"Free" 2004 450 Foreman, now a build thread.

[jeepwm69 7,600]

Welp, putting an extra shim in the shift linkage might bind things up a bit….

 

Shifting fine now.  Will get it back in the frame in the morning before work 

[jeepwm69 7,600]

Got engine bolted in this morning.  Decided to replace the tie rod ends with new just so I wouldn't have it back for a repair anytime soon (I figured he'd go on one ride an a tie rod would pop off even though they look ok).

 

That nut on the bottom of the steering shaft was TIGHT.  Had a 3/4" breaker bar with a cheater on it and it still wouldn't budge, so going to remove front diff and put my big impact on it from underneath.

 

 

[jeepwm69 7,600]

So I'm still picking at this one a little at a time.

 

Finally got the new meter from my buddy over the weekend, and this morning I plugged it in to see what I had.

 

Initially didn't power up.  I started poking around with a test light and found one of the fuses wasn't making good contact.  Got that cleaned up a bit, and ended up with power to the meter.....BUT.....both the reverse and neutral lights were on.

 

Messed with it a bit and the meter seems to be blinking on and off as I shift.  For example, in neutral, both would go off (meter still powered up otherwise) and if I touched the shifter up or down with mild pressure, the lights would come on again.

 

Plan for now is to get some contact cleaner today, and pull the fuses and all the wiring harness connectors off and hose them down with contact cleaner, then reassemble with dialectic grease and see what I have.

 

In the past I've used CRC.  Anyone have anything that works better for corroded connectors?

[jeepwm69 7,600]

Checked the two wire neutral safety switch and did not test good if I’m testing it properly.

 

Checked for continuity between green and red wire and battery ground with it in neutral and got nothing.

 

Checked for continuity between grey wire and battery ground with it in reverse and got nothing.

 

Checked for continuity with my two probes put together and have continuity so that tells me my meter is working properly.

 

so bad switch?…..not so fast

 

I ran a wire between battery ground to the harness side where the gear position switch plugs in to one terminal than the other, and neither than neutral nor the reverse lights come on. As I understand it, ground to green and red wire on the harness side should cause the neutral light to come on and ground to the other wire on the harness side should cause the reverse light to come on.

 

Am I misinterpreting this?

[shadetree 5,880]

14 hours ago, jeepwm69 said:

Checked the two wire neutral safety switch and did not test good if I’m testing it properly.

 

Checked for continuity between green and red wire and battery ground with it in neutral and got nothing.

 

Checked for continuity between grey wire and battery ground with it in reverse and got nothing.

 

Checked for continuity with my two probes put together and have continuity so that tells me my meter is working properly.

 

so bad switch?…..not so fast

 

I ran a wire between battery ground to the harness side where the gear position switch plugs in to one terminal than the other, and neither than neutral nor the reverse lights come on. As I understand it, ground to green and red wire on the harness side should cause the neutral light to come on and ground to the other wire on the harness side should cause the reverse light to come on.

 

Am I misinterpreting this?

use your meter, check for open short between neutral ( green wire ) on gear position switch with red probe, and black probe to switch body, it should beep when you move the switch from neutral position to just a tad off the letter N on the switch. yes, you should have done this BEFORE you put the rear cover back on. 

[shadetree 5,880]

also..the pic you posted of wire fich ^^^ ?, that says '98-'01, aren't you working on a '04 ?.

[jeepwm69 7,600]

3 minutes ago, shadetree said:

also..the pic you posted of wire fich ^^^ ?, that says '98-'01, aren't you working on a '04 ?.

Yeah I need to double check that page of the manual I printed off. 
 

It’s an 04 Footshift so just two wires on the switch

[jeepwm69 7,600]

Finally got the gear position switch issue straightened out, which are documented in the electronics section.

 

Engine would barely turn over so I had to take the ground wire off the frame and clean everything up. The bolt actually snapped off so I had to drill it out, tap it, helicoil it.

 

Still didn’t turn over great so I pulled the valve cover and the valves were super loose.  Got them adjusted and she runs!

Drove it up and down the street and had a pretty good oil leak between the head and cylinder.  
 

Pull the valve cover back off to try to snug down the head nuts, and one just started spinning 🤦‍♂️

 

The guy who normally bores my cylinders has been way behind lightly so I bought an aftermarket cylinder and piston off of eBay.

