to make a new line - but then my 3/16" flaring bit broke....what a day! Here are some crappy pictures that I was finally able to take once I got the brakes sorted out and the wheel back on. As you can see, I've got some rust repair to do! I ordered a replacement drivers panel from Quadratec today. Should be here tomorrow and I'll probably weld it in this weekend.

Yea yea...I got the Jeep home around 10:30pm last night and wanted to get the interior gutted before I had to go to bed. No time for pics! I'll get some after work.

Well, it's home and in the shop with the interior mostly removed. No towing required, drove it right home and it performed very well. Went into 1st and 2nd a little hard but didn't grind. 3rd gear would grind if you were upshifting or downshifting into it, but if I double-clutched, it was fine. I tested the brakes on a 1/4 mile stretch of road by the PO's house before taking it on the faster roads and they worked fine - locked up all four and plenty of pedal pressure. Still had my buddy follow me home, but the Jeep seemed solid. Even for an old Wrangler there weren't that many squeaks and rattles and the suspension felt pretty tight. There seems to be a little shimmy around 45-50 mph, but I've got much bigger issues to tackle before I bother with that. First up - removing rounded lugnuts. Then onto the drivers side floorboard followed by the floorboards where the roll bar attaches. Once the new metal is in, we'll lay a coat of rust preventative paint on the inside - either POR-15 if I'm feeling rich, but most likely it'll get Valspar tractor & implement paint followed by a topcoat of some sort. There are also some other random areas of body rust that need to be taken care of. If I had to guess I would say the RMS was replaced as there isn't a drop of oil anywhere near the rear of the pan. The oil pan gasket also looks to be new. I'll be replacing the valve cover gasket to put an end to any leaks and other than a fluid change, that should be all the engine needs at this point. I'm going to try putting some of the Pennzoil (or BG) synchromesh in the trans and cross my fingers and hope for the best!

I've checked the oil and anti-freeze when I looked and both looked/smelled okay. I will check the brake fluid reservoir and power steering tomorrow when I get the title. I can also drive it up and down his residential, dead-end road to verify proper operation of the vehicle. It'll be a pretty crude test, but it'll at least give me a baseline of what I'm dealing with. And I just remembered something...I have AAA. If the vehicle is registered and insured and in my name, it's covered under my AAA towing. I think I may just do that...

Owner called me up today and he's got the title for it. Going to trade him some monies for the title tomorrow and I'll slap on an extra set of 31's I have from an older Jeep. Then I think I'm going to take the legal route and get it registered and insured in my name on Wednesday during my lunchbreak and drive it home Wednesday evening. It's only about 5 miles from my house and it's mostly 25 and 45 MPH backroads, but don't want to take any chances - not with the cops in my town...they've got an eye for expired inspection stickers ;)

I'm not trying to be an @$$ so take this as constructive criticism, please. If you want anyone to take your proposal for funds seriously, it should be completely free of spelling errors. At one point in your overview, I was under the impression that ExxonMobil was involved with this idea.

If I were going to be doing some serious trailer hauling with with my MJ, I'd be looking to do a rear disc brake conversion.

Well, I probably can't wear it to work....but I want one. PM sent!

I hate to say it, but that hackjob of a window seal may have kept out the water from getting to your floorboards as they look pretty good. I will say that the rust location in your bed is, well, odd...

Lugnuts back to 90 ft-lbs. Constant checkups scheduled...

The lugnuts on these rims were originally torqued to 90 ft-lbs when I got them about 3000 miles ago. I suppose my mistake was not checking them during that time to make sure they stayed snug, but I've never once had this problem on any of my other vehicles - Jeep or not, aluminum rims or steel. I'll take them back down to 90 ft-lbs, but I'm still keeping a very watchful eye on them.

There are some threads on JeepForum.com that have some really positive reviews of Pennzoil Synchromesh where they essentially brought otherwise dead AX-15's back to life. I used synthetic gear oil from Redline on an older sports car that is notorious for horrible synchros and it made a world of difference with that transmission. I'm holding out hope...

Well, I just got back from meeting with the owner and looking the thing over. It started right up (after a little jump from my XJ) and seemed to be running fine. According to the gauge, it has really good oil pressure and the alternator is charging at 13-14 volts (also according to the gauge). The temp gauge is busted, but the heat works fine and the engine doesn't seem to be overheating. The clutch has good pressure as well as the brakes, but the transmission is very notchy. In fact, I couldn't even get the thing to go into 3rd while I was there, but every other gear worked fine. I wasn't able to drive it because two of the four tires don't hold any air. Onto the body - the drivers side floorboard is badly rusted and will need to be replaced, but the passenger side is good. There are a couple of spots on the side of the body that are nearly rusted through and will need repair. The floor by the rollbars on the drivers side will likely need to be replaced, but the passenger side seemed fine. The frame seems solid throughout, even by the shackle mounts. Both the driver and passenger door will require some rust repair and the top of the windshield has a spot where it is rotted. I'm sure I'll find more rot on the underside of the windshield - I may just need to replace it. The rear door on the body has trouble closing, but I think some massaging of the door lock will fix that. I intend to take the hard top off and leave it off. Until I can find someone selling a used soft top on the cheap, it'll remain with no top on. I may just get a bikini top for it, remove the carpet, and line the interior with some kind of bedliner after I fix all of the floorboard rust. I don't intend for this vehicle to be a daily driver. I have a super reliable XJ for that and I'm working on getting one of my MJs in road-worthy condition to serve as a backup. It should be done within the next month. As for the transmission - I'm going to look into it further. The owner was convinced that the AX-15 synchros commonly go out early, but I wasn't convinced this was true. I'll have to do some more research to figure out what to do with it. Unfortunately, the transaction didn't happen tonight. The owner STILL cannot find the title and I think it's down to him applying for a new one. He said he would take care of it, but can't get to it until Friday and he would call me Monday to keep me in the loop on what's going on with it. I'm not sure if he realizes what kind of process it is so, but he said he was willing to go through with it. He can't ever get rid of the thing until he does...

It's two pieces. One piece is attached at the oil pan and curves upwards to the engine bay. Shortly after the curve there is another piece that lies inside with an o-ring to prevent leakage. These two pieces are a real PITA to get apart sometimes. I finally gave up, applied some heat to where they connect, melted the o-ring and it came apart no problem. Had to get a new o-ring, though!

Figured it out just now. Kind of embarrassing but figured I should get it out there in case anyone runs into the same problem. It turned out to be REALLY loose lugnuts on the left rear wheel. The sound I was hearing was the rim slapping around while coasting. In fact, I went and retorqued ALL of the lugnuts to 120 ft-lbs and there were at least three loose on each wheel. Scary stuff, glad I caught this relatively early and didn't just write it off as another "Jeep sound." The clue was that it was getting progressively worse in a short amount of time. I first started noticing it Sunday evening and on my way home from work today, it was definitely getting louder - probably put about 25 miles on it since I first noticed the sound. The rim that was real loose doesn't seem to be damaged, but I'll definitely be keeping a close eye on it from now on...probably retorqueing the lugs every few days! Once I narrowed down the problem, I did a search over on NAXJA and found a member that had the exact same problem as me! He was a bit embarrassed too: http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1004379&highlight=loose+lugnuts. Also, the last guy that posted mentions how the alloy rims need constant retorqueing. Yep, definitely got a set of those on this truck:

Craigslist is another good spot to keep an eye on. I use http://www.searchtempest.com as it allows me to search a bunch of different areas near my house. In the recent weeks, I've seen about 4 or 5 AW4's up on there ranging from $100 to $500.