beater!

[poorboy87]

Ok
Yeah that would do it.

 

[ehall]

I don't like the air temp monitoring. There is a big lag between the fan spinning up and coolant temp dropping so by the time air temp is hot enough to trip the fan when I want the engine is already hot and will stay that way until the pump can get cooler fluids into the head.

I hooked up a light to come on whenever the relay was grounded, and let me tell ya the air temp monitoring is just really weird--the fan will kick on when driving down the highway and then go off when I pull up to a light, and will only come on again when I start moving or when coolant temp gets stupid hot. I tried moving the probe to a couple of other places around the radiator but just couldn't get it to work the way I wanted, and couldn't figure out why it's doing such weird stuff either.

Today I moved the probe into the upper radiator hose directly and now it works great--temp gets up to 220ish and the fan comes on, temp falls to 185ish and the fan goes off. It does this at a light or driving down the road, works just like you'd want. This reinforces long-term plan to use SPAL PWM controller on the stock ECU temperature sensor.

 

[ehall]

I did some more research on the fan motors. These small ones are 3-pin but they are only single speed (single winding). On the 4th gen Taurus (which they came from) they are wired up for simple on-off operation with constant ground and switched power, but on the 3rd gen Taurus they have an inline resistor on the low-speed circuit with relays switching between the low- and high-speed circuits (constant ground and two switched power). The fan motors are the same, only the wiring is different.

So one option for me here is to get the resistor from a 3rd gen and wire it up on the third fan motor pin. I would have to rewire everything so I'm not going to do that right now but thought it was interesting and worth keeping on file in my brain.

Here is the resistor as seen on ebay. It's a big sucker

Here's a pic snagged from Taurus Club forums showing the resistor location behind the passenger bumper/fender wall

The part is $40ish from the dealer. I'll grab one if I see it at the junkyard, and look for markings on the component.

 

[ehall]

One thing I've been working on as a side project is opening up the passenger side cowl, for two reasons: first is that needed to fix some leaks over there that I was unable to repair with the sheet metal in place, and also I am doing little bits of pieces towards putting a cone filter in the cowl for a protected cold air intake.

First step was to chop the sheetmetal. I chose to cut a path around the inside of the screw anchors, which would give me the most room but still allow me to secure the screen.

Here's a top-down pic.

You can see the cabin air intake in the right side of the opening in both of those pics. The second pic also shows where I had started spreading sealant around all of the seams to block leaks. One day at NAPA I noticed that one of the lawnmower air filters looked like it might fit in the cabin intake. After rounding off the corners it drops right in--voila cabin air filter!

Unfortunately I was still getting some leaks, and after several weeks of trial and error I eventually traced them down to the plastic anchors that hold the screws for the cowl screen. These have some play in them to allow for adjustment, and a couple of these are directly over the cabin air intake, so water was dripping right onto the recirculation door from the cowl. I tried fixing this with a couple of different strategies, but it became increasingly apparent that the only viable fix was to cover the cabin air intake with a splash guard of some kind. Today at the local building center I noticed that they had some 4.25" sewage pipe made from a pliable plastic that looked like it would work so I bought a 10 foot section for $7 to try it out.

The cabin air opening is 4.5" x 7" with a 1" indentation in the corner to clear the hood hinge on the passenger side. I cut an 11" piece so that it would have 2" of overhange on each side, and then cut 1/3rd of the tube lengthwise so that it would be C-shaped and clamp against the side of the opening. Here's what it looks like pushed into place

As you can see the hinge holds the tube in place, and it is also somewhat tight against the sides of the intake opening. Unfortunately it's below freezing here so it's too cold to test with water but I am 100% confident that this will work really well as a splash shield. I have already tested airflow and while the blower motor seems louder (probably noise bouncing back in) and there is slightly less air pressure at a couple of places (such as the rear vents on the back of the floor console) the overall flow does not seem to be significantly impeded at the usual locations. If it becomes an issue I'll remove the lawnmower filter.

Now that this has been fixed I need to order a cone filter to put in there for the cowl intake.

 

[D.I.T.A]

I love the idea for the cabin filter

 

[Veeb0rg]

when can I bring my jeep down so we can do this mod?

 

[ehall]

I got the cowl filter and intake installed (full write-up here)

 

[D.I.T.A]

Did you notice any increase in noise having the intake in the cowl.

 

[ehall]

No extra noise but I have panel filter in cabin intake that is blocking some of it

There is a slight loss of power that I'm hoping will go away as computer relearns (like change in elevation) but I would probably need to change it all to 3" tubing and silicone elbows to get my throttle response back.

