no way I could drive with that monstrosity hanging on my mirror

 

Ditto.

From all the motorcyclists out there, please move this out of your line of sight, the huge blind spot it creates hides us, cyclists, kids, other peds.

 

Haven't done much in the last few days. Tomorrow I plan to take her in for an alignment while I'm at work.

 

The last 2 weeks have been lots of fix ups for my 2002 4x4 Offroad.
New tires (Kelly AT), new front rotors and pads, muffler and tail pipe, front end alignment, radiator flush and a new spare tire winch

 

Dropped the heads from my '99 off at the machine shop yesterday. Low compression on cylinders 5 and 6. Was hoping it would be just a blown head gasket, but it looked fine. Hopefully the shop finds an obvious but fixable problem.

 

Killed my alternator by mudding... Happy Thanksgiving Though.

[ATTACH][/ATTACH]

 

Maybe it got a view of your headlights and decided it wanted nothing to do with them lol.

 

Just asking... "How did you determine it was the heads causing your low compression" ?

Did you do a compression check, then redo it with a little oil in the tst cylinder ?

How did the combustion chambers look when you took the heads off the truck ?

Just curious nothing more !

Ltr

 

I thought the headlights looked good, the only problem is all of the complaints about the actual light output.

I was looking at the Spyder Brand, which look VERY similar to the ones you get off eBay but more expensive ! I like the look but the cost to upgrade the Projector to something Spyder things is a better projector is staggering... Three or four hundred dollars for the units and six more to do the upgrade.

I told them I didn't them to come to my house and install them and a silent phone for a while... funny ! I didn't buy yet but still thinking on it.

Roman, how do they work, what kind of light output do you get ?

Ltr

 

I've had bubbling in the coolant after shutdown and a constant white vapor in the exhaust. In retrospect I should have done a leak down test first, but I was convinced there was a head or head gasket issue. Combustion chambers looked okay to my untrained eye. Hoping a pressure test at the machine shop will explain things better.

 

I just added my AEM dry-flow filter. We'll see if helps at all compared to stock. I did a bunch of research on the AEM dry filter compared to K&N. People were talking about bad the oil in the K&N is for your MAF. On top of that, people have loved the AEM so I'm giving it a try.

 

Went to get an alignment yesterday, was foiled by two lower ball joints and outer tie rod ends, funny that the truck makes no noises or popping over railroad tracks and such and goes down the road straight. There may have one sign, the inner of drivers front tire showing through, but not sure if its a tire rotated there or got the uneven wear there. Got a couple of wheels with matching tires I was gonna put on, thats why I wanted the alignment. For now I'll pick one of the odd spares (it came with four diferent tires) and I'll hope for a nice day to put on the ball joints and tie rod ends. Its funny cause another truck I had was in for alignment check, caster and camber were out, but the tires wore fine. Seems like the more I try to understand it the more complicated it gets, so for right now I'll fix what I can and hope for the best. By the way guys as much as know is on my plate, plus, I am still very happy with the little beastie, as super dependable as it's been, it was just what I wanted and I'm lucky it's been good to me so far.
Hey I'll try to post some pics soon if I can find its good side.

 

The bubbling does sound curious, is it losing coolant or turning it gray. You may just had an air pocket. The only other thing I can think of is spider web cracking in the head, blocking is I think the term for that check. If that does show up, get another head as heliarcing to weld the head never holds.

 

I went out for a few errands today, and noticed that my spare tire was hanging a little low. I tapped it with my foot and it was very loose. I tipped it and looked above it, the metal holding the spare tire winch had rusted out(this tire was put here only a few months ago, it looked fine then), and the winch had fallen through. It was held on by barely two of the four bolts that were supposed to be there. I drove slowly over to the Walmart next door, and the very nice gentleman in the automotive department helped me cut the cable and drop the tire down.

Then I noticed a small puddle of gear oil on the ground. Separate issue. Checked it out when I got home, and when I tapped the cover, some surface rust fell off, and then the drip became constant. There was a small puncture in the cover. How that happened and why it was below a layer of rust is beyond me. I broke all of the 10 bolts around the cover, and I just coated the fill plug with PB. Waiting on that now.

 

This is what I did to my Ranger today: I removed my valve cover on my 3.0L passenger side today to investigate my 0 compression and very ruff running with codes P0301 and P0316. I discovered that I have a broken valve spring :(

 

Eh, I have to replace my valve gaskets. I've got a pretty decent oil leak that needs attending to.

 

Guy that sounds like something to be thankful, that it seems an easy problem to solve and hopefully it will fix your compression problem.

 

Indeed, very thankful and hoping that it does. Thank You!

 

Ordered an SCT Tuner from 5StarTuning. They had a black Friday deal that was $100 off. I figured if I waited I'd end up spending the extra $100. So I got it. Hopefully the tunes are good and work well for my application.

 

Sprayed my rear b-pillars with black vinyl spray. Goes much better with my black suede headliner and cf wrapped interior. Shitting pictures as they are drying in the garage since it's too windy outside. Will try to get better pictures once I put them back into the truck.


-Nigel

 

Oooh i dunno, they look pretty good, gives me an idea for perhaps doing mine if/when i get ebony A pillar trim.

Which spray did you use?

 

+1 I'm curious about the spray as well.

 

This is what I used:

https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/p/...p106/7141483-P

Couldn't have been easier. Used that years ago for my sun visors since I did my headliner in black suede so they wouldn't stick out. This looks OEM honestly.

Since they are behind the driver I doubt they will get scuffed up or marked since I have a single cab. I just didn't like the gray next to my wrapped front pillars. Just looked odd.

-Nigel

 

 

You're doing what with your pictures?