 

Anyhow, it does appear that the bottom end is good though.  I’m going to pull the top in back off tomorrow and see if I can figure something out with that threaded stud. 
 

I also took the temperature sensor wire and grounded it and neither the fan nor the light comes on. 
 

does heating up the fan controller work like it does the CDI’s?@AKATV @Fishfiles

 

[AKATV 820]

Yes

The fan controllers are generally the ones I started baking years ago.

it does work for the CDI modules as well

It’s just basically reflows on the broken solder traces on the internal circuit cards that are inside the potting material

 

[jeepwm69 7,600]

Thanks AK.  I'm posting your response from the other thread on the matter in case anyone else looks here for info when searching for a problem.

 

I wanted to clarify something here and to dispel some bad information that s out there

 

There are some threads out there that mention putting these in the oven to "dry them out" and get them working

 

There is absolutely no way that moisture can get inside these modules. The circuit board inside is potted (sealed) in epoxy resin

So, thinking you are ""drying it out" when putting it in the oven is not really whats going on

Putting in in oven at a low temperature like 200° for a few hours isn’t really gonna do anything but tick off the wife

If it works after that, all you’ve done is probably expand a cracked joint that’ll make a temporary connection until it separates again and goes back to the original failure problem- hence why this seems to only be a temporary fix for some

 

The fix is to put this in the oven at a temperature that will melt solder and will re-flow the circuit boards bad connection's to fix what the actual problem is, which is basically a broken or cracked solder joint on the circuit board due to either a cold (bad) solder joint at the factory or the heat and vibration after 20 years eventually cracking a solder joint

I have found a 450° for 7 to 8 minutes seems to be the sweet spot -it won’t fix them every time but I’ve had a very high success rate probably better than 90% through the years on at least 50 or so of these modules

As I have previously mentioned, some of these are still working 15 years after the fact

I hate to see someone try and just warm one up in an oven at a low 200 degrees and have it not work, or temporarily work and then go out and buy another OEM one when they could possibly fix theirs with proper knowledge of what occurring and a little higher temperature

 

This will work on the CDI boxes as well, that is why they will spark when you knock or tap on them while cranking, you are closing up

the bad solder connection inside when you tap on it. 

 

Its not a 100% fix, as some modules go bad for other reasons as well -but in MY experience when they are fixed, they are fixed for a good long while. You might have to do it a second time possibly if first time does not work, but if it does not fix it after that just toss it and get another

[jeepwm69 7,600]

Just to clarify, oil should pump out of here with the engine running, correct?

 

 

[AKATV 820]

Yep it sure should come out that hole

That mates up to the oil galley in the rocker cover that goes over the top of the rockers and drips oil on them

If you didn’t want to remove the valve/rocker cover there’s a bleeder bolt on the cover as well

[jeepwm69 7,600]

9 hours ago, AKATV said:

Yep it sure should come out that hole

That mates up to the oil galley in the rocker cover that goes over the top of the rockers and drips oil on them

If you didn’t want to remove the valve/rocker cover there’s a bleeder bolt on the cover as well

I want to check and make sure that this thing is pumping oil when I pull the head to address this oil leak.

 

The 500 I did last year that had a shot oil pump has me spooked on ruining another top end.

 

Baked the fan control module last night for eight minutes at 450.

 

still nothing this morning when I grounded the temp sensor wire

 

Just to ensure that I have a bad fan controller and not a bad wire somewhere given the shape of this machine, is the light blue wire on the right on top the one that goes to the fan sensor?   Just to ensure that I have a bad fan controller and not a bad wire somewhere given the shape of this machine, is the blue wire right on top the one that goes to the fan sensor?

 

I think I might ground it a little closer to the controller and make sure the controller is the problem. As of now I’m not getting a temperature light either and I have jumped 12 volts to the fan to make sure that it runs and it does

[Fishfiles 20,145]

I found this fan controller on one of my 450ES parts bike in the yard , you can have it , if you want it . I'll even eat the shipping for you 

 

 

[jeepwm69 7,600]

54 minutes ago, Fishfiles said:

I found this fan controller on one of my 450ES parts bike in the yard , you can have it , if you want it . I'll even eat the shipping for you 

 

 

 

Thanks Fish!  I'll at least make a donation to the board in your name for that, if you won't let me buy it from you.

