Redux
- Thread starter toximus
- Start date
You'll need a tool called a fid (looks like a needle) to do this but Blaine made it seem effortless at the time. What he did was he cut off the end of the rope to start with a fresh end. Then he looped the rope through the thimble and placed the end of the rope into the fid and buried the end of the rope into the center of the main length of rope. The friction of the rope under tension is what keeps the end from slipping out.
My jeep initially had a factory 55 shackle which is dangerous and the thimble is so much safer.
Hope this helps you!
Starrs
TJ Guru
Within a couple of days and a thousand miles, my jeep had already rusted. And that was within the confines of Oregon and California.
I've come to think that rust is dependent on paint quality more than weather conditions. Mr. Tox has had parts next to each in his workshop that have rusted right next to things that haven't. What didn't rust? Things that were property painted.
I like to think of epoxy paint as the equivalent of sunscreen for Jeeps. Rust is just as corrosive as skin cancer and preventing it is so much easier than treating it. Mr. Tox and I may be more prone to rust being full-fledged yetis but even Jeeps that have never encountered snow aren't immune to rust. My Jeep showed signs of rust in sunny California.
OP
A good example of this is with my axles and driveshafts. The axles were prepped and painted with 2k paint and the driveshafts were painted with whatever Tom Woods sprays them with. The same number of miles on each:
Mr. Tox has turned me into something of a Blackstone report junkie. You may have heard of Blackstone Laboratory reports if you’re familiar with Mr. Tox’s build thread but if you haven’t heard of them, they’re a report you receive based on an oil sample you’ve sent in to be analyzed. It’s kind of like an annual physical but for your Jeep and they’re detailed to the point where they recommend tweaks and adjustments if anything seems off. This is my jeep’s most recent report if you're interested.
OP
With the first oil change for reasons unknown there was a significant amount of wear seemingly due to piston scuffing so I shortened the service interval to see if we could establish a trend. Thankfully the metals cleared up on their own.
For oil in the 4.0L I like to use 5w30 synthetic over the winter since it does flow better when cold and whatever 10w30 or 5w30 that's API certified I have on the shelf for summer (a few years ago I bought a bunch really cheap, but now I regret it since it takes up so much room). I always use a quality filter. In all but the first I used a Wix/NAPA Gold 61515 filter, the first was a Mopar filter. What's interesting with these samples is that there's no correlation between engine wear and "cheap brands" or conventional/synthetic being used.
For oil in the 4.0L I like to use 5w30 synthetic over the winter since it does flow better when cold and whatever 10w30 or 5w30 that's API certified I have on the shelf for summer (a few years ago I bought a bunch really cheap, but now I regret it since it takes up so much room). I always use a quality filter. In all but the first I used a Wix/NAPA Gold 61515 filter, the first was a Mopar filter. What's interesting with these samples is that there's no correlation between engine wear and "cheap brands" or conventional/synthetic being used.
OP
When we first brought the khaki TJ home I put the Jeep up on jack stands and did a lot of fixing and maintenance. I'm not going to go into depth of everything I had to do, unless somebody has a specific question, but let's just say that the shop in Oregon left about a months worth of work for me to do and I'm still finding stuff. As part of that, I changed every fluid to establish a record of when it was last serviced.
One thing that I like to do every oil change is look over the Jeep front to back while the oil is draining. I look it over as if I'm inspecting a car to buy, even if I just fixed something I treat it as the first time I've seen it. This allows me to identify any problems. Some of them are a 1 minute fixes and others require parts to be ordered. This Jeep is also Mrs. Tox's daily driver and I have a full time job. So taking all of that into account I prioritize in what order the issues need to be taken care of.
Here's what I noticed the last oil change:
The brake master cylinder is weeping. I'm not really sure where it's leaking from. The area around the cap is dry so I suspect the tank seam might be cracked. I wiped it off but it got wet again after a few days. Because brake fluid is hygroscopic (meaning it attracts and absorbs water from the air) this is a high priority item to fix before the brake lines rust internally. I'm pretty sure I have a new one on the shelf already that I can use.
The grease fitting on the trackbar sheared off at some point. It's not high priority since I can still grease the joint.
At some point somebody replaced the OEM stainless steel torx screws for the headlight bezels with steel phillips and they're starting to rust. I'm going to see if I can buy some OEM screws for a reasonable price. It's not high priority but I would like to do this before the rust bleeds and discolors the plastic bezel.
The automatic switch in the underhood light doesn't turn on more than it does turn on when the hood is open. These switches are known for being troublesome. Since cell phones all have flash lights built in these days this isn't an urgent fix but it always bothers me when something that should be working doesn't. You can also see where the brake fluid splashed slightly on the hood.
