'88 Pioneer 4.0 4x4

[mooseinabox]

So excited to finally be making this thread. It's been years in the making. 

 

Specs:

1988 Pioneer | SWB | 4.0 | BA 10/5 | 231 | 30/35 

 

Some pictures I took when I went to look at it, and when I towed it home to get started - 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mooseinabox]

These pictures are the best part of the truck 

 

I know the ad said rust free, but I didn't expect it to look this good. You can see in picture #4 where I need to take care of some tiny holes. I'm sure underneath the carpet looks a little worse, but I can handle it. Thank you Arkansas!

[mooseinabox]

I've never seen an MJ headliner so nice! Carpet needs some work, and I'll probably get a nice seat cover so my dog doesn't destroy the bench. Fuse box doesn't look so good.  It might be the source of my electrical issues, but I have a lot of diagnosing to do. 

 

I decided to pull out the bedliner to see how much dirt was under there. No doubt in my mind it's never been out in 30 years. Took me around 3 hours to get it clean, and I'm still worried about some of the spots that are a little bubbly, but doesn't quite look like typical rot. 

[JMO413]

It looks like the clutch master cylinder has been leaking for a long while. I'm guessing your right on that being the electrical problems source. Good looking truck you've got there! What's the plan with it?

[mooseinabox]

On 3/4/2019 at 8:15 AM, JMO413 said:

It looks like the clutch master cylinder has been leaking for a long while. I'm guessing your right on that being the electrical problems source. Good looking truck you've got there! What's the plan with it?

Just leave it original and drive it. I have a lot of maintenance and minor repairs to do, but still have some time until spring fully hits.

[mooseinabox]

First big change to the truck! Put on some new tires to replace the ones from 2001.   

 

I went from 215/75/15 to 235/75/15. I went with that size in part due to looks, but also because of tire choice and price. The Hercules I picked are a tire I install at least once a week on customer cars, and I really like them. They're on my plow truck as well and they perform really well for the price. My cost was $80 each so it was an easy choice for me. I don't plan on doing anything but street cruising, so I didn't want anything aggressive either.

 

 

[mooseinabox]

I also changed the oil with some classic 10w-30. I should've taken a picture of the oil that came out because it was OLD looking. At least 15 years since it was last changed. 

 

 

Decided to stay organized and made a list of everything I need to do to the truck to feel comfortable consistently driving it. Some things aren't quite as important but I still wanted to note it. I started underneath the truck and went back to front.

 

 

The exhaust has some hillbilly repairs on it, and the cat sounds all broken inside so I guess I'll be replacing it. Probably just stick with an OE replacement. The shocks are original and the right side on the rear is leaking. The steering shock is leaking very badly, and the balljoint on my track bar is moving, so I'll need to take care of that before I align it. 

 

Next I thoroughly looked under the hood.

 

 

One of the first things I found wrong with the truck was that the blower motor didn't work. I assumed it was because of the fuse box, or because the motor was broken. I unplugged the motor and got some readings with a multimeter. Strangely enough, when I plugged it back in, the motor kicked in and the fan worked great! I noticed some wiring repairs on the motor side harness, so I'll have to pull back the tape and see what's up. Just for fun I decided to switch over to a/c, and shockingly the compressor kicked in properly and the a/c fan came on as well. Amazing.

 

I wasn't surprised to see the valve cover gasket a little wet. Easy fix. Fingers crossed, only leak I've noticed. 

 

Unfortunately I noticed one of the injector plug harnesses was poorly spliced in, with copper being exposed. I don't want that to start shorting if it gets wet under there. 

 

Wipers don't wipe, but the squirters do. Yet another electrical issue. 

[Jeep Driver]

28 minutes ago, mooseinabox said:

I also changed the oil with some classic 10w-30. I should've taken a picture of the oil that came out because it was OLD looking. At least 15 years since it was last changed. 

 

 

Decided to stay organized and made a list of everything I need to do to the truck to feel comfortable consistently driving it. Some things aren't quite as important but I still wanted to note it. I started underneath the truck and went back to front.

 

 

The exhaust has some hillbilly repairs on it, and the cat sounds all broken inside so I guess I'll be replacing it. Probably just stick with an OE replacement. The shocks are original and the right side on the rear is leaking. The steering shock is leaking very badly, and the balljoint on my track bar is moving, so I'll need to take care of that before I align it. 

 

Next I thoroughly looked under the hood.

 

 

One of the first things I found wrong with the truck was that the blower motor didn't work. I assumed it was because of the fuse box, or because the motor was broken. I unplugged the motor and got some readings with a multimeter. Strangely enough, when I plugged it back in, the motor kicked in and the fan worked great! I noticed some wiring repairs on the motor side harness, so I'll have to pull back the tape and see what's up. Just for fun I decided to switch over to a/c, and shockingly the compressor kicked in properly and the a/c fan came on as well. Amazing.

 

I wasn't surprised to see the valve cover gasket a little wet. Easy fix. Fingers crossed, only leak I've noticed. 

