frogpirate

:wavey:

I think the last time I had a vehicle in a shop (other than the new ones) was the last time one of mine failed a DEQ - and that time I did the work, and still had to pay a shop to get the waiver. I hate, hate, hate DEQ. At least Washington stops when the vehicle is 25 years old.

That was the idea, but that idea hit a snag today. Despite the tune up, the 'manche failed DEQ inspection on idle CO2 (3.99 ppm). :( In Washington state you can try to repair and the first retest is free OR you can pay an "authorized" DEQ repair for a minimum $150 repair, and if it doesn't pass, you get a waiver. After a bit of hemming and hawing, I took it up to a local shop to get some work done. Of course, I'm not getting off that cheap - he is replacing the O2 sensor, and with labor etc. it's going to be a $300-dollar bill. Fsk. What burns me is that I could do the work MUCH cheaper, but Washington won't give me a waiver if I do the work and it doesn't pass. :shake:

No pictures for this one, just general maintenance. This morning I put on new rotor, cap and plug wires, changed the oil & filter, changed the fuel filter and replaced the serpentine belt. Nothing exciting, but it's nice to get all the new parts on. I still need to finish up the coolant change, and change the transmission fluid & filter and Dana 44 fluid and gasket. Won't happen tomorrow though, 'cause I'm off to visit my Son.

I didn't have new gaskets for the towers (not sure they are even available) so I used copper RTV. I like gasket cement on the cover side (only) with cork gaskets, so I put that on the gasket surface. Gasket cement in place. And then stuck the new gasket in place. Fel-Pro cork gasket. A little wiggle-jiggle (hence the cement) and the cover fell in place. Cover with new PCV gasket installed. I sold a few items the other day, and have been wanting a 3/8" torque wrench for .. well, years actually. This gave me the excuse, so I checked Sears on-line and the Craftsman was on sale for $70. I got cleaned up and headed into Portland to check it out. I stopped and checked Baxter Auto Parts ($65 for their brand) and Lowe's ($75 for their brand) before just heading to Sears to get an inch-pound torque wrench. Lloyd Center mall is really close to one of my favorite lunch places, so after getting the wrench, I walked to Grand Central Cafe' for barley vegetable soup, fresh bread, coffee and a peanut butter cookie. Lunch. Mmm, cookie! Back at the house, I torqued the valve cover bolts in two-steps to 55 inch lbs. Once that was done, I replaced the air-filter (oily on the breather end - is that usual?) and spark plugs. The plugs that were in the truck have about a .60" gap, while the new ones have the specified .35" gap. I'm getting the feeling this truck did not get much love once in left the city. :headpop: I also drained most of the radiator fluid yesterday, and found one good thing: Hard to see, but there is a transmission cooler there. EDIT: I think I was wrong - I think that is actually a power-steering cooler. The lines are still leaking. ...but the lines to it are leaking around the clamps. There is a LOT of leakage under the truck. I'm really hoping the oil on the back was caused by the valve cover gasket and not a rear seal.

I've been dreading doing the valve cover gasket, not so much becuase of how hard it is (it's not that bad) but because of the clean up. :( Yesterday I finally tackled the job. Before, oily, dirty and leaking. Ugh. I had an old gallon can of Berrymans carburator cleaner and used it to get the heaviest gunk off. I can't say I'm real happy about the look of the rockers; it's obvious someone has not been changing oil real regularly. :fs1: Yucky. After a bunch of cleaning, I called it "good enough". I put the breather towers in the Barrymans, and they came out really nice. Cleaner. You can see the towers behind the cover. Nice clean gasket area.

I've been busy with school (this is finals week) so I have not been doing much, other than driving my MJ. I have been collecting parts though: Even though today was a study-for-finals day, I took a break and went out and installed the new headlights. I'd noticed the old ones were hazed and fogged up (and dim) so I went ahead and ordered new ones when ordering the other parts. I also got a new right side headlight 'door' to replace the one with a chunk missing, two new turn signal housings and two new side marker light housing. The right side marker housing that came with the truck had a hole in it, and that turn signal housing was partially made of packing tape. :roll: As you can see, it was a bit filthy back in there, so as usual for me I took time to clean every thing out. I also sprayed all the sockets with electronics cleaner. I just washed it out with a little soap and water, with a little good old scrubbing thrown in. With all the new components installed - including a set of side marker bulbs to replace the missing ones - it looks much better. From there it is a simple lather-rinse-repeat for the other side: And then a light check to make sure everything works: They are not HID's, but at least they work (and look) one hell of a lot better. I have two finals tomorrow, then I can jump into the rest of that pile of parts. I also need to pick up a set of plug wires; any suggestions? Ken

