Gary Lewis

I drilled them out. They were finger tight in the hub but seized in the hub cap. The Haynes manual says tighten the bearing bolt to 50ft lbs and back off 45 degrees, and tighten the lock nut to 150ft lbs on the bearings. Done. Mark Glad you got them out. But why are you using an off-brand manual? Why not use the factory shop manual section here: Documentation/Driveline/4WD Front Hubs & Rotors? It says: And right there you see why I do not use aftermarket manuals. There are mistakes in the Ford manuals, but they are few and far between. However, there are many mistakes in the aftermarket manuals, and they can cause costly problems.

Yep, good plan. (I hope I find when I'm the one in possession of his favorite tool. )

Will do, Scott. To tell you the truth, I forgot that your thread was initially about the underhood lights and that you'd bought an LED that worked. It'll be interesting to see how it works. The rule of thumb is that LED's produce 4 times as many lumens per watt than an incandescent bulb does. So a 2 watt LED should be roughly equivalent to an 8 watt #90 bulb. And the 2.4 watt LED is 20+% stronger than that, which should put it at about what you found with the Super Bright Lights LED's.

George - I watched the videos for the Aurora radios and decided there's way too many options for me. He did things with the dials that I could never remember, like turning one twice to the right to answer a call. So I am just looking for an update on the original radio. Bluetooth is the main need so I can stream and have hands-free calling. But more power would be appreciated. Send me an email with your address and I'll ship this thing to you.

Yep. And I'm crying. I pulled the fan and shroud, getting lucky that the two serpentine belts on the water pump pulley seem to be balanced well enough to not have to pull the belts. And then I pulled the bolts holding the radiator to the support and laid the radiator back a bit. That lets me see both the front and the back. And it let me lift the radiator up enough to slip blue paper towels under it to see where the leak is actually coming from. Apparently over the fortnight I was gone it dribbled a bit as there was the puddle on the floor. And, the towels I stuffed in yesterday were damp. But now that I can see everything I don't see any leaks. So, I rigged up the air pressure tester. As you can see in this pic it is setting on 9 psi, which will hopefully cause the leak to be obvious. We shall see. Well, after an hour or two at 9 psi there were no leaks. So I turned it up to 12 psi, which is as high as I can go w/o the 13 psi cap leaking. And after another few hours there were no leaks seen. So I left the compressor on for the night and we'll see what it looks like tomorrow. But, let's do some speculating. The day before we went on vacation I spotted some drops, so I tightened the drain plug as well as the clamp on the top hose. But still I found that puddle under the truck two weeks later. So, is it possible that one of those fixed the problem and it just took that long for the dribbles to make their way across the radiator support and out of that hole? I personally don't think so, but the only other explanation I can think of is that the heat of the engine running causes enough expansion so something leaks. I'll check that out by driving the truck if there are no leaks found tomorrow as I want to find and fix the leaks! And, while I was waiting on leaks to manifest themselves I did a couple of other things. First, I replaced the top ignition module since it was obviously bad. So now I have a backup, but need to test the new one just to know it works. The other was that I worked on the underhood light. It had been on the truck when I got it, but I took it off as I was replacing the engine, cleaning things, etc. So today I cleaned it externally and then sprayed silicon lube into it and worked the mechanism to ensure it got lubed. Apparently it did as the mechanism is now working pretty well. Then I turned to the bulb. I don't want to go back with the original #90 incandescent bulb, so I did some searching and found these two on Amazon: 1.4 watt on the left, and 2.4 watt on the right. My measurements say that a #90 bulb is 1.35" long from terminals to the top. The bulb on the left is supposedly exactly the same, but the one on the right is 1.5" long. But it appears that there is enough room below the lens to put a 1.66" bulb in there, so I ordered the 2.4 watt bulb and it should be here tomorrow. We shall see.

Those things are wild! WOW! They have features that blow my mind.

Oh, ok. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought you were going over to the dark side.

You KNOW him! Man, I need to visit you. And him! And, you'd go into partnership with him? Sell your soul to the devil too? All joking aside, I'll stay tuned! This I gotta see!

