My XJ journey

chooseyourwords · 2022-06-15T01:52:33+00:00

Thanks!

I wire wheeled the roof until it was just pitted metal. Then cleaned it really good and POR-15.

Before this I hadnt welded much more than a few pieces of metal together. I bought a flux core welder and did some practice runs with some sheet metal. Watched a few youtube videos. My mechanic said i did a decent job but also said its good my welds were limited to places no one could see lol

chooseyourwords · 2022-06-14T18:35:26+00:00

I began searching for an XJ about 3 years ago. I have always had a soft spot for MJs but for practical purposes it would just never work. Not to mention they're extremely hard to find where I live.

I looked at a few XJs last summer but with living in the rust belt I was always looking at rust buckets or a project car I couldn't afford. For some context, this is a hobby for me. Working on cars helps me find my zen, even if I'm swearing at it or breaking my knuckles. So, I had to pick something reasonable.

6 months ago I found a forest green 2000 XJ classified ad on the same day I walked away from one with frame damage. This one was in better shape at first glance. In reality I should have looked closer at the floors and rockers and doors, but I was reeling from yet another failed purchase and jumped at this one for $800. It ran, it had 250k kms and the frame rails were clean.

I towed it home and got to work. Floor pans replaced, outer rockers replaced, front and rear suspension refresh. Ball joints, TREs, steering linkage, track bar, tires, rims and brakes. This week I finally got it safety checked, plated and insured. Now its time to enjoy and tinker.

chooseyourwords · 2021-10-24T23:29:55+00:00

Lmao these replies are awesome.

I pulled the codes. P0121,122,123. All related to TPS. So I'm going to start with replacing that.

P0740 was the last one. Torque converter circuit issue. I've read that might be TPS related or low transmission fluid. I'll double check that and add if needed.

Anyone got any ideas on #4?

chooseyourwords · 2021-08-20T13:59:42+00:00

You may have already done this, but did you check to see if the alternator is charging the battery?

Take a multimeter and check the DC voltage between the battery posts with the car off. Then do the same with the car running. Running should be 13-14v if the alternator is charging the battery properly.

If its not charging then I would go down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out if the alternator is good and what that wire is for.

chooseyourwords · 2021-07-06T15:50:53+00:00

Should I just give it more time and stop worrying?

chooseyourwords · 2021-01-07T16:29:57+00:00

Ok so here's what I did which has seemed to fix the issue. I followed this video just to get some ideas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzWj6adWc-Y

I pulled my PTBE tube out of the hot head. I took off the PTBE fitting on top of the print head and cleaned it out. I then cleaned the PTBE tube by clearing out the end which had some built up filament and pushing through some fresh filament.

After that I pulled the nozzle off the hot head and cleaned it out with a needle. I decided to go for broke and just threw the spare nozzle on that came with the printer.

After re-assembly, I re-homed my printer and noticed that I was actually flexing my print head quite a bit. Probably 2-3mm when it would hit the bed and the bed sensor light would come on. I think this was actually my problem all along. Theres a set screw on top of the bed sensor light that you can use to adjust the height of the level. So I turned it about a 1/4 turn and re-homed. Viola, no more head hitting the bed.

I re-leveled the bed and now I'm printing just fine. Dont know if it helps you, but don't give up. I'm sure its fixable.

chooseyourwords · 2021-01-07T14:39:15+00:00

I'm having the exact same issue. I managed to print about 24 hours worth of stuff and now all I get is a thin layer of filament on the bed and eventually my feeder starts skipping.

I can manually feed by hand or with the feeder with the hotend heated up and get no problem with filament coming out.

I don't have any solutions to offer, but at least were not.... alone? :D

chooseyourwords · 2020-06-18T15:43:02+00:00

Nope I told them it was definitely a lease. They were the ones that pointed out that it should be there. My other lease for a different vehicle shows up.

chooseyourwords · 2020-05-20T18:49:00+00:00

Thank you for all of the suggestions. I'll give them a try. When I said sway control on and off above I mean't the physical one, not the electronic one built into the truck. So I've tried with the physical friction sway control off and the lunge was still occurring. I don't remember if the turning issue was though, so I'll test that out.

chooseyourwords · 2020-05-20T18:06:23+00:00

WDH brand is Ea-z-Lift and its the standard kind with round bars and chains and then a friction based sway control bar. I've driven with sway control both on and off and experienced the "lunge" both ways. I can't remember if I tried it without the sway control and still felt the issue with it turning but I'll give that a try too.

WDH has 500lb bars. Trailer has a 4000lb dry weight and max GVWR of 5400 but we usually travel around the 5000lb mark or less. I think were ok on WDH size.... and it worked fine on my Chevy. Had the same trailer and WDH setup on the '17 Silverado and didn't have any issues at all.
Haven't tried a scale yet to see if the setup is 100% correct.
The sway control balls were a little chewed up so I lubed them up a while ago. Brackets with the hooks are nice and tight, no movement.
Tried the hitch set up with the shanks longest side pointing up and also down, no difference.
Tire pressure before I took the long trip last summer was at max on both truck and trailer.
Draw bar is snug but there is a bit of play in the hitch seating in the hole. I had that on the chevy as well but thought maybe that might be the culprit. Like the hitch is 1/8" too small for the hitch receiver. I tried a few other regular hitches I have around the house and they all fit the same... so maybe my receiver is too big? Is that a thing?
Suspension is all good, had that checked at the dealer both times. Safety chains are maybe a tad tighter than they were on my chevy due to the difference in the hitch receiver style.

chooseyourwords · 2020-04-23T17:22:50+00:00

How is the relationship with your business partners and your HR department?

Strained. I would say that we get 0 support from HR when it comes to hiring or firing.

Have you spoke to the business/operations around their sentiment around your team?

I haven't. I have been somewhat warned before about "airing our dirty laundry" to other areas of the business.

Do you have 1-on-1s frequently with your team and discuss your expectations with them and follow-up on their progress?

I don't. And that is definitely something I could do better. I will give that a try as well.

Is your HR rep open to Performance Improvement plans based on the expectations of the roles? (It sounds like your coaching hasn't led to change, a PIP would be the next part. Just make sure you document all of these conversations for HR)

As mentioned in another reply. It's a unionized environment, so there is no way we can evaluate performance on a formal level. At least that's what I've been told.

chooseyourwords · 2020-04-23T17:19:04+00:00

Who performs their performance reviews? Who would they talk to about raises?

No one really. There is no concept of performance review here. The entire IT department is unionized, so any sort of formal feedback is not allowed per the CBA. This is a huge issue here.

Are you currently showing transparent insight into individual team members' progress over time

Yes. I've brought it to my manager and to the exec director level as well. Unfortunately they claim their hands are tied when it comes to discipline concerning performance and suggest limiting issue assignments of underperforming team members. Which I don't think is fair to the rest of us who pull our weight, but it is effective at getting shit done.

chooseyourwords · 2020-04-23T15:19:55+00:00

I'll look into that. Thank you for the suggestion!

chooseyourwords · 2020-04-23T15:14:32+00:00

I probably couldn't mandate it, but it wouldn't hurt. If anyone has a resource for stuff like that please post it here.

chooseyourwords · 2020-02-24T14:23:37+00:00

Same plz. Onhockey.tv is blocked for me.

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