Canadian '91 longbed

[gogmorgo]

Well, I've got the "new" arb bolted on, so that's good. Fits like it belongs there, reused all the hardware off the ZJ too. Except I discovered another pretty major issue.

 

A while back, I discovered that the old arb was bent, as though someone had used it as a recovery point. As a result, the end link on one side contacted the coil on extension. Putting the new arb on today, I noticed that the end link on that side was still much closer to the coil than the one on the other side. Upon inspection, the coil didn't seem to be sitting quite right on it's seat at the axle. After a half hour with various jacks in different locations, a pry bar, and ratchet strap, trying to get it back to where it needed to be, I discovered that a half coil was broken off the bottom end of the spring...  :doh:  it's likely been that way since I got the truck. The PO complained about the clunk that I later identified to be the arb end on the coil (his mechanic couldn't reproduce) and the arb really wasn't all that bent compared to the new one... And guess who discovered this immediately before moving between provinces with all my stuff... Oh well. I guess if it's been like this for the 25,000 km I've had the MJ, then it'll be fine for another 600.

 

So since I need to replace the coils anyway, and don't want worn-out junkyard suspension components, looks like funds this summer are getting reprioritized to get me a lift much sooner than I was expecting.  :banana:

Not sure how far up I want to go, but I'm thinking I'll be getting the General Spring mil wraps as have shown up on here, assuming there are some available, and then lifting the front to match, possibly with a slight rake. Should only be two or three inches over stock height, i'm expecting. I don't want much of a lift... road going characteristics are somewhat more important to me than extreme rock crawling as this is still a daily driver.

[gogmorgo]

Well, I suppose an update is in order, as another chapter ended in my mj's life on the move I brought up in the last post.
I made it all the way, but by the time I got home, the motor was knocking pretty bad. I fired it up and moved it around the yard a couple times this summer, but not enough to really count. I just towed it back to my parents' place, where it'll be parked while I'm in school. Hopefully one day I'll get her a new motor (400hp supercharged stroker?) but in the mean time I picked up a '96 Lada Niva to run around in... Dirt cheap and very cool-looking... Or at least it attracts more attention than the mj because no one knows what it is. It's a total pos, and I miss driving my Comanche like you don't know, but it'll do for now. 

So, yeah. When I get the money, I'll start collecting parts for my build. This whole thing burns cause I'm under 2000 km from the half-million.

For those wondering, the crank is what's knocking. Don't know if it's main bearings or thrust surfaces, but I'm blaming it on the whole engine-not-being-bolted-to-the-tranny deal. Whatever it is, the crankcase was full of glitter and unplugging spark plugs didn't change the knock.

[91Pioneer]

Lada? Nooooooooooo.... won't it be impossible to find parts for that thing? Should be pretty damn good in the snow if it's 4WD (are they all 4WD?).

 

OK so yeah they are kinda funky looking.

[91Pioneer]

Good stuff, don't give up on the MJ's!!

[gogmorgo]

All of the parts I could want for the Lada are availale dirt cheap online... Trouble is most of them are in Russia or the Ukraine. Not ideal right now.
But as an example I can get a brand new (new from factory, not reman) tranny for $795 shipped... So not bad.

 

Call me weird, but I've wanted a Niva since before I could drive... But no giving up on the MJ. It's still registered and insured... Just not for street use. Unless my parents kick it out of their yard, I'm hanging onto it until it's back up and running.

 

For anyone interested, here's a pic of the Lada.

[gogmorgo]

For the TL/DR folks, you might want to skip this. It's not so much an update as a bunch of wishful thinking. And to kinda organize my thoughts and this seemed like a decent place to do that. Also if anyone actually suffers all the way through to the end, your comments, concerns, and ideas would be appreciated.

Well, the rusted and poorly cobbled exhaust fell off the Lada yesterday, and as I was piecing a new section of pipe together today I got to thinking about all the stuff the MJ needs in order to get it going for next summer such that I might have a chance to bring it to (one of) the club pow-wow(s). Don't know the likelihood of me having it ready on time, or even that I'd be willing to put in the massive drive, or have time or funds for it. But I'm more likely to go if I put time and effort into it, right?

Powertrain:

First and foremost the engine issue. It basically needs a new one. For originality's sake I'd like to hang onto the original block and rebuild that, although for madness's sake I'd prefer to build myself a nice supercharged stroker... but that's too big a project for the time at hand. Shouldn't be too hard to find a decent running used 4.0 of similar vintage (but for God's sake not mileage!) to swap in. This is preferable to rebuilding because I don't know what's wrong with my motor beyond a fairly strong suspicion that it's crankshaft-related which means new bearings and at the least machining. I'd also be more confident in the durability of the motor, given that I've only ever assisted with the rebuilding of one motor which only ran long enough to grenade itself. (In fairness, that was due to modifications someone else planned without making sure everything fit first... brand new shiny valves met brand new shiny pistons and brand new shiny re-sleeved and re-centered cylinders...) So that's a used engine for me, then. But then there's finding one... which might be a bit of a road trip in and of itself.