The tube stays cool to the touch on the passenger side and only gets lukewarm on the drivers side so that part is definitely working

 

[D.I.T.A]

cool, Have you ever looked in to those ricer intake kits that slip together and if you send it back to the company they will tig weld it together for you. And disconnect your battery for the day it will relearn quicker

 

[ehall]

I don't want to reprogram the radio stations again :eyes:

 

[kastein]

disconnect the connectors on the ECU for ten minutes, should have the same effect

 

[$700later]

just jump a curb while flashing your bright lights, it'll flash the system.

 

[ehall]

Unfortunately I was still getting some leaks, and after several weeks of trial and error I eventually traced them down to the plastic anchors that hold the screws for the cowl screen. These have some play in them to allow for adjustment, and a couple of these are directly over the cabin air intake, so water was dripping right onto the recirculation door from the cowl. I tried fixing this with a couple of different strategies, but it became increasingly apparent that the only viable fix was to cover the cabin air intake with a splash guard of some kind. [...]

As you can see the hinge holds the tube in place, and it is also somewhat tight against the sides of the intake opening.

We are having big rain today and the passenger floorboard is completely dry :clap: First time in 3 years that there's no moisture on the floorboard arty1:

Oh and the filters in the cowl doen't seem to be having any problems from the rain either. Just a small amount of rain water, nothing more than standing moisture basically.

 

[ehall]

I finally got coordinated with a guy in the local offroad club to measure suspension travel on his ramp. We disconnected the JK shocks so that they would not interfere with travel, and drove up high enough for the rear to start wobbling, which was where the front right coil unloaded but not unseated.

There was about a 2" gap in the front bumpstops, and a 4" gap in the rear, and you can see in the pics that the wheels weren't close to rubbing anything, so this is actual suspension travel.

Compressed and extended measurements on the shock mounting points came out as 17 x 25.5 in the front, and 17 x 21.75 in the rear. With the 1" bar-pin eliminators installed, the JK shocks come out at around 15.5 x 23.75 for the front, and 15.75 x 24.25 in the rear. The compressed travel has plenty of room left, and I don't need to bumpstop anywhere right away (but will certainly need to when I go 33s in order to protect the fenders). The rear shocks also have about 3" of slack travel at the extended range and probably won't be limiting travel unless the rear end completely unloads--I could even remove the bar pin eliminators on the rear and still have slack at both ends of the range. However the front shocks have 1.5" less extended travel than the suspension, so I need to do something there. Since the spring was unloaded, I need to do something to prevent that, so it seems my two options are to limit for the current shocks or get some longer shocks and limit for those. The YJ shocks are a couple of inches longer and with the bar-pin eliminators that should give me about 25" of downtravel which is borderline, or I could go ahead and upgrade to long-term shocks on the front with another 1" of extra travel for planned future lift addition. I'll have to think about this some more.

 

[my2monkeys]

I had to make a junkyard run for a couple of things and ended up fixing a few other unrelated problems as a by-product

One thing in particular the clips that held the front axle breather hose to the left UCA had long since disappeared, and I did not like having the hose flop around. While I was at the junkyard I noticed a headlight wiring loom that had the GM style circular anchors, so I grabbed a few of those and they work perfectly for the breather

The right rear exterior door handle has always been hard to activate, requiring a deep push on the thumb button to release. However when I was pulling the jack in and out from under the seat, the thumb button decided to just stop activating altogether and I had to start opening the door with the inside handle (which still worked fine). I figured that it was probably a latch or the handle, so I grabbed one of each at the junkyard, and replaced them both. Unfortunately the handle still didn't release the door easily. After futzing with it for a while, I noticed that the door appeared to be slightly wider than the others and that the latch assembly was not pressed up against the inside skin... here you can see a large gap about 1 mm in size, while all of the other doors are flush

Looking at the problem some more, I also noticed that there was also a gap between the plunger under the thumb button and the lever that it pressed onto, which is why it was always hard to engage the door. Clearly the door is too wide for the hardware. This is quite curious--I had thought about replacing the door but as best I can remember I didn't do it. My guess is that the door was replaced when the rear end damage was repaired, or it was damaged in the accident somehow. I don't believe I've ever seen another door that was this wide so I have no idea what is going on.

