Canadian '91 longbed

[gogmorgo]

So some pics of the fog/flood light wiring. At some point I might try to make a DIY. Maybe. I likely won't get around to it.

The factory switch wiring and connector is present, whether or not you have factory fogs... Grab the switch and plate at a wrecker. The three wires for the connector are:

Black- ground for the indicator light

Purple/white- low beam switch, i.e. The 12v feed.

Brown/white- switch wire, triggers the relay.

 

You'll notice there's a bit of @#$%ery going on, though. In order to make it independent of the low beams, I snipped the wire (taped it off and to the other wires so it didn't get lost in the unlikely event I want to reverse this) and spliced a wire to a free constant 12v spot on the fuse panel. Obviously that would be illegal for real fog lights in some jurisdictions.

Also, I think the brown/white wire is a different colour for Renix. Red/green maybe? I'd have to look at the '88 diagrams.

 

Back under the hood, this is the 10-pin connector for the headlight harness, near the air box.

The brown/white wire from the headlight switch comes to the connector. I cut it a bit above and spliced a connector for the relay onto it. Next time I run into the city I'll pick up a proper relay socket and redo this, but it's good enough for proof-of-concept.

And this is where I grounded both the relay and the flood lights. Easy to get at more than anything else. The red wire running along the edge of the header is the 12v feed to the relay. I'll stick in a higher gauge wire later, but I borrowed this because it conveniently already had a fuse-holder in it. I'll be changing it though because it's a mini fuse, like, the mini mini ones, not the regular mini ones... Je m'en câlisse du propre mot.

[gogmorgo]

And some more progress. Finally got my krusty's hitch installed. Pain in the @$$ to do it, but entirely not Krusty's fault. His hitch is excellent quality and I highly recommend it if you're looking for one.

My problems getting the hitch on were pretty minor, to be fair. They just caused big headaches for me because I wasn't properly equipped to handle them. Broken bolts, then the PO's spazzy snot welds, and then getting the unnecessary tow ball out of the bumper... would have left it but the nut on the bottom interferes with the new hitch.

 

Also finally slapped on another bumper I picked up over a year ago. It's not perfect, but at least it's structurally sound. Looks a lot better than the old one for sure.

I still need to put in trailer plug wiring. I'll probably end up redoing the whole taillight harness though... When I was under there today I got a look at the connector, and frankly I'm amazed I have taillights at all. Looks like trailer lights may have been twisted and taped on there at some point, and then removed, leaving all the corroded wires bare. Not great.

Also realizing I need to replace my ball joints ASAP. They're separated on the driver's side, and the whole steering knuckle drops when weight comes off that wheel. I noticed this issue quite a while ago, but I never got around to addressing it, then the truck sat parked for sixteen months waiting for the new motor, and I guess I forgot. Tempted to go with cheap ball joints to save cost, seems pointless to spend a couple hundred bucks on good ones when I'm planning on swapping this one out as soon as I find a D30 with 4.10's in it and a matching rear axle. But at the same time that might be a while... And I wouldn't be swapping in the 4.10's until I had my lift and 32's installed, which won't be until the current tires are toast... so it's a long way from now, and I really don't want to loose a ball joint, as much as I don't want to throw out good ones...

[krustyballer16]

looks good! 

[91Pioneer]

Gogmorgo, if it's any help I will have a set (one side) of Spicer ball joints for sale soon. NIB.

[gogmorgo]

How soon is soon? Going to be in Regina for training from tomorrow till Thursday, which reminds me I still have a pair of taillights I'd pulled with you in mind. Don't know if you still wanted them though.

[gogmorgo]

There's got to be a practical application for this:

 

Figured it was time for a small update. Nothing much has changed. I've got an 8.25 out of an '03 2.4L KJ, 4.10's and discs. Picked up the whole KJ at a salvage auction, but my landlord wouldn't let me keep it around to part out, so I didn't get to recover much of the cost. (She also decided out of the blue when I showed up with the KJ that after 8 months knowing it was there I couldn't hang onto my parts XJ either). I'd hung onto the KJ suspension links etc. as well thinking I'd want to swap in the links and coils, but for reasons of fewer headaches (and cost) I think I'll just stick with the MJ leafs.

I also emailed General Tire complaining about them not making the AT2 in a 32x10.5x15 (or even a 33x10.5x15) and explaining I didn't want to get rid of my factory wheels, they advised me I should get rid of my factory wheels. Unless something else comes up between now and when it happens, looks like I'll be going with the 33x10.5x15 BFG KO2's. Ah well.