The transmission seems to be doing alright, so long as I can keep fluid in it. I haven't been able to get a decent seal on the quick connectors since I pulled the transmission to change the flexplate. I'm looking at swapping the hard-lines out to AN- braided line. If I were to to my supercharged stroker dream, I'd need to get some beef into the AW4, though. Don't know if upgrade parts, i.e. higher-pressure pump, higher-friction clutches, etc, are available, but then again I haven't really looked. The whole engine thing kinda has me a little depressed right now.

T-case: ain't nothing wrong with it, so far as I can tell. I suspect it would also need more beef if I add some fast sauce.

Driveshafts: probably should have u-joints swapped, although they may only have 30,000 miles on them. I'd have to check. Might need resizing depending on what all happens under the hood. But will do for now.

Axles: not in the greatest shape. They've both got a bit of slop in the gears, but no noticeable metal shavings when I changed the oil. I'm assuming they're both all original in the pumpkin for reasonability's sake (yes, I made up that word, so sue me) and I'm guessing 310,000 miles is probably a lot for a D35 behind a 4.0. I'd like to swap in something with a little more beef, but I might hold off on that for now.

The D30 also needs something done. None of the seals are any good, it leaks just sitting. Mostly this is cause I have a single-piece axle in a disconnect housing (the disconnect still works great) and I never bothered putting in the proper seal and have just been keeping an eye on the fluid level. Also, the engine did a turn for the worse shortly after I noticed the other side was also leaking, and so I never got around to changing that one either. So I'd like to go to a non-cad housing out of an XJ.

Suspension:

I finally found the source of the mysterious clunking noise! The sway bar end hits on the passenger side coil! Well, I found that out a long time ago. I now know the cause. The bottom coil on the passenger side spring was broken off, and it's been that way since I bought it from the sound of it... the sway bar and coil have been connecting on every single bump. So the coil wasn't retained any more at the bottom end, and it had moved off its pad somewhat. Scary thought... I've had the MJ airborne a couple times by mistake... driving too quickly down gravel roads + train tracks + being slightly lost and slightly panicking cause it's getting dark = wings. So new coils to match whatever ends up happening in the back. In addition, my lower control arms are both a little kinked, as though they were dropped on a rock or something. Probably my fault. But they need replaced, so likely WJ arms for extra tire clearance. My 235/75/15's rub on the lca's anyhow. I would have adjusted the steering stops, but some dip$#!& in the MJ's earlier life kindly did an excellent job of welding them in place. So new knuckles are in order, which means WJ big brake upgrade? Maybe? Don't know if they'll fit inside my wheels yet. Also should get new shocks, although they're holding up fairly well. If I'm replacing lower control arms, there's no sense not doing the tops as well.

Rear springs are shot, as are the shocks. The driver's side is saggy even with a helper spring shock thing. Still looking at picking up a pair of the General Spring mil-wraps. Probably could replace the shackles, but don't know if that's necessary.

Steering: Seems tight, but you never know. Haven't really gone over it, ever. Probably should do that. The gearbox crunches a bunch when it's cold out (-40 sucked all around... it was like driving through glue with a steering box full of marbles) so it should be replaced. Looking for a ZJ quick-ratio box because awesome.

Brakes: Er... yeah. The fronts work well enough, but the rears don't really at all. At first I assumed it was because the load-sensing valve was disconnected from the axle and the bar was dangling, but when I tied up the bar to horizontal, the brakes were reasonable the first time I drove it, but after being parked for a couple days they stuck themselves on, bad. Really bad. Like can't even move bad. I smacked the wheels with a rubber mallet a bunch and they eventually let go, but then the bar went back to dangling and that was the last I did with the rear brakes. The front brakes work well enough to get me by, although panic stops from anything above 75 don't feel very panicked. So that's something that should be done. If I do swap out the rear axle, I'll likely go with what's on it. If I do go to the WJ big brakes, I might see about swapping the stuff from the front onto the rear to convert it to discs. I'll probably do the WJ master-cylinder upgrade either way. Nothing wrong with my master cylinder, although I stole the vacuum line and gromet to fix a vacuum leak on the Lada, and just realized I never got around to plugging the hole or anything. Oops. Don't know what she'll be like after sitting open like that for so long.

Exterior:

Need (want) new bumpers, front and rear. I picked up an only slightly dinged up rear bumper about a month ago at a junk yard to replace my rotten piece of rust. Never got it installed though because I had to cut off some gussets that a PO wisely(?) welded on, and I got lazy. The front bumper is beat up from a hit-and-run about a year ago. Looks like I took a hitch into the driver's side corner. I got it mostly back into shape with a press and some blocks of wood, but it's still not pretty. Shouldn't be too hard to find a front bumper, though.

