sewebster

I replaced my 1991 spare tire carrier bushings/pins around 2 years ago (maybe less?) and now it's starting to make that wobbling sound when I go over bumps again. I tapped the needle holes for zerk fittings and have lubed it several times until I see grease coming out the top and bottom, wiggle it around etc. I have a 31" tire (duratrac) on a lego rim on there. I drive on rough roads occasionally, but I haven't been doing anything too extreme. Anyway, I guess what I'm wondering is... what am I missing here? I was just scanning some other threads, including one about how tough the spare carriers are, and I guess it just hasn't been my experience. Anything I can do to make it last longer? I've though about attaching something to the other side of the truck and installing another draw latch so that the carrier is supported on both sides, but seems a bit annoying... maybe the speed bumps around here are just too big

Heh, gooooood point.

Maybe someone should organize a group buy for all the gauges we'll be buying

Be careful, easy to make it worse if you use something too coarse... but go too fine and you won't remove enough material. I believe the final (most fine) polish can be done with a cerium oxide slurry. https://www.google.com/search?q=cerium+oxide+windshield

My post got lost I guess. I was wondering how they choose which parts to keep making. Lots of parts I've tried to get are apparently unavailable.

Ok, uh, sounds like it's not a problem Thanks.

Or do they keep making new ones? I mean, have they been sitting on a shelf since the early 90s?

I tipped mine A LOT and didn't quite get the full amount in. And it was rather sketchy the way I was jacking it. But you can basically do it this way if you are willing to goof around, might be easier, but more dangerous than through the top, and you might not succeed

Figured out that my aftermarket oil pressure gauge/sender (electronic) was crappy. Probably didn't need to replace my oil pump after all. Oh well.

Yeah, I'll play around with a good tap (this one) and see what happens. No CNC so thread milling isn't really practical unfortunately.

Hehe, yeah, we'll see how it goes! It is used in some high end oem exhaust manifold studs, and it should be well suited to the high temperatures. Planning to thread on the lathe (threading insert). Tapping the nuts could be interesting, yeah, at least there are only 12. Hopefully I don't need 12 taps

Yeah, resistors were clean. Actually. I took the whole thing apart, pulled a bunch of junk out of the ducting in the centre of the dash area (where most of the control flaps are located). Today I bought an Inconel 718 rod to machine exhaust manifold studs and nuts out of.

I think at some point they added screens under the hood cowl covers to keep out leaves and other debris. I added my own made out of window screen a while ago, but was still getting a bunch of leaves coming out of the vents. I guess I found the reason! Blower seems to run better now too, and presumably I doubled my airflow or something.

Took a picture of the blower:

Exhaust manifolds really can cause a lot of ticking sounds... I just removed mine today so I can machine them flat again and hopefully solve this problem for a while.

If it's not in spec, it likely means that the injector will malfunction, so I guess it could either be giving too much, or not enough fuel, or in the wrong spray pattern. Or just leaking etc.

One part of diagnosing injectors is to measure the resistance (spec is in FSM). It is likely easier to do this than actually take the injectors out, so it's a good first step. But I still doubt you can do it for driver's side with the plenum on.

I welded in a weld-nut there. It works fine, but it's not pretty. The sheet metal there seems quite thin so it was easy to blast through. Or maybe mine was just a bit too rusty. Of course I had to buy a bag of like 50 8 mm weld nuts

I thought it went right into the top of the plenum. I guess I'll take another look next time I open the hood.

There is a coolant air vent (little bolt you can unscrew) in the upper plenum though, so doesn't that mean there has to be coolant in there somewhere?

Main bearings are also new. Heh, it was a factory pump... from an aftermarket supplier... it came (new) with the logo ground off... thought that was kinda cool. Maybe they sold the mold or something?

Yeah, clearly need to be careful, it's only low at idle though. I am worried that it is losing the prime somehow. I already replaced the oil pump, which seemed to solve the problem... for a few months. Can't believe another oil pump is on the outs, haven't been any engine problems, no metal in oil since then etc. I guess the easy thing to try is to replace my aftermarket gauge with the factory dummy light and see if it comes on... but now I'm curious to know exactly what is happening, so was thinking of putting in an expensive (~$200) industrial style transducer to really figure out what is going on. But, ugh. Only things I can think of to have it lose the prime are oil pump and pick-up-tube o-ring, both of which I have serviced recently...

Changed the oil. Thought maybe it would solve my low oil pressure problem (was suspecting dilution), but it didn't. Ugh. Need to double check my gauge I think.

Finally greased the rear hatch glass latch. No more squeak!

If you are turning all the way to close to lock, could be the compression/tension rods.