The "Az Crew" Thread

[JohnnyBfromPeoria]

You're still fighting air?

Yeah. I think it has something to do with the way the heater hoses are run to/from the heater core. Since they aren't stock, they have kind of a high loop at the firewall and I suspect there's air getting trapped there. Maybe, anyway. I get bubbles through the radiator neck when I leave it off, but not regularly (as I would with a head gasket issue), plus I can hear a gurgling noise at start up inside the heater core. Oh well, it'll be warmer soon.

Jorge got his CV boots on today. I watched him clean the heck out of the joints first, since the old boots were torn and there was undoubtedly stuff in there that needed to be rinsed out. I put the new discs on the hubs and pressed in the new bearing races. We also had Auto Zone order up the replacement tie rods, idler arm and ball joints but their supplier is out of Pitman arms, so we will probably order a new one from Rock Auto. We also seem to need more inner bearing seals, since I guess I used the last ones on the 83 Max. Jorge also started removing his front center diff section to install the locker, but only got as far as removing the bearing caps before he had to leave.

Castlerock stopped by with his new-to-him 98. Nice truck. Needs a general clean-up and he's set. He wants to hit the trail with us on Sunday next week. I told him I'd try to keep his from scraping it up too much. So I lie, big deal (Just kidding, Matt).

John B.

 

[SONICMASD]

If anyone wants a bullbar/brush guard, I spotted this one on an Isuzu Trooper at the Mesa Pick A Part today. I'm thinking the Trooper and Montero are pretty similar size wise so it should fit, maybe with some adjustments.

 

[JohnnyBfromPeoria]

Jorge got the Aussie locker installed and cleaned up his skid plates and control arms in prep for painting them...progress...

John B.

 

[IncorpoRatedX]

Nice work jorge!

Jose's V6 SWB is sitting at my house after a cruise up to Show Low and the building of a snowman. I'm about to hit up Pat's compound for a brain box to see if "little red riding through-the-hood" will fire up..

Toasty and I are going to try to button up the odds and ends of my diesel this week and prepare to get that thing out of the garage. There's a laundry list of projects that need completion. Adam and I figured the two of our brains combined might make half a productive person, so we teamed up to knock out some of our ****. Once we sit down and prioritize things today, we'll have a better understanding of it all but as it sits we've got:
2 mighty maxes to build (one 4G63 turbo, one 4D56 turbo) and a third to rework
2 (soon to be 3) 99 monteros that need a long list of stuff
1 turbo diesel pajero needing some work
1 turbo diesel van that's getting a flat bed
and that's not counting the other mighty max that ive been trying to get mapper's gen 2 chassis for, or the two station wagons I own that also have builds coming up.

Houston, we've got a mitsu problem over here.

 

[JohnnyBfromPeoria]

And I can't even put gas in mine. What a slacker I am.

The preceding statement was meant in jest. I CAN put gas in my vehicles.

John B.

 

[IncorpoRatedX]

get it together john. jeeze.

 

[JohnnyBfromPeoria]

Jorge spent this evening painting things. Like, he painted his control arms, skid plates and the relay rod as well as the underside of the front end of his '89. Don't we have real work to do here? Some of that paint is going to get seriously messed up while installing the LCA front bushings and the UCA ball joints and shafts. Oh well. The Auto Zone replacements are due in tomorrow, along with the few parts he had to order from Rock Auto. The tires still need to be mounted and balanced. And everything else needs to be put back together. The pressure is on. We'll see how the response goes.

John B.

 

[Toasty]

Presidents Day wheeling?

 

[JohnnyBfromPeoria]

Eh, Toasty? Anyway, the plan is to do Hackberry on Sunday, meeting up at the Circle K in Superior at 9 a.m.

Jorge did, in fact, get his tires mounted and balanced today. And that's it, because he has some community gig he does on Wednesday nights after work.

I, on the other hand, worked another 10 1/2 hour day, then adjusted the wheel bearings on my 95 (they were a touch loose), prepped Jorge's spare tire carrier and rear wiper arm for paint then went to AutoZone and spent an hour waiting while they figured out how to ring in-n-out the warranty parts. It confounds them because everything is special order, so it doesn't show in their inventory, and then the prices always change from when I originally bought them and what they cost now. Then Jorge was done with his get-together by 9 and he looked like a madman for the tie rod adjusting sleeves until he found them right where he left them, three feet away from where they should have been. And the Rock Auto boxes got opened, so all the stars are aligned and the parts are waiting to be reassembled and installed. My task tomorrow is to pack the new wheel bearings, install the inners and press in the bearing seals, then direct Jorge while he presses out-then-in the lower a-arm front bushings and assembles the upper arm's control shafts then presses in the upper ball joints. From there it's pretty straight forward and HE BETTER GET IT DONE in time for Sunday.

John B.

 

[JohnnyBfromPeoria]

I'm herding cats here. They mean well, but things just don't happen like I want them to. It's down to Saturday...

Note to Gen 1 owners: Press ball joints on the upper arms with the control shafts in place. Otherwise you may "alter the geometry" of the arms. Trust me on this.

