slow road to recovery

I am back on track to try and make this old 68 jeep run again. Someone decided they would rework the whole thing and abandoned the whole idea after chopping most of the wires and disassembling a lot of parts. It has been in this stage for many years. I reinstalled the starter, put in a new battery and cables, changed the oil and checked the compression so far.

Now I am attempting to get the distributor working. It appears to have had a coil in two different locations as both rings are still on the block. Any ideas on why this would be so? Also a few tings have been modified so I may even have extra wires. The solenoid is on the starter not the fender. Any help on wiring the coil, distributor etc would be greatly appreciated. I have looked at some of the diagrams but they seem to be inconsistent with the parts I have....Thanks, Don

 

Knowing what engine you are working with is helpful to answer questions like this also.

 

There are a couple wires under the hood made with household brown extension cord....I was hoping for a block heater like in the powerstroke, but I am sure thats not the case...I will trace them down today and see what treasure lies at the end.

 

I believe the other end of the wire chop inside is under the dash and I could at least figure out where they hook to each other.

 

Honestly? Were I you? I'd just drop the money on a harness. Either a Factory type replacement from Walcks, or a Universal from speedway, at least then you'll have known good wiring to work from.

 

this might help get you in the right direction...or may be another similar on the interwebs...

I have similar in my FSM for my '69...

 

my project is completely sans wiring... I pulled it all and got a new wiring kit. My original wiring was similar with a lot of PO splicing, and a lot of melty-bare wires along the firewall (would kill motor and smoke if you jiggled just right)...

 

The smart way is probably to buy a new harness and start from scratch. However nobody really knows the history on this thing. I do not know if there were other problems when the PO(who actually was multiple owners ago) started working on it. My goal was to see if it would actually run and drive before I did a whole lot to it. It has no alternator and the existing bracket appears to be broken. I was thinking of a one wire alternator to simplify part of this. Then correct me if I am wrong, I can run the keyswitch to the starter(right now I am just using a little trick button or a screwdriver to get it to turn over) and keyswitch power to coil and I should have spark.

 

okay I do have spark (ran jumper wire from the battery to the coil and cranked it with the screwdriver) another thing off the list...I pulled the key switch out(it uses a briggs and stratton key)its pretty dirty on the back but the wires are still hooked to it...can I spray brake cleaner on the back by the wiring or will that cause problems?

 

I was reading up on it and it may be the wrong choice after all...looks like you need the three wire to run it to a gauge.....this thing will probably also end up with some off road lights on it for when we are at the cabin.

 

okay the big wad of wires under the dash seem to coincide with the big wad in the engine compartment...one big one and 8 little ones...need to wait for my daughter to get home to see if they are the same color, as I am colorblind. also the big weird plug 3-2-1 (triangular) has the male under the dash and the female in the engine compartment. Then Mr. knuckleheads wiring begins, with one melted wire and a whole bunch of add ons. I will try to clean it up at the 6 wire triangular plug and jettison the rest. The extension cord is the tail lights so I can remove that for now and get some smurf tube and rewire them at some point. any idea where I can buy new rubber grommetts for the place where the wires go through the firewall?

 

RETAINER WIRING GROMMET T-14608-2 | F-14608-2 | NPD