What Did You Do To Your Jeep Today?

Took my Girls up to the mountains for a long weekend, It's always nice to spend some quality time with my daughters and the Jeep.

Voyager Rock

 

I replaced with original. Mine was cracked on all three spokes

 

New shoes! Wheel Vintique 62-585504, baby moons, with KM3 9.5x30's.

 

Sweet rig. Killer top!

 

Some of the best Jeeps in Colorado.
May have to travel that way for my next Jeep.

Oh, It will be running when I bring it home. I do learn from my mistakes ... eventually!

One fine looking Jeep. Color, stance, and those shoes.

One more nice ride.


Dave

 

Finally got the gas tank reinstalled, wired up the fuel gauge, put gas in the tank. My system right now runs on two fuel pumps, a low pressure 5-7 psi pump mounted at the very back of the wheel well. and a 60 psi pump mounted under the hood.

Unfortunately I bent the float in the tank to try to get it to read full scale but with 15 gallons in a 22 gallon tank the Jeeps fuel gauge just came off empty, so I must have bent it the wrong direction, and the new Moeller gauge reads almost 1/2. At least I can tell when the tank is almost empty.
So I thought today I would do my 100 mile run to check gas mileage. .......
But the low pressure pump would not prime. Several hours later, drenched in gas, the Jeep is running.
Maybe I'll try tomorrow.

 

Keep on keeping on!

Did you relocate the low pressure pump below the top of the fuel in the tank or something else. It seems like I wouldn't want to go thru with that if the fuel pump loses prime again.

 

No, it primed quite easy the first time, 7yrs ago.......
I removed the pump and ensured the filter wasn't blocked, and tried again, nope. then took a length of clear hose filled it with gas and attached it to the pump in a loop. That worked, I reattached the feed from the tank, and that also worked. so I put everything back in place, and it's running.

The pump is above the tank, but only about 1 to 2 inches. Since it primed easy when new I decided to order a new one. it will be here Thursday.

(Still thinking on the twin stick)

 

Took the dogs for a drive with the windshield down:


Boy did they like that. Especially Emmett:

 

I rebuilt the carb on the JC convertible today and drove it around for the first time. This thing gets a TON of attention...i had 3 different people holler "nice car!" as they drove by. The Wrangler owner at the gas station didn't quite know what to make of it. The cute girl at the auto parts store who drives a CommandER had never seen one before but thought it was cool
I was curious how the Dauntless would move this thing around, its got to be a good bit heavier than a CJ, but it does alright...it will accelerate (slowly) up a 9% grade in high gear.
Oh and it looks so much cooler with the top down!

 

That thing is such a great find.

 

Got the column, master cylinder and pedals pulled. Wiring harness fully out. Gas tank out. Got the body mount bolts out. Had to burn three of them out with the plasma cutter.

Got the tub ready to come off. Have a couple of buddies coming over in the morning to help me pull it. Then its pressure washing, fixing rust, sanding, painting. Ugh, not looking forward to all that.

 

Went and got gas with the windshield down. Over 40mph isn't much fun, but I only have about 1/2mile of that to get to the station. The rest of the trip is gravel roads and 30mph ish.

 

So I've been messing with this TA 470 Holley and I'm running rich. All 6 are the same.

12° initial advance, 32-34 all in by 3k timed up using the Mott article. Don't think I have a timing issue.
Pulling 18" vacuum at idle, balanced using the vacuum gauge.
Won't idle much below 900 ( running smooth though) no vacuum leaks, pcv does pull really hard, idle will fall if plugged. New pcv valve, rattles easy enough. Seems not an uncommon problem and some rodders install an orifice to tame it.
Driveway it revs up fine, no backfiring. On the road stumbles if you get on it, no backfiring. If you drive tame/ light foot it accelerates fine. Stumbles under load.
I'm around 440' here. Searched here and looks like most guys are running smaller jets and power valves. What say ye? Before I drop a grand on Howell

 

Ah yes, the infamous Truck Avenger stumble. I fought that for a long time on mine....and have never totally eliminated it. I'm running smaller jets, I dont remember what size but it would be different for you anyway due to elevation. The TA comes with a 25 power valve, dont ask me why. I went to a 65, you could probably go to an 85 with as much vacuum as you have. The other thing I did was put some fine pieces of copper wire in the power valve channels in the metering block to reduce the flow a little bit. (12 & 24 in the picture) This helped also but you might not need to do it at your elevation.



Edit: Google Holley Truck Avenger stumble and you can read for quite awhile

 

Got the tub off and power washed along with the frame. We though the frame was full of mud. Was actually full of dirt dauber nests. Those things are quite resistant to even the power washer but I think i got the frame blasted out. Got the caked on oil blasted off as well. Going to roll the frame back into the garage today after everything dries out and going to start pulling the t-case and transmission later this week. Before I do that I'm going to hook the engine back up to the battery and do a compression test. A few things need to be sealed up on the engine as well. Still a ways to go but making steady progress.

Some more janky wiring by one of the previous owners. Pretty sure it was a kill switch of some kind. It was screwed to the bottom of the steering column.


The master cylinder is so full of gunk I'm not even going to try to salvage it. Not for the 30 or 40 dollars a new one costs.


Throwing down some paint as well. Been doing it one piece at a time. Sanding a body piece one evening and spraying it the next morning before I leave for work. In another week or so I'll wet sand each piece and bust out the polisher.

 

I painted all the parts of my jeep in June.


Since then, I've been putting it back together. The Painless wiring kit I used didn't come with a reverse light circuit. I repurposed the wire for the third brake light for the backup light circuit. The backup light now illuminates when the transmission is shifted into reverse. My original thinking was to not install a bumper, but I reconsidered using the clunky bumper that came with the jeep to prevent more damage in case someone ran into me.


My wife helped me load the old bumper in the truck. The bumper looks like it was homemade out of diamond plate.


How would I bolt the bumper to the rear cross-member? There was no room for me to get my hand behind the cross-member because the rear gas tank is completely blocking access. I thought I might have to unbolt the tub from the frame, lift the tub, remove the gas tank, and weld nuts to the back of the bumper mounting holes. Then I came up with the idea of fishing bolts through the back of the holes. I superglued a fishing line to a bolt and then pulled it through the back of the bumper.


For the other three bolts, I was able to stick the bolt to a magnet on a long screwdriver and finagle the bolt through the back of the cross-member. I added two tack welds to each bolt. That way I'd be able to hang the bumper on the bolts and tighten the nuts without the bolts spinning.


The bumper had a rough cut rectangular hole that I could find no purpose for. I cut a patch from an old edger blade and welded it into the hole. I used a wire brush in a grinder to remove the rust and old paint from the bumper. Then I sprayed the bumper with rust reformer and black paint.


Here's what the bumper looked like on the jeep before the previous owner took the whole jeep apart.


My wife helped me lift the bumper and set it on the protruding bolts. I tightened the nuts down. I've ordered new lights for the two big holes in the bumper. I had to find exact replacements (NAPA has them) as the old ones to fit the custom brackets built into the underside of the bumper.

 

Looks good. I normally don't like extended rear bumpers we see on cjs and jeep trucks but I like this one. Well done.

 

I like that bumper too. Looks like a factory made unit of some kind. As a kid in the early 70's I recall there was a 73 cj5 in town with a rear step bumper almost like that with mud flaps on it. I am thinking the guy told me it was a factory option or maybe a dealer installed option. When I worked at the jeep dealer from late 1973 thru 1978 I don't recall ever seeing another one though. Maybe Tim might have seen one, would be interested to know what was available from the factory.