Keep it Stock Stupid

[coheed]

Love a contractors cap on an old truck. Looks great 

[GonzoTheGreat]

On 2/1/2024 at 6:43 PM, coheed said:

Love a contractors cap on an old truck. Looks great 

Thanks! I'm happy with how it turned out

 

I had to narrow the bit between the taillights 3" and I screwed it onto some plastic 2x4s to meet the bed rail width. The cap is just a couple inches too wide to fit directly.

 

Fitment was perfect. I've got about an eighth to a quarter inch clearance against each taillight. I also siliconed the 2x4s before screwing them on, and I ran rubber strips between the bed rails and the cap, so hopefully it's fairly water-tight.

 

I've also had a significant sag to the drivers side since I got the truck. So I swapped in new leaf springs today, and that helped. I've got new coils to put in when tomorrow's snowmaggedon is over. I also put in a pair of shackles that are an inch longer than stock, because I had them lying around. It sits high in the rear, but I figure once I have new coils in, and the bed loaded up with all my tools and crap, it'll probably level out.

 

 

I was planning on fighting every bushing bolt. I expected them to all be seized to the inner sleeves, but I was shocked to find that only one of them gave me trouble, and with a little heat, it popped right out! I'm not used to working on project vehicles with only 60k miles. This is nice.

 

 

 

[GonzoTheGreat]

It was a degree above freezing this afternoon, so I took advantage of the warmth and swapped coils and isolators, control arms, and those UCA axle-side bushings. 
 

 

The truck finally sits level, side to side, and the new bushings all around got rid of my highway shimmy. 

[GonzoTheGreat]

I'm prepping for a road trip to Costa Rica, so there have been a lot of little details that don't really have to be done, but I'm telling myself they're important. I don't need a trailer hitch on a 2.5L truck, but I wanted one, so I burned one together with some plates from @krustyballer16 and pieces of a spare hitch I had laying around.

 

Of course, the fay bumper had been installed low, so it interfered with the hitch plates.

 

And I found out why it had been installed that way.

not a lot of options

 

So I fixed the rust, drilled new holes, remounted the bumper, and finished the hitch.

 

Now the bumper sits tighter to the truck, mounts with 4 bolts instead of 2, and I'm happy with fitment.

 

I also spliced up a trailer plug with that Cadillac connector that fits the rear harness.

[GonzoTheGreat]

The fuel gauge hadn't worked since the full cluster was installed, and both the gauge and the sending unit tested good. Turns out the diode that's soldered into the ribbon board on the back of the cluster was blown. I figured it'd be easier to swap the ribbon than modify another gauge cluster for the column shift auto, and change the odometer. Now I know how much fuel I have, which is pretty important to me.

 

 

For an update on the bedcap, I hacked in an RV fan, mounted a deep cycle battery in the toolbox, and put a Victron DC-DC charger under the hood. It felt a little silly doing this when it was below freezing, but when I get to Central America, and I'm trying to sleep in there, I won't regret it.

 

The battery also powers the LED strips in the cap.

 

I also wanted the bedcap to be keyed to match the ignition. This is just me being anal, but there are few limits to my OCD when I get started on something.

 

New lock tumblers for the cap weren't available to match the old GM keys, but the less old GM keys from 91-(i think)94 were supported, so I ground a notch in an ignition lock cylinder from a 91, so I could use that, and got all new tumblers for the cap that accepted the later key. I probably spent way more time, effort, and money than it was worth, but now I have one less key to worry about.

 

Also, I was down by the ocean this week, so I took a quick glamor shot.

[GonzoTheGreat]

A few updates:

 

I finished wiring the fan, lights, and third brake light in the cap. the fan and lights run off the house battery. The DC-DC charger has performed flawlessly.

 

In February, I also replaced the steering linkage with all new Moog parts

 

I didn't like the exhaust being all hodge-podged together, so I put in a new Walker tailpipe, and shoehorned a "stainless" KJ muffler in there because it's a lot bigger than the MJ one, and then welded everything solid. The tailpipe is whisper-quiet now, but it doesn't really matter with all the added noise from the header. 

 

When the engine got hot, the power steering pump whined pretty loud, so I put in an auto parts store fluid cooler, and it's been fine since.

 

I also added cruise control (I'll tidy up the wiring and vacuum stuff later ), which hasn't worked, but I haven't had a chance yet to figure out why.

[Salvagedcircuit]

On 2/29/2024 at 10:41 PM, GonzoTheGreat said:

Turns out the diode that's soldered into the ribbon board on the back of the cluster was blown

Do you happen to have a photo of this? As a column shift owner, it would be cool to know.

Thanks!

[GonzoTheGreat]

1 hour ago, Salvagedcircuit said:

Do you happen to have a photo of this? As a column shift owner, it would be cool to know.

Thanks!

I don’t have a pic, but both of the full gauge clusters involved in the surgery were not originally column shift. I think all renix full clusters are the same, but don’t quote me on that. 

[89 MJ]

14 minutes ago, GonzoTheGreat said:

I don’t have a pic, but both of the full gauge clusters involved in the surgery were not originally column shift. I think all renix full clusters are the same, but don’t quote me on that. 

There were two styles of Renix full clusters. Blue and whatever the other one is called. The blue one was earlier and had similar style gauges to the Renix dummy light clusters. The other one had a similar look to the HO clusters. In regards to function or compatibility between 4.0 and 2.5, I believe that they are the same. 

[GonzoTheGreat]

I had some time to get into the door cards this week. The driver side door check was never functional, so I put one in from a later XJ with the rubber stopper. While I had one door open, I figured I’d open the passenger side too, and put in the pair of ~96 XJ vinyl vapor barriers I had been carrying around. 
 

 

it stopped the draft I was getting around the door handle, and maybe it’s a placebo effect, but I think it cut down on road noise. 
 

I also really didn’t love the look of the bed cap at first, but it’s kind of growing on me.