DirtyComanche

Just the pressure bottle cap (it's not actually an overflow tank). If the system is drained you often need to bleed it. A steep hill may help with this.

Was pretty sidetracked today but did change out the track bar for the RC one. Honestly, I wish I had just sold the RC track bar and bought a better one that actually included a new bracket and didn't use a heim in single sheer (which they didn't even bother to safety washer, huh? I made a safety washer). They also used a fancy smancy F911 bolt at the axle end, rather than having you oversize the hole or something like that, which wasn't a bad idea other than I was left scratching my head at why they would use a course thread in the application, it rather defeats the gains from going to the F911 over a Gr8. Anyways, long story short, the track bar I took out was probably perfectly fine and I highly doubt it was in any way a contribution to the death wobble. There is one TRE (right at the pitman arm) that is a little suspect, otherwise all of the steering was tight enough. Looking at the tires the driver's side is noticeably cambered in at the top. Ruh-roh. The balljoints aren't completely falling out of that side at least, in that there was no play in the tire when I had it on jackstand, but that doesn't mean a lot and I didn't put a prybar in it. My guess is I need to do the balljoints, but I will do more investigating tomorrow. Failing that the housing or C is bent and it should be discarded. Looks like I'm in for yet again more work.

Everyone is happy! Yay!

If you're running the whole 97+ EFI, yeah, it needs a cat and a rear O2. Or at least I assume it does because that's how I recall it being set up. However, you can delete the cat and buy a cheap simulator rear O2 sensor and it will (probably) not throw a code. The rear O2 does not impact engine operation, it is just to monitor emissions. If there is something wrong causing a lean/rich condition right now, it should probably still throw a code... However, if everything is original, yeah, replacing the O2 sensors and the cat would not be a bad idea. Along with doing all the other normal tune up items.

Rough Country. You couldn't pay me to run their shocks. As it is I've been waffling on even installing the track bar I have (came with the truck, new in box). Maybe their quality has improved dramatically in the last 10 years, it's not like they're actually building their own shocks, but I just avoid the entire brand.

Also the oil pressure gauge doesn't zero, and when I filled the tank it took more fuel than it *should* have and wrapped the gauge well beyond the full line. Yup, more awesome electrical. Until I get a speedometer cable I can't even go by the tripometer for approximate fuel remaining, which I religiously do in anything I drive.

I finally got it to the point that I threw some plates on it and made the entire 25km round trip to the gas station and back. Proof that it went outside. 8) It has a critical speed of 86km/h and then the deathwobble sets in hard. :grrrr: Lack of caster isn't helping. So I ordered some RE LCAs and I will throw the crappy RC adjustable trackbar on it, and I have some steering parts around that should help too. RE coils I put in compared with the ones that were in there:

Took my MJ for a drive tonight... And it definitely needs some caster adjustment. It has a set of what I seem to recall are 2.5" RE lift springs in it, but they sit way high, I measured them at about 4" in my XJ. I've been looking all over the interweb and finding conflicting reports. Are the RE3705 fixed length lower control arms longer than the stock ones? Some places are claiming they're the same, others are saying they're 16", which is about bang on for what I need. I would just shim the LCA pockets but I will break the studs off the forks, and I can't get them any faster than I can get RE stuff. Also, my CA bushings are all pretty trashed, if I replace the lower arms I'm at least half way there... If I have no definite answer by tomorrow AM I will just order the adjustable ones (RE3720).

Had no instrument lights... Changed the headlight switch because it seemed suspect anyways (the headlights went out on me while checking the brakes). One thing led to another and I wound up pulling a few fuses out of the fuse panel. Bad news. Everything is corroded badly from the clutch/brake master leaking and water running in from the hood scoops. Now I can't get much of anything to work, and I don't want to pull the bulkhead connector to get at the back of the fuse panel, I'm guessing it will only make things worse. :fs1:

It's in the actual app settings for Tapatalk, Or so I can only assume, since I don't use it.

I can't upload to photobucket from my phone anymore... They broke their website a couple days ago when they rolled out the latest version of their app, so neither of them work it seems, lots of people are unhappy about it. PM me your email and I'll send you pictures of the diagrams.

I updated mine to more accurately reflect how it currently is.

I think we asked before, shipping to Canada is quite terribly expensive? I'd love to have a bumper, mine is thrashed and don't really have the time to make a new one.