[Fishfiles 20,145]

19 minutes ago, jeepwm69 said:

 

Thanks Fish!  I'll at least make a donation to the board in your name for that, if you won't let me buy it from you.

 

 

I had your address but can't to find it , PM me again 

[jeepwm69 7,600]

On 8/9/2022 at 8:46 AM, Fishfiles said:

I found this fan controller on one of my 450ES parts bike in the yard , you can have it , if you want it . I'll even eat the shipping for you 

 

 

 

This one was dead on arrival.  No temp light or fan when I turned the key on.

 

That said, I used AKATV's "450 degrees for 8 minutes" recipe on it last night, and it worked as it should this morning!  Thank you @Fishfiles!

[jeepwm69 7,600]

This morning I pulled the top end back off too make sure it’s pumping oil.

 

With oil lines removed, oil came out of the bottom oil cooler line port on the engine when I spun the engine over, but nothing was coming back out the other side.  The oil coming out of the bottom did not appear to be under high pressure at all, but I don’t know how much pressure these oil pumps put out merely turning the starter over.

 

Removed the oil cooler and flushed it out good and blew it out. Did get some crud so possibly was stopped up. Hooked it back up and turned it over for a good two minutes with the starter and still no oil coming out of the top line.

At the current time I still have the top end off because the base gasket tore and I have to order another one.

 

since I kind of had a stopping point there I went over and pulled the 500 engine out of the project I bought last week.

 

so my question is, with oil more bubbling/ burping out of that bottom port, how much pressure should these old pumps put out with only the starter being turned over. I understand with it running it will pump a lot more oil, but I’m trying to decide if I should pull this thing again and replace the oil pump.

[AKATV 820]

Jeep

I had the exact same problem a while back- oil pressure didn’t look right- wasn’t making it to the top end and was just trickling/bubbling out the lower oil cooler hole

I found, when putting the front clutch cover on, the dowel pin with the O-ring that goes between the oil pump and the clutch cover had fallen out so the oil pressure was having to jump the bridge between the pump and the clutch cover and very little was making it through- most of it was just falling back down into the clutch cover area

I would suspect that possibly the dowel pin(not really a dowel pin but it looks like a dowel pin just bigger with an O-ring )might’ve fallen out when installing cover or maybe was not in place?

once I replaced it, I had great oil pressure

After I completely redo an engine, the first thing I check is the oil pressure at the filter area, then I’ll put the filter on and check it at the lower oil cooler hole and then after cleaning the oil cooler I’ll check it going to the oil cooler to make sure it comes out the top line, then once I connect the top line to the engine I’ll make sure I have it at the top of the head

it’s overkill but it’s just one of the weird things I do -lol

 

Edited August 27, 2022 by AKATV

[jeepwm69 7,600]

I’ll stand it up and pull that front cover and check that.

 

Once this one is done I don’t wanna have to go back in and replace the top end again immediately

[jeepwm69 7,600]

46 minutes ago, AKATV said:

 

it’s overkill but it’s just one of the weird things I do -lol

 

and it’s not overkill if it keeps you from ruining a top end!

 

I will definitely be doing that from now on

[AKATV 820]

 I get pretty crazy with all the pre-checks and prelubrication when I redo an engine because once I tighten down those engine mounting bolts I don’t want to pull that thing back out… lol

Good thing it’s fairly easy to check and you don’t have to pull the engine

I would say most likely that would be your issue, I’ve seen pumps with 15 and 20,000 miles on them that still pump oil just fine

but I replace them anyways because it’s cheap enough and since you’re going through the engine it just makes sense

I would suspect that your pump is just fine, especially if it was a previously running motor

it’s usually the ones they get sunk and pump silt or grit for quite awhile that get heavily worn out, at least from what I’ve seen

 

[jeepwm69 7,600]

Any idea what this rear rack came from?  Not a 400-450 Foreman, which I realized when I tried to reattach it this morning 

[Fishfiles 20,145]

I don't know , I'd take a wide guess from looking at the mount ,  a first gen 1988 300 , the one that it was an option for the front 

[jeepwm69 7,600]

35 minutes ago, Fishfiles said:

I don't know , I'd take a wide guess from looking at the mount ,  a first gen 1988 300 , the one that it was an option for the front 

Yeah after nosing around looking at the schematics I did get the impression that it might be a front mount from something