My J-4500

[SOLSAKS]

10-4 cranky
keep us posted on you rig's status.

dave in NC

[Crankyolman]

10-4 cranky
keep us posted on you rig's status.

dave in NC

I will but it's looking like things are going to go slow for a while. I'm thinking about painting the header panel to at least kind of match the copper tan of the rest of the truck.



I do have a new (old) problem that just popped up again. The speedometer started acting up again yesterday morning At about 40 MPH it starts making a hell of a racket and suddenly indicates 50 but bounces between 30 and 50. When I get the speed back down to 20 or so it starts working fine again until I hit 40. It started doing this almost exactly a year ago but after a week or two stopped and has been fine since. It also has never done it when the weather is warm. I guess I should make a post about it and see what kind of ideas people have for fixing it.


Last year when it happened I checked with some speedometer shops about fixing it. Tacoma speedometer said they can't get the parts any more but Palo Alto Speedometer said they could fix it for probably $295 + shipping. That's a lot to me and right after that it stopped doing it so I never bothered looking further. There is a guy in Istanbul that had some new old stock ones for sale and I thought about buying one and taking the speedometer head out to put into mine, his are in KPH. I also thought about buying that and getting a converter so it showed in MPH but was a 180MPH speedo, just because I think it would be funny to have a jeep truck with a 180MPH speedometer I'm just not sure about buying from someone in Istanbul.

[Crankyolman]

This morning when I got up to go to work I found my windows iced over. I don't know where my ice scraper is so after starting the truck I tried scraping it with an old credit card. That didn't do much of anything so I looked in the other car for a scraper. I didn't find one but in the couple minutes I spent looking for the scraper the windshield had started to defrost, which was amazing, and the inside of the cab was already warm. It's amazing how well the heater and defrost work now that that vacuum switch is fixed

[SOLSAKS]

now you know,....
next time when you have icy windows
fire it up
and go back inside for a cup of coffee
when you come back out
you will be ready to go.

glad the heater/defrost are working correctly.

dave in NC

[rang-a-stang]

Haha! For sure, Dave! Sounds like he needs a remote start function!

[Crankyolman]

now you know,....
next time when you have icy windows
fire it up
and go back inside for a cup of coffee
when you come back out
you will be ready to go.

glad the heater/defrost are working correctly.

dave in NC

I also now know if it happens again I can pull the vacuum lines off the switch and just tee them together and it will get me by.

Haha! For sure, Dave! Sounds like he needs a remote start function!

I don't need or want one. I had remote start on my van when we lived in Michigan. It was great when it worked as advertised but after we moved to Wa I was parking in our garage and one day the van just started by itself, my keys weren't even in my pocket, they were on a hook. That's when I started parking outside and occasionally I would find it just sitting there idling. Something was not working right and at random times the remote start would start the van, it would idle for 15 minutes burning up gas then shut itself off. I recently heard a thing on the radio about people dying because they have push button ignition and they forget to turn off their cars when they park in their garages. I wonder how many of those people actually had malfunctioning remote starters.



In truth it never gets all that cold here. I recently bought one of those heaters that sticks to the bottom of the oil pan to keep the oil warm on those cold nights just to help reduce engine wear on cold starts. I really don't like leaving my truck sitting idling unattended for fear it will get stolen. I have full coverage but I love my truck.



Last year just before the defrost quit the heater core failed. At some point in it's past the heater core had been replaced with a brass one like BJs sells. It failed where one of the lines meets the core. Autozone claimed they had an aluminum one in stock that was correct and I really didn't trust using another brass one after the failure so I bought the one from Autozone. As it turned out the AZ one was about a half inch narrower and thinner than the original and I had to get a bit inventive mounting it but it seemed to work. When winter came it never seemed to get as warm as it had with the brass one. It was never so bad that I couldn't live with it and my drive to work is less than 15 minutes so it was never a big deal other than the defrost problem. It was also around that time the defrost quit. As it turned out it must have been the flapper door for the heater was not opening more than a small bit so very little warm air was getting into the cab. Now it not only warms up fast it warms up a lot, enough that I actually have to adjust the heat off full hot.

[Crankyolman]

Today marks 2 years since I got my truck driving after getting the engine back in and 3 years since I bought my truck. The odometer reading at overhaul was 07057.2 and today reads 12371.6 which is a total of 5314.4 miles since overhaul. That may not seem like much since it is my daily driver but I live less than 6 miles from work. For the most part my truck has been trouble free for those 2 years with only minor issues. I haven't really done a whole lot to it other than basic maintenance but a couple days ago I bought an old bumper for the back. It isn't perfect but it matches the original without the rust out. I really don't understand how the back bumper got all rusty but the rest of the truck isn't all that bad but I have a replacement now, I just need to fill a few holes I don't want, paint it and it will look brand new and I won't be afraid to tow a trailer with this one, unlike the current one.

[rang-a-stang]

I love these kind of posts!! Good news is always welcome!

[Crankyolman]

When I posted a few weeks ago I mentioned I have a replacement for the back bumper. I finally got around to starting to work on it and got some pictures to post so now I can tell you all about my prissy back bumper.


The original bumper on my truck is totally rusted out, (I will try to get pictures of that tomorrow) It is so bad I would be afraid to hook up a trailer or push anything with it, I'm almost afraid to stand on it for fear it won't hold my weight.


