What did you do to your jeep today?

Luke said:

All your grounds are good?

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Yes, the ground is good. I think I just figured it out though. The fuse to the harness is blown out. :facepalm: Should have checked that first. But since I had directionals and brake lights, I assumed incorrectly the fuse was still good. But the harness must have been tapping the tail light power for those, and main power for running lights. The harness is a complex web of relays and wires, that I still don't completely understand.

lfhoward said:

The harness is a complex web of relays and wires, that I still don't completely understand.

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Ha… that describes every electrical thing I look at. I would be lost without good tutorials.

I washed my car for the first time this year and went on a short trip.
The sun in May is very strong,
Even an old body looks beautiful.

Luke said:

Ha… that describes every electrical thing I look at. I would be lost without good tutorials.

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I need to do some rewiring. Some of this problem is because of the previous owner and some is from a past version of myself being lazy 10 years ago. The trailer harness, a rear inverter, and a manual switch for the dome lights are all powered on the same circuit. That's not cool. Each of those 3 things should have their own line with their own independent fuse. Will fix that as soon as I get some time! Not sure why the common fuse blew after 10 years, but I am leaving it removed for the time being for safety. It was a 20 amp so there must have been some serious current.

I managed to install a set of Diode Dynamics fogs without burning everything down… so I’m learning.

PS DD makes some high quality stuff!

Luke said:

I managed to install a set of Diode Dynamics fogs without burning everything down… so I’m learning.

PS DD makes some high quality stuff!

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Pix ... or didn't happen!!

Ok … but don’t at me for the sacrilege of posting my beast in this thread.

Those lights look great!

Sometimes its the little things that make a difference...

Today I was able to remove the drivers side interior door panel without breaking anything.

Then I removed, took apart and cleaned, then reinstalled the mirror adjustment control so that all the buttons worked again.

seafish said:

Sometimes its the little things that make a difference...

Today I was able to remove the drivers side interior door panel without breaking anything.

Then I removed, cleaned and reinstalled the mirror adjustment buttons so that they all worked again.

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Great job. That's got to feel satisfying to have those working again.

Today I replaced the rear differential speed sensor in order to keep the odometer from intermittently dropping out.

While I had inspected the sensor wiring just last year and did NOT find any obvious problems with it, and even though it still appeared to be in good working condition even now, due to the occasional random but repeated odometer drop outs while driving, I decided that I just needed to replace it with the Standard Motor Products S824 connector pigtail which I already had on the shelf.

During the replacement/repair process, I was able to find the actual HIDDEN wiring problem ... which, of course, was wire fatigue UNDERNEATH the wire insulation, leading to the intermittent bad connection.

I am not sure why I missed that last year, as the same thing happens to wiring going to ALL the doors in my Dodge truck !!!

First picture below shows how one wire is stiff from fatigue while the other one is soft and easily bendable with minimal effort while still having ZERO signs of damage on the outside. In short (electrical pun intended), the copper wire was already broken despite the insulation still holding it together and appearing flawless.

IMPORTANT NOTE: It is actually MUCH easier to FEEL these wire fatigue problems then to SEE them!!!

Second picture below confirms the one already broken wire, as it easily came apart at that spot only by pulling on it ... even though its light gauge wire and Im strong, Im not THAT strong.


During

Here a few pix of the soldered, shrink wrapped and loomed fix ... only took about an hour which also included brushing down the dirt from the top of the differential and surrounding area first, so it wouldn't fall in my eyes while working underneath and upside down. If I had actually PLANNED on doing this, instead of just spuriously doing it, then I would have pressure washed underneath the car the day before, and let it dry overnight, but my quick approach with a brush and air compressor mostly worked and I surprisingly didn't get any dirt in my eyes.

When I was cutting off the damaged portion, I deliberately left the OEM wiring longer then necessary, so that it hung down PAST the top of differential. That way it was easier to solder the aftermarket pigtail to it. I also offset the splice joints so that both wires would still fit into the wire loom even after shrink wrapping them. Then, after shrink wrapping and tucking the wires back into the OEM wire loom, I simply added an extra piece of loom to make up for the extra wire length. I also used secret electrical tape tricks in order to securely attach the end of the loom to the locking connector itself, rather then stopping short of it (like the OEM connector had). This should prevent the new wire from fatiguing again, while still allowing for the new connector's locking function to work properly.

Overall, I think the repair came out good.

Cleaning up after the repair also had me wondering if Mr. Wagner might somehow be related to Mr. Weller --

Set aside a day next week to replace the front shocks on my coilovers. Now just need to get the headliner changed out.

I did a thing! I've had the steel replacement for about 2‐3 years. I got the complete set after the passenger window crapped out on the freeway in negative I don't remember exactly degrees fahrenheit. I've been replacing them one by one as they fail. Luckily today was about 70°. Didn't take a alot of pictures though as I only had about 40 minutes of daylight. I like to keep it fun!

duderz7 said:

I did a thing!

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Where did you get the thing that you did?

seafish said:

Where did you get the thing that you did?

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Amazon amazingly! Brock Replacement Driver Front Power Window Lift Regulator Repair Kit Compatible with 2002-2007 Liberty with Ball Stud Type Glass. Looks like they only have fronts left and very few. 68059645AA https://a.co/d/4MXms3G

I also bought a complete steel set when driver's window broke (7 years ago), and replaced them all at once. No issues since then...

I drove to Fargo, ND today. That’s about a 2.5 hour drive for me. The jeep hit 225k miles, which was cool. What’s not cool is the front driver’s caliper decided to start sticking when I got into town. Hopefully it cools and releases. New calipers, this week…

*sigh*
been driving it all week, because reasons, and now it's tossing P2098 periodically.
going to plug the autel in tomorrow and see if I can datalog something useful.