The Oreo (T.J.'s YJ)

The half doors are a success. All the mechanisms work as they should and the door opens and closes smoothly. I picked up the TJ upper frames and skins from Crown Auto Saturday morning and test fitted them. The spacing seems perfect in comparison to the pictures I've seen in all the various write-ups I've read. All that's left is to cut the rear pin and find someone to weld it back together, and possibly chop about an inch off the bottoms of the front pins. Here's some pics to show how everything looks:





Of course as usual, it's always two steps forward and one step back. During one of my deliveries Saturday I'm pretty sure the driver side axle U-joint shat the bed, as I now have a lovely crunching sound when the wheels are cut and spinning. As a result, it will be in the shop for a few days to have that and my O2 sensor replaced, and I no longer work as a delivery man. I've broken far fewer things on the thing wheeling than I did working that damn job.

Looks good! Man, even my soft top door surrounds don't fit that well.

I hope you didn't bring it to the shop for the O2 sensors! You'd be surprised how easy those are to swap out. A bit of PB blaster before driving to Autozone to rent the O2 socket, then unplug and unscrew the old and screw in and plug in the new!

The u-joint is well within your range too, but with a DD I would probably take it to a shop as well. U-joints aren't that bad, but still have a learning curve and if you find you're missing a part or something it means you don't have a vehicle to go get it. We did Clayton's in an afternoon and it wasn't that bad.

Front DSs are the best way to learn swapping out u-joints, because spare u-joints are readily available and cheap if you mess up and you can still drive without the front DS if you need to.

Well I figured I might as well have the sensor replaced while it was there. I haven't heard word on if the shop is even going to attempt the U-joint. I go to this guy all the time (he's literally less than a quarter mile up the road on the same block as my house) for little stuff, but there has been the occasional time where he's told me he wouldn't touch the thing, i.e. when the sending unit ruptured and I had gas spewing everywhere. I'm thinking he won't have an issue with this though, and he is reasonably priced and always does me a solid, so hopefully it's a relatively straightforward process.

As of right now Geoff, I no longer need those soft doors. So we can start figuring out a price and how in the world I ship them to you. I've never really shipped anything as large and awkwardly shaped as them.

More news from the front. It was in fact the axle U-joint that went. A couple hours at the shop and $187 later (partly do to purchasing a heavier duty U-joint) she was back on the road good as new. Kinda. You guys know what I mean.

Also, my driver-side hard half door upper hinge (that's a mouthful) has had play in the pin since the day the Jeep was bought. The maintenance guy that my father works with at his job was kind enough to weld it for me so I no longer have to lift the door and slam it to get it to shut properly. This may not sound like a huge deal but believe me, when you have to slam your door shut so hard people think North Korea's attacking...it's a welcomed upgrade. The hinge is currently hang-drying in my parents' basement awaiting a second coat of expertly-matched rattle can white. My goal is to have the half doors ready and on for the BBQ.

Full size spare has been acquired. This one's a take-off from an' 03 Rubi. It's worn a little unevenly but has plenty of meat left. And hey, for $50 you can't go wrong. My extensive list of parts from donor Jeeps continues to grow.



As a side note, the dude who sold it to me had extensive experience building Jeeps, but no longer owns one otherwise I would have made him join the forum. Along with his '03 Rubi, he said he helped a buddy build up an '88 YJ a few years back with 16 inches of lift, 40 inch mudders, and a 353 Chevy crate engine mated to a 4-speed tranny. His Rubi was neglected though...it was only on 38s supposedly. He's currently working on a '63 T-bird that sat in a garage in New Hampshire for 25 years. It's got less rust and fewer blemishes than my parents' mid-2000s Fords. I should mention he has two other T-bird parts cars at his house too. Needless to say my old man and I had plenty to talk with him about. It's amazing what you can accomplish without a wife and kids.

THOOPY3 wrote:It's amazing what you can accomplish without a wife and kids.

I just lol'd so much. I'll make sure they put this on your tomb stone when the time comes.