Yep. And I'm crying. I pulled the fan and shroud, getting lucky that the two serpentine belts on the water pump pulley seem to be balanced well enough to not have to pull the belts. And then I pulled the bolts holding the radiator to the support and laid the radiator back a bit. That lets me see both the front and the back. And it let me lift the radiator up enough to slip blue paper towels under it to see where the leak is actually coming from. Apparently over the fortnight I was gone it dribbled a bit as there was the puddle on the floor. And, the towels I stuffed in yesterday were damp. But now that I can see everything I don't see any leaks. So, I rigged up the air pressure tester. As you can see in this pic it is setting on 9 psi, which will hopefully cause the leak to be obvious. We shall see.

George - I only have the one radio, which is the 1981 AM/FM stereo unit from Dad's truck. I just checked it out and the FM works fine but the AM didn't pull in any stations although I did get static so maybe my makeshift antenna was too small. Anyway, maybe it can be serial #1 of your efforts? Can you make it into something with: Speaker Out: Either just the current internal amp or pre-amp out. But more power would be nice as back then the radios didn't have much. Sub-out: I can do speaker-level into a self-powered sub, and many of them have a low-pass crossover, so I really don't "need" sub-out. But it would be nice. USB: Don't really need it as I'll use Bluetooth for streaming and hands-free. Bluetooth: This is needed, as said, for both streaming and hands-free. Mic: Any chance of having an input for a hands-free mic? Once we kick it around here let's email on a rough price estimate. I just want to get into a ballpark before I say "go". And, here are some pics. First is a snippet from a page in the '81 owner's guide showing the controls. Note that while there's a knob for a second pot on the right side, there's apparently not a pot there as it isn't mentioned and I detect no change in sound as I rotate it. And the balance is via a slider below. So, it would be possible to add a pot there for some control. Maybe that could be the balance and the slider could be for some other function? And, speaking of other functions, I really don't need AM, so maybe the AM/FM slider could be used to select between FM and BT? Here's the front, and the unit is powered and has a stereo FM station dialed in: And here's the model info:

On the choke and carb, with the engine fully warmed up adjust the idle mix screw, not the idle speed screw, for max RPM. Then see how the engine does with the choke at 1/8" on the next cold start. If it still seems rich put a line on the black cap where the index mark is on the carb, and then back it off 1 line. Test it on the next cold start and keep doing that until it runs well. The 1/8" measure was just a starting point.

That's cool! I'd never looked to see how the switch on my JD mower works, but that seems to explain it.

Please let us know!

Is there something like a pin switch that opens when the top is down. If so it could pull in a relay provides ground to the amp when the top is down and ground to the heater when it is up. But the hazard system seems complex. Glad you think you have it solved.

Yipes! That's expensive. I should have all that stuff off Big Blue, plus I have the whole A/C system still charged. Do people really get that kind of money for those parts?

Seems clean and straight, although the hubs need a dusting with a can of black.

Yep, I thought that's where it was. As for the locker, that article says they come with a rear locker, stock. Dunno as I haven't looked his over that closely. But I sent him a link to the article and he owes me a call today, so maybe we can talk about it.

How 'bout this stuff from Amazon? It is available in red, blue, and black. And at the bottom of the page there are other options, including green.

I'll see what I have today then and let you know.

Wow! That's a LOT of wires! You have all of them connected? You are really making progress. When's the projected completion date?

I'm pretty unfazed by heights in vehicles. (But not elsewhere - you should have seen me at the Eiffel Tower!) I had absolutely no concerns whatsoever going up Ophir Pass, and wished for more. But it was clear that was One Toke Over The Line for my passengers. (We'd just heard that song on the radio that morning, so it stuck in my mind.) So I'm trying to get a group up to go some time next year. I'd certainly like to take my son, and have already asked him. And I've asked my brother, who has an FJ and might take it. Maybe one of his sons would go as well and we could have some fun. I hadn't ever read much about the FJ, so Googled "how capable is an FJ off road" and found this article. And, it included this pic.

No, they didn’t tell me how to order. But we can give them five names and the size and color for each, along with an email address. I’m sure we will get it done.

George - Do you think sending you Dad's radio would do any good? It is just an AM/FM radio, meaning no tape or other mechanism, so no place to put extra controls.

They are all from other trucks.

Bill - Sorry to see that your wife had so many problems. Glad she's home and hope she's healing. As for the car, you appear to have resolved a number of problems. Well done! What's left to do on that front?