89’ Pioneer MJ Barn Find

[oleskool]

Finally found a minute to throw this guy on! Now she looks like she is part of the 80’s!

 

 

[WranglerMangler]

Just spent the last hour reading through your posts from start to finish. Awesome job you have done on your truck. The blue interior painted pieces really do look amazing. Keep up the great work. Beautiful truck. 

[oleskool]

On 5/8/2023 at 10:47 PM, WranglerMangler said:

Just spent the last hour reading through your posts from start to finish. Awesome job you have done on your truck. The blue interior painted pieces really do look amazing. Keep up the great work. Beautiful truck. 

Thank you. I tried to document as much as I could along the way. Next up is paint and body work!  I love that blue too. It takes me back to my childhood in the 80’s 😂 

[oleskool]

Well after the external slave swap I had a trans leak. Oddly enough it was coming from the shift tower. I guess the gasket got shifted when I put it back together. So while I was fixing that issue I went ahead and installed the mating heat deflector that I didn’t install when I put in the new full console. I also threw on the new shifter dust cover since I was in there and mine was non existent. 

[coheed]

Just saw a Comanche crossing 160 this morning and thought I recognized it. Truck looks great man 

[oleskool]

On 5/17/2023 at 7:54 AM, coheed said:

Just saw a Comanche crossing 160 this morning and thought I recognized it. Truck looks great man 

Thank you!  I've been waiting to see yours with the lift installed.  I have been trying to hold off the bug to lift mine and keep it stockish haha.  What's funny is my neighbor has a short bed that he drives almost everyday too.  I went  from seeing almost no MJ's around town to 3 lol.

[coheed]

32 minutes ago, oleskool said:

Thank you!  I've been waiting to see yours with the lift installed.  I have been trying to hold off the bug to lift mine and keep it stockish haha.  What's funny is my neighbor has a short bed that he drives almost everyday too.  I went  from seeing almost no MJ's around town to 3 lol.

Yeah I originally said I wasn't gonna go more then 2" of lift and I just got the front back on it's own weight at 3/3.5" lol. The longer I own it the more hacks and horrible fixes I find on it. Plus it wasn't a clean truck at $1500 when I bought it, so I don't feel super bad about not keeping it stock. 

 

Is his the really nice restored and lifted silver one? I know of 4 MJs around us; yours, mine, the nice silver one, and a swb burgundy one that stays over in Indian Land but I've seen over in Fort Mill a lot. 

[oleskool]

38 minutes ago, coheed said:

Yeah I originally said I wasn't gonna go more then 2" of lift and I just got the front back on it's own weight at 3/3.5" lol. The longer I own it the more hacks and horrible fixes I find on it. Plus it wasn't a clean truck at $1500 when I bought it, so I don't feel super bad about not keeping it stock. 

 

Is his the really nice restored and lifted silver one? I know of 4 MJs around us; yours, mine, the nice silver one, and a swb burgundy one that stays over in Indian Land but I've seen over in Fort Mill a lot. 

My new neighbor's is the SWB Burgundy one on the Indian Land side.  I just moved last year from Tega Cay to that side of Fort Mill.  I know of the red one that I used to see around Carowinds BLVD.  The silver one I have not seen that I am aware of.  

[coheed]

1 hour ago, oleskool said:

My new neighbor's is the SWB Burgundy one on the Indian Land side.  I just moved last year from Tega Cay to that side of Fort Mill.  I know of the red one that I used to see around Carowinds BLVD.  The silver one I have not seen that I am aware of.  

Haven't seen a red one. Will have to keep my eyes out for it since I commute that way for work. It's very interesting that Comanches seem to pile up in smaller areas lol. 

 

If you ever need an extra set of hands let me know. 

[oleskool]

2 hours ago, coheed said:

Haven't seen a red one. Will have to keep my eyes out for it since I commute that way for work. It's very interesting that Comanches seem to pile up in smaller areas lol. 

 

If you ever need an extra set of hands let me know. 

Same to you, I am always out wrenching on something and willing to lend any help where I can!

[oleskool]

Well I’ve had a hell of a time getting the AX15 rear seal pressed in square and it keeps causing a very small weep of Redline MT Fluid. That stuff is to expensive to lose it going down the highway so I printed a seal insertion tool 😉 let’s see if this thing keeps the seal square during assembly 😂. It holds the seal center and it pilots off the 23 spline output shaft so it can’t shift side to side or at an angle. 🤞 

[Pete M]

nice!    don't we have a "tools you made" thread in tech somewhere?

