thecodemonk

It's technically illegal to remove it. How enforced that is will vary, state by state, but the law is the law. I chose to stick with a cat since it does help emissions a little and modern cats don't really restrict much (not at my power level and not enough to matter...I'm not chasing every last horsepower). I know several people who delete them or put a straight through pipe inside of it to effectively eliminate it and still pass a visual inspection. Not really my issue, but everyone gets to choose whether they want to, or they're ok with the risk of getting a fixit ticket (relatively minor and low likelihood of detection).

My daughter is full of energy and smiles and I love watching her grow. That keeps a smile on my face each day (sometimes a more tired smile but still a smile). Also, I dove back into my music and brought out the old pedalboard...and bought a new guitar. Playing that between meetings while working from home (or absent-mindedly plucking away while listening to the meetings) has helped revitalize me a bit after a few dark weeks.

As summer arrives, so does the true test for heat! Driving around town in 90-100 degree weather made it quickly apparent that I would prefer to go doorless like @JordanTMiller did. So...a bit of video watching, a bit of research, and a bit of grinding...and I got the doors removable! I've had them on and off a few times and it takes me about 30 seconds to go from doorless to "sealed" mode. While I was in there, I also adjusted the doors and the passenger door actually lines up better than before now! (the drivers door will take a bit more adjustment that I'll do once I replace the rubber seals) I have tube doors on order (ordered 7/8), but there's some bit of fiasco going on with Quadratec that has caused them to miss two promised ship dates so far. I'd had good experiences several years ago with them, but I'm not sure I want to buy from them again after this (no matter how good the deal). Anyways, with MY temperature mostly handled (doorless feels a good 5 degree cooler than having doors on, even with windows open), let's look at the Jeep's temperature. Summer really is the test of all components relating to heat and there's two main issues that have cropped up. First, the starter solenoid or cables seem to get a bit too hot and sometimes won't start (no click, no nothing). The engine temperature itself reads 195-199 most of the time, so it's not overheating, but the starter IS closer to the headers and despite having a heat shield and being a "mini" starter, seems to get too warm and has heat soak. I'm not sure if it's the solenoid or the wires, but it definitely seems like there's an issue venting the heat in the engine bay. I thought I'd be clever and install a momentary switch that connected to a timer relay that hooks to the fans. However, it the GM computer seems to be controlling the ground connection, rather than the power connection and as such, the relay acts wonky such that the fans are just always on now. Either way, turning the fans on after turning off the jeep didn't help the starter, so I'll probably undo all of that and just do a more normal "fan override" latching switch (not to help with this, but as a "I want to be able to force the fans on when I want to" option). I have something else showing up tomorrow that might help me with the under hood temperatures, so hopefully I'll get it installed this weekend and will test it while it's still hot (it really only stays above 90 degrees here for like...a month at most). In the meantime, I try and leave the jeep running wherever possible and it seems that, if the outside temperature is 90 degrees or above, I have a 1 in 3 chance that, when I get stop the truck, I may have to sit there for 10 minutes until the truck will start again. More recently, over time, I noticed the jeep running a little warmer and warmer while driving around town...it was a really slow change, but I noticed that, even in 80 degree weather, it was getting up to 200 degrees (still well below the 210 operating temperature of the 5.3, but above the 195 it always sat at previously). I noticed the coolant reservoir was a bit low and there appears to be a very slow leak on the heater lines where they connect to the water pump. I topped off the coolant and it seems to be back to how it was when I first started driving it, so I'll keep an eye on that until I can fix that. Otherwise, the only other work I've done recently was fix the hood adjustment. When you have a LS MJ, a lot of people ask me to open the hood. I think the hood bolts weren't tightened enough so it slowly worked down and started hitting the black plastic on the cowl. A quick readjustment when I topped off the coolant, and it opens/closes smoothly again. Sadly, the cowl plastic has a bit of a warp to it now, so I'll need to replace that eventually too. Anyways...not as picture heavy this time, but it's an update to where things are at.

