tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46493490125039466282024-03-13T03:26:08.084-07:00Moto TuxThe penguin's motorcycling and Jeep blogBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.comBlogger82125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-70266869676748763352016-07-17T23:16:00.000-07:002016-07-17T23:16:54.859-07:00Die, dye, dieSo the Green Goblin, my 2012 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon is coming up on its 5th year. It was manufactured at the end of August 2011, I bought it in October 2011, and it is now late July 2016. <br />
<br />
2012 was the last year that Chrysler used HOAT (Hybrid Organic Acid Technology) coolant in their cars. This is a hybrid silicate-OAT coolant that was used by a number of auto makers in the 2000's, including Ford, Mercedes, and BMW. And HOAT has a rated lifespan of 5 years. <br />
<br />
So time to change it. The formulation that Chrysler used for the 2012 model year Jeeps is Valvoline Zerex G-05. Chrysler's coolant was dyed pink from the factory. When I changed the fluid in my 2006 Wrangler, I used the "regular" G-05, which was dyed yellow. So anyhow, I had a gallon of the G-05 left over from then, and mixed it with a gallon of distilled water in a bucket and poured it through a funnel back into the bottle and into the distilled water jug. Still yellow.<br />
<br />
Of course, I needed a second jug to have the 2.6 gallons needed to fill the radiator, so I popped out to the auto parts store two blocks away. Yep, they had some G-05. $20 poorer, I came back home and did the same thing -- one gallon of G-05, one gallon of distilled water in the bucket.<br />
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And....<br />
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WTF? They changed the motherfucking dye to fucking <i>orange</i>! Old on the right, new on the left.<br />
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This makes no goddamned sense. Yeah, I know it's just dye, but orange is the color of GM's Dexcool, a pure unsilicated OAT that is utterly incompatible with G-05 HOAT. As in, if you mix the two it'll gum your radiator and heater core right up and Bad Things will happen. So tell me, if you have a GM or Ford car (Ford switched to Dexcool recently) with its *orange* coolant, and you come across this plastic distilled water jug full of premixed *orange* coolant and put it in your car, what the fuck do you think is going to happen?<br />
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Yeah, bad, <i>bad</i> things.<br />
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Have the people at Valvoline lost their ever-lovin' motherfucking <i>minds</i>?! Or did they, like, buy a stake in a radiator and heater core manufacturer and they want to drive demand? I mean, look. <i>Yellow</i> was pretty distinctively G-05. Not as distinctively as <i>pink</i>, maybe, but you couldn't confuse it with Dexcool or with the old green shit that had to be changed every two years or it'd clog your cooling system sure as the sun rises in the morning. But fucking orange is used by pretty much <i>everything</i> that's incompatible with G-05. As in, you mix orange coolant and orange coolant, and bad things are going to happen.<br />
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Oh well. It's just dye. And both of the jugs of Zerex G-05 say they comply with the Chrysler spec for my Jeep, so I have no trouble mixing the orange and the yellow. But man, this is some stupid fucking shit. Just sayin'.<br />
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- Badtux the Coloring Penguin<br />
<br />BadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-65929021583361869002011-07-16T13:42:00.000-07:002011-07-16T13:43:23.820-07:00Exhausting workTwo weeks ago I put on a new Savvy aluminum gas tank skid plate. A week ago I took it out on the trail to test it. The skid plate works great -- it tucks the gas tank 1 1/2" higher than the OEM skid, and combined with the longer/stiffer rear springs means that I no longer bang my gas tank skid on every friggin' rock I drop off of. Unfortunately it also means that my exhaust pipe and my tow hooks were what now dragged.
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You can see where the tow hook was mounted, I've already removed it in this picture, but it mounted through those two bolt holes to that tab welded to the bumper bracket. I don't need it anymore because I've added a receiver hitch D-ring. You can also see that the exhaust pipe extends well beyond the gas tank skid, and that it's somewhat beat up. In fact, it even got knocked upwards when coming down onto a rock to where it got a dent in it from that tab. But never fear, I have a solution to this issue:
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Yes, Mr. Sawzall, complete with welding gloves and goggles to protect me hands and eyeballs. You can also see how far that exhaust pipe sticks back beyond that gas tank skid. If I ever backed up over a rock, I'd destroy my entire exhaust system. So I'm going to cut it flush with the gas tank skid with said Sawzall, and...
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And voila. Cut off flush with the gas tank. Actually, slightly angled, so that the part near the gas tank is flush with the gas tank, while the part near the outside of the Jeep is a little forward of the gas tank. This should keep the exhaust pipe somewhat safer than when it was out there dangling in thin air. If you clicky on the picture to embiggen it and look at the piece on the ground, you can see that the tip of the exhaust pipe had been beat up so often over the years that it wasn't even round anymore!
<p>
And that's the end of this exhausting (heh) episode of Mod My Jeep...
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-- Badtux the Wrenchin' PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-22398152637798923742011-06-19T09:59:00.000-07:002011-06-19T18:02:17.998-07:00Springity sproingSo yesterday I finished the next step in project Put Bigger Tars On Teh Tuxjeep: I changed out the *rear* springs and put on a trackbar relocation bracket.
<p>
Note that I'd already changed out the <i>front</i> springs, so I had a spring mismatch between front and back. The Jeep was level when I was unloaded, but load it up and the back end was dragging like a cat in heat. It wasn't a spring <i>height</i> issue, but, rather, a spring <i>rate</i> issue -- the rear springs were the original factory springs with spacers on top of them to make them taller, and simply weren't up to the same standard as the front springs, they compressed under load more than the front springs. The front springs are some Old Man Emu 933 springs that I scored off a club member, so I decided to put the matching Old Man Emu 949 onto the back. At the same time I was also going to install an Old Man Emu trackbar relocation bracket, which accomplishes two things: 1) the original bracket has a "roof" on it and will get bent up if your suspension sags too much and the trackbar "tops out" in the bracket (as will happen if you lift the Jeep and put longer springs and shocks on it) and 2) helps relocate the axle back to under the center of the Jeep, which in turn helps the Jeep track better (duh!).
<p>
So, anyhow, here's how I dunnit:
<ol>
<li> Approximately 2 hours before starting any of this, blast the bolts you're going to unbolt with PB Blaster, Liquid Wrench, or other penetrating oil of choice. (For list of bolts, see the things we're going to unbolt below)
<li> Put the Jeep into 1st gear (or Park if automatic), 4-Lo, and put on the emergency brake
<li> Chock the front wheels front and back. (Yes, making *sure* the Jeep doesn't roll while I'm under there!)
<li> Remove spare tire from back of Jeep (so there's room to use the Hi-Lift there)
<li> Get axle jack from beneath passenger seat of Jeep, and its assorted rods and such
<li> Get Hi-Lift jack out of Jeep
<li> Line up your new parts behind the Jeep -- the springs, the bump stop extensions (if you don't have bump stop extensions already on there, necessary to keep the springs from overcompressing), a short piece of fuel line and two couplers (to extend the breather hose for the axle, which otherwise tends to top out against the trackbar at full droop) and the trackbar relocation bracket. (Sorry, I don't have specs on the fuel line and couplers, they were already in my junk box).
<li> Line up tools behind Jeep, including: Tall jack stand (do *nothing* under a Jeep supported by a Hi-Lift jack, they are inherently unstable, which is good if you're on the trail trying to move your Jeep around off a rock it's grounded out on, bad if you expect your Jeep to *stay* on the Hi-Lift), lug wrench, and hand tools.
<li> Disconnect rear sway bar at both ends
<li> Disconnect rear track bar at both ends (because we're going to need it out of the way to install the bracket, and it's easier this way)
<li> Disconnect both shocks at the bottom.
<li> Jack up the DRIVER's side with the Hi-Lift from the bumper until the spring starts to get loose in its seat, then put the jack stand under the frame just in front of the rear control arm mount and lower the Jeep onto it. Move Hi-Lift out of the way.
<li> Place the axle jack under the spring mount, jack up the axle until the tire is off the ground, and remove the tire.
<li> Lower the axle with the axle jack until the spring is loose in its seat. The spring should then be easily removed by lifting it and removing it to the rear.
<li> Remove the rubber bump stop at the top by simply grabbing it and wiggling and yanking downwards until it pops out of its seat.
<li> Remove the bump stop seat via unbolting the bolt in its middle. If you previously had a spacer lift, this will allow you to remove the spacer. But note that even without a previous spacer lift this makes installing the new spring *much* easier since you won't have to work it around the bump stop, and the bump stop will go through the coils of the spring. You'll also be installing bump stop extensions at the same time if you didn't already have them on there.
<li> You'll notice that the breather hose for your axle is basically taut with your axle at full droop. Extend the breather hose by cutting it above the fuel tank (easier if you have a body lift on your Jeep) and patching in a few inches of fuel line so that you'll have some slack at full droop.
<li> You already removed the trackbar above. Install the trackbar relocation bracket using the directions in the OME packet, including all the drilling and stuff (the real reason why we bothered lifting the Jeep so high in the air in the first place was to give clearance to the drill under the floorpan of the Jeep). Don't bother trying to put the trackbar into it right now, it won't go because the bracket is twisted by the axle droop, we'll put it back on after the Jeep is back on the ground.
<li> Install the *SHORTER* Old Man Emu 949 spring here, on the driver's side. It should just pop right in. Jeeps tend to sag at their passenger rear due to the weight of the spare tire carrier and the torque of their engine, so the taller spring goes on the passenger side.
<li> Work the bump stop extension, bump stop seat, and bump stop bolt through the coils of the new spring, and bolt them into place. You can't get a torque wrench up here so it's probably a good idea to use blue (medium strength) threadlocker on the bolt too, to keep it from going anywhere.
<li> Work the rubber bump stop through the coils of the new spring, and push it into place. A prybar prying against a coil of the springs can help get that last little bit of oomph to get it seated.
<li> Jack up the axle enough to match the bottom of the shock with its crossbolt, and install the rear shock again. This is easier than compressing the shock by hand to install it after the tire is back on.
<li> This also jacked up the axle enough to put your tire back on. Do so. Torque your lug nuts in criss-cross pattern to 100 ft/lbs of torque. (This is *IMPORTANT* -- use an actual lug wrench here, if you overtorque your lug nuts, you *will* stretch your axle studs and cause them to fail on the trail, and of course undertorquing them is equally a bad idea since wheels that come off while you're driving down the road are unwanted).
<li> Lower your axle jack and remove it. Note that this will be using your shock as a limiting strap holding the tire off the ground (usually it's the trackbar that limits downtravel here), but this won't hurt it here.
<li> Jack up the Jeep from the rear bumper with the Hi-Lift enough to drop the axle stand and pull it out of the way, then lower the driver's side to the ground.