[oleskool]

11 hours ago, Pete M said:

nice!    don't we have a "tools you made" thread in tech somewhere?

If that’s the case I can fill that section up. I’ve made a special tool for several areas on these trucks 😂. You should see the tool I made to make removing the clutch slave cylinder easier 😂 

[oleskool]

Well with the weather here on the east coast rainy and dreary I figured it was a good time to knock out the valve cover gasket. To my surprise the valve cover ports had the 1/2” hole drilled into them but they were not shortened. I went ahead and cleaned it up and took out the 1” of material before putting the cover back on. The PO used some nasty gasket former (not RTV) and left me a surprise broken bolt on the driver side 😡. After a little persuasion with the welder we were back in business 😂. New felpro rubber gasket and fingers crossed no leaks!!!

[oleskool]

Also took some time to clean up and restore a set of seat belts for the truck. I need to polish the metal and they will be ready to go!!!

[oleskool]

Finally got a minute to throw the new seat belts in. They finally stay in place 😂 a comparison of how crumbled the drivers side was compared to the donors. 

[oleskool]

Picked up a new turn signal stalk / cruise control switch. Fingers crossed this fixes my cruise issue. Seeing how the current one is being cut in half by the plastic surrounding the steering column I’m 80% confident 😂 

[oleskool]

Finally installed. 

[oleskool]

Well I’ve been kicking the wiper rebuild can down the road long enough. Honestly it’s super easy to do. Grabbed the bushing rebuild kit from doorman, some 97+ wiper arms, new wipers and a 97+ motor. I disconnected everything, removed the wiper arms and snaked the system out of the cowl. Easy to get out but a pitta to get in 😂. Removed the old joints using a large flat head screwdriver to pop the joints loose. Using a 18+ mm socket and a pair of channel locks each plastic bushing was removed and popped back in. This takes about 5 minutes on a slow day. I did use some super lube on the ball sockets to make me feel better 😂. Next I removed the gear box cover on the motor and cleaned out the 30+ year old grease. Replaced it with some good pressure rated grease, cleaned and used dielectric grease on the contractor that controls the position of the wipers and sealed them back up. Played Tetris again to get the assembly back in the cowl and slowly bolted everything down. I did run the wipers once to reset the home position before putting the arms back on. Let’s see how this helps things before I go to the 97+ motor. I’m hoping this will be good 😊 

[Salvagedcircuit]

Neat! Curious, what were your reasons to go to the 97+ windshield wiper motor? I have not researched it yet. Is it a better motor design? Faster wiper speed?

Thanks.

[oleskool]

12 minutes ago, Salvagedcircuit said:

Neat! Curious, what were your reasons to go to the 97+ windshield wiper motor? I have not researched it yet. Is it a better motor design? Faster wiper speed?

Thanks.

Haven’t installed it yet but there is a write here on CC. It’s supposed to be faster but isn’t plug and play 😊 

[oleskool]

Well it looks like a harmonic balancer is next on deck 😢 Been getting a knocking noise under load around 2k RPMs. Been trying to track it down for a couple weeks. I guess this is the culprit 😂. It’s also squeaking a little 😅 

[oleskool]

A little Saturday evening fun 😉 

[oleskool]

And that’s a wrap. Back to her old self. Quick tip for anyone trying to replace the crankcase seal, an old trick I learned long ago was how to use a open end wrench to pop out seals in tight places. A 14mm works great on the crankcase seal 😉 

[oleskool]

 What a week. First the truck decided to die going out my drive randomly. This allowed me to wave at every neighbor heading to work that morning while the hood was up. God knows what they think of me and my ole truck 😂. Next day I go to drive it and find a nice puddle of fuel spraying everywhere. The connector hose to the fuel filter cracked and out on quite a show under the truck. I got that buttoned up just in time to get a severely rough idle / no power or acceleration / REM loop fault lean code and many more. After cussing the truck out several times over and validating every sensor on the damn thing I found this. I didn’t start with the CPS because it fired right up flawlessly everytime. I guess it got good enough signal to crank but not good enough signal to sync the cylinders etc. 🤷‍♂️ I guess when I swapped the internal slave for an external slave I let the wiring slide off the clamp that holds it in place. Who knew the damn thing could crank so well but not idle for $#!& with a bad cps.