Dome Light Troubles

Alright, well I thought I had found the issue that was causing the failure of my dome lights. Just like most wagoneers the connections at pillar b were corroded. I was happy this was all it was...then it wasn't all it was. I realized after cutting the wires that they weren't hot either. I traced them all the way back to the front of the car to this connection, which wasn't connected. The previous owner has obviously done some major rewiring, but now I don't know what the wires are supposed to be running to? Any ideas?

Also, as you can see in the pic below the under the dash light is also disconnected. It would make sense to me that they would plug into each other, but the dome light connector is female 3 prong and the under dash light is male 2 prong. 

Coolant Temp Sending Unit

While taking the intake off previously I broke the top of the old temp sending unit. I have ordered 2 of them now and they seem to be too big. I'm thinking the manifold expanded just a hair and made the hold slightly smaller than it originally was. The stinger of the new temp sending unit won't completely fit in the hole. It stops before getting to the threads. You can see what I mean in the pic below. That is pushed in as far as it will possibly go. This is the exact OEM replacement part mentioned on teamgrandwagoneer.com

New Lifters and Pushrods

Got the intake off, and the old valley pan was a MESS. Actually everything was a mess. This was a before pic.

After I got the valley pan out low and behold, the top of the broken lifter was just sitting there in the bottom of the valley. It really didn't look damaged, just not in the lifter where it was supposed to be. Below left is top of the lifter (the part sitting in the valley) and bottom right is the bottom of that lifter. Still in pretty good condition.

So, I pulled all the rocker arms, pushrods and lifters and replaced the old pushrods and lifters. Some pushrods were good, some were completely clogged. You can see through one here and not through the other.

While I had the intake off I took the opportunity to completely clean the valley and the intake. I also painted the intake and the valve covers to clean them up a bit. The last pic is the valley completely cleaned with the new lifters and pushrods installed.

After doing all this I put it all back together with the help of a friend, cranked her and she ran like a champ. 

Taking off the intake manifold

Alright, I've got most everything off the manifold now so that it can come out, but it's not wanting to budge. What am I missing?

Good vs. Bad Lifter

After having trouble with installing the new pushrod I decided that there must be something wrong with the lifter. After researching and getting advice from the forum my plan is to take the intake manifold off and see what is going on, and probably replace/rebuild the lifter. Before I start tearing into it I want to make sure what is going on with the lifter. So I bought a cheap usb snake camera to stick down the pushrod hold. Here is what I found. Pictures aren't perfect, but I think they show something. On the top is the bad lifter (as far as I know) and on the bottom is the good one (as far as I know).

It almost looks as if the internal part of the lifter is either gone or stuck in the down position. 

Discovering new problems

Well, after buying new pushrods and rocker arm I went to install them this morning. I was planning on switching out both the pushrods. The problem is, on the exhaust side (where the broken rocker and sheared pushrod were) I can't seem to find the lifter for the pushrod to rest in. The intake side sits nicely in the lifter and even with all the other pushrods, but the other side doesn't seem to rest in anything until it is way too far down. It's as if there is no lifter there. I could actually wiggle it around enough for it to fall all the way down into it if I wanted to. Below is a pic showing where the exhaust pushrod wants to sit (WAY below where it's supposed to).

Broken Rocker Arm / Push Rod

After finding out that the popping was coming from the 8th plug I decided to pull the valve cover. I discovered that the pushrod had actually broken the rocker arm and come through it. It sheared the tip of the pushrod off and wasn't functioning properly. I have the parts coming in today so hopefully that will be the solution to the popping issue. I'm going to go ahead and replace both rocker arms and pushrods.