<li> Repeat the process to remove/install the spring on the passenger side (remember, the TALLER spring goes on the passenger side), with the exception that on the passenger side you don't have to install a track bar bracket (doh!).
<li> Now, with the Jeep back on the ground on its own four wheels with the new springs and no jacks or jack stands under it, reinstall the track bar. It *should* match up hole-wise on both ends, because the geometry of the control arms naturally wants to center the axle (though not strongly enough to do without the track bar) and the new location of the axle end of the trackbar is in the proper place where, with these springs, the trackbar should match up. If not, you may need to get a piece of 2x4 and pry between the tire and frame until the axle is centered and you can bolt the trackbar into place.
<li> Reconnect the rear sway bar.
<li> Put the spare tire back on the Jeep (duh!) and replace all the jacks and the lug wrench into their proper nooks and cranny in case you have a flat.
</ol>
And done! Note that when you reinstall bolts, you should torque them to factory spec if at all possible. If you can't get a torque wrench on them, at least use blue threadlocker on them to keep them from coming loose and sending you into a ditch (your suspension falling apart on the highway is *not* recommended as a recipe for health and happiness!).
<p>
In my case, the process was made more difficult by the fact that my original trackbar bracket was bent up from the trackbar topping out against it due to the extra sag allowed by disconnecting my sway bars up front, the longer Old Man Emu shocks, and the spacer lift. The lesson there is that if you install *any* lift, even a 2" spacer lift, you need to relocate the trackbar bracket at that time rather than at some later time because the trackbar bracket becomes the limit on downtravel at that point. So I had to sort of hammer and bend and press things into shape again. But it's all together now.
<p>
So how does it work? Well, the rear end of the Jeep is now about 1 1/4" higher off the ground than the front end of the Jeep. On the passenger side, from rocker to ground is 22" immediately behind the front wheel, and 23 1/4" immediately in front of the rear wheel. So when I put a full trail load into the Jeep (tools and water are *heavy*), the rear should sag to the point of basically being level.
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But does it make it too harsh on the pavement? Well, remember, I'm using the Old Man Emu shocks that are basically matched to these springs. I decided to put things to the test and, uhm, I can't notice any difference from previous. The ride is firm, but not jittery or harsh. It helps the handling a bit, it seems, but not by much. Probably just psychological on my part.
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So anyhow, I'm done with getting clearance. I may add some bump stop extensions up front to put 33" tires under here, but it appears that I only need 1/2" of additional bump stop up there to clear 33" tires under my fenders. While bouncing me Jeep up and down to test for things that go "clunk" when they shouldn't, I also noticed that one of my front sway bar links has gone bust and has movement in it that it shouldn't have, I'm sure that replacing that will help the handling a bit, luckily I have a spare in my junk box. So anyhow, that's that... the next step is going to be the expensive one, re-gearing to 4.56 front and rear, installing lockers, and actually purchasing 33" offroad tires to put on the thing. The re-gearing and lockers will be over $2,000 (eep!), the tires and wheels (to replace the bent-up ones) will be over $1,000 (gulp!). Oh well, it's still cheaper than buying a new Jeep!
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-- Badtux the Wrenchin' PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-74801302720210008442011-05-21T16:56:00.000-07:002011-05-21T16:56:08.853-07:00Diesels in American vehiclesIf you go to Europe, you see diesel-powered vehicles everywhere. Diesel engines typically get roughly 40% better fuel economy than gasoline engines -- for example, the VW Golf gets 23/33 city/highway in gas trim, 30/42 in diesel trim.
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So why aren't diesels so popular here in America? Well, let me count the ways...
<ol>
<li> No market for fuel economy. Fuel is $10/gallon in Europe right now. It's "only" $4/gallon here in the USA. So people don't care about fuel economy, they get the engine that's cheapest, and a gasoline engine is generally cheaper than a diesel because it doesn't have to be built as sturdy (due to lower compression and less torque).
<li> Poor diesel fuel. Even current "low sulphur" diesel fuel here in the U.S. would be illegal to sell in Europe, because it still has enough sulphur in it to cause soot (the black smoke you used to see coming out of the back of diesel-powered vehicles). This in turn means it's extremely expensive to certify diesel vehicles here in America, because you must add filters and traps and possibly urea injection in order to deal with the poor fuel. Not to mention the number that the crappy diesel fuel sold here in America does to injectors and fuel pumps... you go by the VW TDI forums, you'll find that VW has been replacing thousands of fuel pumps because gas stations mixed gasoline in their diesel tanks and wrecked the lubricousity of the fuel, thereby depriving the pump of lubrication and causing it to self-destruct.
<li> No volume. It costs roughly $100M to certify a new engine/transmission combination if you have to do major work to it in order to . If you sell 10,000 vehicles per year over the next 5 years with a given engine/transmission combination, that means you need to charge roughly $2,000 extra apiece to pay off the EPA certification costs. And see #1.
</ol>
This situation especially pisses me off because I want to see a diesel engine in the Jeep Wrangler because the extra fuel economy would make longer expeditions more feasible. Fiat has a good 2.7L dual-turbo TDI engine that would work in the Wrangler. But they only sell 90,000 Wranglers per year so, assuming that they'd sell 10,000 diesel Wranglers per year (about what they sold the last time they put a diesel into the Grand Cherokee), it just doesn't make financial sense for them to do so. It just takes too much money, time, and effort to certify an engine/transmission combo to make it worthwhile to make a Euro-diesel engine work in a U.S. vehicle.
<p>
So next thing I'm waiting for is the 3.6L Pentastar engine to make it into the Wrangler. The Pentastar makes almost 300 horsepower. It was supposed to make it into the 2011 Wrangler but didn't, probably because it turns out that it makes too much horsepower for the old transmission and they had to use a new transmission but the new transmission is three inches longer, meaning they had to relocate the engine slightly forward to make room for the new transmission, meaning they had to put slightly longer sheetmetal on the front of the Jeep to make room for the engine being further forward, meaning it required more work than just swapping a new engine into the Wrangler. But with the 3.6L Pentastar and new sheetmetal, the Wrangler ought to get better mpg than it currently does. Not that this would be difficult... my Wrangler is averaging 12mpg in the city. Something to do with the aerodynamics of a barn door and big sticky tires...
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-- Badtux the Auto Geek PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-49652222141458635602011-04-11T23:00:00.001-07:002011-04-11T23:01:35.695-07:00Removing "wheel locks"Do you have some of those "wheel locks" on your wheels that have a serrated set of teeth on the outside that a "key" fits over to allow you to remove the wheel? Guess what: Those things are nothing but a waste of time. They certainly won't stop anybody from removing the wheel if they have access to tools. I know, because I just did it.
<p>
So I go to rotate my tires, head into the console to get the wheel key, and... err... no key. And no idea where it went. I cleaned the car out so I know it's nowhere on the floor of the car, but it's not in the glove compartment, console, nor in the coin cup, the map pocket, or the door pockets.
<p>
What next? Well... I tried getting a pipe wrench over one of the "locks". Nope, my offset's wrong for that. So next I tried hammering a 16mm socket onto the head of one of these things. It went on okay, but didn't bite deep enough and stripped out. So next thing I did was hammer a 5/8" socket onto the head of one of these things and... success. Removed it like it was intended to come off that way. Getting the 5/8" socket off the "wheel lock" took a large bench vise and two large prybars, but if I were intent on stealing the wheels I would have just brought a handful of 5/8" sockets with me... not that anybody is going to steal rusty steel wheels in a size that fits almost no vehicles anyhow, sheesh!
<p>
So anyhow, now I've replaced these so-called "wheel locks" with lug nuts from my stash of random junk (what, you don't have a stock of random stuff like lug nuts, tie rod ends, and so forth? Sheesh, next thing you tell me is that you don't even have a torque wrench!). So I'm good to go tomorrow on rotating my tires. But sheesh, what a PITA.
<p>
-- Badtux the Wrenchin' PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-86591324116632463922011-04-03T17:43:00.000-07:002011-04-03T21:18:07.736-07:0050,000 miles and five yearsThe TuxJeep now has 50,000 miles on it and is five years old. It seems like yesterday that the silver demon forced me to bring it home, but no, it's been five years. So I'm starting to change out all the fluids, just on general principle. First up was engine oil, which had about 6,000 miles on it (max 7500 mile change interval on this engine). This weekend I swapped out two gallons of coolant for two gallons of 50/50 Zerex G-05 HOAT and distilled water, just to start the process of refreshing its anti-corrosion properties.
<p>
Now, a note about anti-freeze. There's basically three kinds of antifreeze out there. The first kind is the old-fashioned green shit that has to be changed every year and which causes deposits in your radiator if you mix it with anything other than distilled water. This is what's available at your local Wal-mart. The second kind is the GM OAT (Organic Acid Technology) coolant, which is dyed orange, which has a bad tendency to eat pot metal parts of your engine such as the thermostat housing. This is *also* available at your local Wal-mart. The third type is a hybrid, HOAT, which has silicates to protect pot metal but also has the long-lasting organic acids to combat corrosion of the other metals in your engine. Ford and Chrysler have settled on this one for their new cars, both use Zerex G-05 HOAT coolant, dyed yellow for Ford (and for the aftermarket), pink for Chrysler. (Yes, *PINK* -- there are sources on the web that say that Chrysler's HOAT is dyed orange like GM's OAT, but the factory fill in my Jeep was quite blaringly PINK). Unfortunately only professional auto parts places like NAPA and Carquest, or dealerships, carry the HOAT coolant -- unlike the OAT or the green shit, you can't get it at Wally World or Auto Drone. And it's *expensive*, $15/gallon at NAPA...
<p>
So why is this important? Well, first of all, don't put the orange shit into your car unless that's what your car came with. OAT works by allowing the metals to corrode, then bonding with the corrosion to form a film. Thing is, some metals don't corrode with the correct chemistry for OAT to bond with to create the anti-corrosion film, and you end up with Bad Things Happening. So only cars designed for OAT (i.e. with the correct metal alloys exposed to its cooling system) should get OAT. But if your car came with OAT, you should stick with OAT for one good reason: all other chemistries will, over the long term, clog up your radiator and cooling system with silicate deposits. Only OAT is guaranteed to never do that, for the simple reason that it has no silicates.
<p>
Secondly: For everything else, HOAT is the correct thing to use. I've talked to people who restore old cars. To a man they recommend HOAT for *everything*, because it stops corrosion without unduly clogging up your cooling system and is safe for *all* metals, not just the ones that OAT chemistry was designed to bond with. Which is why any shop worth its salt should have only two coolant types in its quiver: the GM Dex-Cool OAT (orange), and the Zerex G-05 HOAT (yellow). The green shit should be consigned to history along with leaded gas and carburetors, it just doesn't work as well as the new stuff. Yet the green stuff is <i>still</i> the most common coolant even shops put into cars... despite the fact that it's crap. But it's cheap. Which is all that counts when someone cares more about profit than about their car's lifespan.
