Congratulations Chris! You did a great job rebuilding your VX. I will miss reading your saga now that you have it running well. But hey, perhaps someday you will buy a second one! :grino:
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Congratulations Chris! You did a great job rebuilding your VX. I will miss reading your saga now that you have it running well. But hey, perhaps someday you will buy a second one! :grino:
Just because the major work is done, doesn’t mean I have nothing else to fix ;) LOL!
I order some of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I hoping they will work to mount my LED light bar from my old Tacoma on the roof rack. If they work well, I can use them mount all kinds of things. Quick Fists mounts, camera mounts, whatever... Should be here in a couple of weeks.
My passenger door window regulator should be here this week as well. I am looking forward to getting that finally sorted.
As much as I wanted to swap out the U-Joints, it is not in the budget this month (~$140). Next month is my road trip (not in the VX) to a family reunion. The U-Joints will probaly wait until August.
I also still need to order switches for my switch mount that I have ready. I have a usable switch for the light bar, but I am not sure it is the style I want use. It worked for the Tacoma, but the Isuzu switches are a bit different. I haven’t yet test fitted to see if it will work, or how it will look.
I will say that it is nice to start adding adding some optional equipment rather than just working to keep Izzy on the road, which has been a monumental task to this point.
Sunday I pulled a 28 hours shift. Tuesday I pulled a 28 hour shift. I am exhausted.
And yet! And yet, I still work my VX! LOL! I got my new window regulator from Isuzu! Yay! My passenger window works!
Finally! Phew ... knocking down that list of fixes one at a time. However, I still have a leaky transmission pan issue to sort out. I think I am going to drop the pan again and try another gasket. I just can’t get this thing to stop weeping. Maybe i’ll try gasket sealer next time? Maybe ... we’ll see ...
The new mounting brackets will work! I pulled the wind deflector off the roof rack to do a test fit. I also made sure the mounting bolts for the light bar are the correct size and length. Looks like this may work out after all.
Unfortunately that’s all I could do today, and I did that in the dark. My work schedule has been killing me. But, my rotation is over! Yay! I wont have to do that again for at least a month. Back to back 24+ hour shifts are killer.
It was getting close to 10pm here, when I finished all the test fitting so I figured I better get some sleep before I go playing around with electrical stuff in bad lighting while tired. While I still have a lot to do over the weekend around the house (stupid rain makes everything in Georgia grow into a jungle), I hoping to have the time to get this part of the project done this weekend.
This week i got a new engine code. Throttle Position Sensor. I am purchased a new one (the wife is going to be mad) but due to thunder storms in tonight I won’t get it installed until morning. I also picked up some RTV for the transmission pan weeping. Tomorrow I will pick up the fluid I need for it and some new crush washers.
Got the new TPS in, so far so good.
Mounted a BlueSea fuse block to the top of the cable controller for cruise control. Perfect fit. Now I can start working on getting my trailer plug mounted and wired up.
Pulled and cleaned the transmission pan. New gasket made from RTV. No leaks! Yay! Finally! I forgot what a PITA dropping the pan is. The crossmember did NOT want to line back up. I have use my floor jack and shift the transmission around to get all the bolts to line up. It was a fight, and there was a thunderstorm starting, but in the end the storm changed directions and now my transmission is working great again.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B011KIYT70...8-0558fd75e055Quote:
Originally Posted by Thelgord
They are available.
Thanks! I still need to buy switches before I put it all together ;)
I took some very munch needed vacation time, so I havn’t been around. But I am back again :)
Of course, as soon as I get back, the window motor on the drivers slide tries to take a dump. The motor and gears are all actually fine. However, I could slide the window up and down by grabbing the window and push/pulling.
I pulled the door panel and motor. The regulator was fine so I looked at the motor. It seemed to turn fine and get lots of power. Then I grabbed the three sided lug for the regulator. The lug stopped but the motor was still humming along. I popped the cover plate I found the problem.
As I said, the gear itself is fine. However, it is attached to the center shaft (the one that turns the three prong lug) with layers of rubber. It is blown out. As a last ditch effort to repair rather than replace, I got some two part epoxy resin and filled the gaps between the in the inner and out rubber pieces. It is curing now, so I still don’t know if this going to work.
Fingers crossed! :)
I went to my local pull-a-part today because the inventory showed a 2000 trooper on the lot. Yeah ... that wasn’t exactly true ... no trooper.
So, based on a suggestion from FB I pulled a new motor from a Nissan. In fairness, the poster never mentioned what type of Nissan. I didn’t get there until I got off work (4:30pm) and drove across town so it was almost 5pm. They close at 5:30.