Ugh. I do worry a little about that. I had a set of speakers stolen out of my car when we lived in PDX (Alberta & MLK). I hate the idea of pulling the face-plate out, but I might. OTOH, the truck looks beat enough, maybe everyone will ignore it. ;-) My neighbor's '10 Tundra is a much more tempting target. :brows: Thanks for the wiring kudo's Rob. I'm an ex-Navy Sonar tech, and worked in the electrical field for ~25 years, so it's kind of my bag baby. :yes: I usually end up over-doing it (you should see my motorcycle wiring - two 'extra' fuse blocks and marine wire for everything) but it always works. This is on the bike: One of the fuse blocks: Poor thing has been getting NO love since the 'manche came home.

From forever one of the first things I do is add a semi-decent stereo to my vehicles. :D Back in '81 or so I bought a '57 Hudson Station Wagon (actually a Rambler clone) for $300 and put $400 worth of stereo equipment in it. These days my needs are modest, but I gotta have tunes. I went on Amazon and ordered up a Pioneer DEH-2200UB deck, a pair of Pioneer TS-G1343R 5.25" speakers and some foam speaker mats. After looking at the wiring and mounting, I decided to make it easy on myself and ran up to the local Audio Source and picked up installation and wiring kits. I spent ~ $175 on everything. Old and busted speaker. I wacked the ends off the factory speaker wiring, and soldered on the Pioneer speaker pigtails. Soldered. Heat shrink in place waiting to be shrunk. A quick pass with the heat gun, and the heat-shrink is all nice and snug. Shrunked. I then made a little window in the boom mats with a pair of scissors and pulled the wires through. Ready for a speaker...which I totally forgot to take a picture of. Once both speakers were done, I moved into the house (it was getting chilly in the garage!) and made up the wiring adapter. One wire down, a bunch to go. Again, I stripped, twisted, soldered and heat shrinked all the wires. Ready to go into the truck. A good soldering iron is worth what it costs. Mine is a Hako 936 adjustable soldering station, and cost about $80 iirc. The hardest thing of the whole install was cutting all the extra ears off the mounting adapter. I have a Xacto saw that did a great job, but I managed to hack my finger too. :( Ahh well, it's not working on it if there is no blood sacrifice. :wrench: In the dash. I still don't have my new speed-o-meter cable, so I haven't put the trim back on the dash yet. It was really nice to have tunes to listen to this morning! :jump: I want to add some rear speakers, but I don't have brackets, so I may just make some so I can use 6.5" round speakers (probably another set of Pioneer's). Hopefully some hard parts will show up this afternoon or tomorrow so I can get the tune up done this weekend. And eventually I need to get a set of tires. And shocks. And...and....and..... :rotf:

I think as long as I'm willing to give up the shift indicator, a floor shift cluster will work. I'm thinking of eventually converting this to floor shift...maybe. I'd want to do a new column too if I did that. I have seen a conversion of the indicator on a non-column shift cluster, but it doesn't look all that 'clean' as the indicator intrudes on the tach.

This was my wife's idea.TMSAISTI :jump:

Thanks Nathan, I'll look for a 87-90 cluster. I tore into the dash, and after a few false starts got to the speed-O cable. Yep, that looks busted. The drive tang was still in the speedometer, and it was a PITA to dig it out! Once that was done, and I had things semi-back together (no point in putting it all back together right now) I decided to add a little personality. The column shifter knob was MIA: I have a bucket of old cheesy tools, and grabbed one and removed the handle. A few minutes with the propane torch, and wala! Not to pick on Stanly (I have a good friend that works for their industrial tool division) but that is about the best place for one of their crap-tastic screwdrivers. Plus, it fits with the working-class nature of this truck. Ken

I have the very basic idiot lights, so that is a good idea. Can I swap my speed-o-meter / ODO into a Cherokee gauge cluster? I'd like to keep the low-mileage ODO. Yeah, I know it's kind of vain, but whatever. ;-) IRS return was in the checking account this AM :D so I just placed an order for a bunch of tune-up stuff. Rock Auto has a replacement speedometer cable from Doorman for $19 so I'll order one as soon as I check the other to make sure that is what broke. I'm 93.5% sure, but hey, I could be wrong. :chillin: Plans for today are to pull the seat & get the mat up to check the floor. Pray for me, I'm going in! Ken