<p>
So anyhow I scored some <a href="http://www.napaonline.com/Search/Detail.aspx?R=ZRXZXG051_0079110524">Zerex G-05</a> (yellow) for about $5 a gallon less than the pink-dyed MOPAR HOAT at the Chrysler dealership (pink), so now have kind of pinkish-yellow coolant in my Jeep (since the cooling system holds a total of about 2.65 gallons and I put a little less than 2 gallons of coolant into it, the rest was in the heater core and other places in the cooling system). Note that the G-05 *IS* the MOPAR coolant, Zerex simply dyes it pink rather than yellow. It seems that pink is a stronger color than yellow, so 3/4th gallon of pink makes 2 gallons of yellow pinker than you'd think. Curious, eh? So anyhow, mixing G-05 with G-05 should be fine, I just refreshed the anticorrosion package with my infusion. Since I only changed out around 2/3rds of the coolant with the radiator and reservoir change, I'll go ahead and do it again in around three years, since I put around three years worth of anticorrosion additives in there with the new coolant.
<p>
Next thing I did was change the front differential fluid. I had two quarts of Royal Purple 75W140 left over from my last differential fluid change, and used that. What I discovered inside the differential was that the old Royal Purple fill had sludged up a little since my last change of the front differential fluid, at 20,000 miles. So this is the last time I'm filling with the Royal Purple, the next fill is going to be the Mobile 1 75W140 synthetic. I've already purchased the Mobile 1 plus the limited slip additive for the rear differential and will be changing that out shortly.
<p>
Some other fluids that can be changed:
<ol>
<li> Brake fluid -- probably the most important one to change. Chrysler uses low-spec DOT 3 brake fluid. Going to DOT 3/4 should get me better specs as well as get rid of any moisture that's accumulated in the system over the past five years. I have a Mitey-vac vacuum pump somewhere, I need to find it (haven't used it since I moved to the "new" place eight months ago)...
<li> Transmission fluid -- this uses Synchromesh fluid. Chrysler doesn't even have a fill spec on this, it's supposedly a "lifetime" fluid. Probably going to leave this alone for now, and change it at 90,000 miles just on general principles.
<li> Transfer case fluid -- this uses ATF+4 automatic transmission fluid, which is good stuff (much better than the old GM Dexron III from days of yore). It's spec'ed to be changed at 80,000 miles. Won't hurt to change it anytime between now and then.
<li> Power steering fluid -- this, alas, got changed last year when the moron ran the red light and broke my steering box with the side of his car. So I'm fine there.
</ol>
So anyhow, that's pretty much all she wrote for now. I'll change out the rear diff fluid sometime in the next few weeks, find my pump and turkey baster and suck the old fluid out of the reservoir, replace it with fresh, and then bleed the brakes to suck the old DOT3 out and put the better DOT3/4 fluid in, and then I'm pretty much done maintenance-wise for the moment.
<p>
Oh, while I was at it I put some new light bulbs into my lights. But I'm not telling you what they are, because they're a bit, err, not DOT-certified. But at least I'll be able to see at night!
<p>
-- Badtux the Blindingly Bright PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-8826911289785617552010-12-24T22:11:00.000-08:002010-12-24T23:10:40.557-08:00Motor mount woesFirst, let's review what a motor mount does in a Jeep. The job of the motor mount is to a) isolate the engine from the frame so you don't get your teeth vibrated out, and b) hold the engine on top of the frame. There are two motor mounts, one on each side of the engine about 2/3rds of the way towards the front, then the back of the engine is held up by the transmission. The transmission then has a rubber mount at the back of it that holds it to the cross member / belly skid plate that runs across the belly of the Jeep. So there's three pieces of rubber holding the whole engine / transmission / transfer case assembly off the ground, and three points determine a plane so these three pieces of rubber determine the location of the whole assembly.
<p>
Here is what the motor mount looks like on my Jeep:
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/TRWRSen6NhI/AAAAAAAABsU/fcprHjnouBw/s1600/_1263203894-01.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 225px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/TRWRSen6NhI/AAAAAAAABsU/fcprHjnouBw/s400/_1263203894-01.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554505462075504146" /></a>
<p>
There is a bracket welded to the frame that this mounts to. The part of the bracket closest to the outside of the Jeep has a nut welded into it and you go down from the top through that small hole in the motor mount. On the part of the bracket closest to the Jeep, there's just a hole. A stud comes down from the motor mount that must be pushed through that hole, and then you put a nut on the stud from the bottom. You can't come in from the top because the stud is below that big rubber bushing you see. Then the engine has a forked bracket that comes on either side of that big rubber bushing, and a crossbolt goes through the forked backet and through the big bushing in the middle of the big rubber bushing, and that's what holds the engine up off the frame, nicely isolated by a big rubber donut all around. Here is what it looks like installed in the Jeep (sorry I didn't get a better picture):
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/TRWQAv5nLII/AAAAAAAABsM/-qT59VBMHOI/s1600/more-5.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/TRWQAv5nLII/AAAAAAAABsM/-qT59VBMHOI/s400/more-5.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554504057963883650" /></a>
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/TRWRiwKXT8I/AAAAAAAABsc/1N9BizC9yww/s1600/_1263206511-01-01.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/TRWRiwKXT8I/AAAAAAAABsc/1N9BizC9yww/s400/_1263206511-01-01.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554505741661327298" /></a>
So anyhow, it's been raining here in the Silly Cone Valley for 40 days and 40 nights, well, feels like it. I decided to take a trip in my Jeep for Christmas. Before taking any trip, I inspect my Jeep to make sure all the fluids are okay, all the bolts are nice and tight, none of the u-joints or tie rods or anything waggle when I whack'em with a rubber mallet, and so forth. And so things were going along fine until I got to the passenger side motor mount on the underside, looked up to where there's supposed to be a stud and a nut holding the engine side of the mount down, and... err.
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/TRWTCwbwJjI/AAAAAAAABsk/fMEvaYtJW5k/s1600/more-1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/TRWTCwbwJjI/AAAAAAAABsk/fMEvaYtJW5k/s400/more-1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554507391001699890" /></a>
Yeppers, the blasted stud snapped right off at some point in the recent past!
<p>
That's from right after I pulled it. To pull it, you first remove the nut from the stud. Well, if there's a stud :). Then you remove the bolt. Then you put your floor jack and a piece of 2x6 under the oil pan skid plate and jack up the engine until the mount is just barely above the frame. Then you remove the crossbolt and the motor mount slides right out.
<p>
So anyhow, thanks to Christmas I can't get a new motormount until January (because all the suppliers are on holiday). So I rednecked a temporary fix: I drilled out the remnants of the stud, and jammed a nut on top of it, grinding out just enough so I could tap in the nut with a drift to retain it. This is a flange nut, which has a serrated bottom, so once there's pressure on it from a bolt pulling it towards the frame, it's not going anywhere. But there has to be enough friction to allow it to get pressure on it. Thus why I had to barely grind out enough to be able to force it in there with the drift and 3-pound hammer:
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/TRWTzrhbHGI/AAAAAAAABss/utyn4-jidIk/s1600/more-4.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/TRWTzrhbHGI/AAAAAAAABss/utyn4-jidIk/s400/more-4.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5554508231496899682" /></a>
<p>
Once I did this, I then had to properly space out a bolt so that it wouldn't bottom out on that bracket part that's above the nut, yet would grab enough threads to not strip out. That required trial and error with various washers and nuts lying around. But I found the right combination, and now it's all installed again, waiting for a new mount but quite usable in the meantime.
<p>
As for why the stud broke: It was a metric grade 8.8 bolt welded to the motor mount before the top part of the motor mount was fabricated. Metric grade 8.8 (not to be confused with SAE grade 8, which is the equivalent of metric 10.9) is barely above compressed oatmeal on the hardness scale, but normally won't break in this application. It does bend fairly easily if not fully retained by a torqued nut, however, and also stretches fairly easily if overtorqued or given a sudden shock in the longitudinal direction. What I'm suspecting is that the bolt stretched, perhaps from the oil pan skid plate getting whacked by a rock, letting the motor mount jump around bending the stud back and forth until it work-hardened and finally snapped off. I didn't catch it because I was testing the nut by putting a wrench on it and seeing if it would move, and of course it was corroded in place and wouldn't move -- and unfortunately the place it was corroded into did not put enough pressure on the now-stretched stud to keep the motor mount from moving around.
<p>
All of this is compounded by the fact that I can't get a torque wrench onto most of these bolts due to lack of access -- all my torque wrenches are too big to fit into these cramped quarters and it's problematic running long extensions thru u-joints and expecting to get the right torque reading on a tork wrench -- so I'm just hoping that I'm putting the right torque on them. It may be that I had already put close to too much torque on the bottom, and whacking my belly pan on a rock was just enough to finish it off.
<p>
So anyhow, needless to say I'm not happy here, I think they should have gone with at least a metric 10.9 grade bolt for the stud because they don't stretch as easily, but at least I'm on the road again. And that ends today's adventure in Jeep wrenchin'...
<p>
-- Badtux the Wrenchin' PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-48948100982781562012010-12-05T22:11:00.000-08:002010-12-05T22:29:38.283-08:00Wow, this place has gotten musty...The latest mod to my Jeep is the Savvy Offroad rocker guards, which are heavy aluminum plate with stainless steel skids. So I took'em out to Death Valley to test'em out in Mengel Pass's rock garden. Naw, dadburned rock garden has gotten as well groomed as Justin Bieber's hair. Still, there was a few mildly interesting spots, and I video'ed them with my new iPhone 4...
<p>
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<p>
<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0igzkX1riBw?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0igzkX1riBw?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
<p>
<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Bobvv8-vKzk?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Bobvv8-vKzk?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
<p>
<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ok46IlfPU2c?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ok46IlfPU2c?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
<p>
I'm being followed by a full-sized F-150 4x4 pickup truck, which is big and wide. I have to wait on him a bit from time to time -- like Marines, we 4x4 types don't leave folks behind.
<p>
So now you know what it looks like when I'm out there in the desert...
<p>
-- Badtux the Jeepin' PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-36206223494726401732010-03-21T20:27:00.000-07:002010-03-21T20:29:16.059-07:00The Six Million err Thousand Dollar Jeep"We have the technology, we can rebuild her."
