I figured I should start one of these now instead of later so I can actually document all of the things I'm doing to my rig over time. Some of these fixes will have pictures, some will not. As always I love learning new things and better ways to do things so comments/constructive criticism are welcome.
First things first. The Circuit Opening Relay.....
When I bought the truck it would not start with the key. The previous owner thought it was the starter contacts. After researching this issue I found that this is a relatively common problem with 80 series and I wasn't very concerned. However about three days after I bought it I had a realization. In order to start it, the previous owner and I by extension had been using a copper jump wire on the starter. It was cranking and turning over just fine by this method, so I deduced that the starter was fine, and it was something else. I am by no means a electrical person. I can barely wire up a new cord for a table lamp let alone find what was causing this. A friend of mine who is a 12 volt genius came to the rescue and after about 20 minutes of testing every fuse and relay in the truck he stumbled upon the COR. He unplugged it and messed with it a bit and plugged it back in and it works, sort of. Every so often it will act up and not crank. Hopefully this weekend I will have a new one in there. But just as a note, if your 80 isn't even trying to crank and you have no reason to suspect its anything mechanical or the battery, check this little sucker in the left kick plate. It might just be your problem. Will update if a new COR doesn't totally fix this issue
Next up is the Front Bumper. This isn't really a necessary fix but I ran into one of the other two 80 owners in my area. And after we talked for a while he noticed that my front bumper was a bit worse for wear. He was incredibly kind and gave me his old stock bumper for free. Naturally, if you put a free part in front of me and it's in better shape than the one I have, I'm going to start itching to replace it. Off to the garage I go.
The bolts holding the bumper on were doing quite a good job. One had sheared off at some point and time but the others were intact. So intact that they weren't happy about coming out. I should have known to be careful doing this, but since I can be a bit bullheaded and idiotic, I didn't pay attention and sheared off two more of the bolts. At this point I now had two bumpers and no way to mount them. So I preceded to serenade the neighbors with a slew of colorful language. At least the garage is in the hills and there aren't many neighbors.
Here you can see my problem.
So after I thought about it for a few minutes. I noticed that there was another set of holes on the frame that could be used to mount the bumper that way. I then measured out and drilled new holes in the bumper brackets:
Grabbed the grinder and shaved down the bolt nub that was sticking out:
Cannibalized the old bumper for some new bolts of the same size, lined it up and la di frickin da, I have triumphed over some 23 year old bolts. Well until on of the "new" bolts sheared too. Luckily the nub was far enough out to hold it there.
I'm going to tac the bumper to the frame soon since I likely won't have the funds for a bull bar in the near future and I'm really not keen on this thing trying to impersonate a dozer blade if it slips. I also may have to bend the bumper back into proper form as it was sitting in this gentleman's garage for a long period of time and appears to have warped slightly from leaning. But it looks cleaner and is a heck of a lot less rusty.
Next up will be to find and fix the god awful noises coming from my suspension, stay tuned.....
First things first. The Circuit Opening Relay.....
When I bought the truck it would not start with the key. The previous owner thought it was the starter contacts. After researching this issue I found that this is a relatively common problem with 80 series and I wasn't very concerned. However about three days after I bought it I had a realization. In order to start it, the previous owner and I by extension had been using a copper jump wire on the starter. It was cranking and turning over just fine by this method, so I deduced that the starter was fine, and it was something else. I am by no means a electrical person. I can barely wire up a new cord for a table lamp let alone find what was causing this. A friend of mine who is a 12 volt genius came to the rescue and after about 20 minutes of testing every fuse and relay in the truck he stumbled upon the COR. He unplugged it and messed with it a bit and plugged it back in and it works, sort of. Every so often it will act up and not crank. Hopefully this weekend I will have a new one in there. But just as a note, if your 80 isn't even trying to crank and you have no reason to suspect its anything mechanical or the battery, check this little sucker in the left kick plate. It might just be your problem. Will update if a new COR doesn't totally fix this issue
Next up is the Front Bumper. This isn't really a necessary fix but I ran into one of the other two 80 owners in my area. And after we talked for a while he noticed that my front bumper was a bit worse for wear. He was incredibly kind and gave me his old stock bumper for free. Naturally, if you put a free part in front of me and it's in better shape than the one I have, I'm going to start itching to replace it. Off to the garage I go.
The bolts holding the bumper on were doing quite a good job. One had sheared off at some point and time but the others were intact. So intact that they weren't happy about coming out. I should have known to be careful doing this, but since I can be a bit bullheaded and idiotic, I didn't pay attention and sheared off two more of the bolts. At this point I now had two bumpers and no way to mount them. So I preceded to serenade the neighbors with a slew of colorful language. At least the garage is in the hills and there aren't many neighbors.
Here you can see my problem.
So after I thought about it for a few minutes. I noticed that there was another set of holes on the frame that could be used to mount the bumper that way. I then measured out and drilled new holes in the bumper brackets:
Grabbed the grinder and shaved down the bolt nub that was sticking out:
Cannibalized the old bumper for some new bolts of the same size, lined it up and la di frickin da, I have triumphed over some 23 year old bolts. Well until on of the "new" bolts sheared too. Luckily the nub was far enough out to hold it there.
I'm going to tac the bumper to the frame soon since I likely won't have the funds for a bull bar in the near future and I'm really not keen on this thing trying to impersonate a dozer blade if it slips. I also may have to bend the bumper back into proper form as it was sitting in this gentleman's garage for a long period of time and appears to have warped slightly from leaning. But it looks cleaner and is a heck of a lot less rusty.
Next up will be to find and fix the god awful noises coming from my suspension, stay tuned.....