The mirrors are shaky. They're the "fold in" kind, and the mounts are cracked. They don't fall off or anything, but they vibrate and that aggravates me. Don't like the look of the newer XJ mirrors, despite the extra size, so if I do replace them it'll be with stock ones.

The rockers are the transparent light-weight redneck models, and there's a bit of bubbling on the bed, but rust repairs aren't all that urgent compared to other things right now. It would still be nice to get it done, though.

The windshield has the typical cold-outside-and-blowing-max-heat-at-windshield crack from a previous owner, and I'm not convinced the rear slider is sealing so well, but should be fine for now.

The fuel tank isn't solid, and likes to dribble. Tried to replace it once and that turned into a fiasco, since my Dad wanted to get me one for Christmas but he refused to buy it online, although was almost planning on driving to RockAuto's HQ in Wisconsin until I reminded him how Internet stores work. He's what Eagle would call an Olde Pharte. His idea was to talk to the bumbling idiots at the local farm supply co-op (okay, they're not bumbling idiots when they're doing farm stuff) who work with another branch of the co-op that has a Napa attached thirty miles away. Somehow between the three, Santa brought me a $350 XJ tank. My Dad took it back, but I didn't get a Christmas present from my parents that year. :( But blah-bla-blah-bla-blah, I need a new one. That'll likely happen, since there's constant wet patch on the side of the tank and a bad gas smell all the time.

The spare tire winch didn't work. I recently pulled it off and apart, cleaned a bunch of dirt and rust out of it, and packed it with my favourite blue grease. I'll still need to bolt it back on, but now I won't have to keep a tire kicking around it the bed. Woot.

Interior? The radio works as do all the gauges. Seats are comfy, so the rest is meh. New stereo would be nice but unnecessary.

So yeah. The MJ is in pretty sorry shape, all things considered. But then, it does have 498,000 km onto it. It's going to be a major undertaking to get everything taken care of before the summer. Fortunately the place I just moved into has a heated garage that goes mostly unused and my roommates don't care if I keep a vehicle in there in pieces, so that's awesome. Mostly why I chose the place, to be honest. Trick is, though, that the MJ is at my parents' place not only 300 miles away but in another province, and the way it's registered/insured right now, it's not allowed to leave said province. So that's going to take some brain crunching. Or a trip down to the Autopac place to cancel stuff and just have it uninsured here... shouldn't be too big an issue.

[scrolls back up... wow thats a long post for not actually an update...]
TL/DR My mj has much problematica.
[that's too long to proofread. I'll catch any mistakes the next time I'm back. Clicks post.]

[91Pioneer]

I don't know what TL/DR means but hey you took the time to write a book so I read it. I wouldn't get too hung up with keeping the original block, after all it served you well for nearly 500K which is fantastic. Swapping in a known-good used engine is probably going to be the cheapest route if you're on a budget. If you're still in school, I'd recommend saving the stroker dream for when you're out making cash not spending it on school, you have plenty of life left to do it up the way you want.

 

Yeah that's a lot of thoughts LOL. I hope for an actual progress update soon ha ha. Gas tank sounds like a priority, bite the bullet and fix that before you have a really bad day. Do the priorities first, engine, gas tank, stabilizer bar end link, spring(s), brakes, etc. Don't worry about the trans, rear diff, bumpers, etc. if they're doing OK. I highly recommend you literally write out a list on paper and number them based on priority and start at the top. If you plan on staying in Saskatoon after school, you should work on those things that need to be fixed to pass an SGI inspection.

 

With that said, sometimes you have to step back and take a look if your vehicle is really worth sinking that much money into. Or maybe you should just save money until the right other MJ comes along which will need less work. That's your call. Too bad you weren't in the market a few weeks ago, I sold my 88 which recently passed a full provincial inspection and I had done a bunch of work to, it ran like a champ.

[gogmorgo]

TL/DR = too long, didn't read

 

I'm really not sure about this one. Part of me really wants to hang onto it, and the rest of me knows it's probably going to continue being a money suck. There are better MJ's out there, but this one's mine, eh? Yeah, I've got a problem.  :doh:

The budget really isn't around for getting started on anything yet, so I've got a while to make a decision.