<p>
As readers of my blog know, someone ran a red light in front of me and I t-boned him a couple of weeks ago. The right front corner of my Jeep was a mess and the steering box Pitman shaft sheared right off. But never fear, the Silver Demon is back on the road again:
<p>
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/S6bgFux95hI/AAAAAAAABdw/oaR2YT-PGAE/s1600-h/jeepfix1-s.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/S6bgFux95hI/AAAAAAAABdw/oaR2YT-PGAE/s400/jeepfix1-s.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5451290788040140306" /></a>
<p>
Because the bumper was toast, I bought a cool Warn bumper. It cost the same amount as the OEM bumper but is much stouter. The fender is a new replacement, but rather than the OEM fender flare I bought some Bushwacker flat fender flares to replace the OEM's, this gives me more clearance under the fender for bigger tires and also some trick side running lights (DOT certified so they're street legal, don't worry). The fog light on that side was toast, so I bought some Hella 500 fog lights rather than an OEM replacement light, they actually use the same reflectors so that wasn't a big deal. I had my mechanic do most of this work because a body shop would have been utterly clueless.
<p>
I brought her home Thursday evening, and have spent most of this weekend going over her making sure everything's okay. I swapped out the lower control arms with some new JKS control arms and checked the OEM's to see if the impact had caused damage to the bushings, no, it hadn't. Doesn't appear to have hurt anything else either, the Jeep drives the same as it did before it got whacked. Jeeps are *tough*. Well, except for that OEM steering box, but I'm wondering if that fault line might not have been there on purpose so that if the wheel ever got a whack like that, it wouldn't cause the steering wheel to spin and break my fingers.
<p>
The shop mostly did things okay, but two things were wrong -- the wiring for the marker lights was reversed (so it would not blink when the lights were on), and the right marker light was hard-wired rather than having connectors (because the original wiring had been sheered off by the fender when it was crumpled). Easy fix for both. And the alignment shop did not center the steering wheel, grrr, but that was an easy fix too, just grab the spinner near the pitman arm and spin away (it doesn't affect alignment, just the centering of the steering wheel)... took me two tries, the first time was a little too far, the second try was successful, the only way to know whether it's okay is to drive it down the center of a straight road (so the crown doesn't make it want to go one way or another) and see whether the steering is straight, clearly the alignment shop didn't do that. Oh well!
<p>
Now to put the new (well, used, bought from someone else) Old Man Emu front springs on her to deal with the sagging front springs... I was going to do that today, but discovered that the new (well, used, being thrown away by work) workbench I'd put in my garage was too big and didn't give me enough room to jack the front of the Jeep up. I remedied that by shifting everything around to put the workbench in the corner, where it's now out of the way... but that ate up a bunch of my time, I have too much junk in my garage (for a definition of "junk" that is "tools and supplies"). And of course once I do that, I'll need to align the Jeep *again* and re-center the steering wheel *again*. Meaning I wasted my time centering it the first time, but what the hey, ain't the first time I've wasted my time ;).
<p>
-- Badtux the Wrenchin' PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-78426851235498485922010-03-08T15:44:00.000-08:002010-03-08T17:10:28.845-08:00Toyota is the new Philip-MorrisPhilip-Morris, you might recall, is the cigarette company that for years insisted up and down that cigarettes were good to you... all the while knowing, within their labs, that they were addictive and caused cancer. They became the poster child for companies that care more about profits than about the health and safety of their customers, so hated that they had to change their name to "Altria" (I guess if you can't X it out, effin' A it out) to escape their reputation.
<p>
So why bring up Toyota and Philip-Morris in the same breath? Well... it's because of the testimony of David Gilbert, an automotive technology professor who <a href="http://www.brakeandfrontend.com/Article/71228/toyota_recall_no_codesno_problem_testimony__of_david_gilbert.aspx">demonstrates a fault condition that Toyota's electronic throttle control software doesn't detect</a>. Note that Mr. Gilbert does <i>not</i> say -- or prove -- that this particular error condition is the cause of Toyota's problem. Rather, he shows that there is a condition that Toyota's throttle control <i>should</i> detect -- two shorted wires to the throttle position sensors, which are supposed to have different voltages on them because they go to different resistor packs -- which it does not, in fact, detect, and therefore there is at least <i>one</i> bug in Toyota's throttle control software. And software bugs are like cockroaches -- if you can see one wandering around on your kitchen counter in broad daylight, likely enough there's a thousand more in the wall behind the counter hidden from view.
<p>
Toyota can try to spin this all they want, but as someone who has an EE+software engineering background, I agree with Gilbert that this seems to indicate that Toyota's throttle control software is not as robust as they claimed and thus cannot be eliminated as a possible cause of the problem. So what's Toyota's response? A) say that Gilbert was paid by trial lawyers (true, but so what? The software problem doesn't go away just because of who Gilbert is paid by), and B), to <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=aqGZXXDs25zo">hold a dog and pony show</a> claiming that Gilbert's *SPECIFIC* bug is not the cause of the acceleration problem. Uhm, okay, but Gilbert himself did not say his bug was *THE* cause, just that it indicated a problem with the software.
<p>
All Toyota is accomplishing is making themselves look like the cigarette companies -- i.e., a bunch of lying bastards more concerned about the bottom line than about the health and safety of their customers. This points to a problem in the Japanese psyche that has been sort of shoveled under the covers since WWII -- the Japanese unwillingness to ever admit that they made a mistake or are not perfect. The Japanese refused to believe that their <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_naval_codes">codes</a> had been broken for years after Pearl Harbor, allowing the U.S. to know exactly what they were doing at all times, and even when things happened that should have just blatantly told them "our codes are broken" (like American carriers appearing off of Midway Island *just in time* to sink their own carriers) they refused to believe that any mere American could ever do such a thing to their "perfect" codes. I'm seeing the same mentality at work on the part of Toyota right now... and it ain't pretty, ain't pretty at all.
<p>
-- Badtux the Car PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-64201280386017430942010-03-07T12:20:00.000-08:002010-03-07T21:00:49.065-08:00Gimme heat!I'm not sure when the low speed on my Jeep's heater quit working, but I noticed it one day while driving down the street -- no hot air blowing out of my vents. WTF? I checked the next three speeds up, and they all worked. So it wasn't the motor, and given that my Jeep has less than 40,000 miles on it, it didn't seem likely to be the switch. At that point, it clicked: Heater resistor.
<p>
To understand what I'm talking about, here's the deal. Your heater blower motor takes 12 volts. The way pretty much all American cars are wired, it takes that 12 volts straight from the fuse box, through a relay controlled by the "Hi" setting on the air conditioner/heater fan control. If you want the motor to run slower, you have to feed it less voltage. The way that American cars do that is to have a resistor network, where each resistor gives you a progressively lower voltage, and use the heater control switch to switch which pin of the resistor network gets sent to the blower motor. The higher the resistance, the lower the voltage, and the lower the fan.
<p>
Checking out my handy dandy factory service manual, I decided to pull the resistor out and test it. The problem was, where is the blasted thing? Finally after sufficient digging around I found where it is: mounted right above the passenger side footwell light. So I unbolted the light and unplugged it and put it aside, unplugged a bunch of wires under there and moved them aside, and there we were, two 8mm bolts holding this thing in so that it sticks into the airflow where it can get cooled down while the heater is operating. So I removed it and it turns out to be a flat circuit board with resistive traces on it. I take my ohm meter, and yeppers, the connection between the last two pins (the smallest one is the low speed pin) is gone, and a glance at the circuit board shows that the trace apparently exploded where the connector's pin attaches to it, probably due to a manufacturing defect that allowed moisture to get into the circuit board.
<p>
A quick trip to my local Jeep dealer and $25 later, and I have a new resistor, and have all fan speeds going again. And yeah, this was probably caused by a manufacturing defect of this <i>Hecho en Mexico</i> hunk of junk, but my OEM warranty ran out at 36,000 miles, so fat chance of getting reimbursed. WTF, it's just $25. So anyhow, if you ever run into this with your own car, it might be as simple as that: a $25 resistor panel might be blown. It's a cheap and easy first thing to check anyhow, and it's not as if they're (usually) expensive...
<p>
-- Badtux the Now-Warm PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-89140714520611846212010-02-09T22:25:00.000-08:002010-02-09T22:37:18.381-08:00What the fuck is the matter with cars?Toyotas that accelerate because they feel like it or won't brake because they don't feel like it. Hondas whose airbags deploy with the force of a stick of dynamite. This shit that just came out where all the Jap cars seem broken is just crazy. But you know what? I ain't surprised, because the Japs have gone for that electronic shit big-time -- electric steering, electric brakes, electric throttles, electric everything. And when electronics go wrong, they fucking GO WRONG, unlike old-school shit.
<p>
My Jeep is old-school. The cable from the throttle goes to an air flap at the throttle body. I open the throttle, the flap opens. I close the throttle, the flap closes. A throttle position sensor, a mass air sensor in the air intake and two oxygen sensors on the exhaust manifolds send signals to a small computer that adjusts how much fuel gets injected by the injector. If the computer goes out, my engine don't run -- it doesn't suddenly decide to go zooming across the freeway at nine bajillion miles per hour. Same deal with my brakes. The brake pedal attaches to a hydraulic plunger. The hydraulic plunger pushes brake fluid into brake lines and forces the brake pads towards the disk. There's actually two plungers attached to my brake pedal (one in front of the other, one for the front brakes and one for the back brakes) so that if one of the brake lines gets busted, there's still two wheels that have brakes and will stop me.
<p>
All these new cars, though, they don't have that kind of old school setup. What they have at the top end of the accelerator pedal is a sensor that tells the computer how much you've pushed down the throttle. Then a motor under the hood opens or closes the throttle flap appropriately to make the car go slower or faster in the most efficient way that the computer has calculated. So if the computer decides that this flap thingy needs to be all the way open even though you've let up on the gas pedal, well, it'll do it.
<p>
Same deal with the brakes on the Prius, the Toyota that's been having the problems with braking. The Prius cars that have been having stopping problems, they don't got that old-school piston shit. They got *electric* brakes. You push on the brake pedal, and it signals a computer to start reverse-charging your battery, using the electric motor in reverse as a generator and incidentally slowing the car down. You push even harder, and an electric pump starts squirting brake fluid into the lines until the car stops. If the electric pump decides it's tired and doesn't feel like pumping, or if the computer decides the electric pump doesn't need to pump, you're fucking *screwed*.
<p>
Now, I've thought about upgrading to one of those new-school Jeeps with the electric throttle and shit. They get better gas mileage and you can fit bigger tires to them without worrying about breaking shit, because their wheel wells are bigger and their axles are sturdier. But I tell ya, there's something to be said for old school. I can't think of a damned thing that'd make the throttle stick on my hoary old Jeep, and same deal with the brakes -- yeah, old-school master cylinders wear out over time, but they fucking *give you warning* that they're going out, the brake pedal starts going down closer to the floorboard and you might have to pump the brakes, and that's when you know it's time to put another master cylinder in. But that electronic shit... when it decides it ain't gonna work, it just don't fucking *work*. Which is a big-ass problem if you're talking about *stopping*.
