Jesters '69 C17

I didn't feel right building off my intro, so, here is a build thread for my new to me Jeep.
I got this '69 CJ5 factory coded C17. Just what I have been looking for. Picked it up from a farmer that had this poor thing sitting in an equipment shed for 9 years! At first glance it was awesome.



The drive home was good. 40psi of oil pressure made me feel good about the little Dauntless. However, it was missing and back firing on the right bank. Figured it was a bad lifter that never came up to full pressure. Brakes were OK and the steering was A LITTLE LOOSE!

Once home, it turned out to be a bit more of a project than I first thought. The floors had been "modified" with sheets of aluminum that were bolted to the edges of what was left of the original floor.



Whoever put the steering box in should be SHOT! I'm telling you, some people should NOT own a welder or torch.







EDIT: The next pic is what is left of the left side engine mount. Figured I better explain what your looking at. R)



After finding that the bottoms of the valve covers were both dry after a 10 mile drive home. I pulled the pan in search for an answer to my running issues.



So with the help of a buddy, out it came.



Found another chunk of oil ring in an odd spot! R)





Then I pulled the beautiful heads off to find the problem.





Once out, she was a beaut!!! And these are .040 over pistons.



BUT, I would say they were put in a LOOOOOONNGGGGG time ago.





The bearings all looked pretty good. Not that they will ever see another crank or rod, but good none the less. So tonight I will take my calipers and bore guage home to do some measuring and get some parts ordered.


More pics to come as the project goes on. Just don't expect this to move at a very rapid pace. As the sole income in our home, funds are very limited. I am however, very picky about doing stuff correctly.

 

Ummmmm, ouch.

 

Jester, take your time. All of it will work out. Sometimes people pull a perfectly good oddfire 6 for a Chevy V/8. Keep checking CL locally. It worked for me as I was hunting down a Dana 27 with 4.27 gears. Found one after watching the ad for 6 months. Good Luck

 

What does the head look like? As it usually happens, both my brother and myself have spare V6s in our garages. Shipping would be more than what they are worth so you should source something local.

 

Wow, Thats a lot worse than my issue.

 

Another patient in need of saving, good luck with it, it will be worth it in the end

 

Wow , Missing one skirt , I would have guessed it to be quite noisy?.........Looks like a complete rebuild once you clean out all of the shrapnel.........Sorry to see that.

 

Yes , she will get a complete rebuild. The light weight racing low compression piston came from hole #1 and the cylinder is now in need of a bore job. After putting a set of calipers to the pistons, I beleive they are factory! At first glance It thought that they were 40 over. Closer inspection of what I saw and measuring to verify, I think they are factory. I've never seen a stock piston with numbers on top.

What is this 04 stamping mean? I'm confused.

 

Oh, and the heads look pretty good. I can tell you the valves are tight! After pulling the cam I thought I would rotate the crank. NOT. Too much compression from the other 5. I did find some fresh silicone under the intake/ lifter valley seals and some recent Victor head gaskets. I'm guessing the heads were refreshed at some piont.





Speaking of heads, I'm pretty sure I found out why the heads were not getting oiled.

 

That could be code for .040...........pretty hard to effectively get a correct measurement with a caliper.........Get a mic out and measure both the good pistons at the skirt and the cylinder bores with a bore gauge...........060 ( sixty thousands) is the maximum over bore for generic pistons & ring sets for the Buick......or at least without going custom made.

From that Yellow froth it looks like you were mixing water and oil in your coolant.

 

That looks like black RTV plugging the oil passage to the rocker assy.. Is that what it is?

 

No. It is LOTS of little metal shavings that have collectively shut off the oil supply. Both heads were like that. I should have taken a picture of my pick when I probed in there to see what it was. NASTY!

Block, crank and rods are now at the machine shop getting inspected. Were going to see how much work needs to be done. Meanwhile, I am cleaning all the other parts and making a list of all the hardware that will get replaced.
Question: Aren't the oil passages in the rocker assemebly shaft suppose to line up with the holes in the rockers? Because mine didn't. There is some pretty serious wear on the shafts too. I'm thinking I may end up oredering new ones.

 

I don't know if *all* the 225 blocks are able to do it, and others with better knowledge than I have can (and will) chime in, but when I blew up the previous 225 in CJ, I looked into it, and apparently at least some of the blocks can go .120" overbore, and pistons were still available a few years back, up to that oversize from silv-o-lite, IIRC. I just happened to run across a decent enough deal on a good running 225 that I was able to swap in, so I didn't really look into it much more.

 

Do a search "rocker shafts" (use the ") and go to the post MY 67 CJ5 BUILD by johns1967cj5. Go to page 11 and start looking at from thread #210. HTH

 

Hopefully I won't have to go that far. I am hopeful that I can get away with a .020 over. It's nice to hear that I have plenty of room though.

I have read that guys entire thread about a week ago. His doing an awesome job! Thanks for bringing that up. I knew I seen that somewhere, I just couldn't remeber which thread it was in.
Maybe I should see if he wants to sell me the rocker shafts?..........

 

Called the machine shop today. The block is already .040 over and needs more to clean up the damage done by the bad piston. Not sure if I really want to keep the 225 that bad. My other thought is to go small block Ford. It would also make the switch to a T18 a lot easier.
Any opinions on the matter would be great. If anyone tells me to put a Chevy in it...........I will find your house and poop in your yard.

 

Did the machine shop not think it would clean up at .060? I would have no qualms going .060 over. When my brother and I build engines the first thing we usually do is bore it out for the biggest standard piston available. Pistons and rings are readily available it looks like.

But I wouldn't consider a block bad just because it was already .040 over... now if an additional .020 won't clean it up then it is time to find another option.

 

If it doesn't take too much more machining, I would still think that it would be worth it to rebuild your 225. In regards to the Ford, I think there are quite a few challenges with the distributor placement and engine shape that make lots of firewall work inevitable. You don't see too many people put Ford motors in Jeeps for a reason.

 

So Patrick, just out of curiosity, why aren't Ford swaps more common? I hope I don't derail your thread too much but it seems relevant.