 

Unfortunately I noticed one of the injector plug harnesses was poorly spliced in, with copper being exposed. I don't want that to start shorting if it gets wet under there. 

 

Wipers don't wipe, but the squirters do. Yet another electrical issue. 

Hope  you are good at troubleshooting electrical.............you'll get plenty of practice.

 

 

Nice clean truck. 

[mooseinabox]

3 minutes ago, Jeep Driver said:

Hope  you are good at troubleshooting electrical.............you'll get plenty of practice.

 

 

Nice clean truck. 

Definitely my weakest automotive trait. My coworker is old school and a real electrical genius, so hopefully I can bribe him for help.

 

[NEO auto]

Such a nice truck. That interior looks so clean. A new carpet with a set of mats would really set it off.

[mooseinabox]

20 hours ago, NEO auto said:

Such a nice truck. That interior looks so clean. A new carpet with a set of mats would really set it off.

 

I'm definitely going to look into carpet eventually. For now just some mats. You're right though, the interior is great. Nothing horribly ripped, dash isn't cracked, and no pointless holes drilled.

 

_______

 

Did some electrical repairs today. Fixed my injector harness properly with solder and heat shrink, and just did added liquid insulation to a couple wires with copper exposed. 

 

The fuse box turned out to be not as bad as I thought so currently it's just soaking in a spray (can't remember the name) to help remove all the oxidation. I'll replace all the fuses tomorrow and see what happens. I would like to get an OEM hazard relay to replace the one I have, and address the rusty relay at the bottom (chime module?). If it's just for the door buzzer then it works fine but I honestly don't know. 

 

 

 

[JMO413]

The rusty thing is the windshield wiper circuit breaker.

[mooseinabox]

54 minutes ago, JMO413 said:

The rusty thing is the windshield wiper circuit breaker.

 

You're kidding. No wonder my wipers don't work. 

[JMO413]

Good place to start.

[mooseinabox]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This truck is an absolute dream to work on. Every nut and bolt came loose with ease. I was able to do the track bar, steering stabilizer, all 4 shocks, and an alignment in under 2 hours. When I loosened the drag link during the alignment I was able to adjust it by hand. Blew my mind.

 

While I still have more jobs to do, I was able to take the truck for its first drive in 16 years. It feels incredibly solid. I was beyond impressed.

 

Hopefully I can finish everything up this week and weekend so I can start driving it consistently next week. 

[mooseinabox]

 

 

 

Still need to buy the coolant and oil pressure sensors/senders/switches whatever you call them but at least the tach works. Still no fuel gauge so the sending unit is definitely toast. Oh well.

[MJXJjeepguy]

Did u got MJ from Davey' s jeep? 

[mooseinabox]

20 hours ago, MJXJjeepguy said:

Did u got MJ from Davey' s jeep? 

Yes sir!

[mooseinabox]

 

 

 

 

 

Got a valve cover gasket on today. I used the blue rubber fel-pro one. I ended up draining the coolant and replacing the two heater hoses at the same time since it's easier to get the cover off with those hoses out of the way. I forgot to take a picture but the old coolant was NASTY. I still need to do a proper flush but for now it's okay. 

 

I noticed while getting it up to temp that the heater hoses were incredibly hot and with the cap on the bottle the coolant was not recirculating at all. I need to do a lot more diagnosing but I think at this point if I tried to drive the truck around it would overheat.

[mooseinabox]

I got a used wiper circuit breaker, and the plug for it to splice in, hoping to fix my lack of wipers. Got it all together and they work perfectly! Intermittent, low, and high are all working well. I'm going to pull the rain tray, inspect the motor, and see if I can lube the linkage at all.  

 

 

 

In the bottom picture, you can see the aftermarket turn signal relay with one plug going into the proper location, and the other going into a terminal in the fuse box. When I plug in a factory relay, I have no turn signals. Yet another electrical item to diagnose. 

 

The truck has been sitting outside in the rain the last few days. Unfortunately, when I pulled it into the shop, the carpet was completely soaked. Driver footwell, passenger footwell, and behind the seat. Not even sure where to start.

 

 

Last week I mentioned overheating. I dove a little deeper into it now that I have the proper temp sender for my gauge cluster. It's for sure overheating, but I got some good advice and I'm going to try bleeding the system before I go out and replace the radiator and thermostat. I have a feeling it's going to need replacing, but at least I can say I tried

 

I'm definitely slowing down on progress and motivation. I just want to drive my truck.  I guess you don't get to enjoy these old trucks without putting the work in first.

[Pete M]

if you're lucky you can get use the hose to isolate where the water is coming in.  everything and anything that could possibly leak has leaked for someone over the years.   the last one I dealt with was a leaky windshield that was dripping in and running inside the A-pillar and then dripped on the floor further down.  fortunately that truck didn't have any floor liner so babypowder worked to help backtrack the location. 

