88 Chief

[m2bandit]

Well Covid $#!& on that plan, we traveled for a few months but I'm back now. 
A little progress on demething my MJ. 
The battery tray hardware was rotted out the battery was held down with a bungee cord and a dream.  
I cleaned up the metal, painted it and installed a DBO tray.  A few more dirtbound bits will be coming soon after I make a trip to grab more of my tools and welder early next month. 

 

 

[MiNi Beast]

nice. i need a tray myself. ill have to check them out. looks great. 

[Pete M]

On 3/14/2020 at 9:55 AM, m2bandit said:

Off topic 
My new RV Jayco 245rlsw and 2019 Ram 1500, both of which have been getting some mods of their own. If you ever buy an RV go through it thoroughly I know people say that for the inspection but I mean more than that. Bring it home, take the undercarriage liner off ( which is a pain) and check Everything! 
I'll list a few of the major issues.  
2" Insulation was cut off the Brake + wire, which was right next to an exposed ground. 
Propane hose was being cut into by sheet metal wouldn't have lasted 1000 miles, at 600 it was already getting deep. 
6/ 20 black tank screws were broken off from over torquing another 2 weren't in all the way.
2 gray tank screws were broken with a few loose. 
Trailer light wires literally fell out of their crimps when touched.
The entire undercarriage was severely rusted. It was a brand new custom order built in November 2019. 
I'll leave it at that but the list of little things goes on. I'm very happy with it now but it was absolutely dangerous. 

 

yeah, when my folks bought their first trailer I found out just what people meant when they told me that trailers were not built to the same standards as cars.    the initial run though found only a couple problems, but the next couple years found sooooo many more.  thankfully they have me around so that the trailer wasn't stuck in the shop more than at a campground.   it helped immensely to join a forum dedicated to our trailer's brand so I could find out what others had done.

[m2bandit]

On 10/29/2020 at 7:29 AM, Pete M said:

 

yeah, when my folks bought their first trailer I found out just what people meant when they told me that trailers were not built to the same standards as cars.    the initial run though found only a couple problems, but the next couple years found sooooo many more.  thankfully they have me around so that the trailer wasn't stuck in the shop more than at a campground.   it helped immensely to join a forum dedicated to our trailer's brand so I could find out what others had done.

I'm on the Jayco forum seems a lot of them are bad. They also has a "Quality control stand down" the month after mine was made... lucky me. 

[gogmorgo]

I really don’t know what it is about trailers. I haven’t got too far into the RV aspect of them, just dealing with the lights, brakes, etc. But I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s some unpublished rule that the wiring needs to be as janky as possible. If you’re lucky you’ll get exposed crimp connections, but usually it’s just scotch locks and marettes. Even on boat trailers. Like seriously, people dunk these things into the ocean, and you’re not even trying to weatherproof the wiring?

I can’t imagine the rest of construction is any better... and yet somehow the thing still costs as much as a house.

[m2bandit]

I put a new tranny mount in the MJ which I figured would be easy but it turned out 5 out of the 6 bolt holes were stripped out. Atleast the studs were good. 
I got them all tapped to 7/16 and replaced the hardware. 

 

 

I just had to wait to get my new bolts back, as I was also trying to reformat my fiancee's Mac that's stuck in a sleep/wake loop which it rarely breaks out of. I ended up replacing them with deep sockets.   (windows >mac)

 

[m2bandit]

A little progress today. I got the dash back in. Got an adapter for my welder so hopefully I can get to work on some more fun stuff. 

If anyone's interested the sockets on the Mac keys worked, After a few days of the boot loop I got into recovery and reformatted it, it no longer is boot looping. 
No thanks to Apple who told me to bring it in to their apple store 100 miles away. 

 

[Pete M]

best fix ever   

[m2bandit]

I finished my bumper today, a Dirtbound DIY manta ray. Friday I'll be putting new motor mounts in, replacing the oil filter adapter orings and changing the oil.  Then she's getting a good pressure wash before weld the brackets to the bumper. I'm pretty sure I mentioned the whole jeep undercarriage is coated in mud. She was road hard and put away wet for sure. 

 

Tacked:

 

 

Welded:

 

 

Cleaned:

 

 

 

 

[War_Pony89]

42 minutes ago, m2bandit said:

I finished my bumper today, a Dirtbound DIY manta ray. Friday

 

 

 

 

 

Looking nice!  I just got a manta ray a bit ago. really happy with it. Still need to add the plate lights. Curious what your plans are for the  BA10?

[m2bandit]

1 hour ago, War_Pony89 said:

 

 

 

Looking nice!  I just got a manta ray a bit ago. really happy with it. Still need to add the plate lights. Curious what your plans are for the  BA10?

Fire? ritual sacrifice? I planned on keeping it but the shifter seals are rotted out and my attempts to replace them only made things worse. I imagine I wore out some bushings trying to separate the shifter since it's really sloppy now. 

I can't find an AX15 and I have an Aw4 lying around so I guess I'll go automatic. 

 

 

[War_Pony89]

On 11/25/2020 at 11:28 PM, m2bandit said:

Fire? ritual sacrifice?

I can't find an AX15 and I have an Aw4 lying around so I guess I'll go automatic. 