Plan is still the General Springs mil-wrap MT springs, chev drop shackles, and 3-4" lift springs (to match the rear but keep factory rake) in the front. Short arms for now for cost reasons, maybe something else in the future, longer track bar, shocks, drag link(?) to match.

Planned upgrades for the future in no particular order still include:

-ZJ steering box, plus upgrades to other steering components (at least fix the sloppiness)

-Rear sway bar, probably the junkyard-parts DIY Hornbrod posted a couple years back

-Figure out some rockers that aren't rust or bondo

-Set up a trailer harness and eventually a brake controller

-Fix the damage from having slid into that ravine (at 2mph if that) back in November.

-A winch would be nice, but I haven't found a bumper I like yet... May end up designing my own... I need to get a welder, ha.

-Also the ball joints. Those stupid separated ball joints that I keep forgetting about. Every time I'm in the city it seems all the parts stores (there's like three of them) have their press sets rented out.

-And I still need to either find a 4.10 geared non-cad hpD30 or else rebuild and regear the 3.55 I've got sitting in the shed, which will likely end up with a trutrac given I have to change carriers anyhow...

Brake upgrades are in order, possibly more light, better stereo, build my original 4.0 into a stroker... The list goes on. I suppose that's what happens when you choose to drive a 25-year old truck with 500,000 km on it.

Hopes and dreams I tell you. I'd like to say my incoming tax return will go towards a bunch of this, but it's already pretty well spoken for, as the Lada needs a $#!&-ton of work before it goes down to Cali for the LeMons Rally. As hilarious as it would be driving around with 3/5 gears, I'm not sure the trans will live for the 5000+ miles I'll be putting in it, so a new one's on order. But I've got a better paying job starting in a couple weeks and my weekends will be on weekdays from the sounds of it which means I can actually go to the only decent junkyard around without having to call in sick take a vacation day.

[gogmorgo]

Small update. Got the ball joints on the driver's side swapped. I've had a pretty good idea they were bad for quite a while, like, 10,000 miles ago or so. But they'd been feeling real sloppy for the last little while so I figured of swap them before they started the process themselves.

So, you know how when you get the castle nuts off, you give the knuckle a bit of a whack and it drops off? Yeah, pretty sure this isn't where it's supposed to come apart:

 

New ones in:

 

I think the upper was swapped out at some point but the lower looked like it could be original. Still can't believe I put over 15,000km on this pos without anything serious happening, especially given it's not usual for me to be doing 70mph on gravel.

 

For some reason there's not as much vibration going down the road anymore... Hopefully doing the other side soon (too hot to do both today) and that'll take care of the rest. This side's joints were definitely worse by far.

[gogmorgo]

Doing some work on this thing for the first time in a long time. Too long. 

Got the interior stripped out of it,

for the most part, to get started on fixing the rust. It's... not ideal, but still better than I expected.

 

 

Since the rockers are gone completely, I'm getting square tube put in. Conveniently found a 14' length of 2x6 3/16-wall tube in a scrap pile. Instead of putting it up against the pinch seam like most people do, we're just going to butt it up against the inner rocker. There's almost no pinch seam left on the passenger side anyhow, so I'm not super concerned about it losing structure.  I'm still going back and forth whether to just run it the length of the cab, or to extend it out under the bed to the wheelwell, but the 14' length leaves options there. 

I had picked up a replacement floor pan for the driver's side a while back, so that's going in as well, and the passenger side will need a couple patches. 

I'm not sure what the plan is for the bedsides yet. It's unclear whether they actually need fixing for the out of province inspection or not, but while the truck's parked at the welder's, it may as well happen. 

I may yet have to pull the dash to get the firewall padding pulled back, but we'll see. 

Like all projects, most of the weekend was spent trying to remove a single fastener.

The driver's side inboard seat nut refused to come out. 3/8" impact got the stubborn front ones on the passenger side off, and the back nuts all came out easy, but this one just wouldn't go. We didn't want to risk setting the carpet on fire, which eliminated many options, and the fact it sits in a bit of a divot of compressed carpet meant we couldn't get at it really well. Eventually I came home and grabbed my 1/2" impact, and proceded to turn the hexagon into a circle. No bueno. many hours spent with an air chisel eventually got it spinning and off...

Bad photo, but yeah... not a whole heck of a lot left of the nut. Or stud. 

[Pete M]

those seat nuts are just... the worse.  I hate dealing with them.   

[gogmorgo]

The crazy thing is that when I stripped the interior out of my parts XJ, with waaaay more rust (all passengers can participate in Flintstoning it along), it didn't even put up much of a fight. Pretty sure I got them all by hand.

