Renegade's Patrol Log

JEEP LINKS including vendor sites for parts and tools as well as sites for jeep organizations

PATROL LOG includes log entries of minor repairs and and adventures between time of purchase and the present.

RENEGADE MAINTENANCE Ever changing detailing, oil change, lube, etc. maintenance routines developed for Renegade based on the BillyBob routines, including required tools, materials and procedures.

6. Rust never sleeps

February 14^th 2009  It's a beaut of a day in the shadetree garage. I received the Banks catback muffler and tailpipe from Quadratec a couple of weeks back. Today's the day for installation. Went under the Jeep and hit the clamp nuts between the cat converter and muffler with Kroil penetrating oil. Tryin' to avoid dragin' out the compressor and cut-off wheel if I can.

Got all the clamps and hangers disconnected before running into a snag. Couldn't get the muffler to let loose the cat converter. Went thru several cycles of heating the connection with the MAP torch, quenching with penetrating oil and banging with a small sledge hammer until the gas ran out. No joy.

Got out the electric angle grinder and went after the muffler inlet with the grinding wheel. I didn't have good leverage and the grinder bucked me a couple of times. I noticed chunks missing from the grinding wheel. It was time to give up on this approach before blood entered the equation. I calculated that the beer supply was big enuf to finish the job by hand with the hacksaw. it was just before sunset with half a beer to spare when I got the muffler and tailpipe separated from the converter. I still have a bit of material to remove from the converter outlet but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Beer of the day is Mercury Brewing Company's Ipswich Original Ale.

February 15^th 2009  Another good weather day in the shadetree garage. Picked up where I left off yesterday with the old muffler and tailpipe. After some cussin' and gruntin' I observed that I was not going to be able to get the rusty old piece of crap out without some more cuttin'. I was tired of the hacksaw bit so I pulled stuff outta the shed until I got to the sawsall in the back. It was a few minutes after that that I had the thing in two pieces and out.

Got the grinder out again with a new wheel to remove the remainder of the muffler pipe from the converter outlet. Got the new Banks muffler on and clamped to the converter but I could not, for the life of me, get the new tailpipe snaked up over the rear axle, even after jacking the Jeep up. The tailpipe has to go over the panhard rod as well and there just isn't enuf room. When I tried to unbolt the panhard rod, I ran into a wall. It's a metric nut I don't have a wrench for. ~!@#$% I grow weary of the mumble-jumble of SAE, metric and torx fasteners. Okay. That's it for the day. I'm cleaning up and heading for the sunday nite cruise-in with Deerslayer.

March 7^th 2009  We've been having a run of good weather. My mood wasn't so good, however, and the gods decided to punish me for my atitude. I had ordered a couple of metric 6pt sockets (20mm and 21mm) from McMaster-Carr and they arrived over a week ago. The panhard rod hex nut turned out to be 21mm. First punishment - The shock was in the way of ratchet and socket.

Sprayed the shock nuts with Kroil penetrating oil. The shock bolts and hex nuts turned out the take a 3/4" SAE wrench. I made the mistake of taking the top nut off with the intention of moving the shock out of the way. Second punishment - I picked the wrong end of the shock. Top mount is a stud. Bottom mount is a thru bolt. Bottom has to come off first. In fact, the top nut doesn't have to come off at all. I put the top nut back on (with Threadlocker Blue) and took the bottom bolt out, which allowed the shock to swing out of the way enuf to get at the panhard rod bolt.

The head of the panhard rod bolt is a big ass Torx. I'm not even sure I have a bit for it. I crossed my fingers and clamped a pair of vise-grips on it. It took a 24" breaker bar to get the panhard rod nut started and I only had a few degrees of space to swing it in. Finished off with the ratchet. Third punishment - Upper panhard rod mount is in a pocket and the bottom mount has to come off to get it out. Damnation! More Kroil penetrating oil on that mount and the adjacent shock mount. Got the other shock out of the way and panhard rod disconnected using the same methods and curses.

Now, I could finally get the tailpipe threaded up over the axle and connected to the muffler . . . Not so fast, Bunky. I needed just a smigeon more manouver room. Out comes the trusty floor jack to pick up the side of the Jeep and drop the suspension on the passenger side to provide that wriggle room. Fourth punishment - The floor jack is low on oil and won't lift the Jeep. I have hydraulic oil for the jack but it is up at the warehouse ~!@#$%^

After substituting Renegade's sissors jack and some paver blocks for the floor jack, I get the Jeep side lifted and the tailpipe finally assumes the position intended. Jeep back on the ground and the muffler and tailpipe hangers and clamps were all connected and tightened.

