Gravy's 2005 Liberty Renegade

[nnnnnate]

Unexpected reflection.😬

 

[Gravy]

Unexpected reflection.😬

Glad somebody noticed I've been working out 😀

 

[mbryson]

Glad somebody noticed I've been working out 😀

With a fork?

 

[Gravy]

With a fork?

🔥Hey now. I'm down to 165. Glass houses and wide angle lenses 😀

 

[mbryson]

🔥Hey now. I'm down to 165. Glass houses and wide angle lenses 😀

I have a fork, spoon and knife. I know where I stand ( at 250 lbs)

 

[nnnnnate]

There are whole communities dedicated to this kind of thing. I don't think we need to add rme to that list.

 

[Gravy]

Here is the final result.
I've got to say, I'm very pleased.


Color match is very very good.


The fact you can see the reflection of clouds in it makes me very very happy.


Now I just need to wax and buff the whole thing.

Thanks for all the help guys. Especially @mbryson and @J-mobzz .

 

[Gravy]

Recovered the steering wheel.

 

[jeeper]

I've been needing to do this in my f350 for years.

 

[Gravy]

A little clean up: wash & wax.
I might do a little more paint correction: clay, bar, cut and buff, but I think it looks pretty darn good for a beater daily driver!

 

[Gravy]

3 year old AutoZone AGM battery bit it yesterday. 3 months out of warranty of course...
Shopping around you absolutely cannot beat the pricing on a series 34 Interstate battery at Costco. $99 3yr warranty 800 CCA.
Nearest match was $209 for Duralast Gold at 750 CCA.
$100 less!
Then had Vatozone test that the ole belt drive sparkelator was OK. (And found service records of a new one when the battery was changed last).

When spring comes I'll likely give the.Costco RV batteries a shot. They're only 1 yr warranty but they're only $89 each. I spent stupid money on 4-6v Energizer units that only lasted me 2.143679 years last time...

 

[RustEoldtrux]

Just yesterday, I replaced the dual batteries in my 2003 Cummins Dodge that were the OEM units. They lasted exactly 20 years to the day from when I bought the truck new. The replacements were AGM batteries from Walmart, which worked out great because my wife is a pharmacy technician there and gets the employee 10% discount, plus an additional 15% one time discount for Christmas for a huge savings. Today will be the first startup with the new batteries. The old batteries still had a little life left, but not enough for cold weather starts.

 

[glockman]

I put 3 sets of Costco "Interstate" batteries in my diesel in 2 years. They warrantied the first set and prorated the second. Third set was all on me. I ran Costco batteries for years but won't buy them now. The last 2 sets in my RV also underperformed. For a daily hoopty, they are probably fine but for a hard use application like a diesel or RV, I'd go elsewhere. Doesn't Ebay sell batteries

 

[Gravy]

Wouldn't start this morning.
I guess I get to do some troubleshooting.

 

[Gravy]

Not quite sure why it's bleeding off voltage as it sits. I checked midday today and it's at 12.1V

I did use the Jeep to run the trailer winch the day before the battery died but I don't see that being an issue since the winch was under no load spooling in.

I've got the battery on a charger so I can have a full charge when I start troubleshooting....

1.) I swapped the starter relay and starter fuse just to take those out of the equation (no change).
2.) I GUESS I'll check grounds?
Engine block ground
Starter ground
Battery ground

What else? Bad starter? Bad Alternator?
Could I have gotten a bad battery out of the box?

 

[Kevin B.]

Parasitic drains are the absolute worst, and I hate them with the fiery burning loathing of a thousand suns of loathey firey burning. Reterminating grounds is never a bad idea, but before you start replacing stuff, I'd measure the milliamps between the negative terminal and negative post on the battery, and if it's over 100ma or so I'd start pulling fuses until it goes away.

 

[Gravy]

Well I picked up a new starter.
I think I've got a bad solenoid.
So hopefully that'll take care of it I guess I'll find out once I get it swapped on my lunch hour maybe.

 

[Gravy]

Turns out you CAN swizzle the starter in between the header downpipe and the front driveshaft.

....although it doesn't help if you half unbolt the drive shaft and the downpipe first before finding that out... 🤣

So fingers crossed 🤞 that was it. It seems to be ok on the half dozen errands I ran this afternoon.
The starter motor tested good when I jumped the solenoid but the solenoid tested bad. Weird. But I *think* that was my parasitic draw.

 

[Gravy]

New starter fixed it.

In preperation for the dirt therapy camping trip I replaced the stock fog lights today. They're about as useful as a candle in a mason jar.

I modified the new housings to fit the stock mounts to keep the stock look. These Hella mounts use a weird 5 sided security star hardware. But this forked security bit seemed to work.


Soldered up the stock connectors


Before and After


Nice and bright

 

[Gravy]

Should I???