Oh, the Katoom should be a hoot! I had a little DRZ400SM commuter for awhile that was TOO much fun...as long as you were going 50 miles or less. After that, the plank they called a seat got a bit uncomfortable. Back to door locks. When we left our intrepid reporter yesterday, he'd removed the right side door lock and had a key made. Look ma, no lock! Today I wanted to swap locks left for right, since the left lock is all boogered up. (That is the technical term - boogered up) Yep, looks boogered. To get the inside door / lock handle off, you have to remove the linkage. Remove the (3) screws holding the door handle assembly on, pull it forward and out and thenyou can see the linkage. The little clips move towards you off the rod, and then the rod comes right out. Here is a view of the back side of the door handle assembly. The black lever on top is the lock, and the one with the spring is the door handle. You can see the rod clips (white on bottom, black on top). Once I had the locks swapped and linkage reassembled (he says like it was easy, although it wasn't) it was time to button things back up. I'd been careful with the OEM dust cover so I could put it back, which I did using 2" reinforced strapping tape. I found just a tiny bit of rust at the bottom of the door, so I hit it with 100 grit sandpaper and some self etching primer. I'll do a better job painting it next time I have the door apart, but this should slow the rust for now. That stuff on the bottom is just good old fashioned DIRT! Once the paint dried I put the much cleaner door panel back on: ...and then the door handle assembly, arm rest and window crank: By the way, I was calling the interior color "butterscotch" but I had the armrest sitting on a piece of cardboard drying, and realized it blended right in. So now I'm calling the interior color "old cardboard". :yes: All this so I can lock the truck. Hey, there is a key in the lock on the drivers door! Note also the high tech door holder opener. Our driveway has a little slope, and the OEM door holder openers are a little weak. Magically the right side assembled itself: **DANGER WILL ROBINSON - Rant coming** Whoever designed these door handles should be shot. Except he's probably already dead. Trying to get the linkages on, and the little clips snapped back in place is an exercise in frustration. :ack: **rant over** I actually partially un-boogered the other lock such that a key will go in now. It still won't turn however, so it is purely cosmetic. And of course, there is another high tech door holder opener. And for the first time in who knows how many years, the truck is sitting in the driveway with locked doors. :banana: In the 2-steps forward, one step back way things happen, I think my speedometer cable broke this morning. I took off to go to the parts store, and there was a awful sound from under the dash. Within a block I noticed the speedo needle bouncing, then there was a twang! and it went to zero. :grrrr: I guess I'll be shopping for a speedo cable soon. Ken

Back to the MJ. I crawled under it yesterday with the help of "Curbside" ramps and "cardboard box" creeper and cleaned the tags on the Dana 44 rear. The first tag was the "use clutch type oil" tag that confirmed the Trac Loc. The second one was this: The camera did not do a good job of capturing the text, so I went under again this morning with my ultra-cool Fenix LED Tactical light and wrote the text down: 8953005417 3 54 605325-9 I think this is telling me it's a 3.54 rear? Some of the research I've done indicates that this combo would have a 3.55 rear. Any clues? Ken

Yeah, I don't think I'd do it on a 2-smoke RD! I did ride a '82 GL500 (same as CX500) Honda 9,333 miles in 11 days in the 2003 Iron Butt Rally, but the GL500 is a far cry from your RD. Still, I vibrated for hours every time I got off the bike. :eek:

In 2005, my wife and I made up team "Candy @$$ Llamas" for the Race Across Oregon, a little 534 mile, non-stop bicycle race that finishes at Timberline Lodge. http://www.raceacrossoregon.com/rao_history/rao-2005-statistics We were the first ever 2-person mixed team to finish the race. Since then we have backed down how much we ride, but we are still pretty active. Lisa ran the Portland Marathon last year, her first ever. We're slow, but we get 'er done eventually. :brows: I'm also into long distance motorcycle rallies, and rode in the Ten 'n Ten rally last Summer. 10,000 miles in 10 days - well...I actually did 10,505 miles. http://www.utah1088.com/10n10%20Mileage%20Sheet1.pdf http://www.utah1088.com/10n10%20Final%20Scores%20Sheet1.pdf ...and won the rally. My first ever win in a LD rally, and I've done a few. I have been very successful on the last 3, posting a 2nd, 3rd and 1st. For now, I'm done though, as it's an expensive hobby (aren't they all) that I can't really afford, and am not that interested in repeating right now. This was my 3rd multi-day rally (most are 24-36 hours) and they are very draining. Lots of pictures from the Ten 'n Ten on my Picasa page: https://picasaweb.google.com/FrogPirate/TenNTen02?authkey=Gv1sRgCLr56bmWr-CBRQ&feat=directlink https://picasaweb.google.com/FrogPirate/TenNTenLeg2?authkey=Gv1sRgCMvVt8W58tO6ogE&feat=directlink And Cycle World has a blog / write up by Alan Rider, who rode the rally as well. http://blog.cycleworld.com/tags/10-n-10-rally/ My wife and I tend to do things a little on the extreme side. :help: I'll keep an eye out on NAXJA for a call. Beer is good. Ken

As I may have mentioned, my truck came sans door keys. I stopped by my local locksmith (Curley's on Hwy 99 for locals) and asked them what it would cost to make a key. He told me $15 if I removed the lock. OK, I can do that. I decided to pull the passenger lock, as I noticed as I was leaving the locksmith that the drivers side had been "screwdrivered" at some point. :fs1: Getting to the clips on the door / lock handle was a little hard, but not too bad. If you have never done this, there is a plastic clip that goes around the rod. You simply push the clip off the rod, and the rod drops out of the door or lock handle. I don't think this door panel has been washed in the trucks 23 year life. :shake: I sprayed it with Simple Green once it was off, and let it soak while I got the lock out. The door dust cover was pristine, and it hurt a little to have to remove it. I used a heat gun on low setting to soften the glue, but it curled pretty bad and I think it's probably toast. :( I took the factory speaker out, and it was junk - the surround is gone. Oh well, I needed an excuse to get some decent speakers. :rotf: I tossed everything back in the truck and drove back up to Curley's. The tech looked at the lock, and asked if the truck had a glove box. "Uh, yeah." We then went and pulled that lock out (took 2 minutes) and it is the one he used!! On the plus side, he felt so bad about having me tear the door apart that he only charges me $10 for two keys. I'm hoping to swap the passengers side lock into the drivers door, and find another lock for the passengers side to get re-keyed. Anyone have an extra lock kicking around? Ken

Small world - I lived over off Padden around '02-03. We live over by Lakeshore now. In between we lived in Portland, around MLK & Alberta. When we lived there, we often rode our bicycles out to Boring; it was a normal grocery / potty stop. :D We'll have to get together for a cold one some time. :cheers: Ken

Thx mnkyboy, I'll do that. I have already activated an account over there (same name). I've been to Boring, and if I lived anywhere other than Vantucky, I'd give you a hard time about it. :brows: Ken

Yeah, they look pretty generic. One is held on/together with a wire tie. The down-side to fleet vehicles is that they get treated like red-headed step children. The upside is that they are often low-mile, and have regular maintenance.

I'm in Vancouver, but the truck was in Monroe Oregon, just south of Corvalis. Actually, about 110 miles south of me.

OK, now just some generic pictures. Yes, it was cold this morning. I call it "patina". My wife calls it "junky looking." :huh???: It looks like there have been a couple different mirrors on that door, including the floppy one that is there now. OK, she may have a point. Really though, we've all seen worse examples, right? Property of.... This was also in the glove box: no door keys though. :( Hey cool, the numbers match the title! Ken

I don't want to change the gauge cluster, because I love this ODO reading! "You could hear it on the AM radio..." if the AM radio worked that is. ...and yes, it's lose in there. :dunno: I think the "ROTO BEAM" switch is going to end up powering some fog lights. Or maybe amber rear facing pre-runner style safety lights. :yes: I'm guessing this is from its days as a city truck. As an ex-smoker, I am totally down with this. More left overs from its days as a city truck. There is a NMO antenna mount on the left fender as well.

My wife already knows about my addictions. :roll: I have found some surprises, both good and not so good. This is good: Dana 44 This is not-so-good: How do you break pieces of the bed corner off? This is very, very good: Huzzah! Traction-Lock! I'm trying to determine if these are Metric Ton springs, or just regular with an extra add-a-leaf: Most of the rest is stuff I'd expect on a 23 year old truck. The bench seat seems to list towards the drivers door, and of course there is that PIMP seat cover.