<p>
What we have here, ladies and gents, is a case where the geeks who programmed these cars have forgotten what the wrenches knew years before the geeks finished kindergarten: cars ain't a place to experiment with shit that could kill people if it goes wrong. I'm stickin' with my old school Jeep. Yeah, it's crude and ugly as shit, but you can fix the goddamned thing with a big fucking hammer and a pair of pliers, and it don't decide it's going to go galumphing down the freeway at a bazillion miles per hour just because some goddamned computer geek forgot to carry a digit somewhere in his code. As someone who programs computers for a living, I'm happy as a clam that the only computer in my Jeep is the one that handles the fuel squirters and spark plug sparkers. If they quit squirting and sparking, all that happens is that the Jeep stops going. Which sure the fuck is preferable to what those goddamned Toyotas with their little electric-motor-controlled throttle thingies have been doing, yessiree.
<p>
-- Badtux the Old-school PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-54746988499290972492009-10-05T07:49:00.000-07:002009-10-05T07:52:06.422-07:00And.... it worked!The "small leak in evaporative system" was fixed by cleaning the gas cap gasket and firmly replacing the gas cap. No more light. It went out before I could even get around to clearing it, took a couple of days but remember I'm still waiting from my scan tool to arrive. (You can read codes via the odometer on my Jeep, but the only way to clear them without a scan tool is to pull the battery cable, and that causes everything else to lose its presets so I decided not to do that).BadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-24917289655162722742009-09-30T21:45:00.000-07:002009-09-30T22:21:41.234-07:00My negligent selfOh dear, I've been neglecting this blog, haven't I?
<p>
So let's review what I've done to my Jeep over the past month, shall we?
<p>
<ol>
<li> M.O.R.E. <a href="http://www.mountainoffroad.com/Catalog/Body%20lifts/jeep-body-lift-kits.html">1" body lift</a>. This picks the body up off the frame a bit more to a) allow fitting larger tires (I'm trying to make room for 33 inch tires), and b) allow tucking various stuff that hangs below the frame (like the transfer case skid plate and the gas tank) upwards a bit with aftermarket skid plates. I'm going to start with the gas tank because that skid is always clanging on the rocks when I drop off a ledge, and it's a lot easier than tucking the transfer case up (because you need to add a slip-yoke eliminator and CV driveshaft to tuck the transfer case up, which in turn requires adjustable control arms to tilt the rear axle pinion upwards to point at the transfer case rather than being parallel to the transfer case output shaft, which in turn requires relocating the shock and spring mounts slightly because their mounts are now pointing in the wrong direction). It also allows installing:
<li> M.O.R.E. <a href="http://www.mountainoffroad.com/Catalog/BombProof%20MM/jeep-tj-motor-mounts.html">motor mount lifts</a>. This raises the engine up by an inch. This has two effects: a) the fan is now lined up with the shroud again (the radiator and its shroud are body-mounted and are thus now higher, remember?), and b) the revised angle of the engine-transmission-transfer case assembly allows adding longer springs front and back without throwing the driveshafts out of alignment. Remember, the operation of the control arms means that with longer springs (i.e. a lift), the pinion points further upwards on both axles compared to the stock location. This means that a) the front output shaft of the transfer case needs to be higher so that the front pinion is still pointing at it (this happens because the front output shaft extends forward somewhat and got raised a bit when the front of the assembly got raised), and b) the angle of the rear output shaft needs to be greater in order to remain parallel to the rear pinion (since the rear has a non-CV driveshaft). Which raising the front, but not the rear, of the combined assembly accomplishes.
<li> EBC YellowStuff front brake pads. These are race pads that are also good for normal street braking. They both stop faster than regular pads, and are more resistant to fading due to their ceramic construction. They won't last as long as the OEM pads probably, I'll be checking them every 6,000 miles when I rotate my tires, but they'll <i>stop</i> me, and one of the side effects of having bigger tires is that the additional leverage offered by the larger tires makes your brakes suck. I needed more brakes. These give it.
<li> Centric premium rotors. The rotors currently on my Jeep need to be turned before they can be used with new pads -- they have a decided ridge on them from the wear and tear of the OEM pads. But I have to drive the Jeep to the automotive machine shop to get them turned. What to do? Oh yeah, buy new rotors, and then swap between the new ones and the OEM ones on each brake change, that'll do it, I'll drive on the new rotors to get the old ones turned! Plus the Centric rotors are nicely painted. Purty!
</ol>
So that's what I've done to my Jeep this month. The PITA with the body lift was the transfer case shifter plate (necessary -- even with the motor mount lift, things are otherwise out of whack) and the steering shaft relocation block (needed to relocate the steering shaft bracket to re-align it with the new location of the steering wheel, since the steering wheel is now higher due to the raised body). The PITA with the motor mounts was that picking up the engine moved the engine not only up, but moved the forward bracketry back a bit (simple geometry, dudes!). I struggled with it for a while trying to get the engine to drop into the new mounts, finally realized the problem, loosened the transfer case mounts so they could slide forward some, pried with a *big* prybar to shift the whole assembly forward a bit, and *finally* got it to drop onto the mounting holes in the frame. Remember, the combined engine-transmission-transfer case assembly weighs about 700 pounds (405 for that big cast iron straight-6 engine, about 150 apiece for the transmission and transfer case), so shifting that big honkin' mother takes a *big* prybar :).
<p>
As for the brakes, they just slid on. Take tires off. Unbolt calipers (two bolts). Whack disks with rubber mallet to knock them loose from hub, set aside. Remove outer pad. Use giant C-clamp on inner pad to push the piston back (remember to loosen your brake reservoir cap first or you end up with an exploded brake reservoir cap!) . Remove inner pad. Clean with brake cleaner to get all the old dust and grease off. Put new pads on. Put new disc on. Install caliper. 45 minutes per wheel, tops, and that's if you're slow.
<p>
So anyhow, all that's working. But now I have a check engine light. I used the on-off-on-off-on quick flick of the key to get the codes onto the odometer, and checked the resulting code against <a href="http://www.stu-offroad.com/engine/scancodes.htm">the list of codes</a>. Hmm. P0456 Small Evaporative System Leak Detected. *PROBABLY* means my gas cap was loose. I removed it, wiped the gasket, replaced it. That *should* fix it, but now I need to clear the code to make sure I didn't mess up the evap system somehow when I lifted the Jeep, which means I need to go buy a cheap scan tool from Amazon.com so I can keep clearing it between attempts to solve the problem until I find/resolve the problem. After all, the evap system is mounted on the body, while the gas tank is mounted on the frame -- and remember, I just picked the body up by an inch. Has a hose wiggled loose because it's stretched too tight? Or was the problem just a loose gas cap? I'll replace the gas cap next with a MOPAR locking gas cap if the code recurs, then if it still happens again, I'll pull out the inner fender liners (a PITA but I've been there, done that) and check the evap system (which is hidden between the inner fender liners and the stamped wheel wells). But all this requires having the OBDII scan tool to reset the code between attempts to fix the problem... so off I go to amazon.com to order it! (Why order it? I can get a decent tool from amazon.com for $30 cheaper than the local price, that's why... and it does everything I need to do, so why pay more for a tool that works no better for what I need?).
<p>
And that's the month of September for my Jeep. Huh, now that I have no more motorcycles to take up time and money, and no more Jeep payments sucking my paycheck, my Jeep is suddenly getting a flurry of attention :). But that is pretty much over until November, when I will be putting new (well, actually lightly used) springs on it to pick it up higher, and maybe some nice rocker guards and corner guards, or a roll cage reinforcement in case I roll it (eep!) because the stock roll cage works, but the windshield crushes in and can chop your head off if you roll wrong (eep!) so some additional bars to keep that from happening is well worth it...
<p>
-- Badtux the Wrenchin' PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-10313379779204359182009-09-03T09:49:00.000-07:002009-09-03T11:12:05.168-07:00My new iTunes radioYes, I actually did install that Sony CDX-GT630UI iRadio that I unboxed in the last post.
<p>
The instructions from Crutchfield were complete enough. I popped the top trim panel off, then the two screws for the center console cover, and voila, the old radio was just there. Take out the glove compartment, unbolt the security screw at the back as described in the Crutchfield instructions, unplug the two connectors -- the main harness connector and the Sirius radio connector -- and voila. Finally, I unbolted the soft steel "security bar" (a piece of thick wire little thicker than a clothes hanger) and removed it to make more room, since the new Sony radio has no way of attaching to it and it was just in the way. At this point the center of the dash was as empty as it would be:
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/Sp_2xfvtvjI/AAAAAAAABSg/IIaWPpNFWko/s1600-h/jeepdash-empty.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/Sp_2xfvtvjI/AAAAAAAABSg/IIaWPpNFWko/s400/jeepdash-empty.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377287810299313714" /></a>
<p>
I then unplugged the Sirius module from its antenna and pulled the Sirius module out from where I'd stashed it under the dash when I put my Kenwood TM-D710A radio where the Sirius module had originally been stashed.
<p>
The next thing I had to do was figure out how to put the new Sirius module in. The old one would not work with the new radio. The new Sirius setup was actually two boxes each a little bigger than a deck of cards, one of which hooked to the antenna and one which hooked to the radio and allowed the radio to control the half that hooks to the antenna. But a Jeep Wrangler dashboard is about 8 inches from the front of the dashboard to the firewall, meaning it's already got 10 pounds of shit stuffed into a 5 pound bucket especially since I already have a ham radio and CB radio stuffed under there. First thing I tried to do was re-use the existing Sirius antenna. No go -- it had a different plug than the new Sirius radio. So I unplugged the old antenna up on the rollbar where it lives (remember, the roof of a Jeep is simple cloth or resin-impregnated fiberglass cloth depending on which on you put up there and thus radio-transparent), and put the antenna that came with the Sirius module up there in its place (it just stuck on the existing bracket with a strong magnet). I then ran the wire up front. Next I had to figure out where to put the two halves of the Sirius radio. I found a place for the antenna module at the top of the driver's side kickpanel, and a place for the radio interface module above the heater box vacuum control motor.
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/SqADk7yWNzI/AAAAAAAABSw/jGaXHisiHlk/s1600-h/siriusantenna.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/SqADk7yWNzI/AAAAAAAABSw/jGaXHisiHlk/s400/siriusantenna.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377301888139409202" /></a>
So I wired everything together -- no way in hell I was going to be able to wire them *after* I got them in place -- and ran the wires that were to the radio out the radio hole, then stuck the boxes in place with double-sided 3M mounting tape, the heavy duty outdoor-use stuff. No way in hell I was gonna be able to get a drill up there to drill holes to mount them, 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bucket, remember? So they were now wired and everything that had to go to the radio, plus the two power wires, was hanging out the radio hole in the dashboard.