[gogmorgo]

Started working at Part Source a bit over a week ago (as a Parts driver, but mostly I've been putting away freight) to get a little more cash flow to help get this thing back off the ground. Mostly out of curiosity I had one of the guys there price out a new motor. After employee discounts, all in I'd be looking at ~$2000 for a brand new motor from, IIRC, Northwest Engine Exchange out of Spokane. All told that's not too bad, but it's not in the realm of plausibility at this point. I haven't found a motor locally yet, but I haven't really started looking either. I'd likely wait for a couple  This summer when I bought the Lada there was a decent one (~95,000 miles) at a wrecker in Winnipeg that I was going to go home with if the Lada didn't pan out, and it still seems to be there. I may or may not end up there at Christmas, and I'm kinda planning on bringing it home if I do and don't find something here first. XJ donors are a little harder to find cheep here than in Winnipeg, because they aren't stolen so often... lol.

I've got heated garage space now for storing/working on it, just need to get the MJ here.

 

Also, a '90 Eliminator just went up nearby on Kijiji, asking $1500. I might offer him the Lada in trade. :rotf:

[gogmorgo]

Well, looks like I'm back in 'Toba again for the summer. Moved all my stuff back home in the Lada, made me really wish I had a truck I could use...

But I fired up the MJ for old times sake, albeit with a jump from the Niva because I forgot to take the battery inside before I left, but I'll be damned if it didn't fire up as if it was just running, even after sitting there all winter. I've got to fit in a trip to Ottawa and back to move my brother home (no big deal, just 3000 miles) but hopefully I'll be bringing an XJ donor back with me, got my eye on a couple in Winnipeg, and can get started in on this in the next two weeks before my summer job starts.

[gogmorgo]

It's back!!!

 

Just got done swapping in a much lower-mile 4.0 HO, AW4 and NP242 out of a rusted out '93 XJ Country I picked up for $300. Eventually more parts will get moved across, non-CAD D30, 8.25, a few trim pieces, etc.

The Niva's been pretty good to me, but it's really awesome to be driving my MJ again after 16 @#$%ing months.

 

Pics to follow.

[91Pioneer]

Great news! :thumbsup:

[Minuit]

:agree:

[gogmorgo]

I was planning on stripping down the donor to prepare it for scrapping today, but it's raining, so here's the story from the last couple weeks:

 

Three Sundays ago, I drove into the city and dragged this thing home behind my Dad's Envoy:

It doesn't look too bad in the picture, but it's pretty rotten out. A classic case of someone taking excellent care of the exterior of a vehicle but never washing underneath. The running boards likely didn't help with the rust. It feels like the driver's seat is about to fall through the floor, it's that bad. UHaul can't keep track of their $#!& so instead of trailering it back it wound up on a dolly and I was afraid it would break in two the whole drive back, about 180 miles. I was also going to visit my sister in the same city, so it wasn't that far out of my way.

 It's a '93 Country, so pretty spec'ed out. 243,000km on the odometer (150,000 miles). 4.0/AW4/242, D30/C8.25, full centre console, power locks and windows, etc. Complete except for the rear hatch's interior panel and the fog lights (but there's still a switch). Ran/drove good, trans and t-case shift alright, pretty well everything worked except the a/c allthough I haven't tried the radio. All still factory stock except one CV shaft swapped in in place of the U-joint on the passenger side of the front axle. All in all a whole lot of Jeep for $300. I guess the guy picked it up for parts, but then his wife totalled their XJ, so his buddy was going to take some parts and never got around to it, and then his landlord started pressuring him to get it off the property.

Got it home to my place at 10pm that night and drove another 70 miles to my parents place to pick up my MJ. Got up at 5 the next morning to load it up (I was working at eight) and then dragged the MJ up here. Monday and Tuesday were busy, but Wednesday I picked up some plywood (for making backyard engine swap easier... floors are sooo underrated) and other things, and got started into pulling apart the MJ.

By the time I ran out of daylight, I had the header panel and upper rad support out, and about a third of the accessories off the motor. I left the radiator in place because it's bolted to the a/c accumulator, and since the A/C is still working on good old R12, I didn't want to crack a line or otherwise compromise it.

 

The next day, Thursday, I got home from work and went straight at it without changing out of my work uniform or even going into the house. I got the rest of the accessories off the motor, and everything out from underneath the transmission, with the drivetrain supported by the two motor mount bolts (minus the nuts) and a piece of unsplit firewood under the t-case. All the electrical and vaccuum connections I unplugged got tagged with red tape and a sharpie to make reassembly easier.

 

On Friday, one of my roommates helped me pull the motor. This is where the plywood comes in, as it would have been impossible to roll the engine crane in the grass once it was loaded. As it was, it was still pretty tough. But wolla:

For anyone wondering, a 5/16" chain link will slip perfectly over the head studs, and then the nuts off the motor mount through-bolts will thread on. It's almost as though AMC wanted to make it easy to pull the motor. I pulled the trans and t-case out as well, since the ones from the donor had half the mileage and I wanted to use the 242 and this just made it easier, and may have prevented the loss of some fluids (I live in a national park, so that's a bit of a concern). Also since I was going from a '91 to a '93, I just left all the sensors in place as I assumed they would all be plug and play and this made for less work. This wasn't entirely the case, but more on that later. I also just unplugged the injectors and left the fuel rain on the intake, which wasn't an issue. I didn't want to compromise the seals on the donor's injectors, as they were stuck in place but the MJ's spun in their seats.