I had to get things just right to get my HO Tuners to connect. It's not that intuitive, I found. Once it connected once, though, it connected consistently after that for me. Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

Huzzah! That's great news and progress! Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

Weird...I don't have that issue. o_O It's so exciting to hear it run the first time...loud, but exciting! You're going to love driving it!

Hurray!! Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

After this weekend, landing on them repeatedly as I drug myself over rocks and hills, I can attest to the sturdiness of Krusty's sliders.

It's not too hard...the reason the offset shackles will cause issues is that it changes the angle of the spring mount. Where it used to be roughtly shapped like this (left and right): | | Offset shackles will shape it like this (slightly exageraged): / \ What that means is the front (hard mounted) bushing will be under a constant angled load and wear out a lot faster. Would it work for a while? probably. Will it ride poorly? probably. If you rebuilt the front to angle to match where the spring will point with the offset shackles, you could solve that issue...but at that point, you've done more work than welding on some perches. Welding some perches really is very simple and easy. :)

Beefy!

I love seeing our trucks out doing work! I love the paint too!

Had a good weekend out in the woods with the MJ. The local club, North Idaho Trail Blazers, had their annual Cabin Fever run and my wife and I went on out favorite trail. It's not the most difficult trail, but it's the one we got engaged on and offers beautiful views! At the trail head, we started with airing down (of course) and my wife grabbed a great shot of most of the rigs! Then, as we started up the creek, we hit "Wet Wedgie", which is a rock V in the creek. The fancier jeeps skipped it, but I didn't come to this trail to take bypasses. No lockers, a good spotter, and a little bit of throttle, and we were through! Here's a short video of the MJ getting through it. :) As we waited on the trail for a few other jeeps, my wife got a great shot of the MJ in the creek too. After this, we had a long fclimb up the hill and across the ridge of the mountains here. The jeep's engine and transmission got a bit warm with the long slow climb but that's the only time I had any issues. We paused about halfway up for 10 minutes and it came right back down in temperature from 250 back to 199. A little more climbing and we got to "the wall", which is a tall hump at the top (preceded with a few smaller "kelly humps"...aka "wheelbase checks" as I call them). A little momentum carried me right over. With the LWB jeep, I dragged the rear over each and every one of them, but didn't have any body damage. It seemed to always hit the rear hitch and bumper only, which took the hits just fine. My trailer plug housing is the only thing that took any damage. The wires and plug itself are fine. I'll figure out a different mounting solution for that later, so it'll be more protected in the future. A bit later, my wife took a really artsy picture of the MJ...I think it looks awesome! As we got to the peak of the trail, we lined up for a nice shot. You'll notice that one of these things is not like the others. :) As we exited the trail, we pass a few driveways for those who like to live deep out in the woods. We have a very patriotic community out in Pinehurst, as you can tell. Since we had a small group on our trail, we finished it by 1pm and thought we'd go check out one of the others. While it was a bit less friendly to the long wheel base jeeps, it was still fun to watch the short wheel base jeeps play around in the holes (we'll be updating this trail in the future to have something more fun for the JLs and MJs and such later). One of the holes DID claim some Jeep steering (not mine, thankfully). I'm pretty sure the drag link isn't supposed to be in that shape. There WAS a rock pile that I attempted part of, which got a great shot of the jeep! Shortly after that, I got stuck. Some lockers are definitely in order. Ok, one last glamour shot of the jeep on the trail. I absolutely love this jeep. It performed great, didn't break anything, and gave us a lot of adventure and memories this weekend. I can't wait to go out some more!

I have those too and even my 5'2" friend gets in...she takes it as a challenge to be able to do so as ladylike as possible. I think dirtbound makes a similar set now too. Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

Looking good! With as hot as it is here today, I need to get the doorless thing going. Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

I've seen your tool list. The new coils probably don't account for the added weight. You could probably do a quick test and unload your tools and take a picture to find out for sure though. :)