Brickmiata

Even at stock height, I intend to do everything I can to strengthen the front frame rails for next season. Plowing takes a toll on any truck and front end parts are to be considered consumables. I would expect to go through things faster still with a lift.. Especially ujoints. Just keeping up with plowing related repairs has consistently cost me $40 and 3-4 hours a week since the snow started coming down here.

You would have to extend the plow mount frame downwards until the a frame is sitting level. 5 inches sounds like it may be a bit excessive without some serious reinforcements both to the plow mount and the unibody.

Finished the ujoints today and installed the new Transfer case linkage. Both work great now. New upgraded battery cables and terminals are in also. Found my reverse light problem was the wires resting on the exhaust. I did not have the wire and soldering iron to fix the problem at the time but by the end of the week that and the liscence plate light will be sorted out. Making good progress despite the setbacks

The pile next to my garage is an easy 7ft tall and goes 20ft back into the yard. Closing in on 110" this year. The average by this time is 46".

In for solution. Mine does similar things

I had to flush mine twice before I totally got rid of the icing problem. First time I used atf and the second time I got fischer fluid from napa. I didn't notice any difference in operation except the fischer stuff hasn't frozen up yet and we've been down at -7 once or twice. Plans to make all 4wd repairs tonight in the -3 degree garage :doh:

Well, the new linkage will be here tomorrow and I'm picking up new u-joints for the front axles tonight. Now hoping to have her back to plowing health by Saturday. Maybe I can eve get the reverse lights working again while I'm down there! Fixed a pinhole in the gas tank that finally turned from a wet spot on the tank skid to a steady drip. Turns out it was a pretty steady leak from the tank but was being mostly caught by the plastic skid. This will be the first tank I go through with a dry gas tank so who know, maybe it will result in a noticeable increase in mileage. The patch consists of a fuel resistant putty that I spread around the hole, an epoxy/resin and a fiberglass sheet. The epoxy is pretty similar to jb weld and seems to have adhered very well and dried hard as a rock. It should be a long lasting repair. That said, I will be replacing the tank as soon as warmer weather shows up.

Well, as usual the storm was not without some equipment drama. I had some bolts shear off at the front driveshaft to transfer case yoke connection. This cause a hell of a racket while I pulled over and also dented the floor and tore apart the t-case shift linkage. The bolts were extracted, the rear u-joint in the double cardan was replaced and the driveshaft was reinstalled (all done in the 14 degree snow yesterday). I am still waiting on the front axle u-joints which are about to let go also and the shift linkage is missing a piece and is basically unrepairable so I'm stuck getting under the truck if I want 4wd for the time being. Luckily, todays snow is light and won't require plowing so I have until Saturday to get the truck back to 100%. I have ordered the Boostwerks 231 HD linkage to get myself back up and running and from what I can see it should do a great job of that. Now I'm just hoping all the parts get here in time to throw it back together and get back out there making money! Of course, the obligatory mid storm shot And I got around to digging our 4.5 ft tall mail box out of the snowbank.. If you can't tell by the picture, it's not just shorter than the snowbank but the road has thinned over 8ft since all this started so the post was also set back inside the snowbank over 3ft

Here we go again. 8-12 tonight and some potential for midweek too. I'm getting cold and tired this month.

My old boss used to buy a 5ft piece of 4x4 lumber every other spring to use as a rear bumper on his little chevy. I always though it was strange trucks didn't have to have a rear bumper.

Copilot and I on our way to sand/salt a few driveways. We haven't seen bare pavement in our driveway in 3 weeks!