I've been busy at work and beat/sick (it's that time of year) so I didn't work on this as much as I wanted to. But I did bleed the brakes out no less than 3 times. Maybe 4 or 5 times. Tonight I finally got it to be reasonable, well, probably as good as it gets, mounting the rear calipers upside down definitely didn't help me. On the test drive braking wasn't spectacular, but I'm comparing it to a very modern vehicle (2011 JK) and a vehicle with a hopped up hydroboost setup (plow truck). I could mash it and get the brakes locked up, or slowly apply more pedal until they locked up, so I really think it is working properly... Only thing is the brake fail light will NOT go off. I've smacked the distribution block to try to get it to reset, pumped the brakes a ton of times, etc. Still on. Mind you, it didn't come on until after I had done 6 or 7 bleeding runs on the rear brakes... I'm sorta thinking it's just stuck. I haven't decided how to proceed. Drive it a bit and see if it goes off? It does stop...

Dropped again. Still not anywhere near reasonable. :rotf:

That camo job looks familiar, might have belonged to another member at some point?

I think the engine/trans/tcase would swap easily enough. I didn't check what tcase that is, but if it's anything with a VC I wouldn't bother. It's generally fairly easy to bolt other NP/NV tcases to a GM tranny. I don't know what that rear axle is, but chances are it's the wrong bolt pattern, wrong width, and you would be farther behind trying to adapt that suspension than to just start with a blank page. And the 'G80' typically is a clutch pack limited slip (maybe with a bizarre flyweight arrangement).

I have an alignment diagram in my FSM, it's what you actually want I think... I will post it at some point, but it's in all the FSMs. Just some simple points to measure from and if it's not okay, it's not okay. All measurements are always in millimeters on these things.

Check with your insurance company and local bylaws before getting excited. My insurance company is decent, $50 premium for having a solids burning appliance, and no bylaw issues. Drive 10 minutes into town and its a totally different story. Stainless double (or triple) wall chimney pipe gets expensive in a hurry too. As said, Vermont castings makes some nice little stoves. There's also some retardedly expensive stoves out there for boats and such, which are meant for very small spaces. The reality with burning wood is that you have to add wood on a regular basis, you can't just choke a big stove down to heat a small space for a long period, as it will smoulder and build creosote. So if you throw a large stove in that area you will be making a lot of heat to keep it burning properly, and going through a lot of wood. A space heater of some sort is much easier, and same goes for gas heaters or fireplaces. You can't just decide you want to sit in the sun room, light your wood stove, and sit down and enjoy the fire, it takes a fair whack of time between lighting and actually getting a decent burn that will make good heat. But, if a guy needs something to do they're a good choice.

The AW4 is a great transmission. But I would never consider it while doing a 5.3L swap. GM started making really good OD transmissions by the time they rolled out the 5.3L. The 4L60E is fairly flawless behind that engine, and there is some other options if you want to go more HD or not, all with no adapters required. Also, GM offered a variety of transfer cases, most of which are as good or better than the old NP231J/AMC.

I swapped the front coils out for the RE ones. One of the coils that was in there was broken. Swapped the Bilstein shocks into the front too. Then went for a little drive. Brakes really need to be bled again. I'm thinking the front brakes too, as in doing it properly this time, I just bled the back because I did not touch the front and kept a pair of vicegrips on the rear hose while it was disconnected. Thinking about it the brakes didn't really work at all when I drove it into the shop, so chances are the fronts are screwed too. I should just do the front hoses while I'm at it. Might have to bleed the clutch too, or I'm just not used to it and this tranny. I won't be jumping all over that in a hurry. The headlight switch is also on its way out. I should pull it out and clean/lube it before I write it off, otherwise I will need to see if I still have a spare. Otherwise everything seems okay so far... Still gotta do a bunch of stuff.

The threads on those ubolts look to course to be factory to me, but I couldn't say for sure. I have a set that I just cut off here which I could look at, but I also couldn't guarantee they were factory.

One thing about mounting the ram to the diff cover is it tends to make the cover leak... Not sure how much you care, but I built a bracket by the inner C on the long side when I did my XJ, to avoid mounting it to the cover.

Nice you got that 8.8 fixed back up. That's pretty normal when you get inside something that more is worn out than initially planned.

Bent. I'd say it was overtorqued to begin with, and the spring plate couldn't take it, which caused the ubolt to bend. Some bending of both the spring plate an ubolts is normal, as deforming the ubolt permanently is part of the torquing process, but that is really bent and IMHO unsafe.