I did a quick google search and found something called a Tsuru that used the same window lift motor. Knowing this is not an American vehicle I had heard of, I search for Tsuru in America. All of the links on the first google results page said Nissan Sentra. I checked the inventory again and realized I had about 15 minutes before they closed the doors.
I found one stripped the drivers door and started to disassemble the window regulator. I got it loose enough to the get the motor out of the door. It was about the right size, but I didn’t want to strip the brass screws holding it to the regulator so I just cut the regulator cable and hurried to the counter with less than 5 minutes to spare. $20 later, I had my part.
After I got home I worked very carefully to preserve the mounting screws as they are the same as the VX, and mine have been removed and put back on enough times to be ... well ... less than ideal. After getting the last screw off, it popped free, and my heart sank. The new motor had the square peg instead of the three pronged attachment the VX needs. As it turns out, it was also flipped so I would have need to put it on the passenger door, and the mounting holes didn’t quite line up.
Damn it.
After checking with RockAuto, I actually found one cheaper on amazon when you factor shipping. I know RockAuto offers a core charge to get $25 back, but when I ordered the two motors that are in my VX now, I sent the OEM ones in for core replacement and never got my core charge back. After many weeks of frustrations and many emails they claim they never received it. They are ... somewhere ... but I have no idea where. For now anyway, I cant trust RockAuto to honor the core charge policy. Which is fine, as they still offer great prices on other items, and I still do business with them. I just don’t worry about any core charges anymore.
Well, that was more of a rant than I intended.
Anyway, I now have a reman on order from Amazon and, with luck, it should be here Thursday or Friday with expedited shipping. In the meantime, Georgia is in it’s rainy season, and I need to be able to roll the window down when I pass through the security gate at work, then roll it up when I park it, so I will be using the wife’s car for a couple of days.
Owning a VX is so much fun! LOL!
On the plus side, I do go to my local pull-a-part quite often, so i can return the window motor for credit towards my next purchase. :)
I'd just crack the door and hand my ID through it.
I have the SBC brackets installed. Seems to be holding the passenger side mostly in place. Driver's side is tiling forward. If i pinch the window and tug backwards it works fine though. I don't have enough expertise to make a perm fix though--since the SBC brackets aren't working.
Went for a short trip yesterday, got me home with no issues. I was going to drive it work that same morning. Backed out of the driveway and got a metal on metal squeal from the front end. Not sure what side. I took the wife’s car to work instead. Today after work I took another look at it. At first I thought it may be a break caliper sticking. Still not sure what side. I will have to lift the front end and remove wheels to do more diagnostic measures.
1) It seems to be worse when turning.
2) It is not smooth, more of a pulse that changes proportionally with speed.
3) Applying the breaks seems to do nothing to change it.
So, I either have a completely frozen caliper. Possible as I had to unstick the front passenger side when I purchased the VX. Or, I may have a bad wheel bearing. Damn it.... This VX is going to be the death of me yet.
Anyway, I wont be able to start pulling stuff apart until this weekend. Fingers crossed it will be an easy fix, but nothing on this VX has ever been easy.
The plan: Jack up and pull one wheel at a time. Rotate the hub to see which one (or multiple) are dragging/grinding. Remove the break caliper of the offending wheel. Rotate the hub again to see if it still grinds. If it does, I need a wheel bearing.
I may have been mistaken in purchasing this particular VX... just a thought ...
Hey...I wasn't gonna say it. Every used car may have gremlins.
On the bright side, you may be "over the hump" when it comes to issues. Hard to say for certain though. I wonder if the previous owners neglected their kids/pets/relationships as badly as they neglected their cars.
No worries. I am still going to press forward. Just gets very frustrating to keep fixing one thing after another. Part of the reason I haven’t done any real serious off-road with it yet because I just don’t trust the VX not brake catastrophically. For now anyway. I am sure it will get there, and there have been times I thought I was over the hump on this one. It’s just not today it seems. I was looking a diamond in the rough, but it keeps dragging me back to the forge.
I hear you. I still have to go back and re-center my steering wheel, and then get the OBD code diagnosed. With the limited number of people in the VX community, the limited number of those who have actually done a JDM steering-wheel swap (not to mention the lack of people on this forum), it's quite literally a pick-up game trying to figure any of this out.
It would be great if someone knew if this was a normal thing, or if I had a bad clockspring. Oh well. Uncharted territory here we all go.
Some would say it’s all part of the fun ;) I think owning a VX is a disease, or at least an addiction. **scratches arm** hey man, got any of dose jdm parts ... LOL!