 

I had to take a break over the weekend because my baby sister was getting married, but I didn't loose much work time anyhow as we got a pretty severe storm and lots of rain.

 

The following Monday, I started tearing into the XJ. Because I didn't have to go pick stuff up first, I got about half the stuff out of the way of getting the motor out.

Again, with the red tape tags. It was a bit easier going as the A/C was completely discharged and I could just get it all out of the way.

 

Tuesday saw the engine start to come out... except then I discovered I forgot to unbolt the exhaust and managed to kink it and wedge everything HARD in place. Even after separating the downpipe and manifold, I still couldn't move the engine at all because of the exhaust. It rustwelded itself together and I didn't have anything to cut it with, so I gave up struggling with it in frustration about an hour after dark and went to bed with all my tools still scattered around the back yard.

 

The second Wednesday of the swap, I borrowed a Sawz-all from work and had the offending bits of exhaust out of the way in a few seconds. I got the motor trans and t-case out as a unit, and had them sitting in the MJ (with two bolts and a piece of firewood) by the end of the night. I didn't have anyone helping me pull this motor, and even though my roommate who helped get it out of the MJ didn't really have much clue what he was doing, it really made me appreciate how awesome that second set of eyes could be, noticing what I'd been caught on long before I'd even realized I'd been caught.

So yes, the MJ had a motor back in it!!!

 

On Thursday I had to make a run into town after work (well, a town with an Autopac place) right after work to renew my driver's license and the tags on the Lada, so I got three birds stoned at once and re-registered the MJ as well. This was also the day before about half the summer staff at the park left to go back to their winter occupations, so there was supposed to be a massive social gathering of sorts. So I only got about an hour of wrenching in that day between that and the insurance trip, and then none of the people leaving showed up because they were all packing to move. So that was a waste of a bunch of daylight. I still managed to get all the stuff buttoned up underneath the transmission and some stuff back under the hood, but not as much progress as I would have liked. Part of this was my fault as I managed to get a LOT of stuff pinched between the head and firewall without an extra set of eyeballs around to watch stuff, and getting it back out was time consuming.

On Friday I had the entire evening to work on it, so that was good. I had just about everything plugged in. I did run into a couple issues with sensors. The first was the oil pressure sender, which had a different plug on it. I just swapped out the newer sender for the old one.

The temperature sender also appeared to have a different connector on it, a kind of blade in a size and shape I'd never encountered yet. But because of the inaccessibility of the sender, I just spliced the newer connector onto the older harness. After then trying to plug it in for a good five minutes, I realized the reason it was different was because the sender was broken in half, and I was trying to plug the broken halves back together. I put the MJ's connector back on and swapped in the sender there too.

The third sensor was the crank position sensor. Completely different plug on it. I was going to swap the old CPS back in, but holy hell is it impossible to get to with the motor and trans in place. I tried for a solid hour with wobbles, u-joints, and all kinds of extensions, from both above and below, and couldn't get either of the bolts turned. Then I had a better look at the connectors, and the chassis side wiring was the same colour in both harnesses, so I chopped the plug off and spliced in the newer style, matching wire colours and hoping it would work out. (it did. :D )

 

There are no pictures from the second Thursday and Friday because I worked until after dark.

On Saturday morning, I hooked up the battery starter, and fuel lines, and FIRED IT UP!!!! This video is the first start attempt: (caution, expletive of joy at end of clip):

After the first failed crank, I realized the fuel pump wasn't coming on, and the knocking sound is me kicking the bottom of the tank. This was a problem/solution that I discovered when trying to move the MJ into the spot it was in when I pulled the motor. I attribute it to minimal quantities of 16-month-old fuel in the tank, as there were no pump problems when I parked it last year or any time I fired it up to move it over the winter.

The second time I stop cranking is because I realized the coolant overflow hose was hitting the fan. Amazing what you can see with no hood.

The squealing noise is a loose serp belt. I shot the more family-friendly video a few posts up after addressing this.

 

After this moment of joy, I got everything bolted back on, except the hood because I needed a helper for that, the exhaust because it's a rusty piece of poo, and the rear driveshaft because I replaced the u-joint but misplaced my brand new strap kit and was waiting to find it. I also swapped the 242's shifter gate it. Unlike what I read on a few forums, this wasn't absolutely necessary. Both shifter gates allow for the same range of travel and I was able to get all the 242's positions with the 231's gate, but the shape of the 231's makes for awkward shifting with a 242 under it.