Anyways once I figured out what the real problem was, I decided to try to bring the lever closer to the thumb rod. Because of the way that they connect it is not possible to really bend this up, however I thought I might be able to glue a nut to the lever so that there was something closer for the rod to press against. Looking through my drawers I found some #8 rubber well nuts which worked even better. By cutting the lip off the exposed part of the plunger rod fits with no slip, and the brass threaded insert provides a firm extension. PRoblem fixed--the door can be easily opened from the outside after who knows how many years

Another problem I've been having was minor leaks from the hatch. When we had the four days of rain during the lift this became a real problem since water was pooling up with the tools and parts in the cargo area. The problem is that the roof sheetmetal at the hatch opening does not run straight or even, but instead has minor indentations near the hinges, which results in less pressure on the weatherstripping at those points. When I added the wiring boot to the hatch, the additional material is enough to keep the hatch from sealing at that point and little drips were creeping in. I fixed this by getting some door edge trimming from autozone and cutting a couple of six-inch strips, and pushing them onto the pinch seam at the indented areas. This is enough to force the weatherstrip outwards, so that it can create a good seal against the hatch. This pic shows the difference--the overhead trim piece shows the original curve of the hatch line, and the weatherstripping shows the new straight seal. No more leaks

One other cheap fix was the 1.5" floorpan holes in back seat area. When I was at the junkyard I noticed the Durango has large body plugs in the A-pillars at the fender, and they work pretty well in the back floor. Although they are deeper than optimal they are cheap and work, and keep water and cold air from splashing into the back until I get around to a permanent fix using marine drains

What material and procedure did you use to shim the cargo seal out at the bowed in pinch weld locations? I've been trying to do something similar at my front door seals, but can't seem to close gap up. Great writeup by the way! The way you've troubleshooted all the problems with an old XJ and came up with cheap and logical solutions is inspiring. Thanks

 

[ehall]

What material and procedure did you use to shim the cargo seal out at the bowed in pinch weld locations? I've been trying to do something similar at my front door seals, but can't seem to close gap up.

I used regular door edge trim, like this but black

I cut two small piece out and put them over the pinch seam where it bowed in, and then pushed the weatherstripping over it.

The stuff is extremely handy for all kinds of things

 

[ehall]

Going to tackle the booster/MC swap sometime soon so I am getting parts together. Here's a pic of the cap from my upgraded homemade brake booster (the bottom is just a glass jar).

The most interesting part of this is the piece below the barb. That's a one-way ball valve that I got from McMaster-Carr (part #7768K66). With this setup, fluid and air enter through the hose and go into the bottom of the jar, forcing air in the jar to exit through the check valve. When the brake pedal is lifted, the valve prevents outside air from getting sucked back in, so fluid is drawn from the reservoir to fill the void instead. I can also put a vacuum line on the barb and force bleed the system that way if I want. Overall I'm pretty pleased with it, even though it is way overengineered.

 

[ehall]

Oops obviously I meant to say "homemade brake bleeder" there haha

 

[ehall]

Finally swapped 95 booster and master cylinder. Easier than expected once I got past the hard lines.

Here is the obligatory picture showing the old 91 setup on top and the new stuff on bottom. The booster is much larger and moves everything out a little more. The rod for the pedal is the same length but does not have the flat spot, however the brake switch seems to work exactly the same and I didn't have to adjust anything.

The holes for the lines are also on different sides of the master cylinder. The 95 also has the prop valve block on a bracket (not shown), and in conjunction with the depth of the booster puts the prop valve block in a different physical location (higher and more forward). The two options are to keep the old prop valve block and make new lines to connect to the master cylinder, or to integrate the body lines into the new block with new lines or with unions. Further complicating matters is that the prop valve blocks use SAE fittings with double flares, as does the 91 master cylinder, but the 95 master cylinder uses metric fittings with bubble flares. After looking at my options here I decided to just have my favorite shop make up some patch lines with the needed SAE and metric fittings, they charged me $10 for a couple of 1-foot pieces and I was done. I bought a nice bender at Advance Auto and bent them into place.

Here's a pic showing everything installed. I moved the washer fluid reservoir forward a couple of inches but otherwise everything basically went back together no problem.

Pulled everything off and cut the lines that were on the 95 setup and used some 3/16th ID tubing to bench bleed the MC.

Put it back on, attached the lines to the master cylinder and let them fill from gravity, then reattached them to the prop valve block. I didn't fully bleed everything since the double blizzard has crushed the roof of the shed and I am unable to get to the bleeder bottle I spent all that time working on but quick drives around the block show they are working fine.

So now I have power brakes.