Ryan M wrote:

I just lol'd so much. I'll make sure they put this on your tomb stone when the time comes.

Just don't tell my girlfriend. You're just the guy I wanted to talk to actually Ryan. If you're free Wednesday after 5 I'd love to work on the door uppers then. I was gonna shoot you a message today but there are far more important things happening in the world than my doors.

So thanks to Ryan, the door project is now all but complete. I owe him all the credit for this stage, as the cutting and welding was all done by him at his house using his tools. There are a few pictures of the frames before and during the process on his camera, so unfortunately I don't have those pictures available at the moment.

The process was fairly straightforward (at least it seemed that way from the bleachers). The passenger door went extremely smoothly, as we got the length and angle right on the first try. Unfortunately we ended up chopping off too much on the driver door and Ryan had to weld some of what we chopped off back on, and grind it down from there to get everything where we wanted it. Other than that though, everything went great. They're a tight fit in the door inserts, but I have a feeling that will be a benefit to me and there won't be any play when I'm driving. (I want to mention that the term "we" actually means Ryan, but simply saying Ryan implies that the mistakes were all his fault, which is false. Errors were a group effort .)

Tonight I wire-wheeled the welds, filed a few jagged spots down, and hit them with some trusty paint/primer in-one. Since they won't be exposed to the elements I'm not overly concerned about a perfect finish. Tomorrow after work I will be putting the skins on the frames and test-fitting everything. If all goes well, the doors will be going on and I will be good for summer. Now I just need to find a place to store the full doors. Hopefully I have positive things to report tomorrow.

Here's some pics of what I did tonight:







(All the white spots aren't a crappy paint job, it's just the flash from my phone's camera reflecting.)

Great to hang out and work on the YJ, my friend. Glad I could help.

Here are some pics to help your narration.

Well folks, after three days and outrageous amounts of adjustment, the doors are a success. Again big shout out to Ryan for his help. The passenger side is still a little tight, so I may have to mess with the hinges a little more, but I don't get in on that side so who gives a damn. Other than that though I'm golden. I did end up adding a "gasket" on the bottom of the hard top all around to raise it up about a 1/4 of an inch to make everything just right because my doors physically cannot sit any lower or they wouldn't close. No water inside after the rain yesterday (which was really my main concern) so game on for the rest of the summer. As a tremendous added bonus, the colors of the uppers and the top are pretty much spot on so nothing sticks out like a sore thumb.








And finally I get some good weather to take full advantage of the set-up. For my next trick, I will be making the rust below the doors disappear...kinda.

Nice! They're looking good, man. You'd never know they weren't originally designed for it.

Thanks Geoff. I promise I haven't forgotten about the half doors either. I'll hopefully be getting them out of storage this weekend. I never got a chance to with these adjustments going on because it literally took time from 10:30-8 Saturday, 10-8:30 Sunday, and a few hours Monday night to get everything to an acceptable level (at least in my mind).

THOOPY3 wrote:Thanks Geoff. I promise I haven't forgotten about the half doors either. I'll hopefully be getting them out of storage this weekend. I never got a chance to with these adjustments going on because it literally took time from 10:30-8 Saturday, 10-8:30 Sunday, and a few hours Monday night to get everything to an acceptable level (at least in my mind).

Coolcool. Like I said, no rush. The guy who's going to be reskinning them is doing them as a spare-time project and I won't even be able to take off the hardtop until next month (after closing on the house, so I have a place to put it!)

CrawlingForward wrote: Coolcool. Like I said, no rush. The guy who's going to be reskinning them is doing them as a spare-time project and I won't even be able to take off the hardtop until next month (after closing on the house, so I have a place to put it!)

I assume that means you got the place? If so, congrats dude! I'm hoping relatively soon I'll be getting an apartment somewhere in the Reading-ish/north of Boston area. I've officially hit the point at my parents' place where I have no more space for all the crap I've been accumulating, so starting Saturday I'll be moving some things (not Jeep related) to a storage unit. Just gotta figure out what the girlfriend and I can afford before making the move to a place.

