Sarge's rattle-can rebuild

[68Timber]

Given the paint status, I didn't have a problem using a sharpie to make a few reference marks on the doors to mark the position of the hinges, so it wasn't hard to get them back on. Cutting the pins out took more time than anything. I'd previously tried to powder coat the new strikers but couldn't get it to stick. So I gave them a shot of black just so I wouldn't have to watch them turn brown. So with new hinge pins/bushings and strikers/bushings, wow. The doors shut normally. I won't put that job off ever again. So with more time left than I expected, I gutted the doors. Well, not entirely - I left the latches and interior door handles in so you could still use them. But the exterior handles, locks, mirrors, vents, and door glass came off or out. Purty strikers posing provocatively.

[68Timber]

I got a little side-tracked with mechanical issues. First it was hard starting. I'd recently replaced my fuel filter and didn't see the invisible "do not disturb" sign. When I broke the seal it was done. Diesels just don't run when air starts getting in the fuel lines. Or so they told me at dieselplace.com. I didn't know squat about diesels except they sound cool. Anyway, with their help I got that part fixed. I tried to rebuild the stock filter housing, but you can't get those seals anywhere. Not that I could find anyway. So I installed the Napa spin-on setup every else recommends. So it's running again.

[68Timber]

At this point, the doors are mostly hollow but they shut good, and my sons were itching to get the motorcycles out. So we hooked up the trailer and headed out. No windows needed for this trip. We made it about 10 or 12 miles from the house when the engine just nosed over and slowly died. I keep a AAA membership, so they took it home for me on a roll back and wifey came and got me and the boys and the MX trailer. I wasn't kidding about not knowing anything about diesels. I'd heard there were lift pumps and injection pumps in there somewhere but I didn't know one from the other. There's a hard core group of 6.2 guys at dieselplace.com, they walked me through proper diagnosis and repair. Bad injection pump. These are not cheap and there's some labor there that's pretty intimidating at first. But I had all the online help you could ask for, so I gave it a shot. Out with the bad pump, swap the lines over, get the new assembly in. More to it than that, but nobody was more surprised than me when it busted right off and settled down into pleasant diesel clatter.

[68Timber]

Vent window time. Honestly, if you asked me the difference between replacing the injection pump vs rebuilding vent windows, six of one and half dozen of the other. I guess neither is too bad, but if you're learning as you go it takes a minute. And I forgot to mention, before I gutted the doors, I did get in touch with Captkaos here. He's a vendor and sells new weatherstripping by Precision Parts. I'd already had a bad experience with a seal I got from LMC that looked bad in a year. Digging around here, Precision gets good praise and the prices aren't bad at all. Captkaos hooked me up with a complete door kit. So - vents out and disassembled, and big box of pretty seals ready to go.

[68Timber]

In this pic, the "hoop" is still attached to the "backbone", but I ended up drilling out those rivets and separating them so I could get easier access to the channels in the frames and make it easier to get the new seal in. All I've done here is clean it all up, sandblast, prime, paint to get everything ready for reassembly. One thing I must mention, there's a $3 rivet setting tool several of the suppliers carry that you can purchase when you buy vent window rivets from them. I couldn't make that work. After a bunch of digging, I found this C-clamp that comes with different rivet setting heads, I think it was lolife99/Keith that linked it somewhere. There's a corvette parts supplier that sells them for $79 I think. Maybe it was a few dollars more, but for me it was the ticket to being able to finish this and it turn out well.

[Willowrun]

Do you have any details to share on the spin on filter conversion you did? My friend's M1009 has been getting worse with starting since I sold it to him. Plan is to get his and my injector pumps rebuilt this summer, but I think it would be a good time to get rid of the poor original design. I guess I could go look on Steel Soldiers....

[68Timber]

Originally Posted by Willowrun

Do you have any details to share on the spin on filter conversion you did? My friend's M1009 has been getting worse with starting since I sold it to him. Plan is to get his and my injector pumps rebuilt this summer, but I think it would be a good time to get rid of the poor original design. I guess I could go look on Steel Soldiers....

It's a Napa 4309 fuel filter base and Napa Gold fuel filter #3123. I did have to buy some brass fittings at home depot to adapt the base to the fuel lines, but this is a simple fix for when the stock filter base starts leaking. One tip I can pass along that will help when you replace the filter or replace the injection pump - when you get done, pull the glow plugs. You can spin the motor over a few times with them out, it's a quick way to prime the fuel system. Plus as a bonus, you can bench test the glow plugs individually before you prime the system. All I did was hook them up to my battery jumper box and make sure they fired up. When you put them back in it'll bust off much faster without all the wear and tear on the starter.