I am glad to hear that you are back on the road but time for a tough love hear. As a single mom you need a different vehicle. Especially considering the report by mollusc that your frame is ****. Most of us with these have a mental defect that makes us enjoy the ups and downs and getting dirty and solving a puzzle. I know that women like them. I have girls that drive them but they always have pops around to work on them. Get a 2010 Nissan Pathfinder with 120 k miles on it and just change the oil once in awhile. Sell that Landy or trade it off.

 

 

i don't think the frame is about to completely crumple up and dump you on the road, so i believe you will be fine through the summer. i've seen worse frame rust on roadgoing vehicles before. most of it is in the rear frame section, as is to be expected.
i will take a closer look next time we meet up, checking the forward sections and the steering/suspension mounts in particular.

 

What you can sell it for...I have no idea. The new York and California prices make no sense to me I live in Nebraska. The most that I would pay for a near flawless one is probably 3500. But I have seen people pay 4 times that. If you do sell it, don't sell it to a single mom.

 

i don't know what the mileage is on the op's truck, and i haven't driven it myself. i therefore don't have an idea of how worn the suspension bushings etc. might be. to me, that's a big indicator of the long-term viability of the vehicle alongside the condition of the frame.

i agree that prices in this area are nuts for some d2's, but even so i only paid $2000 for my '99 (philadelphia) and $1500 for my '03 (jersey shore). i had to do head gaskets on both, but the '03 is very clean inside and pretty decent outside. my donor truck (the '99) is at 175k and even though it was running when i parked it, i've taken so much off it that it's now just a rolling body. i don't consider it to be worth trying to maintain because the suspension clunked and knocked all over the place, even after i replaced a number of bushings and parts like the watts linkage. i could not in good conscience sell it as a roadworthy vehicle even if i got it running again so i'm planning to junk it when i'm done harvesting pieces off it. local wreckers will probably give me a few hundred based solely on weight.

 

and the saga continues...

week before last i was sitting in the dmv when i got a panicked phonecall from the op. she was in vermont and couldn't shift out of park. i asked questions and gave directions via text, and she responded with info and photos while i looked through the rave on my phone. i was able to get her moving by having her lift up the shift bezel and press the lock pin, and then eventually diagnosed a blown fuse #25 in the passenger compartment fuse box. annotated photographs and a trip to the auto parts store got her back on the road. as to why the fuse blew... well, i put it down to age-related fragility.
then last week i got a text saying that the brakes seemed to have failed. very hard to press the pedal. photos and video clips showed that the master cylinder assembly was loose on the brake booster, so the vacuum seal was being broken every time she pressed the pedal. she tightened the bolts and i said i'd get back to her.

skip to today.

earlier this week i sent a message to the op saying that i would be free this morning if she wanted to head out here so i could finish up some things, including looking over/sealing the brake booster and reading the abs codes on her truck to try and fix her three amigos. we met up in our usual autozone carpark and i set to work. "shuttle valve electrical failure" said the code reader. figuring that this would be the case, i had pulled the good shuttle valve assembly off the abs unit on my parts truck. a few minutes to remove the one on her truck and then install the replacement, all without having to disrupt the fluid systems. everything feels good, but alas the amigos were still there. i wasn't happy, but at least things weren't any worse than they had been.
someone had also run into her driver's side mirror, so we pulled that off to see if we could make some progress there. no luck trying to repair it. so now we have no driver's mirror and an unhappy brake system. screw it -- we head to my house so i can have access to all of my tools and resources, including my parts truck.
the mirror off my truck is an easy swap. likewise retainer clip for the driver's side sun visor. then we tackle swapping out the entire abs unit for the one from my old truck, which i know to be in working condition. thankfully the brake lines all come loose very easily, which has never been my experience with anything brake-related in the past. i'm working rapidly because i'm running out of time before i have to be somewhere, but thankfully it's all going well.
the abs unit gets swapped over, and we bleed the system. old-school bleeding because dammit, i can't find my vacuum bleeder loosen, pump, hold, tighten. rinse and repeat.

i clear the codes, we start the truck... and the three amigos are as present as ever. bugger.
well, again, it's no worse than it used to be, so i send her on her way.

as she's driving away, i noticed that her brake lights were on. like, continuously. text and phonecall, and back she comes. she searches this forum for clues as to why the brake lights might stay on permanently. pedal switch seems the most likely place to start, and after investigating i discover that the switch isn't being opened by the pedal when in its upper position. strangely, the throw on the replacement brake booster isn't as long as the old one, so the pedal doesn't come up as far.
i pull the switch out of its mount and manually press it; she confirms that the brake lights are working. there doesn't seem to be any adjustment available in the switch. hmmmmm. i dive into my basement, thinking that a rubber bumper stuck to the top of the switch might work. the piece that i find after a few seconds of looking is big enough, but i can't secure it to the switch. back to the basement. i find some self-adhesive felt hexagons -- maybe they are those things you stick on the bottoms of furniture legs so they don't scratch the floor? anyway, perhaps they will stick to the top of the brake pedal arm. yep! stack them up until they're thick enough. confirm that the lights function as expected -- again, yep.

and, miracle of miracles, the three amigos have also disappeared completely!

job done, i say.


also, it occurred to me during all of this that that's probably why the fuse blew. the brake lights had been on the whole time since i replaced the booster, because of the shorter throw on the new booster. throughout the entire trip to vermont, and whatever other driving around she had been doing.

 

If she has the old-style brake light switch the plunger can be pulled out further, even if it doesn't appear it can be. I don't know about the new-style switch.

 

cool to know. i didn't even think about trying to pull it out.