So before fixing up the rust, I figured it was about time I got my new fog lights re-installed. (If you're confused, you should be.) I decided against mounting them on the brush guard I had, but just mounting them on the bumper meant they stuck out past the edge. So I made some mounts out of quarter inch plate, drilled a few holes in the bumper, and voila, fog lights mounted and good to go. It feels good to be able to see the sides of the road again.

So since I put the full size spare on a few weeks ago it's been rattling around because of the different offset on the rim. I finally decided to correct the problem and make some tire stop "extensions" to stop this from happening. Two 1.625" rubber stoppers cut in half and drilled, four longer bolts, and mission accomplished.









And here are some higher quality photos of the fog lights I installed a few weeks ago:







Everything's almost ready for Go Topless Day weekend. I attempted to take the rear track bar off on Friday...that sucker isn't coming off without a fight. Even multiple rounds of PB throughout last week didn't make a difference. That's what 21 years of rust will get you.

I thought I'd post this up here since I was drooling over this puppy this morning. Took the Jeep to Edwards Auto Repair in Woburn for a quick welding job and saw this puppy. It's an '89 sprung-over with a 502 engine mated to a 700R4 tranny. The axles are Chevy/GM (not sure which) one-tons. It's even more awesome up close. His plan is to put 38s on it and make it a street cruiser for him and his wife, with the occasional trip in the mud.



I told him about the club and he seemed pretty interested. He also told me about a (supposedly) 160+ acre off-road park in Winchendon that's $10 a day per vehicle and has various difficulty trails for any kind of rig. He didn't have the name but I'll be sure to look it up. It's also not often I give a mechanic tips on how to fix and improve a Jeep, but I think this is the first one he's ever owned himself (and not just worked on) and it was nice to be the advice giver for a change.

http://www.ehow.com/list_7203536_jeep-trails-western-massachusetts.html
???????

http://www.find-off-road-trails.com/massachusetts-trails.html

So this morning on my way to work, I stopped to get my Dunks like I normally do. Upon walking back out to the Jeep, I noticed some steam coming out from under the hood (it was off). I popped it open and noticed that it looked like it was coming from the radiator cap. I checked the overflow bottle; plenty of coolant there and no noticeable fluid leaks anywhere (aside from the normal look of the block). I turned the Jeep on, the steam disappeared, and I drove to work.

The entire drive to work (about 30 minutes) the temp gauge didn't show anything problematic, but it did creep up to just under 210*. I noticed that it was running a little bit hotter on the ride back home from MaBell on Sunday, albeit by just a few degrees also. Just enough to bug me, but coming home I assumed it was simply from the wheeling. Now I know the temperature sounds like it's totally normal, but I've never known the thing to run that high, even though the thermostat may in fact be a 210. Even when it was practically out of coolant a few months ago (from a leaky line that has since been tightened) it never even got that high. It doesn't stay there for long, so this part isn't really what I'm too concerned with.

When I got to work and shut the Jeep off, the steam appeared once again. Now it could just be that it was damp this morning and it was water steaming from the heat of the radiator, but I've never seen it steam from under the hood like that before. During my lunch break I popped the radiator cap and the coolant level in the radiator was spot on. I let the thing run and come up to temp, where it stayed at the level it usually does (which I want to say is just a tick above 195*). I shut if off, no steam this time. So maybe it was just rain water. Same thing on my ride home today, slight rise in temperature from normal at times, but no steam once I shut it off. I even turned the heat on during the ride just for shits and it was plenty warm and the gauge didn't drop any. But then there's this...

The part I'm concerned with is that the lower hose on the radiator is staying stone cold. Unless there's something I don't know, that doesn't seem normal to me. With the Jeep running it feels like the line has pressure so I'm not sure what's up. The radiator and thermostat are new as of December 2011. It's entirely possible the thermostat is junk again, possibly stuck shut this time as opposed to open like it was back in 2011. Another possible culprit could be the water pump, which to the best of my knowledge is original, and is what the bottom line on the radiator runs to. My old man and I think the pump's got a bit of a tick going on, possibly a bearing in it. That being said, the radiator fan doesn't wiggle when you push on it and the fan clutch is working how it should.