<p>
Then came the easy part: mounting the radio. The hardest thing there was taking the adaptor Crutchfield sent and soldering it to the pigtail that Sony sent, but it was a matter of soldering blue-white-stripe to blue-white-stripe, brown to brown, etc. until all the wires were connected. As a matter of principle I checked things out against the Jeep service manual's pinout for the connector and Sony's pinout for the connector to make sure I was soldering the right things together, but it turned out that everything soldered correctly. I also soldered in wires to connectors to provide power to the Sirius radio at the same time I soldered in the power wires for the new harness adaptor I was building here -- I used the same "bullet" connectors that are used on all the Japanese motorcycles, simply because I have bags and bags of them. And finally, I plugged in the antenna adaptor that Crutchfield supplied. So now all the wires I needed to plug into the Sony radio were hanging out the dashboard.
<p>
So now all I had to do was mount the Jeep-to-DIN adapter and the Sony radio's DIN mounting bracket. The Crutchfield instructions were complete on how to do that. Once I'd done that, I had a nice Sony-sized hole in the dashboard with wires hanging out. Plug wires into Sony, slide radio back into its little cubby while guiding the wires in the directions I wanted them to go (via sticking my hand behind the radio through the glove compartment hole and guiding/tugging wires in the desired directions), and voila. Fire it up by turning the ignition to the accessory position, and... it worked! Except the Sirius, of course, since the Jeep and I are still inside our garage, but the Sirius at least reports "No Signal" rather than nothing at all.
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/SqAEq6Pe0fI/AAAAAAAABS4/Jnyifb0c1qg/s1600-h/radioworks.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/SqAEq6Pe0fI/AAAAAAAABS4/Jnyifb0c1qg/s400/radioworks.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377303090315579890" /></a>
<p>
So now I got to put the dash all back together and test out the iPhone/iPod functionality. And here is what it looks like at the end:
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/SqAFgMBBH3I/AAAAAAAABTA/l9LJM1ctH4U/s1600-h/jeepradiodone.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/SqAFgMBBH3I/AAAAAAAABTA/l9LJM1ctH4U/s400/jeepradiodone.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377304005619818354" /></a>
<p>
My iPhone now plugs directly into my radio and charges from the radio. I can play my iTunes via the radio, and use either the radio's next/forward buttons to move between songs, or the iPhone's screen. I now have a <a href="http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/windowseat">Griffin Windowseat</a> to hold the iPhone over at the left corner of my windshield, so it can serve as a GPS too if I need one in a jiffy or just have a convenient place to let the phone charge and play tunes during long trips. All in all, it just works -- this is a great radio for those with iPhones. I am quite pleased to no longer have to deal with that clunky Chrysler-provided radio.
<p>
Oh yeah, the Sirius? I called them and had my account moved from the old ESN to the new ESN and it just works too. I am pleased. And while the Crutchfield directions weren't as complete as they could be, clearly they were good enough for this project. The only real problem was finding a place for the Sirius radio, the Crutchfield directions were absolutely silent on the Sirius install. But it wasn't all that hard at the end to figure it out myself based on Sirius's own directions.
<p>
-- Badtux the Radio PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-60988968589050650442009-08-07T14:16:00.000-07:002009-08-07T14:22:07.280-07:00The unboxingMy new stereo for the Jeep has arrived! The magic brown truck just delivered it from Crutchfield. I'm pumped. Gonna install it this weekend, after which I will be able to plug my iPhone's USB cable into the stereo while traveling and hear all my iTunes (and keep my iPhone charged at the same time). Here is the unboxing of all the goodies...
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/SnyagrsfQrI/AAAAAAAABPo/eGDayyyqJlE/s1600-h/stereobox1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/SnyagrsfQrI/AAAAAAAABPo/eGDayyyqJlE/s400/stereobox1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5367334742194602674" /></a>
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/SnyahSPPNbI/AAAAAAAABPw/GORF03k5kKA/s1600-h/stereobox2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cPOoKn1sLvk/SnyahSPPNbI/AAAAAAAABPw/GORF03k5kKA/s400/stereobox2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5367334752540898738" /></a>
As you can see, I had a bit of help here :).
<p>
-- Badtux the Stereo PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-1940201655375615552009-07-28T22:04:00.001-07:002009-07-28T22:16:48.452-07:00Goodbye to motorcyclingBy this time tomorrow, I will be motorcycle-less for the first time in years.
<p>
When I first got a motorcycle, my idea was cheap commuting. But what I found is that a motorcycle is like a fancy mistress, it always wants more money, more trinkets, more of your time to get dirty with it. Motorcycles are high maintenance whores. But I wasn't too upset with that, because it was a fun whore. Problem was, this whore -- a nice fast sport-touring bike -- killed my knees on long rides. Which sort of defeated the purpose of having a nice fast sport-touring bike.
<p>
So I got a dual sport so I could go play in the national forests, and also have more room for my knees. But what I found is that playing in the national forests on a dual sport is sort of fun in that you never run into a road that has an end to it (you can turn a dual sport around literally on a dime by laying it on its side and spinning it around), but you can't carry the sorts of supplies that would save your life if you broke down in the middle of nowhere. I was always a bit nervous riding a dual sport well away from anyplace that anybody would venture for days, because if I fell and broke a limb, well, I'd probably die.
<p>
So I mostly rode the dual-sport on pavement, got a Jeep for the forest roads, and was much happier with that. So I thought, what about a nice fast sport-touring bike again? And ABS, so I could commute in crappy weather rather than chickening out because of oil-slicked roads? So I bought my Wee-Strom ABS. And it was good. The nice thing about the Suzuki V-Strom 650 is that it is a very comfortable and roomy bike, though the weird styling does tend to make things rather buffety in the cockpit. But then I hurt my leg, to go with my bad knees and my bad back. So now I have a bad leg, bad knees, and bad back.
<p>
At this point, I've decided the only reasonable thing to do is hang it up. It's just not fun for me to ride anymore because too many body parts start hurting too soon into the ride. So hopefully by tomorrow evening the V-Strom will have a new home. I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with my Jeep, because at this point trying to get myself healthy is much more important than a playtoy that hurts me to ride.
<p>
-- Badtux the Gimpy PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-34295452973530408822009-07-27T16:18:00.000-07:002009-07-27T23:54:28.906-07:00The case of the mysterious shimmyJeep Wranglers of my Jeep's vintage have a tendency towards <a href="http://jeep.off-road.com/jeep/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=261532">Death Wobble</a>. This is a shimmy that kicks in at around 45mph and makes the front end wobble back and forth.
<p>
To a certain extent this is inherent in the <a href="http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/billavista/Steering/Steering_Research/steeringresearch.htm">inverted-Y</a> type steering that my Jeep has. Modern vehicles have rack-and-pinion steering, where a cog on the end of the steering column moves a toothed rack to the left and right to steer the vehicle left and right. The problem is that rack-and-pinion steering doesn't do too well with long-travel suspension used for offroad purposes. With rack-and-pinion steering, hitting a rock or bump will cause the suspension to thump upwards, which in turn pushes on the rack as the steering rod pivots upwards on its ball joints and shortens the effective distance between the wheel and the steering column, which then makes your steering wheel twist violently. Inverted-Y type steering instead diverts much of the force of the bump into a toe change -- rather than the steering wheel twisting violently, the other tire toes out. Basically, the more you compress the front end of a Jeep, the more the front tires toe out (point slightly outwards rather than straight ahead). If you lift a Jeep, the wheels toe in (point slightly inwards). Adjusting via the driver's side tie rod is necessary whenever you lift a Jeep, and you want a slight amount of toe-in at rest because aerodynamic forces push the front of a Jeep down at speed and cause the front tires to toe-out.
<p>
So why does this cause death wobble on lifted Jeeps? Well, first of all, lifting the Jeep increases the angle of the Y. This means that an upward movement of the suspension causes toe-out to increase by a larger amount than with an unlifted Jeep. So if your passenger tire hits a bump, the driver's tire toes out and tries to steer the Jeep towards the driver's side. This then causes the Jeep to lean towards the driver's side, which loads the driver's side and unloads the passenger's side, which in turn causes the passenger's side to toe out and try to steer the Jeep towards the passenger's side. And so on. This can set up a resonance -- the "death wobble" -- when the natural wiggle overcomes the natural damping of caster, shocks, and steering damper (yes, my Jeep has a steering damper -- a shock absorber for the steering -- to help dampen any such motions).
<p>
So my Jeep started doing this at 45mph after my last tire rotation. So what did I do? First thing I did was make sure all my steering components were tight. Death wobble often happens when the track bar is loose, for example. But nothing was loose.
<p>
Next thing I did was check all ball joints and tie rod ends for play. They were all tight and play-free.
<p>
That having failed, I took my Jeep to the tire store and had them balance my tires. They reported that my back tires were fine and they'd removed some weight from the front tires.
<p>
That didn't affect things at all, so the next thing I did was check my alignment. I did this by duct-taping two pieces of angle iron to my front tires, one on each of my front tires, with the front and back of each piece of angle iron exactly 10 inches above the ground (this is necessary due to the fact that my Jeep has exactly 10 inches of clearance under the front control arms at the back of the front tires). I then grabbed a pair of $1.99 Cheap Chinese Tool Store tape measures. I duct-taped the end of the first one to the angle iron on the driver's side in front of the tires and laid the other end on top of the angle iron in front of the passenger side, then did the same with the other tape measure *behind* the wheels. I then pulled both tape measures taut, and found that there was 1/8" difference in measurement between front and back -- I was toed in by 1/8".
<p>
I checked my service manual and did a bit of trigonometry and that's well within specs for my Jeep. Still, one thing that helps with death wobble is less toe-in, because if the wheels start out pointing outwards more, they don't turn in more when you hit a bump. So I fiddled with the tie rod and reduced toe-in to 1/16", then headed out to test. I was worried that this would make my Jeep more skittish on the highway, but it wasn't significantly more skittish. But what I *did* find was that my Jeep no longer understeered -- when I cut the wheel to make a turn, instead of fighting me and trying to lift the inside tire, my Jeep now dives into turns with alacrity. Much driving since then has verified this: My Jeep now handles *much* better than with the stock suspension geometry, because a slight bit less toe-in has reduced the understeer that Jeep's engineers built in because, well, that's how American automotive engineers think cars are supposed to handle (i.e., with lots of understeer). Although to be fair, the wider tires on my Jeep, and the lift, also contributed to the understeer effect.