I don't have a picture of it, but there's also a leak between the Rubicrawler and the 42RLE transmission. I'm not surprised since literally everything else the shop touched leaked and I've already fixed 4-5 other leaks under the Jeep. A good size puddle of ATF always drips under the Jeep at night and leaks about a quart every 6 months. I'd like to prioritize this high before I forget to top off the ATF, and I hate any leaks, but due to the time involved to fix and higher priorities I'm not sure I'll get to it during this round of fixes.
One thing I've been aware of for about a year now is that it seems somebody used leak stop in the cooling system and it's coming apart as flakes in the coolant. I flushed it last summer putting about 20 gallons through it along with chemicals and the heater core started leaking (maybe what they were trying to fix originally?). I've also noticed coolant drips out of the AC drain and can be smelled inside when the Jeep gets to temp. This is going to be a larger project to fix and I'd like to get it done soon before we start seeing freezing temps at night. Before replacing the heater core I'm flushing the system again to get all of the flakes of leak stop out.
Last winter the HVAC fan stopped working sporadically and I narrowed it down to a fried electrical connector that isn't seating well. If anyone is parting out a TJ I'd be interested in buying this connector and the headlight bezel screws from you.
We removed the doors for some summer fun and when putting the passenger door back on the factory insert folded inside the hinge. I already replaced the bad ones with Delrin inserts, but still need to get around to replacing the driver's side inserts.
The mid-arm JohnnyJoints are very stiff to the point that one of the jam nuts actually came loose. They were previously blasted with a high pressure grease gun and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the bushing are distorted. I'm going to open all of them up for inspection and a fresh coat of grease. I have a couple of bushings on order in case I need to replace them. This is going to be a high priority to get done before damage occurs.
One thing that I like to do every oil change is look over the Jeep front to back while the oil is draining. I look it over as if I'm inspecting a car to buy, even if I just fixed something I treat it as the first time I've seen it. This allows me to identify any problems. Some of them are a 1 minute fixes and others require parts to be ordered. This Jeep is also Mrs. Tox's daily driver and I have a full time job. So taking all of that into account I prioritize in what order the issues need to be taken care of.
Here's what I noticed the last oil change:
The brake master cylinder is weeping. I'm not really sure where it's leaking from. The area around the cap is dry so I suspect the tank seam might be cracked. I wiped it off but it got wet again after a few days. Because brake fluid is hygroscopic (meaning it attracts and absorbs water from the air) this is a high priority item to fix before the brake lines rust internally. I'm pretty sure I have a new one on the shelf already that I can use.
The grease fitting on the trackbar sheared off at some point. It's not high priority since I can still grease the joint.
At some point somebody replaced the OEM stainless steel torx screws for the headlight bezels with steel phillips and they're starting to rust. I'm going to see if I can buy some OEM screws for a reasonable price. It's not high priority but I would like to do this before the rust bleeds and discolors the plastic bezel.
The automatic switch in the underhood light doesn't turn on more than it does turn on when the hood is open. These switches are known for being troublesome. Since cell phones all have flash lights built in these days this isn't an urgent fix but it always bothers me when something that should be working doesn't. You can also see where the brake fluid splashed slightly on the hood.
I don't have a picture of it, but there's also a leak between the Rubicrawler and the 42RLE transmission. I'm not surprised since literally everything else the shop touched leaked and I've already fixed 4-5 other leaks under the Jeep. A good size puddle of ATF always drips under the Jeep at night and leaks about a quart every 6 months. I'd like to prioritize this high before I forget to top off the ATF, and I hate any leaks, but due to the time involved to fix and higher priorities I'm not sure I'll get to it during this round of fixes.
One thing I've been aware of for about a year now is that it seems somebody used leak stop in the cooling system and it's coming apart as flakes in the coolant. I flushed it last summer putting about 20 gallons through it along with chemicals and the heater core started leaking (maybe what they were trying to fix originally?). I've also noticed coolant drips out of the AC drain and can be smelled inside when the Jeep gets to temp. This is going to be a larger project to fix and I'd like to get it done soon before we start seeing freezing temps at night. Before replacing the heater core I'm flushing the system again to get all of the flakes of leak stop out.
Last winter the HVAC fan stopped working sporadically and I narrowed it down to a fried electrical connector that isn't seating well. If anyone is parting out a TJ I'd be interested in buying this connector and the headlight bezel screws from you.
We removed the doors for some summer fun and when putting the passenger door back on the factory insert folded inside the hinge. I already replaced the bad ones with Delrin inserts, but still need to get around to replacing the driver's side inserts.