[mooseinabox]

I don't have any pictures, but last week I replaced my blower motor resistor. I now have a fully working hvac system, and it didn't even cost me $10 to fix.  Maybe I'll replace the freon with 134 later in the spring or summer.

 

Also last week, and also no pictures (oops), I replaced the clutch master cylinder finally. The one old was leaking, and the pedal was squishy with little to no "snap." Unfortunately, I had to drill out the cotter pin since both ends broke on me, and the bushing and washer got destroyed as well. I need to source a new kit to fix the massive amount of play. Once I got the master in, I thoroughly bled through the slave cylinder. A ton of nasty fluid came out, but once we got to the fresh stuff, the pedal felt worlds better. Nice and snappy! 

 

Yesterday I overhauled the brake system. Before replacing any components, I sucked out all the old fluid, replaced with fresh fluid, and vacuum bled the whole system with an entire bottle of fluid. I didn't want any of the nasty fluid getting into my fresh hoses and calipers, so it was definitely time well spent. 

 

Next I replaced the rear rubber hose.  

 

 

Before picture of the front brakes:

 

 

 

After:

 

 

 

You can see the new hose in the first picture as well. The old ones were cracked and the rubber was pretty stiff, so this was a no brainer to replace. The rotors, calipers, and hoses are duralast brand, and the pads are carquest golds. My wholesale cost was $150 for calipers, rotors, pads, and all 3 hoses which is pretty awesome. I'm sure the white box rotors will get some rust on the hubs, but I'm really happy with all the other parts.

 

I bled the whole system again and adjusted the rear drums and the results are fantastic. Pedal is massively better, and stopping power is good for an old truck. 

 

Last night I also picked up some new wheels! 15x8 Wrangler "Ravine" wheels. These were exactly the wheels I was looking for. They are in poor to fair condition, but I got all 5, a never used spare tire, 2 solid tires I can resell, and all 5 center caps for $140. I'm excited to not only have some alloy wheels, but I now have a full size matching spare, and none of them are bent like one of my stock steel wheels. I will probably end up getting them sandblasted, then painting and clearing them myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I still have a few more projects to tackle before I'm comfortable driving the truck home:

 

- Address overheating issue. I have a thermostat waiting to put in, and after that I will bleed the system and go from there.

- Rear diff flush/fill, transfer case flush/fill, transmission flush/fill, front diff flush, fill. Only a couple hour job with my nice diff machine at work.

- Power steering fluid exchange.

- Cruiser54's tips. Still have some electrical issues, so I'm going to refresh all the grounds and diagnose from there. 

- Replace door and window seals. I got a whole kit, so hopefully the job isn't too much of a pain.

- Loose ends. I'm sure I'll find some more little things to do.

 

 

 

[Pete M]

woohoo! I love ravines  

[mooseinabox]

Finished 1/2 of the jobs on my most recent list between last night and tonight! At this point I would feel comfortable driving the truck home. About time!

 

On Friday I replaced the thermostat and flushed the whole system with probably 20 gallons of water. First I pushed water from the lower hose to the upper hose to reverse flush the radiator, then I pushed water from the upper radiator connection to the upper hose to get water through the block and all hoses as well. You can see I drilled a hole in thermostat to help with air in the system. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of all this it was still overheating, but I called it a night knowing I'd have more time today to mess with it.

 

Today I started by getting the rear end up and bleeding through the temp sender again. I got a ton of air out so that was slightly promising. I ran the truck a little more with the cap off, defrost on high, and the rear end still up until the temp got a little over 100. I bled it one more time and then brought it back to level with the defrost still on. Next, I used an infrared thermometer to find any possible hot spots or areas where maybe coolant wasn't flowing. The temp seemed okay, so I decided to drive it around a bit to see what would happen. To my surprise, the temp stayed below 210 the entire time, and when I got back and let it idle, it never got above 210. I checked temps everywhere with the thermometer and everything was in the normal and safe range. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next set of projects was flush & fills.

 

I started with the power steering fluid. I used my brake fluid vacuum bleeder to suck all the fluid out, then replaced with the fresh stuff. Next I started the truck and went lock to lock 16 times. I ended up sucking the fluid out again, adding, and bleeding 2 more times before I was satisfied.

 

Rear diff next. 75W-90 synthetic. Front diff and transmission got the same treatment. I took the lazy way out and didn't take off the covers. I'll do it next season. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transfer case got dexron VI ATF. I believe dexron 2 is the recommended, but I don't think you can even buy that anymore, and I had the VI in stock already.

 

I decided it was time to do one last drain and fill since the system seemed to be okay now. I pulled off the lower hose to get the majority of the coolant out, then lifted the rear end back up to help drain the block. I added some fancy Shell extended life red coolant I had on the shelf. I left the rear end in the air throughout the filling process, as that seems to really be the secret to keeping air out. Took it for another drive and everything felt great, and the temps stayed down. I'll top off the bottle on Monday with everything nice and cold. 

 

Very successful weekend!

 

[Pete M]

  you're a pro!  now come over here and do all that to my truck