I'd gladly donate some of ours. I believe Worcester MA is now the snowiest city in America this year (90.1" thus far) and we have two more impending storms to round out the week. I'm tired and the city plow guys are even more so. The truck has had its issues but for a 28 yr old vehicle that sat for over a year before this winter, she's been a real trooper and continues to clear any amount of snow with a little effort and a few tricks. Mechanical update: u joints in the front axles are the latest victims with plenty of play and some good clunks when going from forward gears to reverse while plowing. They'll be on order today and replaced within the week. Supervisor at home making sure I get all the snow out of his way

Ran through the rest of the front brakes early this morning and replaced the following: Then I went right back out for more of this

I haven't sorted out the reverse lights yet but I slapped on a new caliper and tightened up the plow mount. Other than the fact that the pads and rotor are down to metal on metal on that corner, I'm all set to get back out there and do it again. Here comes another 12"-18" tonight.

Yesterday started well and ended poorly for the MJ. After work, I met up with a friend and we fixed the blinker issue altogether. Also tested the wires for the washer pump and found I have power so the pump is the problem. Last but not least, I rewired the old a/c fan to come on with the ignition until I get a temp switch to run it. I am hoping this helps with the cooling on the highway with the plow up. Unfortunately, for the moment, it will not. After running wires and testing everything, I found the fan itself isn't operational so I'll be on the hunt for a new one.. This is where the day started to unwind. From there, I went to do a few small leftover plow jobs and I was rewarded with a badly sticking front caliper, no reverse lights and a missing bolt from the drivers side of the plow mount which caused some good clunking noises for a while before I found it. More repairs to come... and I better hurry or ill be stuck driving around with my snow blower to take care of my regular customer's driveways.

52" in 7 days. The truck is runnin great after over 50hrs of plowing in a week. The front end is holding up just fine although the 3.07 gearing requires too much clutch play. I'd like to swap to 3.73s which should net a nice change in drivability while plowing and hopefully still allow reasonable highway travel on relatively stock tires.

Well the last 36 hrs have been nuts with almost 3' of snow hitting the ground in about 24hrs. Just waking up after my first couple hour nap to go back out. Getting ready Monday night The trusty rav4 is actually in this picture if you can believe it About 18hrs in. 100 miles of driving during the storm at this point. Countless driveways plowed and still averaging over 10 mpg. Not sure if that's good or not but with all the time spent pushing heavy things back and forth, I'll take it. Parked her in the snow bank so I could dig out the rav when I got home. The rav didn't actually require digging though. New tires on it and I just rammed out of the pile with 3 ft of snow still covering it. Last, a shot of the wife and dog bundled up and attempting to sit nicely in the snow

Around town, I have no problem with temp. Highway speeds, I do have a problem with sustained climbing with the plow on. After maybe 1/2 mile of continuous climbing, it creeps to the red. I just have to take it easy (50-55) and it won't get any hotter.

:clapping: I see what you did there. I've got a pump and pressure gauge so I can play with the pressures if need be. I'll have the snowblower and a few 5 gallon buckets of sand/salt mix strapped in the bed also for some extra rear end traction.

Ha I like the idea of an Atari controller! I've become very familiar with the MM1 controller in the past month and I'm pretty sure I could fix anything that went wrong with it (short of actually catching fire) but if I am ever without, that would be a cool project. Maybe I could rig one of my Nintendo 64 controllers to control the plow and lights. Plenty of action shots coming soon.

During Saturdays storm Right about here I realized that my alternator had gone belly up. The battery did a great job getting me home by itself. I replaced the alternator with a 100 amp unit this morning. Also replaced the temp sensor and oil pressure sensor to get the gauges going and replaced the thermostat and flushed the coolant for good measure. All set for the Blizzard of 2015 coming Tuesday!!

Interesting. Thanks!

Its an 87 and I assumed it was a base but I really don't know 4.0 ba10 (ax15 now) d35 3.07 tow mirrors crank windows, manual locks (don't even know if power was an option in 87) no cruise buckets full console dummy cluster, no tach (swapped for full gauges now) no clock 23.5 gal gas tank (leaks) silver lower paint and silver body line pinstripe (bedlined now)

As stated above, its the very large thing plugged into the left side of the fuse panel. Mine was very stuck in there but its always the first thing to hit the trash can when I bring a new vehicle home.