So, I'll leave this open to debate among you guys. If that line is supposed to be cold, then I'm overreacting and this is no big deal. But if it isn't supposed to be cold (like I'm confident is the case), I want to nail this down and have a general idea of where to start. And since I don't even want to think about going down this road, I don't have any build up on the inside of my windshield or any coolant leaks in the cab, so I'm compelled to believe it isn't the heater core. It's possible something is clogged somewhere as well, but already knowing my heater core is a little iffy makes me hesitant to do a flush, because the last time it was done there was supposedly some lovely stuff coming out.

Have at it boys.

You said steam was coming out of the cap? That would be my first suspect.

They go bad over time and the leak means the system losses pressure and can overheat.

Small easy thing to start with, at least.

In terms of the hose, the upper should be hot, so that might be normal. Someone else know for sure?

If the lower hose is staying stone cold even after a half hour of running, then I would think that the temp guage would be pegged and it would be over heating like no tomorrow.
Are the two heater hoses hot?
Is belt tight ? is fan clutch operating correctly? does guage go past 210 at all?


if you watch Temp Guage after it goes from stone cold to 210 or so( AFTER WARM UP ) while driving, you can usually watch guage cycle from like 195 then 210 back and forth? CAN YOU SEE IT DO THAT??
If so then the thermostat is OK!
As far as steam goes pressure test the cooling system, Do it to look for leaks,,, do not tighten any clamps or anything until you pressure test FIRST!!
OTHERWISE YOU MAY NEVER KNOW IF YOU HAD A LEAK!! and you will be scratching your head.
Free rental with deposit at Auto zone??

Mark wrote:Are the two heater hoses hot?
Is belt tight ? is fan clutch operating correctly? does guage go past 210 at all?

Not sure of the two heater hoses, but the hose from the radiator to the thermostat housing is scorching hot, as is the radiator.

Didn't check the belt, but no slipping noises while it's running or noticeable lack of tension.

The fan clutch is working correctly.

The gauge never went above 210*.

Mark wrote:if you watch Temp Guage after it goes from stone cold to 210 or so( AFTER WARM UP ) while driving, you can usually watch guage cycle from like 195 then 210 back and forth? CAN YOU SEE IT DO THAT??
If so then the thermostat is OK!

I can see it doing that, though as mentioned I've never seen it go up to 210* when doing so in the past. Even when this thermostat was brand new. But I do agree with you Mark, I think the thermostat is fine and am leaning towards the water pump. I think the system may be running on the flow through in the water pump which is why the bottom line isn't getting warm (which I believe is how that works).

On Some of those older origonal water pumps the impeller rots away inside the pump but I have yet to come across one myself.
Keep an eye on how the guage reacts while driving, usually the first time the engine gets up to operating temp the thermostat seems like it opens at 210 or so then goes from 190 to 205/10 or so back and forth.

If you buy a water pump get a new one they cost just a couple bucks more than a rebuilt.

CrawlingForward wrote:You said steam was coming out of the cap? That would be my first suspect.

Sorry Geoff, I missed your post somehow. I would suspect the cap too if that also wasn't relatively new.

Mark - the thermostat generally gets up to a couple hairs above (what I believe to be) 195* when coming to full temp and runs generally at the same place. For reference, this is a couple hairs above the line immediately before (to the left of) 210 (refer to the picture below).



This "build" was on a strict budget when it started, but the belt's been loosened a little bit lately, so I will be buying a brand new pump as opposed to a rebuilt one. That being said, I just counted my spare change/bumper fund and I'm up around $50. Just gotta keep it going and I'll be there in no time.

That is normal on the temp, realize though that the guage is close but not exact.