<p>
Anyhow, my test verified that the reduction of toe-in didn't make my Jeep wander on the highway (what I was worried about) and made it handle better in the curves. But: It did not eliminate the "death wobble" entirely. It made the death wobble less severe, it showed up as a pulsing in the steering rather than a violent shaking, but it was still there.
<p>
At this point I decided I must have a broken belt in a tire. That happens when you drive a Jeep offroad and hit a rock too hard with too much air pressure in your tires. I even know where it probably happened -- on the old toll road up Darwin Wash to Darwin, where it goes over the mountain, where I didn't bother airing down because that's a fairly mild road as far as 4x4 roads go (I could do it in a 2wd pickup truck). So I started taking tires off and replacing them with the spare. I started with the right rear tire, because it has a dent in the rim from whacking into a rock (advantage of steel over alloy -- an alloy wheel would have shattered). No change. Next, I put that tire back on the rear and rolled the spare over to the front right and replaced that tire. And...
<p>
Wobble gone.
<p>
So it appears that my new spare has a broken belt that causes a vibration at around 45mph. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that. Probably just leave it as a spare for now... I only have about 15,000 miles of wear left in this set of tires, and it works well enough to serve as a spare, so if I get a blowout I'll just put it on in place of whatever tire, then head over to the tire store and get some new tires (bigger meats, 33" ones, this time).
<p>
So lessons learned?
<p>
<ol><li> The stock settings for toe-in are bunk once you put bigger slower-steering tires and a suspension lift on the beast. You want less toe-in then, because the bigger tires will steer slower than the OEM tires (meaning they don't need as much toe in order to keep the Jeep from wandering on the highway) and the taller suspension will make the inverted-Y add more toe-in when you lean over to do a turn, thus causing more understeer than with a stock Jeep.
<li> And don't eliminate tires as the culprit even if they are balanced, because there's far more than being out of balance that can cause a tire to add a "thump" that can set up a shimmy. This tire isn't even out-of-round when you spin it with no load on the tire. But once you put weight on the tire, the broken belt shifts and lets the rubber stretch, making it effectively out of round as you roll it down the highway.
</ol>
And thus ends this session of Jeeping Suspension 101...
<p>
-- Badtux the Wrenchin' PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-40635980286896672072009-06-10T15:31:00.000-07:002009-06-10T15:38:23.285-07:00Baby loves her Kraut plugsDrove the Silver Demon to Point Reyes National Seashore last weekend. She got close to 17mpg. Baby apparently loves her Kraut plugs (the Bosch Platinum+4 ones), because I never got that even when she was new and lower to the ground/skinnier smaller tires. Jeep Wranglers aren't known for their fuel economy :}.
<p>
I also took the Weestrom shopping last Saturday. She's a nice pleasant bike, but I don't ride her enough, especially since I now live only 4 miles from work and could even bicycle it if I wanted to do so. Still conflicted over whether to sell her or not. Probably will hang on to her until next spring now, given that we're already in the second week of June (heh!). Guess that means I need to plan a trip with the Wee just to let her spread her wings a little... So tonight I'll go ahead and install the new GPS wiring to my fuse panel, because the old wiring was pretty much fail. Might also go see if I can find that handlebar-mounted windshield in my storage, which might give calmer air behind my fairing... I don't *really* need to see my speedometer (cowling-mounted) if I can glance at the GPS and see how fast I'm going, right? :-).
<p>
-- Badtux the Wrenchin' PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-78846354926554225102009-05-20T22:56:00.000-07:002009-05-20T23:15:15.427-07:00Where's my coolant going?I'm baffled. My coolant tank was down to the "Min" mark. I'd filled it up to the "Max" mark maybe 10,000 miles ago. My oil has no water in it -- I'd notice when I dumped it. I don't see any leaks anywhere. I don't smell anything inside the Jeep. Should I take it to the dealer under warranty and have them do that black light thing?
<p>
Now, my brake fluid and my clutch fluid, I can see why they went down. My front brake pads are about half worn out (at 30,000 miles!), assuming they started out at the same thickness as my rear brake pads (which look barely worn). They're about a quarter inch thick now, which is a fair amount of fluid. I assume my clutch has worn some too. So I poured a bit of DOT3 fluid into both from a fresh container of brake fluid (unopened until I did this), and they should be good for a while. But there ain't no wear parts in my cooling system!
<p>
Oh yeah, finished greasing my zerks, and rotating my tires, and changed out the air filter while I was at it too. I'm not going to change the oil right now because it only has 2,000 miles on it, so I'll check the rear diff fluid (#$!@ diff seeps fluid despite my best attempts to seal it with black RTV after the last diff oil change, I'm going to have to go to the aftermarket gasket to see if that works), put the (new, formerly passenger front) spare back on the back of the Jeep, and then I'm done for the 30,000 mile service. The next "big" service will be at 36,000 miles, when I change the diff fluid again, 33K will just be an oil change and zerk puffer.
<p>
Last thing: I put anti-seize on the wheel studs. The threads were feeling mighty sticky, which is a bad thing, but this is the first time I've rotated the tires myself since the 6,000 mile rotation (which was the first -- and last -- with the original tires). I suspect the tire shop of not using anti-seize on these things and now they're a bit galled from the rotations every 5-6K miles. At least the tire shop didn't use an air wrench to put the lug nuts back on, I watched'em torque them down right, but I didn't think to check behind them on stud wear caused by galling. Oh well, when I do the brakes in 20,000 miles or so (based on current wear patterns) I'll see about whacking some new studs in. It's really easy to do on a Jeep, just take the caliper off, knock the disk off with the rubber mallet, and then you can whack the studs right out and knock new ones without having to take the axle end off and put it in a hydraulic press. We've done it on the trail before, when a guy who had his studs overstretched by morons with an air hammer had the studs break on the trail and we had to round up some studs from people's spare tire carriers and whack'em in to get him on four wheels again... crap, you can just about fix a pre-2007 Jeep Wrangler with a rock tied to a stick, when it comes down to it :-).
<p>
-- Badtux the Wrenchin' PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-6481066017053053962009-05-20T00:18:00.001-07:002009-05-20T00:52:49.881-07:00The downsides of wrenching late at nightI got the new spark plugs into the Silver Demon tonight. I was going to ride down to the nearest NAPA auto parts and get some NAPA goodness, but they went out of business :-(. So I kept riding down El Camino Real until I passed a Kragen's on the left, at which point I got over into the left lane and did a U-turn. I asked the parts guy to give me the best plugs he had, and he started scrolling down the list on his computer. I stopped him on the Bosch plugs and got the best ones he had. Six of them for $6 apiece isn't bad at all for plugs you don't have to gap and the Krauts know how to make good shit, hell, I got a German transmission and German rear brakes (Bosch rear brakes, believe it or not!) so those plugs ought to feel right at home in my Jeep.
<p>
So the next problem was getting the coil-over-plug rail out of the way. I had to figure out how to get that $#%! connector off the end of it without being able to, like, actually *see* the bloody thing because the tabs are facing the firewall. But I figured it out eventually, and figured out a way to wiggle the coil-over-plug rail so that I could get it out of there. Six teats in a row, remember? That reliable old 4.0L I-6 engine might date to 1964 in many of its details, but that coil-over-plug rail is state of the art as of 2003. o that's a long, long coil-over rail, and a PITA to wiggle outta there.
<p>
The OEM plugs were semi-frozen in the heads (30K miles on'em), but a big 1/2" ratchet worked. The one on the end, in the indentation of the firewall, I had to grab my cheater pipe and a metal bar to get it out. But I got it out, and anti-seized the new plugs and put'em in and torqued'em to 260 inch-pounds (comes out to something like 29.7 n/m, the spec says to put'em to 30 n/m, close 'nuff already), wiggled the rail back in and hooked it back up, and then headed out to test-drive the beast. It test drove fine. Seemed to be a bit smoother, but that may have just been my imagination.
<p>
So anyhow, it was only 9:30PM by this time, so I started the next task on my list -- rotate the tires and check the brakes. I do a five-tire rotation, that way I only need one jack, besides it helps keep wear down on the locker up front to have all the tires be the same general wear level. I inspected the brakes while doing so this time because the brake fluid is looking a little low. So the spare went onto the rear driver's side. While it was off, I looked at the brake pads (rear disks). Damned things looked new -- they were freakin' half an inch thick. So I put the spare on and torqued it down to 100 ft/lbs (in stages), rolled the former rear tire to the front of the Jeep, and jacked that wheel up and took it off. That brake pad looked considerably more worn, and I found another oddity: My factory service manual has no minimum spec listed for the friggin' brake pad thickness! However, I do have a Chilton manual around and it said 0.125 inches. Well, I grabbed my micrometer and the brake pads are considerably thicker than that, probably half-worn, so that was that.
<p>
So next thing I realize is that, with my wheel off, all my zerks are right there in front of me instead of me having to crawl under the car. So I grab the grease gun and start pumping grease into zerks. One... two... three... four -- oops, what happened to my grease pressure?! Turns out I managed to run out of grease. Darn, and I just put this grease cartridge in there a year or so ago, wonder what happened to the grease given that I only use it to pump grease into my Jeep?
<p>
So now it's 10:30PM, and I'm out of grease, and I go look for grease on my lubricants shelf. I find a vat of grease, but no friggin' tube. Oh come on now, I know I had a spare tube of grease! Oh yeah, that's right, that's the empty tube of grease that I just took out of the grease gun because I <i>did not buy another tube of grease when I put my spare into the grease gun!</i> GAH! And it's 10:30PM. Nothing open. I wish I lived in a real city that didn't close down at 9PM!
<p>
So I put the rear tire onto the front, and roll the former front tire to the back for tomorrow, and wrap everything up for the night. Tomorrow I'll ride the Nightstrom to Kragen's again and buy a couple of tubes of Mobil 1 grease for my grease gun (*gonna buy that spare this time*!) and a new air filter because my air filter looked dirty too and I've already knocked sand out of it enough times that I'm starting to get dubious about its integrity (you can whack an airfilter on your fender only so many times before it starts getting a bit, well, <i>mushy</i>). That's what happens when ya drive around in the desert a lot eating the dust of other Jeeps, heh!
<p>
So g'nite, all. And the continued saga of the Silver Demon's 30,000 mile service shall, well, <i>continue</i>, 'cause I still got the other side of the tire rotatin' to do, as well as the air filter, add some brake fluid (checked and yeppers I still have a sealed DOT3 container), and finally, change the oil... not to mention finish greasing all those damned zerks!
<p>
Oh yah: Before taking tires off:
<p>
<ol> <li> Put yer emergency brake on.
<li> Put the transmission in first gear, or park if it's an auto. (Or if your reverse is lower than first, put it in reverse, but my 1st is lower).
<li> Put the transfer case into 4-Hi (if you have 4wd of the part-time type)
<li> Block the wheels with wheel chocks that are opposite the side you're working on.