I didn't drive it at all that day, but in drive and 2wd (without a rear driveshaft) I discovered the speedometer wasn't working. Turns out I forgot to plug it in, but that was the least of my concerns. The connector was completely wrong, and unlike the CPS, I couldn't just splice the newer one in because they had the wrong number of wires. I did a small amount of research and didn't really turn anything much up, beyond that the two speedometer gear assemblies should swap across, so I figured I'd try things with a clearer head the next day.

 

On the second Sunday of the swap, I pulled out the two speedo gear assy's and discovered another point of confusion. The MJ's gear was green and the XJ's was orange. To make sure there wasn't another difference, I counted the teeth and discovered that they were one tooth different. I later discovered that the number of teeth was cast into the plastic and that was wasted effort. But then I did some research into which one I should use, and this is when I discovered why they weren't compatible.

In '91, Chrysler changed the speedometer from a mechanical one to an electronic one... except they really didn't. They just split the traditional mechanical speedometer in half and put all the spinning parts down at the speedometer gear and then used wires to get the eddy currents to the gauge needle. This reduces inaccuracies caused by wear in the mechanical parts, and the jumping needle that old mechanical speedometers tend to have. It still wasn't the best setup, and in the middle of '93 they switched to a Hall-effect type, which is very similar in function to a traditional tachometer, working with pulses to provide a much more consistent reading that wouldn't be affected by a change in resistance in the wires. But enough theory.

I still wasn't sure which speedo gear to go with (having no certain data on the rolling diameter of my tires and the very small difference between the gears) so I decided to stick with the gear that was in the 242, which meant swapping the gears between VSS's. Only after popping the gears out did I truly understand the difference between long- and short-shaft gears and why my choice wouldn't work, and why I'd been stressing useless over it. I stuck the MJ's speedo gear back into the MJ's VSS, and the MJ's VSS into the 242's hole, clipped and taped the CAD switch wires near to the plug, got rid of all the useless CAD vacuum lines, put the speedo wires in a new split loom, plugged in both ends of the modified harness, took the MJ for a spin (in 4x4 i.e. front-wheel-drive because I still hadn't put the rear driveshaft back on) and the speedometer now works flawlessly.

I also got some assistance putting the hood back on (somehow it lined up perfectly in the first spot I bolted it down... score!).

 

Monday morning I drove it to work. In FWD with an open manifold. My God is it loud. I found the missing u-joint strap at work (I took my driveshaft there to install the joint) and put my driveshaft in that night.

 

 

Being able to drive my MJ again is the MOST AWESOME THING EVER.

Although I'm not quite done yet. More on that later. I'm about to prepare a pic dump.

[gogmorgo]

Okay, so I guess most of the pictures I took of it are part of the motor swap process. Ah well. Here are some more anyway.

After the swap:

 

Washing it for the first time ever... Yeah I've had it four years. I know I should have taken better care of it.

It's honestly still not clean because there's so much crap on it. But I'd gone over the whole thing with the pressure washer twice and then the car wash's sump pump conveniently quit working and they had to shut it down before it turned into swamp.

 

 

Yes I have an invisible boat.

 

 

As for it not being done, well, I picked up this factory XJ brush guard for cheap this summer. It's too thin for severe bush pushing (not that I do much of that anyway) and it's pretty beat up, but still looks alright and is a better place to put lights than the bumper. I also kinda like the slightly bruised appearance... makes it look like the truck actually gets used. I installed it Thursday.

I also got the factory mounting brackets with it. I wasn't sure how they'd play with my HD tow hook brackets as the two sets of brackets share the same bolt holes, but it turns out I didn't need them. The guard bolts in nicely right between the brackets and hooks. You can't see them in the above pic, but the hooks sit just outside the vertical plates of the guard, with a decent amount of space.

 

I've also swapped in the door panels from the XJ. I pulled the "wood" dash bezel out of an XJ Country at a wrecker a while back and installed it, but I didn't grab the door panels because they were beige, but my donor had grey panels that matched. I poked holes for the window winders. The XJ's power windows still work, but they're slow and I don't expect them to last much longer. My experience tells me I don't want power windows anyhow. Crank windows are just more reliable.

I've also been debating swapping the full centre console into the MJ. But it's missing the cupholder section (so the armrest lid doesn't latch) and it took up a lot of space when I experimentally set it in the MJ. Not convinced it's worth it.

 

Further plans are to swap in the non-CAD D30 from the XJ. I'd switch across my much newer CV shafts and unit bearings. The main purpose of this is to prevent messing around with resealing the CAD axle housing for the single-piece shafts I've got in there, but also to take advantage of the gears with half the mileage, as the MJ's front diff has a lot of slop in it. This is of course if the XJ's diff isn't too rusted out. The same goes for the 8.25 rear axle, but this one is beyond my abilities... don't trust myself welding on new perches so I'll have to farm that out.

