Hi Everyone,

New member here. Always been into small, fast cars but also always had a soft spot for these as a shop that i worked at years ago specialized in BMW, Mercedes, and Land Rover and we had a lot come in. Now that i have a 6 month old, I decided that it would be nice to have a beach vehicle as we live on eastern long island, and since I can't drive fast anymore with the baby. after a couple days looking around on craigslist, and after almost buying an immaculate 00 that needed at least head gaskets, if not an engine, my wife found this about 40 miles away for 750 dollars. It's a 99, apparently the first owner had is until 08 and it was dealer maintained. The second owner apparently was a mechanic at some point and drove it up until last year, when he sold it to his brother, who just got a new car. Typical "ideal background story" but for 750 dollars I cant complain.

Most everything works on the car. That is the part that amazes me the most. After lurking for a few days, it seems that this is one of the highest mileage D2's around. Has a bit of rot on the rear frame by the hitch as it was used for pulling a boat, and a bit on the firewall up near the footwell that hasn't totally broke through so I am not going crazy on it, but would like to fix a few things up

I have only a few issues that need to be resolved. It has the Three Amigos which i may or not bother with as it may be more of a headache than its worth. The is a small leak between the brake reservoir and master cylinder. AM thinking that if the rubber grommets that hold it in place are available that should cure it.

Also, the central locking does not work. I hear a click when i press the switch but nothing locks or unlocks. unfortunately i do not have the original key, only a crappy copy from the hardware store that i have to wiggle around and insert halfway to start the car

Will uncover more as i go along, but for now i'm very pleased. Just took it in deep sand yesterday and it was an animal!

 

Wow! That's impressive mileage. Talk about great maintenance. For $750, you can drive it till dead, sell off the parts, scrapyard the metal and probably come out close to that.

 

The 99 will not have a way to actuate the CDL from the factory, only the '04 did. Luckily, you can retrofit a CDL lever from an 04 or a D1 since the 99 still had the CDL nipple. I'm not exactly sure what switch you're pressing, but there was none for the CDL.

You can get master cylinder reseal kits. I'd give Lucky 8 a call. Erik and Justin are great guys and even offer a forum member discount.

I think you can get an ABS Amigo relatively cheap if the amigos bother you. Otherwise you can leave them, though if you do I'd definitely retrofit a CDL lever. Without it you've essentially got 1 wheel drive while the 3 amigos are on. Contact the forum members Abran or Paul Grant, I'm sure one of them has a lever for sale. I drove with my three amigos for two years before I finally got around to fixing it.

 

I don't think "central locking" is referring to the CDL but to the door locking and unlocking.

 

Thank you for the info, i am having the local junkyard see if they have an linkage assembly and lever from an 04 so i can retrofit the diff lock and will add it regardless of whatever is causing the three amigos

As far as that goes, the brakes are shot...like almost metal on metal. I think the rears aren't even working judging by the way the rotors look and the amount it dives. I'm hoping that may be the cause of the issue

As for the central locking, yes i was referring to the actual door locks. The power locks don't seem to work but i hear a noise like they are trying, just don't have the "oomph"

Additionally, it was down 3 quarts on oil. Judging by the way the oil cap looks and the permanant scorched oil that was left on the dipstick from yesteryear, i have confirmed that this was not the best maintained, at least in its last few years of life. So maybe that is the hidden secret to longevity or something. Coolant looks good, there is no sign of oil in the coolant or vice versa. I will probably add some type of gauge setup to monitor the temp a little better when off road

I like this enough where I plan to get another when it dies so I am contemplating buying a 2 or 3" lift setup that i can just transfer over when the time comes. These shocks are toast so it doesn't seem like a horrible idea. Also, the tires aren't great so i will be looking to go up in size a bit when i do the lift.

There are a ton of these in the local junkyard luckily, but they no longer let people in so i have an employee checking for any goodies that may be available

 

Make sure the Odometer is reading Miles vs Kilometers as well. It "could" have less on it.

 

Will do, would be hilarious if that were the case.

This vehicle has to be some kind of freak or something as the last owner had it since 08 and drove it all over and never had to do the head gaskets or anything from what he was telling me

On another note, I'm not sure if my no power locks situation could be due to the fact that it is not an OEM key but rather a crappy blank that has no key fob built in or anything? How exactly does that work on these cars?

Also, with the three amigos on do I not have working 4 wheel drive? I took it on the beach yesterday and it did pretty well so if that's the case, it's amazing

 

The way the three amigos works is like this. You do technically still have 4 wheel drive, but each axle has an open diff and the transfer case acts as an open diff, so if one wheel breaks loose that wheel gets all the power and the other three get none. That's why I made the 1 wheel drive comment.

 

1. There's no chip in the key, so the fob isn't necessary. I used metal key for a couple of years. The non-functioning locks have nothing to do with the fob. The lock problem might be a fuse, but I bet it's just bad lock motors.

2. The truck is 4 wheel drive at all times, but the traction control system is designed around a functioning ABS. The Three Amigos means the ABS is malfunctioning, so your TCS is currently inoperative. Basically, that means if you are off-roading and one wheel starts spinning, it will continue to spin instead of the ABS locking the wheel and redirecting power to the other wheels. (EDIT: Alex beat me to it)

3. You can download the entire service manual for free. It's called the RAVE. Google it.

4. Most people use an Ultragauge to monitor temps. It's a configurable digital device that plugs into your OBDII port and give you real time info.

5. Check out the 60k miles service thread. That's the stuff I would do to start.

6. Check the front driveshaft. They notorious for failing and destroying the transmission. Since you don't know it's condition, I personally would rebuild it ASAP.

7. These trucks are extremely sensitive to overheating. So I personally would replace the idler pulleys, tensioner, and possibly the water pump and fan clutch. I have ended up replacing all of these on my 125k mile truck, and two of them when I was hundreds of miles from home and broke down on the interstate.

 

That makes a lot of sense now that I think about it. So I'm guessing that if it becomes too much of a Hassle to diagnose the cdl from an 04 would be a better option than the three amigos buddy or whatever it's called?

I'm hoping that it has something to do with the brakes all being so shot. Not sure if that has any bearing on this system though. My g35 used to throw brake and traction control lights galore when I was low on clutch fluid or something like that if I remember correctly, which was odd because it was a separate reservoir, so I'm aware that every car has its odd little electrical quirks