Apparently I have neglected this version of my build, which of course was not intentional. Fortunately, much of my time in the last two years
hasn't been spent on the Jeep, and rather working or working around the house.
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the move went
mostly pretty smoothly, both the Jeep and the motorhome were the last assets moved being the "project" vehicles. It was determined that the Jeep was a fair match in range to the motorhome and with a full compliment of tools the Jeep was also a good match incase of a breakdown. Both ran splendidly, until the motorhome suffered an ignition system failure just a few hundred feet short of the Avelar, CA exit on I-5. The Jeep not only ran support ferrying parts from Carquest in Avelar, but also shuttled us back to the motorhome the next day after it was towed to a shop in Avelar. The failure shot about a 10' flame out of both sides of the exhaust, The ol' 440 was unfazed by this, so after replacing parts of the ignition system, we were back in business. The normally 16ish hour trip spread across two days ended up being spread across three due to the overall stress and exhaustion trying to keep the motorhome rolling. A ignition system rebuild is in its future. Or the swap to fuel injection. I'd prefer the latter, after the fact the trip ended up consuming 6 coils, 2 ignition modules, and 3 resistors (1 of which was a duralast coil which was more or less DOA- don't buy 440 parts from autozone).
The jeep on the other hand, performed exceptionally for the whole trip, averaging a staggering 17.7 MPG, a great result that happened to fall within the 10 year anniversary of owning this rig!
Some band-aids and repairs have been done since, too. This old rig really shows it has been a desert rig for a very long time. A few short weeks after migrating it, the rains flooded out one of the headlight assemblies. Attempting to remove the affected housing lead to the complete disintegration of the assembly in short order. The assemblies were replaced by the same model, but fitted with the CCFL halos rather than the LED halo model. same look, but with a brighter, cleaner, more DRL-y halo.
Another thing that failed, surprisingly, was one of the Core 4x4 rear lower control arms. At some point shortly after the move, the outer section of the arm became slightly wallowed and allowed the thread half of the arm to rattle and strip itself out. I ended contacting Core about the failure, despite the fact that that these arms predated all of their products pretty extremely. Core's current work offers a "if you manage to break it somehow, we'll replace it" warranty, and they also stood behind these arms despite the age and the fact that they predate said warranty. I ended up taking a credit for the equivalent "tier 1" arms and applying it to the tier 3 arms, which use flex joints. this puts them in line with the IRO arms on the jeep. Their quality has been refined significantly.
Since moving in, I have done a couple of things to the Jeep, mostly maintenance and quality of life updates. As I mentioned previously (the text above is copy-pasted from my other build on offroadpassport), the Jeep can really show it's time in the desert now that it no longer resided there.
- A Mechman 240A Alternator: Even on the PCM Voltage regulator it has made a huge difference in charging. Side note, with the smaller pulley on this alt, the 4.7L uses a shorter serpintine belt, DAYCO 5060870. This retains belt tension correctly. I have in my possession an external adjustable voltage regulator kit which I will eventually add in, however I am in no hurry at the moment since it is maintaining proper charge currently. Both of my Duralast AGM batteries have since failed and have been replaced as well. I have also added in battery breathers since both are located in the back and are no longer in "open air" It helps prevent corrosion on the things around the batteries.
- A new radiator (again) This one failed in the exact same way as it's predecessor, which appears to actually be caused by electrolysis/corrosion. I have worked through engine grounds to ensure this one hopefully won't suffer the same fate. I opted for the same
CHR Racing 3 row radiator as before, as I was always satisfied with it's performance. On the recommendation of some old hot-rod builders I talked to, I have added a ground to the radiator, and a
Flex-a-lite Sacrificial Anode, which conveniently replaces this radiators HORRIBLE drain petcock.
On a side note, has anyone noticed that worm drive hose clamps have gotten exceptionally horrible as of recently? I have started moving the jeep over to T-bolt hose clamps, which seem to grab more surface area on the hose, and can take significantly more torque, which is a great improvement over the standard worm drive clamps or the special ones recommended for the HPS hoses. So far the T-bolt clamps are a massive improvement.
Some of you may have seen the recent Ice storm in Lane county on the news, a multiple-day-long freezing rain storm which destroyed over 1/3 of our utilities power grid and also damaged the utilities water systems as well. The jeep was put on battery charging duty for the coming days since the Toyotas do not have an always on power port. This ice storm also did in the last AGM battery, and the jeep is currently running dual EFB batteries.
Also, a random fact for y'all, The Milwaukee 2646-20 grease gun tops off at 10,000 PSI. At significantly less pressure, you can actually (rapidly) extrude the rubber interior bushing of a johnny joint right out of the joint! Not having any sort of pressure relief/ grease bleed on these joints seems like a huge design flaw. I will likely replace these with IRO flex joints in the future.
