General Tech What did you work on Today?

I love when you replace a part only to have the replacement part fail 5 miles into the test drive. When it failed, it was choking the motor so bad that I barely got it home…….I was rolling enough coal that I could have impressed any redneck. I finally got around to tearing it back apart and found the valve stuck open.

I should have just deleted it the first time around, but decided against it for not having to go through the hassle of reprogramming the ECM. If the quality of parts is this bad I probably will just go ahead and do a delete.

I got some tool organizers for Christmas. My son and one of my daughters got quite a few tools of their own.

We have spent two days rearranging and organizing my five toolboxes into 3 and 2 halves for me. Each of the kids gets a top set of drawers in the smaller toolboxes now.

Getting creative with replacing the arm rest for a 98 manual window XJ and the 3D printer.

Fender washers, jb weld, gorilla glue, and a lot of patience and I think I got a door handle that won’t pull off on a slight breeze.

Should at least last until one of these comes up online or salvage yard.

Back in September, I was approached by the local fire chief about collaborating on a wildlands fire prevention project, where we would install a gate on one of the fence lines on our family ranch to provide landowners who recreate in a neighboring canyon an escape route, if a wildfire were to break out and block the shared access route into their property.

As part of this project, the wildlands fire prevention crew will also clear brush along the access road escape route through our ranch (approx 1.8 miles of road), implementing an 80/20 cut and chip method where they will clear brush 25 feet from the road center on either side, removing 80% of the brush and leaving 20% to create a 50ft wide fire break.

We agreed to build the gate to their requirements, 15ft 8” opening to allow wildlands fire equipment to pass through and a security lock system. The FD will have a key to our gate lock stored in a Knox box on the gate lock box to allow them to access the gate in the event of a wildfire.

We completed the gate build in Oct and will be rebuilding the fence line in the spring. The wildlands crew will start the fire break project as soon as spring 2025 road conditions allow.

I helped my Dad install this mailbox post on the ranch when I was about 14yrs old and since that was about 45yrs ago, it was due for a proper refresh.

After the appropriate amount of descaling using a Cheekpoker 5000, I slathered the post with rusty metal primer and let it cure for a week before applying 2 coats of oil-base satin white Rustoleum.

Once the white had cured, I masked the horse and treated the ring with Hammerite Black.

The post cap had long since disappeared and finding the post to be an odd size, I fabbed up a new cap using some scrap metal, forming a ring and then welding on a disc. It still needed something to properly fit in with the ranch theme, so I sourced a pair of lucky star hat hooks that I melted together to top it off. I also installed a new mailbox and fresh address lettering to complete the project.

The horse was painted white in homage to the Utah Grand Champion Arabian mare that my Grandpa Amos Bingham owned and we inherited, along with the ranch, when he passed in 1974. We bred this mare and raise several of her foals during my teen years. Showing horses was something that my Dad really enjoyed and he taught us kids how to care for them, train them and prep them for shows. We also owned Quarter horses that we used to compete in chariot and flat track racing, plus some for working cattle on the ranch.

Fitting post for today, as it’s my Dad’s birthday and he would have been 84 today.

I whipped up a pair of setup brackets using 2” angle and 2” tubing scraps, to hold pipes in place when welding up fence braces.

They work great and eliminate the need for a 3rd hand when working solo.

It got to 50 degrees at my house yesterday so I enlisted my wife's help to try to stretch the new Supertop on the scrambler. I've had the new top partially installed for more than a month, but cold weather was not helping to get the rear section installed - it is so tight.

We wrestled it for a bit but finally got both sides installed (my back is sore).



Also finished the front shock install (free Bilsteins from last years EJS); also replaced the kinked brake lines. Of course when I went to install the drivers side, the factory line was frozen, so I had to build a new one.



I installed a lube locker gasket on the rear axle cover, but it insists on leaking through the lower bolt holes. I'll probably have to remove it and treat that gasket like any other and coat it in Rightstuff...

Mouse said:

It got to 50 degrees at my house yesterday so I enlisted my wife's help to try to stretch the new Supertop on the scrambler. I've had the new top partially installed for more than a month, but cold weather was not helping to get the rear section installed - it is so tight.

We wrestled it for a bit but finally got both sides installed (my back is sore).

View attachment 178938

Also finished the front shock install (free Bilsteins from last years EJS); also replaced the kinked brake lines. Of course when I went to install the drivers side, the factory line was frozen, so I had to build a new one.

View attachment 178939

I installed a lube locker gasket on the rear axle cover, but it insists on leaking through the lower bolt holes. I'll probably have to remove it and treat that gasket like any other and coat it in Rightstuff...

Click to expand...

Check those bolt holes, to see if they go through to the inside. (versus being a blind hole) I had some leaky ones on my front D44, that as it turns out were weeping through the threads, not past the gasket itself. So a little RTV on the threads before install solved those leaks for me.

The lower 6 bolts go all the way through the casting (its an AMC model 20 from a wagoneer). I tried some Rightstuff on the threads and they are still weeping.

Joy of owning older vehicles. Non-cool upgrades and fixes. Typical XJ stuff. Console mount was toast long ago and the original plastic one was held together with an entire roll of duct tape. Went with the cheap Amazon special that needed some “adjustment” to fit.



When it comes to XJ hinge pins, the internet speaks the truth!! Huge pain in the ass. A lot quieter with less wind noise, but damn!!!! No easy way to go about it.

No pics during the install. Was too busy cursing $10 pins!

I bought a trailer a little bit ago, and although it’s been good, there a a couple things that are simple missteps that drive me crazy.
One is that the crank handle is on the wrong side of the jack for efficiency. Everything else to get hooked up is done from the drivers side, and then you have to climb over the tongue, or walk around the truck to use the Jack.




I was hoping it would be possible to simply reverse all the inner parts, but I opened it up and saw that the main gear was not centered, so the crank gear had to stay to the passenger side of the trailer.



I pulled it apart, and drilled a new hole for the crank gear retention pin



All back together. No function issues. It does crank opposite now though as the handle switched sides, but the gear didn’t. I anticipated that and didn’t care.