Okay. Time to hook the panhard rod back up. Squezzed the upper end back into it's pocket with the help of some WD-40 and started the bolt. Had a little trouble getting it aligned and hit the Torx head lightly with the mallet a couple of times. Fifth punishment - Wait a minute. That's not a Torx head bolt. I had picked up the shock bolt by mistake and now it was stuck. AARRUUUGH! Took me 'nother ten minutes to undo that damage.

Got both ends of the panhard rod reconnected with Threadlocker Blue and moved on to the shocks. These shocks are hi-performance gas shocks that came with the Renegade package. It seems they are still in good shape and I don't have the strength to compress them and hold them in position with one hand while I thread the thru bolt. Sixth punishment - I have to get the sissors jack out again and jack up each side of the Jeep to drop the suspension enuf to get the shocks reconnected.

Took me a lot longer than I thought it would to complete this task but that's par for the course with me. I'll have to postpone putting a radiator in Deerslayer which was the other job I was going to start today. I'll probably underestimate that one too. Beer of the day is Lakefront Brewery's Style Begique White Beer.

May 9^th 2009  Haven't done much on Renegade lately and thursday nite I was planning a Wash Wax All detailing session but all day thursday, my left hand felt like someone had hit the area between thumb and index finger with a ball peen hammer. I couldn't even grip anything. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! I can't think of anything I did to initiate this condition. On friday morning when I got up, the pain was gone again. I guess this is just another disapointment of encroaching old age.

September 9^th 2010  Renegade has been up in the BillyBob warehouse for more than a year. The battery ran down beyond recovery and I have to get the stuff in the warehouse transferred to the new BillyBob Shop. Renegade is in the way. I took the battery down to the shop a couple of weeks ago and put it on the charger to make sure. Came back to it a couple of hours later to find both the battery and the charger too hot to touch! Disconnected everything and ordered a new Optima redtop online. It arrived today.

September 13^th 2010  I took the new redtop to the BillyBob Shop to put the battery charger on it before going up to the warehouse and trying to fire up Renegade with it. It's smaller than the redtop it replaces. Took only a few minutes to top off the charge. I'm gonna try to get up to the warehouse later this week.

September 22^nd 2010  The new battery appears to be holding its charge. I took it up to the BillyBob warehouse yesterday after work. When I hook up a new battery, the alarm system goes bonkers and I have to rush and put the ignition key in and play with the valet toggle switch to get it to stop. Last nite, I put the key in the ignition and toggled the valet switch before connecting the battery. I was rewarded with one chirp in lieu of the full alarm when the battery was connected. I hope this is a undocumented feature, not a bug. Palm slap to the forehead if it is. Moved Renegade out of the bay and ran him for a few minutes while I loaded stuff into Deerslayer's bed to take back to the new BillyBob Shop.

February 3^rd 2011  Well, I went and ran the new battery down to the point that it wouldn't turn over the engine. Removed it and took it back to the BillyBob Shop. The charger wouldn't charge it. I've learned more since the last time and research has told me that the Optima batteries are AGM batteries. Not knowing whether my old charger is AGM compliant or not, I ordered a Deltran Junior 12v charger. The Deltran wouldn't charge it either but my research told me that this was because the battery's voltage had dropped below 10.5 volts. When checked with the multi-meter, Renegade's battery was reading 5.72 volts. There is a trick you can use to fool the battery charger and it worked this time. You can sometimes get the charger to work by connecting a good battery in parallel with the discharged battery and then connecting the charger to the discharged battery. The charger reads the good battery charge and proceeds to charge the bad battery. After a couple of hours, the Deltran had brought the Optima back up to 11.27 volts. I disconnected everything and let it sit for a day. It held the charge. Hooked up the Deltran again, this time without the parallel connection to BillyBob's battery and finished charging the Optima. The last session took a lot longer.

March 16^th 2011  Renegade still sits in the Boca warehouse bay awaiting attention. I am currently busy with Deerslayer and BillyBob. It will be some time yet before I get back to Renegade so I am posting this episode to clear the decks for when that happens.

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Issued Wednesday March 16, 2011

Updated Friday April 27, 2018

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