At the same time as the axle swap I'd like to give it a bit of a lift. This may simply be returning it to stock height with new springs (all eight of them between both Jeeps have sagged pretty bad) but we'll have to wait and see. This likely won't happen until I move back to Stoon for the winter. I'm hoping I don't have to dick around with driveshaft lengths, but we'll have to see about that too.

 

I've also got a rear bumper sitting in my parents basement in better shape than the one currently on the MJ that will likely go on in the next couple weeks. I also plan on getting a hitch built soon, as I'd like to be able to take my Niva back to Stoon for the winter without having to drop one off and take a bus back, or have to rely on someone else to drive/tow one of them up there.

 

Another more pressing issue is the headlights. I made my own relay harness after the headlight switch caught fire, but I stole some pieces of the harness to make my horns work on the Niva when it was going through a safety inspection last summer. That reminds me that I also need to put one of those horns back on the MJ as I borrowed them as well.

[gogmorgo]

So an interesting thing happened today.

Every morning for the last four summers, I buy coffee at a local place, so the lady who works there has kinda got to know me. This morning, she was outside setting up their patio stuff when I pulled up. Normally I walk to work, but I had to attend a training session a couple miles away so I drove.

She comes in excited about my MJ. She used to have one just like it, she said, and loved it. But she and her husband had a few vehicles, and they needed to get rid of one. Neither were excited about getting rid of the MJ, but it was the oldest and hardest on fuel, so it was the one to go.

They sold it to a couple in Brandon (~60 miles away) about five years ago.

I bought mine from a couple in Brandon about four years ago. They bought it from someone in this area.

I had paperwork with names on it from a few owners back, but no one I asked from here knew who it was. I live in a pretty touristy area, and people come and go all the time, so I hadn't really tried to hard to find them. But I threw out something close to what I remember of the name on the paper.

She says "That's my husband!"

She told me a couple things that she remembered her husband having done to it. A nice new coat of paint (it's cheap paint, doesn't quite match the original, and they did a piss-poor job of masking), bodywork (most of the bondo has fallen out) and some other stuff, but I was running a little late so I had to rush out.

 

Crazy small world we live in. I've been buying coffee every day for the last three years from one of my MJ's previous owners, and never had a clue. Ridiculous.

[91Pioneer]

Wow, crazy. But then again it's Manitoba... :rotfl2:

[gogmorgo]

Hit a milestone today.

Well, I guess that was yesterday, but I only got back from the trip and haven't gone to bed yet.

Took the MJ up to Saskatoon to move the last of my stuff here, as I managed to get a winter job at the park.

While I was there the front right brake calliper seized, either due to age or because it just sat for 16 months. Found out as a plume of smoke puffed out of the wheel well as I pulled up to a fuel pump. Minor heart attack for a few of the employees and customers I expect. It was a bit of an ordeal because the parts store had the wrong calliper listed (no idea what it was for, but it was MASSIVE. Easily twice the size of the correct one. When I said this the guy behind the counter looked it up on rock auto, and brought the right calliper. Only then I installed it, and when I went to bleed it, found out it was the left calliper. Not so good on the wrong side. By this time the store was closed, so the next day, I looked up the part number myself and called to confirm it was there. I'd asked about both when I was in the store, but was told they only had the right side (despite the fact they sold me the left one) but when I gave them the correct number, it magically appeared on their shelf. So I went back and bought the correct one. I also kept the wrong one in case the other one took a $#!& on the drive home, which it didn't.

On the second trip to the store, I also grabbed a t-stat and gasket. I didn't swap much more than I had to on the new-to-me motor, and the temp gauge is kinda wandering a bit. I don't remember it doing that before, so hopefully this solves it.

I also picked up a flowmaster 40 to fit my new down pipe (it uses do much less fuel when there's somewhere to put an O2 sensor), although I didn't grab the tubing and hardware I need to put it in (kicking myself), so it'll have to wait.

Otherwise the 600 mile trip on the open downpipe was a loud but good, uneventful shakedown run.

 

So nice to have the MJ back.

[gogmorgo]

Geez, haven't updated this in a while.

Well, tbh I haven't done much in a while. Picked up some ebay LED lights, out them on over the weekend. Holy $#!& they're bright. Basically I can see everything. Tops of old-growth spruce and pine ten feet off the edge of the road sort of everything. My phone hardly does it justice, especially with all the snow around, it struggles in the dark.

On a road that dead ends at a trailhead, low beams:

 

 

High beams:

 

Floods + high beams:

 

The benefit isn't so much in the brightness itself, but rather the spread of the brightness. Looking off to the side in the same spot as above, low beams:

 

High beams:

 

High beams + floods:

Again, the phone doesn't do it justice. I can see further into the trees than I really need to, easily 30+feet in.