</ol>
Safety counts. I'm using the OEM jack which fits up under the axle and is mechanical in nature (it's a screw-type jack) so it's pretty much bullet-proof, but you're darn tootin' that I ain't gettin' under that Heep without jackstands even so. I ain't interested in being a <i>flat</i> penguin, nosirree...
<p>
-- Badtux the Wrenchin' PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-10808953366891168262009-05-18T22:45:00.001-07:002009-05-18T22:52:14.090-07:00Piece of shit spark plugsI've been working on cars for over 30 years now. I thought I'd seen every fucking piece of shit car that had ever come down the pike, every crappy half-assed aftermarket part that was possible to see. But this is the first time I've ever seen a brand name that was so fucking cheap ass I wouldn't put it in the car of my goddamned worst enemy.
<p>
The culprit: Champion "Platinum Power Premium Spark Plug, part number 3034 RC12PEC5". Look. I've put spark plugs in everything from a 1971 Ford Torino to a 2008 Suzuki V-Strom. I didn't expect a problem putting spark plugs into my Jeep. I mean, fuck. That goddamned I-6 engine dates back to before I was fucking <i>born</i>. So I took the spark plug coil rail off, and grabbed one of these spark plugs out of the box and... what the fuck? The goddamned electrode was set at like 0.60, when a Jeep wants 0.35. Well, fuck, that's not a problem, you just rap the plug on the front bumper with your feeler gage at .35 between the electrodes and... what the fuck? The goddamned electrode won't fucking <i>bend straight</i> it's so over-long for the gap required for the Jeep 4.0L I6, it's like all half-ass and shit? Yeppers, I tried it on two different plugs, same goddamned result. There's just too much motherfucking electrode for a Jeep 4.0L I6.
<p>
Fuck this shit. I threw these goddamned piece of shit spark plugs in the fucking trash. I'm going back to the parts house tomorrow and get some better plugs. Sue me for fucking cheaping out on spark plugs, I shoulda known better. "Platinum" or no, these are fucking bottom feeder piece of shit spark plugs, not fit for my worst enemy's car, much less my own.
<p>
-- Badtux the Rude PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-9185049011181028962009-05-14T21:34:00.000-07:002009-05-14T23:50:17.277-07:00Gears!Okay, so here's the deal. The Silver Demon (my Jeep LJ) came with 30 inch tires (that's 30 inches from top to bottom, on 15 inch wheels) and 3.73 gearing in the differentials (remember, I have two differentials). So what happens if I go to 35 inch tires?
<p>
Well, here's what happens. The 30 inch tires are 86% smaller than the 35 inch tires. What that means is that the effective gear ratio becomes 3.73 * 0.86, or 3.21. Which is very tall gearing for a manual-transmission Jeep LJ. Frankly, the stock gearing was already a little tall in 6th gear, I had to downshift every time I hit a hill, this would make it horrible indeed. How horrible? 6th gear in a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_NSG370_transmission">Chrysler NSG370 manual transmission</a> is a 0.83 overdrive. Using <a href="http://www.rocky-road.com/calculator.html">this gear calculator</a>, at 75mph I'd be at 2256 rpm, rendering 6th gear useless for pretty much anything slower or on any slope steeper than my bedroom floor. Whereas with the stock 30 inch tires, I'd be at 2632 rpm, which is much closer to the torque peak of the venerable old 4.0L AMC I-6. 235 lb-ft @ 3,200 rpm. But more important, my crawl speed at idle (1000 rpm) with <a href="http://www.novak-adapt.com/knowledge/np231.htm">2.71 low range transfer case</a> and 4.46 1st gear ratio goes from 1.98mph to 2.31mph -- which is significant when you're rock-crawling, where slower is better. And the 1st gear mph at 1000rpm in 2hi (1:0 transfer case ratio) is 6.26mph, which would make it hard to start off without slipping the clutch as vs. the 5.37mph of the stock tires. Not Good.
<p>
So I can upgrade to 35 inch tires, but to do that, I have to go to lower gearing (higher multiplication ratio). My Jeep LJ is equipped with the Dana 30 axle. This is a relatively small axle that has only three gearsets available that are lower than the 3.73 in my Jeep: 4.10, 4.56, and 4.88. Because of the small size of the axle housing, the pinion for 4.88 is *very* small -- Dana only recommends 4.56 as the maximum. So I plug 4.56 into the gear calculator to compute 1st gear mph at 1000 rpm and... 1.88mph crawl speed in 1st at 1000 in 4-lo, or slightly lower than OEM. At 75mph, I'd be going at 2758rpm as vs. 2632rpm with the stock gearing. Not a big deal, it'd make 6th gear more usable in less-than-flat terrain though I'd still have to downshift for big hills.
<p>
Now, why am I talking about gears? Because I'm thinking about putting a <a href="http://www.arbusa.com/Products/Air-Lockers/10.aspx">ARB Air Locker</a> in my rear end for better traction off-road. The stock limited slip has very little friction material and is slowly losing its capability to provide any traction benefit at all in offroad situations. Thing is, this replaces the stock spider gear carrier with the ARB spider carrier, and requires complete gear setup as a result. Gear setup on a Dana 44 rear axle is a PITA, requiring you to set pinion depth with a crush sleeve and a 250 ft/lb torque wrench, set pinion bearing preload with a 15 inch-pound torque wrench and spacers prior to setting pinion depth, spread the case with a case spreader and use shims on the insides of the bearings to properly preload the carrier bearings, and adjust the shims on the inside of the carrier bearings side to side to properly adjust the side-to-side gear lash. It can take a couple of hours and a lot of cursing to get all the depths and preloads and everything right (and remember that the shims are on the *insides* of the bearings and the bearings are pressed on and pulled off with a bearing puller), and people justifiably charge an arm and a leg to do it. So when I have someone put in the ARB, it makes sense to do the gear setup for the 4.56 gears at the same time. That way they only have to do the gear setup *once*, not *twice* (once for the 3.73, once for the 4.56), which would save a lot of time and hassle. And remember, when you're talking about wrenching, time and hassle is $$$.
<p>
So anyhow, that leaves one last problem. Right now I have 32" tires on my Jeep. They still have at least 20,000 miles of wear left on them before I am ready to replace them (i.e., until the tread depth gets low enough to start affecting offroad traction). What happens if I put 4.56 gears on the Jeep before I put the 35" tires? Well... rpm at 75mph goes to 3016 rpm. As vs. 2937 rpm if I am running 5th gear (1:0 ration) with 32 inch tires at 75mph. So I tested 5th gear at 75mph, and it's a bit busier than 2600 rpm was with the stock tires and gearing, but still acceptable. Note that I never -- ever -- go faster than 75mph in my Jeep. It just isn't what a Jeep is made for. So I could go ahead and get my Jeep re-geared at the same time I get the locker put into the rear, and I'll still be fine, it's just that my Jeep will be a bit buzzy (but not excessively so -- 3000 rpm isn't all that high).
<p>
Now comes the final issue: Should I pay to have someone do the locker install and gear setup, or should I do it myself? Well, here's the deal. To do it myself, I'd need the following spendy stuff: A 0-30 in/lb torque wrench. A hydraulic press. A 500 ft/lb torque wrench. A case spreader. Probably a couple other things I've forgotten, while adding up the above $500+ worth of tools (all by itself) which is more than I'd pay for the gear setup. Given that we're talking about a job that'd take me several days, I'm taking names of any competent axle people you know in the San Francisco Bay area. Heck, anywhere else within reasonable driving distance, for that matter... I'd rather pay to have it done right but have to drive 250 miles to get there, than to pay someone local who screws it up and then I end up with the axle tearing apart and needing to buy a new axle. Bummer, big time, dude!
<p>
-- Badtux the Jeepin' PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-19055887808561699722009-05-04T23:30:00.000-07:002009-05-04T23:44:32.606-07:00It'll buff out<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/up9MlO8i2as&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/up9MlO8i2as&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
<p>
A few things here:
<ol>
<li> The driver was *not* hurt, she was wearing her seat belt and Jeep Wranglers have a very effective roll bar.
<li> The Jeep itself wasn't significantly hurt. Her hood needed banging back into shape but bungied right back down with the stock bungies, and there were a couple of holes in the top that needed duct tape to make it watertight again, and the rocks left a few dents in the sheetmetal here and there, but that was pretty much the extent of the damage. Jeeps are *tough*, and the sheetmetal is just that -- sheetmetal, with no structural role. So dented sheetmetal is nothing to a Jeep.
<li> The driver claims that the reason she didn't follow her spotter's direction to cut hard right to follow the seam was because the sun was in her eyes.
</ol>
Which brings up the fatal flaw in this driver's excuse. If I'm heading up a seam like this and my left front starts heading up into the air and I can't see my spotter, I *stop*. I then wait either for my spotter to come running to my window to tell me what I should be doing, or for him to tell me over my CB radio what I should be doing, or for him to send a runner to tell me what I should be doing. It may be that the best thing to do is to back up and take another cut, it may be that I'm in a position where I can cut hard right where I am and still make it, it may be that the best thing to do is to put the hook (winch cable) on me to make sure I don't flip backwards and just keep bulling forward, but thing is, I'm inside the Jeep where I can't see clearly, and my spotter is outside where he can see everything.
<p>
In short, I don't buy this driver's excuse. She was an idiot, plain and simple. Bulling forward after she lost her spotter was just *stupid*. If she was a guy I'd accuse her of testosterone poisoning, wanting to prove how macho he was. Since she's not a guy, well, not much to say there.
<p>
So remember, boys and girls, if you're in a tricky spot like this where it's possible to roll over, and you can't see your spotter, and your wheel starts heading up, *stop*. Maybe slowly back up a little to get your wheel back down, but at the very least, stop! You might need the hook to make it up this seam, or you may need to back up and take another cut, or a hard cut to the right might get you out of it, but simply bulling straight forward when you can't see your spotter is just, well, DUMB.
<p>
-- Badtux the Jeepin' PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4649349012503946628.post-71764168915030240472009-05-04T14:33:00.001-07:002009-05-04T14:38:19.160-07:00Performance partsI've had great fun looking at the excellent selection of performance parts at <a href="http://kalecoauto.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1&zenid=d6eda31078b089e2e223b01b9642e2eb">Kaleco Auto Supply</a>. They have a plentiful supply of <a href="http://kalecoauto.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=6&products_id=28&zenid=d6eda31078b089e2e223b01b9642e2eb">flux capacitors</a> and <a href="http://kalecoauto.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=10&zenid=d6eda31078b089e2e223b01b9642e2eb">muffler bearings</a> for those tricky repair jobs.
<p>
-- Badtux the Easily Amused PenguinBadTuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345749557330760251noreply@blogger.com1