71 Wheeling Rig

I was thinking the same thing for me at Rubicon. Except leaving the spare tire to. I’ll bet there are lots of 33s on ECJ5 rims.

 

On the two group trips I have been on... No one has needed a spare...... Now that I put that out there.... I'm most likely to need one......

As far as you carrying a spare.... if you don’t have a spare bring along a tire plug kit and a couple extra packs of plugs. There’s plenty of people with OBA that can air you back up.

 

Don't forget a couple of valve stems. I needed one on Dusy and Alan needed one on the Rubicon.

 

Emmett and I went for a test drive at lunch to make sure everything is working:


A pretty good success. No electrical fires and the speedometer works!:


Though it does stick and not return to zero unless you wiggle the cable just right. I'll have to get creative with zip ties under the dash to keep the cable from torquing the back of the speedometer.

 

Does it just need to be lubed up some more?

 

That's a definite possibility but it seems like the cable pulling the back of the housing to the side is causing most of the issue. I may trim a tiny bit off the end of the cable core too in case it's a touch too long.

 

Did a bunch of busy work on the Jeep tonight. Checked all the fluids. The power steering was low because I never topped it off after bleeding. Despite the oil spots on the floor, the front axle, master cylinder, transmission, and transfer case were all full up. The rear axle needed a tiny bit of oil.

Then I went about greasing everything. In the process I discovered missing zerks for the rear slip joint and a front driveshaft u-joint. This still has the tiny V6 front u-joints and there was no access to screw in the zerk without pulling the driveshaft. I had no wrenches that would fit over the u-bolt nuts and clear the yoke. Luckily I have a box of cheap Chinese wrenches and a grinder:


Now it fits and I've added it to the Jeep trail toolbox:


Added a dog harness hook to the roll cage like I did in the other Jeep. Keeps them from falling out when the going gets bumpy. Emmet doesn't really need it, but Bodie like living on the edge so it's a good thing to have:


I meant to do this a long time ago when I was working on the carburetor but was so relieved when I got it running right I never took it apart again: Blocked the crossover between the float bowls with some chunks of hose. This helps prevent the downhill barrels from flooding on side hills:


The long term plan is fuel injection, but with spring loaded needles, lowered float level, blocked fuel bowl crossover, and an adjustable regulator this should work reasonably well offroad until then.

I bought a Rugged Ridge Wrangler bag for carrying side windows and door tops hoping the SuperTop stuff would fit well enough. In the Pacific Northwest I'd like to be able to pull these off but bring them with me. Things seem to fit pretty well and there is a soft divider between each item:


Zipped up. It's a little oversized nut not much:


It will Jam in here, but more likely I'd carry it flat on top whatever's in the back:


Tomorrow I want to tackle the rest of these confounded wire nuts under the Jeep. Some are right where the rear tire throws up water and mud:

 

Geeeez you could start an electrical supply shop with the amount of bubba nuts in this thing

 

What connectors are you using when replacing the nuts? What Crimp tool?
I bought some cheap ones and have trouble getting them to work well.

 

Which storage bag did you purchase? I like this idea.

 

LOL, that's the truth! At least I haven't found any solid core wire yet.

 

I'm using heat-shrink crimp connectors from Amazon. They come from China of course, but the quality seems decent:

• https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QCYT22G/
  
• https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085Q1T78M

These are the crimpers I'm using. They are specifically for the heat shrink connectors:

• https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GFXHH91

The crimpers seem to work well. I always give every connector a tug to make sure the crimp is good before using the heat gun. I had one end of one connector that needed to be redone out of 40+ connectors I installed.

 

This one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0013RGQZC/

When I was looking them up, this one seemed closest to the dimensions needed. Quality seems good but not amazing. Definitely better than I could make myself for the money.

 

If you are going to re-connect the rear lights anyway, might be a good opportunity to run the wire bundle through the body, drop down through the wheel well in rear corner. It helps keep most of the wiring high and dry.

 

I really like that idea and will do that when I rewire the whole Jeep in the future. It's beyond scope for the current repairs though.

 

Finished the wiring cleanup tonight and the last of the wire nuts are gone.

There were a pair of wire nuts to the rear brake circuit pressure switch and a bunch more at the rear where a flat towing harness had been spliced in. Removed the flat tow harness, removed all the wire nuts, replaced most of the bullet connectors in the back of the Jeep, and also put a proper plug on the front brake circuit pressure switch.

Grand total was 17 wire nuts in 6 colors:


Sure looks a lot better back here now:


Next project is the anchors to tie stuff down in the back. It'll feel weird drilling holes in my nice tub but I bought it to modify and I'll have to get over it.

 

Dude, do you ever sleep? It took me years to do as much work to my jeep as you have done in this thread.

 

Thanks! I get less sleep than I would like for sure. I try to spend 1-2 hours on the Jeep every night after my wife goes to bed. Except Friday nights I take a break.

From this side of things I feel like I'm not making progress as fast as I'd like. I had really hoped to have the transmission in for the Tillamook trip and then there's still work on the axles, upgrading the brakes, building a cage, building a tire rack, building a steering box brace, adding a winch, re-routing the exhaust, under body protection, ....

 

Those 2 blue wire nuts are the proper size for something I'm working on. Wanna send them to me??