I'll update this Saturday (if I'm still alive) after the workings get done. There are lots of workings to get done. Just...lots...

John B.

 

[JohnnyBfromPeoria]

Jorge's 89 is ready! With a marathon wrench-fest on Saturday, we were able to reassemble everything and get it back on the road. It's reasonably aligned and the Aussie locker didn't grenade during a straight-line test on the street in front of the house, so we called it complete. Got the ride height pretty well dialed in, too, and the brakes seem to have bedded in nicely. I'm pretty happy with the amount of torque we were able to get on the bearings to seat them initially as well.

Jorge took the extra step to paint his Aisin hubs the same color as his wheels, and although I haven't seen the finished and assembled product in daylight yet, it makes for a pretty good looking set-up. He even painted the center portion of the rear axle that shoes when the wheels are mounted without hub caps. He finished up putting the skid plates back on in the dark as the final step.

About all I did yesterday for my 95 was to throw in my 'farm jack' as Harbor Freight calls their HiLift knock-off, and zip-tie it to the rear cargo area so it doesn't drive me nuts rattling around, then paint and install my own new-to-me skid plates donated by Ryan Yantzer to replace my old ones that had serious dents in them. I don't think I've had skid plates on this truck for a couple of years...

But we're doing Hackberry, man, and that calls for some skid plates! Hoping to have some You Tube material from the GoPro later today. Stay tuned.

John B.

 

[JohnnyBfromPeoria]

So, yeah, we did the Hackberry Creek trail. Jorge's truck was flawless, except for a bit of a body modification to the front lower part of his driver's side door. It kind of makes me wonder how that thing went back together so well and did the highway drive to and from the trail and just chewed up everything off road without a single mechanical issue or a mention from Jorge of anything that needs to be addressed. Feels good to help get one right.

I, on the other hand, will be ordering a tire. I had a real tough time with the last hill climb on the trail and managed to walk the driver's side rear tire into enough rocks to tear a hole in the sidewall of one of the 33" BFG M/T's. The worst part is that there was a gathering of ALL Jeep people at the top of the hill and I'm pretty sure none of them were cheering me on. A Jeep guy had to winch me up about twenty feet to a place where I could change the tire while all the superior wheeling-types paraded past in their superior vehicles. In the opposite direction, of course. May they have met with much body damage, punctured tires and mild sadness would be my wish.

Once again, my rock sliders, made from a substance that fell to Earth, withstood everything the rocks challenged them with. I don't understand how they don't dent. Perhaps on the planet/asteroid/comet/star where the substance they are made from originated, things are stronger than here on our world. Some spray paint should suffice to cover the superficial scuffing.

I need a front locker. I may not use it often, but I need one. Those "other-branders" who would mock our fine vehicles must be silenced. Only a front locker for me will do. Just to put that out there.

Oh, and my camera takes really cool video. I have it on my computer and I've watched it. No, really, it's there. Why can't you see it? It may be because of me, but maybe not...

John B.

 

[IncorpoRatedX]

good to hear of fun being had!

Days blur together out here in the east end of the valley, but from what I recall Toasty came over and we swapped in my 4D56 pump and adjust my rockers. We found my 4D55 to have a couple of rough looking parts once we got into the timing area, lucky we had extras on hand. The important part is that Adam not only found, but also introduced me to an awesome pastrami sandwich down the block from my house. It's a little hole in the wall with a guy from new york making subs. It was a good end to some progress.

Saturday Jose dropped by to help restore my neighbors BMW, recently picked up on a great deal because it was in much nead of love. I thought the interior leather seats were a dark blue color, turned out it was a light grey covered in dirt and grease. After half a day Jose had it in proper order. I spent the day working on his montero on and off with him while trying to trace circuits and test components.
I've got to check for power at the ECU today, but an MPI relay is suspected right now.
Power to the coil, ignition module and other parts, but NO power to the distributor. No power to the dizzy means no power to feed the 2 5 volt signals inside that send signal to the ignition module, no power to dizzy and no signal to the module means no sparky sparky. womp womp
Pat thinks he has one, but all the east side boys were playing dad and hanging out at a birthday party, so i should probably remind him today.

next week im going to have more free time so im planning to knock out a few things:
trans filter and front engine seals on the 91 mighty max
trans filter, wheel bearing, tie rod ends, ball joint and axle shaft seals on the 99
shocks and rear brakes on the E350
maaaaaaaaaaaybe the water pump on my 73 wagon. we'll see.

 

[lordtrunks]

IncorpoRatedX you'll wanna read this its for a landrover but the diesel pump design is the same VE tpe like ours.

going to the 4d56 pump from the 4d55 pump pretty much does the stuff this article covers since the 4d56 pump has a larger plunger(10mm vs 9mm)you can put the 4d56 turbo on the 4d55 aswell, just for reference the 4m40 has an 11mm plunger and you can swap the timing gears between the pumps
http://www.stonefisk.com/doc-arc/def_man/ThermoGuard_Tdi_Tuning_Rev.2.pdf

 

[JohnnyBfromPeoria]

Here ya go:

https://youtu.be/MTheiwF5cKM

John B.