I did, however, take some time to finally hit my parking brake with enough WD40 to finally ungum the locking mechanism that holds the brake pedal in place. It took more than I thought it would, but with a little time and back-and-forth nudging and encouraging, it came loose. Terribly simple thing to fix, and I'm sorry I didn't get to it sooner. Now I feel a lot more confident parking on hills.
I also began exploring a couple of other issues. First: neither of my front doors activates the overhead/dome/courtesy lights when I open them. Rear doors function just fine. I decided to remove the switches in the front door jambs, and here's what they roughly looked like:
I should note that I've taken this photo with the plastic plunger part fully depressed (as it would be when your door is shut). As you can see, the fully depressed plunger pushes the top half of the door switch apart; when the door is open, the switch makes contact with the lower half, and that completes the circuit and allows the lights to activate.
In my case, the switch absolutely has seen better days. I didn't have time to fully clean it up, but I knocked off some of the crud. I was a little wary--both switches seemed a bit fragile--and I'm not sure if there's a replacement for these out there anywhere. Anyway, mixed results: driver side door works intermittently, passenger side still needs more cleaning up. (Interestingly, the driver side switch has two wires, but the passenger side only has one. In both cases, I'm assuming the hex-sided part that screws into the body acts as a ground.)
Also began to assess my power sideview mirror situation. The box seems to be shot (the joystick controller is detached), and I am nowhere near smart enough to figure out how to piece this back together. Is there a good "delete power mirror" / "insert manual mirror" option out there?
Now to the coolant issue.
As best as I can tell, I have a leak somewhere around my thermostat housing/gasket. Both times I've had coolant spill onto the ground, I've found a little puddle on top of my water pump and a little puddle on top of the engine, and it only seems logical that it's coming from somewhere in that area. (In the first instance, I think it belched enough coolant out onto the top of the engine that it dribbled off the back, because the Jeep was parked on a slope, making me think it was the heater core. I am very glad this doesn't seem to be a heater core issue.)
Here's the funny thing, though: like a watched pot that never boils, I cannot seem to make my Jeep burp our antifreeze.
I'm thinking I might replace the gaskets and hoses in that general vicinity, but to be honest, I'm more curious as to why it's leaking there in the first place, but only intermittently. If there's too much coolant and/or pressure in the system, wouldn't it push the overflow into the reserve tank? Mine is all but empty. The radiator cap is fairly new, replaced in January of this year, but I'm wondering if there's an issue with it not venting out to the overflow tank.
The good news is the Jeep is still staying plenty cool while driving, and it even stayed in good shape sitting still with a high idle. So it remains a bit of a mystery and an interesting problem to think about at work.
[/url]