I did have one other bolt casualty on the MJ. Driver's side lower seatbelt bolt. With so much rocker gone around it, it had no chance. Total ball of rust, without even much of the Torx teeth left to grab, not just hella tight. We cut the carpet out from around it and then used the newfound space to cut the head off, just behind the seatbelt's plastic guard thing. Tons of meat left on it to weld on a nut when it comes time, and between the XJ and all the seatbelts I've robbed from junkyards, I've got tons of extras bolts. 

[gogmorgo]

So it's only been a month, but we got back at it today. Coordinating our schedules has posed a challenge, but now that we've got a solid plan I'll be able to continue on the work on my own until things need sparkled together. 

We pulled the fender and started cutting. It's a little tense watching someone else cut into your MJ, but he's got more experience and a steadier hand so it was best I let him do it. The rocker panels didn't have much left so no tears there but cutting the edge off the bottom of the bed when it wasn't rusted out (yet) was a bit nuts. But this bed is far from mint so still, not that terrible, even if it was one of the better parts. 

 

 

The plan is the 2x6 tube will sit flush with the inner rocker and the step panel inside the door. Most people seem to go to the pinch weld, but as you can see from the above photo where nothing was cut out on the inner side of the pinch seam yet, there isn't much left of it... and this is still the "good" side. 

This is just parked in place for now to see how things will look. We cut it to 82" which is the distance between the factory flares. I figure this works great for now, but gives me the option of bigger tires without needing to trim so much. It'll sit further in once what's left of the pinch seam and cab corner are cut out. There's a little reconstructing of floor and cab corner we'll need to do, and the front fender will need trimmed as well to accommodate the tube, and some solution to keeping the bottom edge attached after cutting out the pinch seam where it bolts on will need sorted, but I'm pretty happy with the way things are going. 

[gogmorgo]

A bit more progress was made today. We've got the tubes both notched at either end, and the driver's side is stitched into place enough the truck can be moved around with risking it falling off. 

I'm still not completely sold on this angle. The idea is it's protecting the flare a bit, but it looks a bit odd. I'm also a bit concerned it might catch on stuff if I'm rubbed up against something in reverse. Worst comes to worse it can always get hacked off at 45° to match the front. 

Wish I could weld like that... That's factory sheet metal stitched to 1/4"-wall tube, mind.

We didn't quite cut all of the pinch weld out. We left the front fender bolt hole sitting there and notched out the fender to sit around the tube, but still have the one bolt holding the bottom of the fender on. Turns out it also made a convenient ground for the welder I guess. We debated leaving both bolt holes, but decided having a tab sticking a few inches off the first bolt wasn't going to do much for strength. 

 

The reason it's not finish welded yet is it may need to come back off to do some more reconstruction. Also we ran out of time today. I don't think it's coming back off, but you can see way up in the first photo the pile of dirt that came out of the cab corner and rear cab-mount-brace...thing. Oddly it seems the top of it went first; guess the bottom sorta half-@$$ kinda drains or something. 

We may have to build another one. No big deal, just more rust repairs to do, in addition to the floor and cab corner. We also ran into the same issue with the frame vs body lines Krusty had with the first rock sliders. The pinch seam follows the body line, but the body isn't perpendicular to the axles, although the frame and it turns out the inner rocker are. The initial plan was to just butt the tube right upstairs the inner rocker, but if you do that, by the time you get down to the rear fender you're sitting over an inch further into the body, and it just didn't look right. So now we're going to either have to fold the inner rocker out to meet the tube (can you say rust trap?) or else come up with some other way to fill the space. We're going for some other way. There isn't enough of the passenger side inner rocker left to hammer it over, and we want both sides to match... We're use not 100% on how to accomplish it yet. I'm thinking the best bet is to cut the inner rocker right out and just run a chunk of flat bar or something up to where the rocker meets the floor, but we'll have to see what things are looking like once the new floors are in. 

But it's looking pretty badass, IMO.

Even with it just sitting on the door sill and welded to the front door post and what's left of the cab corner, not even really connected to the frame, it'll still lift the whole truck without twisting the sheet metal. Once the floors, cab corners, and cab gussets are fixed, it's not going anywhere. 

Speaking of cab corners though, it's tough to photograph, and I honestly didn't even notice it until today while trying to line up the tube with the body, but the driver's side corner sticks out about 3/8"-1/2" past the bed at the body line where the molding goes. The whole side of the truck is shaped out of filler, and the more I poke into the rust on the bed, it has about an 1/8" coat of filler over it almost everywhere, so that'll be interesting to see what all is behind that...  I mentioned a while back I talked to the wife of the guy who sold it to the guy I bought it from. She talked about how her husband had fixed it all up nice for her... Yeah. Woulda been nice if he actually fixed it properly. The passenger side rocker "fix" fell out not long after I got the truck, chicken wire and bondo. The driver's side had chunks of steel siding sitting in there covered in filler. I guess at least that's steel?.