 

Floods by themselves:

 

And down at the dead end, ~100 ft from the tree line, low beams:

 

High beams:

 

High beams + floods:

 

To illustrate the spread, high beams:

 

Floods:

 

And just for laughs, back in the driveway, low:

 

High:

 

And the floods, yeah, I forgot there was a branch there too:

 

They seem to be of reasonable quality, with actual metal housings.

I wired them in place of the factory fog lights. Used the factory switch, even though my MJ didn't come with factory fogs, the switch wires are still there. I snipped the switch wire just ahead of the ten-pin headlight harness connector, it's brown with a white stripe on an HO, but the 88 wiring manual I was referencing says it's light green with a black stripe. Used that to trigger a relay, with a fused 12V feed straight from the battery. I could have also snagged the factory's 12V feed out of the same spot, but I didn't want to cut into the harness more than I had to. Under the dash, the switch gets its power from the low-beam switch from the factory (this is so you don't run the fogs and high beams at the same time), so I snipped that wire (and taped it off) and ran a direct feed from a free spot on the fuse panel so I can turn the flood lights on independently of the low beams. Obviously this would be illegal to do with fog lights in most jurisdictions, but these aren't fog lights and aren't exactly legal for road use anyhow, so... :dunno:

I'm likely going to need to come up with some kind of covers at some point, but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it. I'll throw some pictures of the wiring up later, maybe.

 

 

Another update, got one of Krusty's hitches. Got it painted up, but not installed yet. It looks awesome, really solid, great welds, and the fit is just about perfect... except a previous owner (long long time ago) decided to booger weld in some useless gussets for the corners of the bumpers (still don't know why, and when I say useless I mean I grabbed one a while back to pull myself up and one of the welds cracked under my weight) so there's a whole bunch of welding snot preventing me from putting it into place. Finally an excuse to pick up a cheap grinder that I'll only use a couple times a year.

Blaaaaaack:

 

Also, don't spray paint in your basement, even when it's -1,000,000 outside. Your roommates will hate you. :doh:

[Pete M]

nice lights :D  those look pretty decent for a pair of 2x6s

[gogmorgo]

36 watts each, so that's 72 watts of LED. But yeah, hard to believe that much light is coming through a 15 amp fuse, and that the fuse is overkill by more than double... 

[91Pioneer]

Update, yay. My 88 MJ rear bumper had welded on braces going out to the rear corners too.

[gogmorgo]

Yeah, I remember you posted some pics once. Yours was a lot cleaner than mine was, like they were deliberately cut to that size and shape from new metal and then professionally welded in place to reinforce a bumper in good condition. Mine looked like someone's  realized the bumper was getting rusty, went out to the landfill, pulled a couple chunks of rust that were sorta the right length, and then closed his eyes and spattered weld all over the place hoping it would do something. The weld on one side is almost two inches in diameter.

I've got another bumper I pulled last fall sitting at my parents place that I'll pick up tomorrow. I'll be running into the city for work sometime next week so I'll pick up a grinder. Hopefully I'll have the hitch and bumper installed next weekend, if the weather holds out. For the last couple days I've been driving around with my license plate zip-tied to the splash guard thing.

[91Pioneer]

Yeah yours sounds waaaaay more amateur. I scored a very good condition bumper out of North Battleford for $70 including shipping, have not tackled restoring and installing it yet but it's way better than one I have. I'm scared all my bumper bolts are going to snap off when I take my current one off. Most bolts/nuts snap off when I touch them on this truck. If the bumper bolts snap off is it easy to replace them on these trucks?

[gogmorgo]

I pulled mine at Wesman Salvage for $35 or so, but I'd have to check the receipt. It's not perfect, a few dings and some surface rust, but it's a lot better than what's on it.

As to the bolts, the further forward (away from the bumper) they are, the harder they are to get out. You can't really drill them out with the bed installed, but the nuts are just tack welded to the inside of the frame. Given a long enough punch or chisel, it's pretty easy to just knock the nut off the inside. I had to do three of mine, the two side ones closest to the bumper and one of the bottom ones. I broke the bottom one myself a couple years ago, but the other two were already gone when I got there. The two came off the sides easily enough, but the bottom one just wouldn't go... eventually a combination of hitting the side of the nut and the broken end of the bolt got it out, and I realized it had a massive sloppy not-factory tack (likely the same culprit who "welded" on the "reinforcement") that not only welded the nut to the frame, but also to the bolt... which is probably why I broke it.

 

I've broken quite a few bolts under my MJ as well. Now I'm at the point where if I'm going to have to take out a bolt I haven't touched before I hit it with PB'laster every day for a week before I touch it. And I still break bolts, although not as many as before. And in my defence, the bolt I broke on the bumper bracket was welded to the nut.