A replacement bumper has been on my list of future parts but it was never high on the list. A while back I was going to try to go down to Portland and buy the bumper 44BZ had for sale but I never managed to find the time to get down there. Then a couple weeks ago I found an add on Craigslist for the same type of bumper my truck has always had. It wasn't in pristine condition but wasn't bad and I figured I could easily restore it to the prissy bumper I want my truck to have. I probably paid more than I should have but it was located less than 10 miles from my house and as I said, it matched the original which is something I really wanted.


The problems were at some point someone had drilled some holes to mount an antenna,



and hacked a big hole with a torch where one of the license plate lights used to mount in order to mount a trailer plug (sorry, no before pic) and drilled some holes to mount a different style of license plate light on the other side. These holed were not pretty but I figured I could easily fix them.



So yesterday I took a Sawzal to one of the non rotten parts of my old bumper to salvage some metal to do the repairs and set to work making plugs to fill the holes.







While I was at it I figured I'd also fill the hole where the original trailer plug mounted.





We have a really good certified welder and a TIG welder at work so it only took him a few minutes to get the holes all welded up.











I was very happy with the results.



Today I set to work cleaning up all those welds and stripping the multiple layers of paint off it to begin prepping it for a proper prissy paint job.

















To accomplish all this I used a couple of different grinders, my old belt sander which worked well for getting the curved face right, and a die grinder. I still have a lot more sanding and prep work to make it properly prissy but I will continue to work on that as time allows and hopefully keep posting picks as I go.

[Crankyolman]

As promised I took some pics of the old bumper.


This first one you can see holes in it from the back



These next 2 are from underneath






and this last one shows what I cut off so I could make the patches



It was the entire right corner which gave me flat parts and curved parts so I could match things up nicely.

[rang-a-stang]

That's a rusty bumper for sure, but i was expecting worse from your description.

So what's the plan with then "new" bumper? Powder coat, paint, or chrome? What color?

[Crankyolman]

That's a rusty bumper for sure, but i was expecting worse from your description.

So what's the plan with then "new" bumper? Powder coat, paint, or chrome? What color?

The pictures don't show it being as bad as it is but the entire area from mount to mount is pretty much gone.


I have been debating what color to paint it. I wasn't thinking about powder coating but now that you mention it I drive past a powder coating place every day, maybe I'll stop by and see what they would charge to do it. I had been leaning towards a product called Steel-it ( https://www.amazon.com/Steel-Polyure...g=mh0b-20&th=1 ) but at $31 a can it's kind of expensive. I might just paint it white right now with the intention of repainting it when I do the rest of the truck. As near as I can tell both of these bumpers were originally painted white but at some time they were both painted aluminum as well... or maybe bed liner it.



I used to be indecisive but now I'm not so sure I guess my plan at the moment is to get it stripped and pretty and get some primer on it, then decide but ultimately it will probably wind up the same color as the upper body color.

[SOLSAKS]

nice find on the bumper.
I have one like it on a 76
mine is bent/rough

still mainly white
but looks like life on the farm was rough on it
lots of extra holes drilled
lots of bends
lots of little hooks welded on, to hook stuff to.

well used.

good job on restoring yours.

dave

[Crankyolman]

nice find on the bumper.
I have one like it on a 76
mine is bent/rough

still mainly white
but looks like life on the farm was rough on it
lots of extra holes drilled
lots of bends
lots of little hooks welded on, to hook stuff to.

well used.

good job on restoring yours.

dave

Thank you,


Like the trucks themselves bumpers seem to be pretty hard to come by in good shape, not that this one could be called good when I got it but it is certainly fixable.



I got the rest of the paint stripped off today, I found a little hidden rust but nothing bad. Stopped and got some rust converter and self etching primer on my way home so I can finish the prep work. While stripping off paint I discovered 2 of the 3 welds holding the left cap on are broken so I will have to get our welder to fix that Saturday when he comes in. Tomorrow I'll finish prepping and get what I can primed, I hope to get it all prettied up and on the truck next week some time.

[Crankyolman]

I had a super busy week last week and as a result didn't get as much done on the bumper as I had hoped. Then like everything else in my life I couldn't leave well enough alone and had to complicate things.



I guess I should explain that my work week is Thursday through Monday, with Tuesday and Wednesday off. Our welders days off are Thur Fri so welding is done on Sat or Sun if he had time. On Thu & Fri I cleaned everything up so the bumper was ready to have the 2 broken welds re-welded as the factory had done and worked on getting it cleaned up and ready for paint afterwards.



Sat I let our welder know the bumper was ready whenever he found some time. He looked at it and suggested that I clean up the seam completely and he would fill them in so they could be ground smooth to make them seamless. I thought this was a good idea so I set to work prepping it for that.



As things tend to happen the defecation hit the rotary oscillator and both he and I wound up too busy to get much else done both Sat and Sun but Monday was a bit slower so we had some free time and he got the seams welded and I got them cleaned up.


The seams started out looking like this



After welding they looked like this






I then ground them down










Then I also found time to do what could have been the the final sanding before treating but didn't have time to treat so I will have to give it one more sanding before treating next week but that will be easy and fast. It might need just a bit of filler here and there to look perfect but ithe amount needed will be pretty minimal.