So, my caliper was seized up. Had to use a large hammer to get the guide pins out. On the way to auto zone to get a new one. Web sites says it’s in stock.
I decided to go ahead and change out both of the front calipers, and new brake pads. The passenger side pads were toast, which were new as of September of last year. Fortunately I didn’t warp my rotor. While drivers side pads looks mostly ok, I upgraded the brake pads from the cheap ones I initially purchased just to the VX running again to ceramic pads. The drive is noticeably better as is stopping.
When I got the VX last year, I just needed to get it drivable, mostly. The passenger side caliper was seized and I broke it free thinking I could save it. I did, sort of, kind of, maybe ... It did (almost) last a year before I died again. While the driver side caliper seemed fine I decided to change it out anyway. It’s really not a hard job, just takes a bit of time.
Personally I am glad it was the brake caliper on the wheel bearings. I really didn’t want to dig into all of that on my one rare day off (I have been working a lot lately as well as taking collage classes). I am just glad I can drive my VX again, and I can give the wife her car back.
With that problem sorted, I can get back to working on installing upgrades. :D
I refuse to use anything but ceramic pads these days. Doesn't matter if it's the VX or anything else. TOo bad I don't see a "thumbs up" button on the new forum.
There is a new forum?
I mean the new format here. It's one of several things I'm not keen on.
I haven’t noticed any changes, then again I am on mobile devices most of the time.
It definitely feels like this site is now100% made for mobile devices. It has that Windows 8.0" feel to it.
Hahahaha!
Super busy day today!
I started the day by realizing that I had managed to lose the lug nut “key” for my VX. I went to pull-a-part and just got 4 more regular lug nuts and will have the my local tire shop remove the keyed lugs. As it turns out, I went all the way to Charlotte, NC without it. Glad the VX did well. :)
While at Pull-A-Part, I managed to get the bolts I needed for my Trooper Tire Carrier so I can mount a full size spare. I still don’t have a fifth wheel to actually mount yet, but the parts are coming together.
I also got a brush gaurd for $40! YAY!!!!!
The brush gaurd has a substantial amount of surface rust, but nothing really penetrating. This will require a more than little clean up. I also need to find a way to restore the rubber “bumper” strips that face forward. All in good time. :D It came from a 1995 Ford Explorer. There was a perfect condition chrome one on another explorer, but someone was already on that one. Not really sure I would have wanted the chrome one anyway as I don’t really like the whole “bling” look.
After a really quick test fit, which mostly consisted of me holding the brush gaurd up to the VX, the angles are a perfect fit! However, there is ALWAYS a “however”, the mounts to the frame are far to narrow, and it would make the gaurd sit far too low. Damn it ...
But wait! There’s more!
As it turns out, I can mount the brush gaurd mounting plates to the base of the winch plate and get a perfect fit. Not exactly an ideal location, but the entire winch mount is made from steel plate, square tube, and C-Channel that are all 1/4” thick. I am sure it can handle the additional 40 or so pounds of the gaurd considering I saved almost that much when I switched from steel cable to synthetic line on the winch. There is more welding in my future. :coolgray:
Who knows, I may use this as a base to build out an entire bumper. :D That could work well I think :)
Good luck!
I'm set on having more of a rock bumper than a brush guard...but since no one ever made one for the VX, no one sells them, and I don't have fabrication skills...OEM is how I have to roll.
Talk to Joe Birch, don’t know his handle here. He found a way to use a Toyota bumper, but it did take a little welding.
Jo (jophotoz) is the guy who found my VX and helped me get it. I love his mods. That said, I was hoping for something to flow more with stock lines. Like this one, which has a more "curved" appearance than a lot of the angular, beefy styles that are on the market today.
https://www.stage3motorsports.com/44...ad-Bumper.html
That actually wouldn’t be hard to fab, provided you had a tube bender and some practice. There is also a specialized tool to make those holes recessed. To do it DIY it would cost you more than to pay someone else just in getting the tools needed.
But once you have them, you have them ;)
I was thinking more like Hex-grill on the sides, to match the VX theme. But yes. Too bad Middle GA has zero places that do custom bumpers. I'm pretty sure UT had a bunch.
Utah has more “fabricators” than it can handle really. Seems like everyone is trying to cash in on it. But yes, there is really nothing available in most of Georgia. So glad I taught myself how to weld. I would love to buy a tube bender to really create some cool projects, but getting one past the wife’s budget ... meh ... not so easy ;) On the flipside she keeps my credit score good :)
Well if you ever find a decent shop, keep us informed. I'm still hunting an upholstery shop.