The mid-arm JohnnyJoints are very stiff to the point that one of the jam nuts actually came loose. They were previously blasted with a high pressure grease gun and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the bushing are distorted. I'm going to open all of them up for inspection and a fresh coat of grease. I have a couple of bushings on order in case I need to replace them. This is going to be a high priority to get done before damage occurs.
Starrs
TJ Guru
Damn is this a reputable shop in OR? Never know what your getting until you really get underneath it and drive it for a while. Shame that they did some shotty work. Least your fixing it and making it right. You transformed it that’s for damn sure tho. Looks great
OP
It was the shop near Portland. I don't know the name of it, maybe it's mentioned in @Chris' thread?
Perhaps the worst thing is they over torqued the track bar bolt and it snapped the day after we arrived home, after driving thousands of miles across the country! Thankfully I was only driving it up to the garage from the house and wasn't on the highway! That shop was horrible on so many levels.
Axle position is so overrated, right there with controllable steering.
Starrs
TJ Guru
Starrs
TJ Guru
For as much as I hate my Jeep sometimes, I never seem to have the weird problems like a master cylinder splitting or the HVAC not working, even with 230k on the clock. My heater core just went last year. Those are the worst problems to deal with, especially on a daily driver.
I remember on JeepForum you mentioned fixing the outboard (I believe even at blaine’s house). Do you have any photos of how you went about fixing that?
I remember on JeepForum you mentioned fixing the outboard (I believe even at blaine’s house). Do you have any photos of how you went about fixing that?
The shop is RJs Chassis Dynamics. Needless to say I wouldn’t recommend them again.
OP
I was just talking about that with Mrs Tox. My Jeep with 86k of very hard miles over 8ish years had the heater resister pack go out once, the fog light switch stuck on, radiator leaked 3 times, front calipers seized twice (I blame once on a shop that likely didn't bleed them before removing), transmission got a weird hole in the case, shifter rod broke, but that's about it as far as problems that weren't self made problems. Yes, I had a very rusty frame, but it still had 1/2 of it's thickness remaining and wasn't a safety concern at all. Maybe I'm just choosing to remember the good times. Lol.
Correct, and there are a lot of toes to step on here that I don't want to step on, so let's see if I can navigate these waters without derailing the thread... One of the reasons why I avoided even starting this thread for so long...
The shop that did the work didn't install the outboarded rear shocks or the front raised towers with the Jeep on the ground at ride height. You can start to see this being mentioned at the end of Chris' build thread. The result was 1.5" of up travel in the rear and limit strapped to maybe 4" of down travel, so 5.5" of total travel on a 12" shock. The fronts were better but not perfect. For those not in the know, the ideal numbers to shoot for with this setup would be around 50% up travel, 50% down travel — or 6" up, 6" down.
After meeting Chris and buying the Jeep we decided to go the long way home back to WI and say hi to Blaine and spend the week at King of the Hammers. After a few miles we met up with another forum member in Corvallis to remove the front driveshaft which was clearly not happy with life. Mrs Tox started the driving down very excited about her new Jeep but it quickly became apparent that something was majorly wrong with the steering and probably other suspension parts. I've had more experience driving things that don't drive well than she does so I took over for the rest of the 900ish miles and barely kept it between the lines. What was going to be a quick visit at Blaine's turned into 4 days of 3 of us working on it and replacing parts. Ranging from replacing the steering gear to tightening jam nuts that were backed off by an inch to remounting the exhaust so it wasn't hard mounted to the body. We also threw on a stock rear sway bar and ordered a new front driveshaft. The Jeep transformed from being unable to control to giving Mrs Tox confidence to drive and from being unable to hold a conversation yelling at 55mph to being able to talk normally. Once we got back to Blaine's again from KOH the new front DS had arrived and we went off on our way home. If anyone has any specific questions about that feel free to ask.
During that time we came up with a plan for dealing with the horrible ride quality from the shocks. I was neck deep in my own build and had wanted this Jeep to be ready to drive and not be it's own project so we measured an 11" shock to replace the 12" shock in the rear and we learned that it'd give a livable amount of travel both up and down. Everything about it is a compromise so I didn't have to cut the towers out of the frame to redo them. Why I don't talk about this much is because THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT THIS THAT I'D PURPOSELY DO, and I know how the internet works and if there's pictures of it people will share it and say that it can be done and not understand why it shouldn't be done. I would like to redo them eventually and set up the travel to be perfect.
The other thing is that the shock tuning wasn't to my liking. It felt extremely harsh going over small things and would bottom out going over large things. Just going down the highway, would leave you fatigued. I posted a full review someplace else on this forum that I'm sure somebody can find after searching. Needless to say, all 4 shocks have been retuned by someone else and now give very predictable handling to the Jeep on the street and offroad.
I probably missed something so feel free to ask for clarification.