Whoops

[gogmorgo]

 

Picked myself up... Well I'm not sure why to be honest. 

'91 2.5L ax5 2wd Short bed. The body's pretty strait. Not much rust on it by local standards. It does need a couple things, but at $750 what MJ doesn't?

The ZJ is... Well it's pulling it alright so far (knock on wood) But not something I would recommend doing on a regular basis. But I shouldn't speak too soon, cause I'm at 3000' of altitude, and home is at 3000', and there's not one but two 6500' passes between me and home. Good thing the ZJ doesn't have a/c or I'm guessing it would be overheating at 100°F, but it's been sitting between 205 and 215°F the whole trip so far. Don't really know how you lot down south put up with this BS. I just stopped more to cool myself down than to rest the Jeep.

[Pete M]

The addiction is real   

 

take it slow and bring lots of water, both to drink and as emergency if your cooling system needs it.   

 

I feel your pain. I once pulled a travel trailer from detroit to atlanta using the KJ in 99* weather in the afternoon with the heater on full blast because the motor's e-fan was broken (I knew it but the diesel always ran cool so I had never bothered to replace it).  that was a muggy, hot drive.   the first 6 and the last 2 hours weren't so bad and I could even run the AC, but the middle 5 in Tennessee and north Georgia just suuuuuucked.  soon after that journey I replaced the fan.  

[HOrnbrod]

That 91 looks like a hella good deal Gog - body looks dayem good. Does it semi run and drive?

[gogmorgo]

I just put a new radiator in it a few weeks ago, driving the same route, just at a lower temperature. The cooling system got a thorough flush, too, considering the rad was leaking so bad I think we went through six or seven gallons of water in 70 miles. So the fact that the temp gauge has mostly been rock steady even when pulling up hills at 3500rpm in 3rd, is definitely a good thing. But yeah, I've got a few gallons of distilled water too. 

But we had some smoke roll in, and the sun's dropped a fair bit too nor, so I parked in a shady spot to try to nap for a bit. On a good day it's 2.5 hours from here back home, but I'll be going slow with the trailer. It's also why I drove a few hours out of the way to get the trailer instead of a dolly. The trailers at least have surge brakes. Although now I'm sorta questioning the brakes being worth the extra 1500 lbs or so the trailer weighs over the dolly... but then I haven't gone down a winding 10% grade yet, haha.

 

Theres rust in the floor pans (of course) and it's starting in the rocker/cab corner area, and some bubbling over the fenders. Most of its not at the point of holes yet, just bubbling. 

Supposesly it runs and drives, but it overheats badly, so the guy didn't want me to start it to avoid damaging it (suspicious I know) so we winched it onto the trailer. His dad had it towed home six months ago after it overheated and it hasn't been touched since. No cross contamination of fluids that I can tell. The rad's crusty as all get out and looked to be bone dryso it would surprise me if that's the issue, like he said. I didn't bring a battery (I left home at midnight and forgot a ton of stuff I intended to bring) and it didn't have one in it so I didn't bother trying to fire it up. The clutch works and it goes into all gears though. He seemed like a pretty trustworthy guy though. And it came with the original set of wheels, the d-window kind, that still have the centre caps in them. That right there is almost worth $700 ;)

 I'll definitely be digging into it more when I get home. Should be able to have plates on it by Tuesday though. I'll have to start a build thread. 

I've come up with a legit reason to have bought it though, errand running around town that a truck is just better for, while my truck is down, and also saving gas money on the 400 mile commute to school I'll be making every couple weeks this fall. I might also end up giving it to my dad at some point, for yard work, etc. He's been half looking for a small truck like that for a while. 

Stopped at Dead man's flats. The ZJ was doing awesome but me not so much. Really felt like a dead man myself there. I've made it almost another hour down the road now, but I'm exhausted, either from heat, lack of sleep, or some combo. I've driven almost 700 miles today...

 

[gogmorgo]

Okay so as a testament to how much I shouldn't be driving, I just moved some stuff in the back of the ZJ and discovered I forgot to forget the battery. Couldn't resist slapping it in. There's some belt squeal on startup, and it shook quite a bit initially but settled out not too badly. 

its still on the trailer and I don't want to crawl under to unhook so I didn't drive it. I added some extra straps because UHaul doesn't really provide much to secure the vehicle other than the two basket straps over the wheels. Safety chains are just hook through and there's no real way to tighten. When I brought the ZJ home the highway was under construction and rough enough I was concerned the Jeep was going to bounce itself off the trailer. It just wouldn't stay put, there were a couple times I watched it skip left/right in the mirror. The MJ's clamped down good though. 

crusty rad is crusty... But still not as bad as the ZJ's... This one still has fins!

[DirtyComanche]

That's a score if I ever saw one. 

[HOrnbrod]

12 minutes ago, DirtyComanche said:

That's a score if I ever saw one. 

 

Damn straight. Time for some rest mate. 

[gogmorgo]

Well I made it home early this morning. Slept for about 10 minutes before a park warden knocked on the window to discuss illegal camping, which is funny cause I've spent the night in that parking lot a whole bunch. Just not at peak season I guess. Made it all the way home in half-hour legs with breaks between. In a way it was better to be driving at night cause I had the road pretty well to myself. The ZJ needs deeper gears to be a mountain tow-pig for sure. A lot of the hills had me going between 2nd and 3rd, and I was down to first coming up out of the toilet bowl to the top of Sunwapta pass.

I also need new springs in the back of the ZJ real bad. Lesson learned though, not gonna do that to the ZJ again, even though it took it like a champ. A slow, underpowered (for towing 150% of its own weight) champ, but a champ none the less. Didn't even manage to high-centre the unit anywhere, although there were a couple hill starts that I'm pretty sure the clutch hates me for. The limit for manual trans towing being 2000lbs sorta makes sense after that. 

Tomorrow is going to be a continuation of the saga of make-the-Saint-go-away so it'll be a few days before I'll get a chance to give the MJ a thorough look over. 

[Sir Sam]

On 8/10/2018 at 6:08 PM, Pete M said:

The addiction is real   

 

take it slow and bring lots of water, both to drink and as emergency if your cooling system needs it.   

 

I feel your pain. I once pulled a travel trailer from detroit to atlanta using the KJ in 99* weather in the afternoon with the heater on full blast because the motor's e-fan was broken (I knew it but the diesel always ran cool so I had never bothered to replace it).  that was a muggy, hot drive.   the first 6 and the last 2 hours weren't so bad and I could even run the AC, but the middle 5 in Tennessee and north Georgia just suuuuuucked.  soon after that journey I replaced the fan.  

 

My efan died when I was driving to pickup a CRD in houston. After having the efan and/or the mechanical clutch die I can solidly say the CRD KJ needs both the efan and mechanical fan working correctly to cool properly.

 

 

Today while towing another CRD on a uhaul dolly, at about 95F, at 5k+ feet, i had some long hills that got the Jeep off of centerline on the temp gauge. Of course this was with AC on and driving 80 mph, so its not totally unexpected.

[gogmorgo]

By the time I was pulling up the mountain passes it was well after dark and it had cooled down quite a bit. Also the middle of the night meant I had the road mostly to myself and I could go as slow as necessary. The "toilet bowl" is a tight 225° corner at the bottom of a 1200' climb in just over two miles, along what's not quite a cliff face but steep enough there's no room for switchbacks. 

 

But here's a couple more photos:

 

Those core racing (what I was told) wheels will be going away. Too much poke for what this truck is. 

It almost looks like there may have been bumper brackets on it at one point, even though there aren't now. 

 

This thing needs its own thread. It'll be forthcoming.