There is one in Augusta, Uber expensive. They mostly restore classic cars for the pebble beach cars. Nothing so far for just a hot rod guy damn it.
Not bad! Looks like you have the same weatherstripping-poking-out-the-door issue I have. Still haven't figured that 1 out.
The cladding could use some love though. A good temp fix is Mother's Back-to-Black. I use it myself, and the difference is quite drastic. A good wash and some treatment and it will just pop.
p.s.
I don't remember the diameter of the center caps on the stockers. It might be cook to put some decals over the "Isuzu". I did that with the center caps on my Volks. Small pic, but that's an Autobots logo. Same on all 4.
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f1...a.jpg~original
The wether stripping has been doing that since I got it. Should probably, one day, maybe, replace it. ;)
I am going to be painting the cladding when I start the body work. For now I am not really concerned with it.
I have of Toyota rims that I may be swapping out for. Higher offset to push the wheels out more. They are steel wheels and have some surface rust, I need to clean those and paint them up before I decide if I am going to switch them out.
In the morning I will be starting my trailer light plug install. I have a seven wire plug that also has a four wire plug attached to it. I got it at Home Depot in the clearance rack for something like $10, but that’s whatever. The part that was confusing me was the VX “5 wire” system.
After searching the site, I found this thread: http://www.vehicross.info/showthread...-for-a-trailer
This is awesome, mostly because it tells me what color wires to look for. From the thread:
Basically I need to get the turn signal and brake light onto the same wire without allowing feedback to mess everything up. Yes, there are converter boxes, and they are cheap as all get out (I think like $11 or $12 on amazon). However, I already have a solution that is a holdover from my Toyota Tacoma bed lighting project. Diodes!!!Quote:
RT Turn Signal Wire Color (only avail on the Passenger Side): Green/Blue
LF Turn Signal Wire Color (only avail on Driver's Side): Green/Blue
Parking/Running Light Wire Color: Green/Red
Brake Light Wire Color: Green
Yup, I already had this issue when trying wire 22 LED light strips in the bed of my Tacoma and I needed a way to control them. I used a 2 inch long piece of 1/2 inch PVC pipe, some wire, and two high-capacity diodes. I ended up making two of these. It has two inputs, and one put, and keeps the two inputs isolated from each other. Basically it was way to turn on lights on only one side of the bed or the other, or to turn them all on. It was a really simple solution that worked well.
Since I kept all of that wiring, lights, switches, and what not, I still have these two pieces I made, and after testing, they still work. I just need to wire them to the plug and I am in business! I can start wiring up the rest of the plug.
Yes, I intend to hook up all of the wires, including the brake controller, backup lights, and AUX power wires. Though the brake controller and AUX power may wait for a bit. The rest is getting hooked up in the morning for sure, and as long as it doesn’t get scorching hot again tomorrow, I will run the wiring for the power and brake controller.
I needed to put a rush on this as I will be borrowing a neighbors utility trailer to haul off the scrap from a fence I am taking down later this week, but that’s a whole other thing.
Not exactly sure what happened, but it was very hot the other day, and I was tired of working on the VX.
First, my diode idea, while it did work, wasn’t an ideal solution. It was fun, but I scrapped it and just got a converter box from my local tractor supply. Much more rugged than anything I made and it was only $15.
Then I get everything wired up, no issues. I zip tie all of the wires behind cladding and what not, got the plug mounted, every looked good. I decided to test the plug again. Damn it.
I must have done something wonky either while wiring, or while zip tying everything down, or both. Only the right turn signal and brake light seem to be working. I was too tired to take it all apart again. I may try again this weekend. Maybe sooner. Maybe not. But I will need to sort that out, damn it.
No work on the VX recently. But I did get around to checking on the 4wd and fog light switches. I got the pinouts mapped easily enough. Both the back light bulbs are blown, as are several on my dash. I found a site that had them by the 10 pack for around $12 so I ordered one. The interesting things is the 4wd switch I got from an axiom. It is a Normally Open switch. You press the button “in” to shut it off. Weird, but I can work with that. I plan on getting more of these switches as they become available at my local pull-a-part yard now that I know the bulbs can be changed out. I think I will experiment with one of the switches to figure out how to change the fog light icon. Maybe some sanding and a printed sticker with a clear background? Maybe sand all of the black off and try to stencil my own? Not sure yet. But it should be a fun project. I would love to get one of those laser etching things, but they are crazy expensive. Before all that though I need to figure out how to pull the switch cover off without breaking it. Then I will have a good idea of what I am working with. Who knows, maybe there is a market for OEM looking switches that say things like “LED light bar”?