 

[Pete M]

any updates!  the snow is coming!

[gogmorgo]

On 10/17/2019 at 11:13 AM, Pete M said:

any updates!  the snow is coming!

A bit late, but no further progress has been made yet, unfortunately. A week after the last post I relocated about an 8-hour drive away for a couple months of school, and my buddy was getting new neighbours (our boss’s family) so we couldn’t leave the truck parked in their driveway anymore. If got shuffled over to the back of the staff lot at work, and then as you forewarned, the snow was flying when I got back from school. We figured we’d make progress over the Christmas break while the shop was empty, but then my buddy got sick of his landlords and living next door to the boss, so he bought a house the next town over, and ended up moving over the holidays instead. Then by the time spring rolled around and I got the MJ back out from under its glacier again the world went to hell. It’s been a small blessing in that with staff gone we haven’t needed the last row of the lot so I haven’t been hassled about it sitting there, but our work schedules have been screwed around with and now we’re on opposing shifts. Basically he’s working whenever I’m not, and vice versa. His home shop isn’t quite set up yet, and he doesn’t have driveway space, so I can’t dump the truck at his new place for him to work on when he’s off, and I‘m sure my own landlord won’t be happy if it shows up back in my yard unregistered again.

I really do miss driving the truck. The five-speed ZJ has been good, but the 2wd MJ doesn’t always cut it for winter driving when I’m commuting before the plows are out.

[gogmorgo]

Dang. I gotta get this thing back on the road. Just fired it up for the first time in six months to mow around it… the a/c still works! I'm pretty sure it’s still got r12 in it even.
I’ve been sweating my @$$ off in cars with no a/c for the last five years with this thing just sitting here? 

[Pete M]

On 6/4/2023 at 1:53 PM, gogmorgo said:

I’ve been sweating my @$$ off in cars with no a/c for the last five years with this thing just sitting here? 

 

 

that's too funny 

[gogmorgo]

Slowly making progress on getting it back roadworthy again. Well, driveable, let’s not get too carried away here. I need a backup going-to

-town rig. Pulled all the interior back out of the bed. It’s not doing too bad considering it’s just been sitting under cardboard for the last five years with no back window in the canopy.

I tossed the jute backing. Too much green powder cam out of it when I pulled it. Just mildew I think, it was dry. But didn’t seem worth keeping. The carpet wasn’t too bad either. I hosed it out, but it’ll need a good shampoo before it goes back in. 

 

Then it’s just a matter of putting everything back in, provided all the fasteners are actually in the jar that got left in the cab. Guess I probably should put the header panel back together properly too… I realized today none of the lights work because the header panel is just sitting there. One fastener on either side, none of the wiring is plugged in. No screws holding the trim on, bit of a miracle it’s all still there after 1000 miles on a trailer through a snowstorm.

Kinda tough to pick up where you left off after five years when you didn’t finish the project tho. 
To be clear it’s not fixed yet. The rust hasn’t got too much worse in the five years since I pulled it all apart, fortunately, and I’ve got other projects in the way. This one I can still drive, so it’ll be going back together at least until a little more of my fleet is legal again.
Drove it 120k back from my parents’ a couple weeks ago, but next time it’s on the road it would be good to have seats and seatbelts actually bolted into the thing. And something preventing me from dropping my coffee cup clear through the floor onto the highway would be good. That was pretty disappointing, although no mess to clean up I guess… 

[Drahcir495]

I just read all the build options on your first page. Do you have an ashtray light!? That’s something I haven’t seen but I didn’t know to look for it. Is that a 200 mph gauge that I see. Had mine parked for 4 years and I forgot what needed to be done to it too. 

[gogmorgo]

On 8/2/2023 at 9:20 PM, Drahcir495 said:

I just read all the build options on your first page. Do you have an ashtray light!? That’s something I haven’t seen but I didn’t know to look for it. Is that a 200 mph gauge that I see. Had mine parked for 4 years and I forgot what needed to be done to it too. 

I think it does have an ashtray light, or at least a holder for the bulb. I don't have any use for an ashtray so I couldn't really tell you if it ever worked or not, just a vague recollection of it existing while I had it apart at some point. But the build info from Chrysler is a little hit or miss. They recycled the options codes on later models so their database pulls up some... interesting things sometimes.

Also take a closer look at the speedometer. It only goes to around 120mph. Some of us use real freedom units, instead of clinging to the obsolete half-hazard measuring system of an oppressive monarch.