 

Target practice comes to mind, love to see what some AP rounds would do. I thought of doing the upgrade to the manual after the AX 15 (forgot the name), but found a AX15 from a TJ. Got lucky seem like.

 

[Pete M]

On 11/25/2020 at 11:28 PM, m2bandit said:

I can't find an AX15 and I have an Aw4 lying around so I guess I'll go automatic. 

 

 

 tried car-part.com yet?

[m2bandit]

Oof it has been a long time since I posted here. I've done a lot during my absence, including a glorious 2 month long exploration of the great state of Utah.

 

Not sure if I mentioned this but the bumpers packaging was damaged in transit half the hardware was missing and Dirtbound got it squared away immediately.

 

Here's the back bumper finished.

 

 

 

 

 

And a few shots of the front in adult Lego construction order. No, that's not my toaster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[m2bandit]

So next up was figuring out why the rear brakes were so bad and the Ebrake let my jeep roll making me chockblock in my driveway.

 

Keeping in tradition of the rusty bits my D44 looked like it had been sitting in a swamp for a bit. The camera flash makes this look way better than it was.

 

While I was in there I noticed slop in the wheel bearings so I replaced those while I was at it.

 

 

 

All new hardware for her, including drums.

 

 

 

A brake system flush appeared to be long overdue as well.

 

 

 

I'm happy to say she now stops well and parks on my driveway without me chock blocking it.

[m2bandit]

So next, was interior switch panels, my MJ has blockoff plates and my parts XJ of course had panels that didn't match. All 3 of the clock panels I have didn't work.
So I made my own, which I now sell. I also bought a universal stereo mount and the ear I needed broke off so I make that too.

 

[m2bandit]

My turn signal switch wasn't properly catching and releasing so I replaced that.
Not something I want to deal with again any time soon. For this you need a steering wheel puller and an abundance of time.

 

 

I also had an intermittent blinker issue, I saw the corroded blinker sockets and thought it would be that for sure. Nope! I tried different bulbs, fuses and relays, nothing. Eventually I put the test light at the blinker relay and there was no juice but the fuse had juice. Turned out the fuse connectors were pretty corroded and brittle. Part of the connector broke when I was poking at it.

 

 

 

I replaced the one in Power ACC too, for whatever the heck that is hooked to. Blinkers work great now. I did have to rewire one of the new sockets since the info I got online was wrong and I didn't test it before soldering 

 

[m2bandit]

With the blinkers working it's finally time to fix the seats so I can get back on the road.

I'm not really sure what happened here but the previous owner did a number on it.

 

 

 

 

 

I purchased new mounts from @krustyballer16 , Here's a link.
https://comancheclub.com/topic/55472-reproduction-seat-brackets-and-roll-bar-brackets/

 

 

I couldn't fit a wrench or socket into the seat channel so some sacrificial washers did the trick. They'll probably fall out one day and confuse me.

 

 

The new brackets, will be nice and safe now.  Just have to find the hardware I bought for this day...

 

 

 

 

[m2bandit]

Our 2019 Ram left us hanging again cylinder 1 isn't firing and I ruled out spark. It's under warranty but the dealer is booked for 2 weeks.

 

The MJ is now on daily driver duty despite not quite being in the condition for it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I remembered last night I didn't have license plate lights. I purchased some bolts with lights a while back and didn't wire them. After blasting mud out of the connectors ( I guess the previous owner didn't have them either. ) and digging up some bullet connectors they were good to go.

 

 

Now to fix the dead windshield wipers...

 

[m2bandit]

Not much done today meant to diagnose the wipers but got busy with other stuff around the house.

Did put in an inner shift boot, it didn't have one. Hopefully it'll keep the smells out.

 

[m2bandit]

I found the proper pinout for the wiper motor

to test for a bad motor test light black (ground ) to number 2  (white on wiper motor side can't remember jeep side and I closed it up already ) while switch is set to low

Test light Dk blue /w tracer to black while switch is high

If you've got juice your motor is toast.

 

Off to order a new motor.

[Pete M]

wow, you have been busy.    that boot keeps the smells and the heat where they belong.  it's shocking how fragile the originals are.  most all MJs I see in the junkyards are missing most of it.

[m2bandit]

On 12/9/2021 at 1:08 PM, Pete M said:

wow, you have been busy.    that boot keeps the smells and the heat where they belong.  it's shocking how fragile the originals are.  most all MJs I see in the junkyards are missing most of it.

It definitely helped with cab stink, still waiting on the exhaust I ordered to come in since the previous owner cut it off right behind the cat.

 

Got the outer boot on now too, it likes to pop out of first and third now though. Hopefully the boot will soften up a bit.

 

 

[Pete M]

not sure I've ever heard of that one. 

[m2bandit]

On 12/1/2021 at 6:43 PM, m2bandit said:

 

The MJ is now on daily driver duty despite not quite being in the condition for it.

 

Well that was foresight, I guess I should have given it a good safety check.  Tierod nut must have came loose and stripped out. There was no cotter key in fact the cotter key hole had a spider eggsac in it.

 

I replaced the nut and ground down the spacer a bit. It was too long to let the castle nut go down far enough.

 

I still don't know what tierods these are they're Jeep taper or atleast very close.

 

 

 

 

Slightly jeep related, well probably more than slightly. I designed some angle grinder wall mounts to clear up some shelf space.