What? Another Jeep?

I tried white vinegar on a T90 1st gear from a transmission that must have been outside uncovered for a number of years, as well as, a D18 bull gear that had a few rusty teeth. They came out free of rust. I was so impressed with how well the rust was removed, I asked the Mrs. to pick up a gallon of vinegar just for this. My question is: Does this effect the surface hardness? I ask, because the polished portion of the gear teeth that were still good, no longer looked polished. I understand the areas that had rust and were pitted, would never be the same. I’m wondering if the bull gear is useful for more than a cool paperweight.

 

The vinegar is a very mild acid. So if you soak metal for weeks, the acid will eat the metal.
Personally I'd be more concerned the rust ate thru any metal hardness.

 

Got the control box mounted to the winch plate and made a bracket for the top corner. Then got the whole thing mounted to the Jeep. This time with 1/2" grade 8 bolts:




Looks much better to me with the winch plate narrowed up and moved back a little bit.

Before:




I still need to run the wires before I can call the project done.

 

Got the winch wires ran.

Put some wire loom around the portion that has any change of rubbing on anything:


Added a couple rivnuts to the fender:


Used rubberized P-clips and zip ties to make it tidy:


I made sure the bottom portion has clearance to all things and should never rub:


Hot winch wires always make me nervous. If I was keeping this Jeep, I'd put a power cutoff switch in the hot lead near the battery. I'll let the next owner do that.

And finally, plugged in the remote to verify everything is works:


All systems go. I still need to clean up the interior, and pull the hardtop out of the barn to give it a good cleaning too. Then this thing is ready to list.

 

For rust, Citric acid (like used for baking) is also real good, and doesn't have the sour smell of vinegar. Just as safe as vinegar, doesn't require gloves or special dumping (down the drain is fine) and it also works faster than Vinegar. At least, faster than the regular 5% vinegar you find in the grocery store.

 

Pulled the hard top out of the barn and blew the dust off it:






No rust beyond surface rust on scratches, but has a small dents.

It also has all the hing pieces and filler panels:


Also cleaned the inside of the Jeep and took it out for some late evening "glamour" shots. It certainly has some patina but it's a great runner and everything down to the horn, gauges, and canceling Spartan turn signal work:








I'll get it posted up for sale soon.

 

That one’s going to be an easy sale!

 

Very nice! Can you move closer?

 

I wish mine was still that color..

 

Full disclosure post. I did a couple final things to benefit me prior to the sale:

1) I pulled the H4 headlights for the TJ and installed regular old sealed beam lights.

2) I swapped the seats and passenger seat brackets with the '69.

When I did the '69, I didn't want to cut up the original passenger seat main bracket so I can re-cover and reinstall the original seats some day. I made brackets for the bottom of the Smittybilt seat that mounted the front as low as possible and tilted the seat back slightly more than the driver's seat so the height the backs looks the same. You don't really notice it unless you look for it.

For the blue Jeep, I cut the main bracket so I could get both the angle and height to match. Since then I've found another main bracket and now have a spare for the original '69 seats. I like the setup I did in the blue Jeep better, so I moved it to the '69.

Seats with the cut front mount in the blue Jeep and matching seat angles in the blue Jeep. You can see the construction of this higher up in the build thread:


Those brackets from underneath:


I've moved all that to the '69 and now the seats look like this. The passenger one is tilted back a little more than the driver's seat but you don't notice unless you are looking for it. The seatbacks are the some height so it looks normal from the back or sides:


The lower profile brackets that make it work:


I also switch the driver's seat to keep the newest one for myself. The one that's now in the blue Jeep has this lump on the bolster where a lower layer is rolling back but is in good shape otherwise:

 

Since John's buying the Jeep, I thought I'd be nice and change the oil:


I also checked all the fluids:


Axles and transfercase are good. The transmission is a little low. I've got some Sta-lube GL-4 for it, but can't find my pump. I'll pick one up in the next couple days and top it off.

While I was checking the rear diff, I was reminded the rear wiring was a mess and I hadn't fixed it yet.

Wires routed outside the frame:


And a good handful of junk connectors including crimp splices and a household wire nut:


Fixed the routing and protected the wires:


Replaced all the through connectors with heat shrink crimp splices, and used heat shrink bullet connectors for the trailer harness. It's not amazing work (and John does much better work with his weatherproof Delphi connectors), but it's a big improvement:


Trailer harness tests good:


The junk removed:

 

Which John ? Wish it was this one.

 

Duffer in Montana. He's definitely closer.

 

And he's got even more dogs than we do to enjoy the Jeep with.

 

Like he need s another distraction from his main project.

 

I keep thinking that other project is about done but it has its own share of wiring gremlins. Replaced the stop light switch a couple days back and that solved one of them. Guess that switch that had been in there for about 4 1/2 decades just didn't want to play with all the new parts. Should have the fuel pump functional again tomorrow and hopefully be able to set the fuel pressure and check for leaks. Then it is D day.

 

I hope everything goes well. I replaced several rock hard "new" seals in my long term project. I would
like to see you keep pictures of "old blue" in circulation. It has a patina of its own and fits in well around
historic places.

 

Good luck with the 3b startup! I can't wait to see that thing in person. It'll be like the Varg in that you look at it for hours and keep finding new and interesting things the whole time.

On a related but unrelated note, I've been prepping for the upcoming trip and finally dealt with the trailer tires. I bought the trailer new, but at a low price point. The 'Arisun' tires it came with have been complete and utter garbage. The trailer probably has 6000 miles on it and I've been through the following:

• Delaminated and blew a tire in the middle of Utah on the way to the 2020 Colorado Epic.
• Picked up a second spare from Tractor Supply in Grand junction because I was nervous running any distance without any spare.
  
• Got the bad tire replaced with a new tire in Durango to bring me up to two spares for the trip home.
  
• Last year delamiated another one of the original tires in no-where Northern Idaho on our way to the St. Joe River.
• Got a replacement for that at the Les Schwab in St. Maries ID. I neglected to bring two spares on that trip and wanted a spare for the way home.
• Just a couple weeks ago we ran into town to pick up some hay bales and had another one of the original tires delaminate. That makes 3 of the original 5 that came with the trailer.

It's supposed to look like this:


Not like this:


Makes for a bumpy ride before it blows out. At least if gives you some warning I guess.

I went to Les Schwab today and got three more that match the one I replaced last year. Now all the tires are gone and I have a quality full matching set on the trailer and a pair of non-matching but good quality spares.


Checked the wheel bearings and adjusted one while I was at it. Makes me feel much better about the upcoming trip.

Now I just need to get the turbo swapped on the truck. The variable vanes are stuck. Climbing hills, it won't build boost in high gear, but if you shift down a gear it will overboost and got into limp mode if you don't keep it below 25 PSI with the throttle.

The new turbo is sitting on the bench. That's this weekend's project.

The list of junk that needs to be fixed around here far exceeds the time I have to work on it all.

 

Free delivery isn't so free.

 

It's still free for John!

Seriously though, it's good it's raised the priority on a couple of projects that have been hanging around for months. I'll finally get them done.