1959 Cj-5 302 Swap. Help Me To Help Myself......

[ScottInAZ]

not much to report this week... drove it all week, put some miles on it, and havent had a recurrance of the stalling/stumbling issue.... Seems the return line has "cured" that for the time being. I need to get gas again, so we will see if the situation holds up with a full tank... I didnt start having issues until I filled up last time, so we shall see what occurs....

I did re-imagine the dash mounted steering column support... It just wasnt working the way I wanted to.. I had welded the hanger on parallel with the dash, which put the clamp in a bind, and not able to really tighten down... So this morning, I cut it off, added in some angle so the clamp is now sitting properly on the column, re-tack welded it in, and finished up the brace coming from the pedal hanger assembly... so now my pedals have a brace going to the dash, which is screwed to the dash, and bolted to the steering column... its STRONG now.... has eliminated the little bit of flex I had in the firewall, I took the belly out of the dash (caused by the poor fitment of the column mount) and just steadied up all of the required controls.... I need to adjust the shifter handle, it is too close to my leg in 1/2, and makes shifting between those gears a bit more vague than it should be.... Work has a large vice attached to a VERY heavy table, so I just need to pop that off, stick it in thier vice, and reef on it a bit.... an inch towards the passengers side at the shift ball end would make all the difference in the world, and not impinge on the overdrive shifter......

Still on the list for this week is getting the instrument and turn signal lights in the cluster going.... I go to work when its 0-DARK-30, so some dash lights would be nice, and since I spent the money on the proper socket, I may as well adjust the front wheel bearings as well.....

 

[Keys5a]

One of my Jeeps with the car side-shift (Competition Plus) setups has about a 2” offset to the right at the base of the shift lever. Then the shift lever “ leans” a little more to the right. The shift handle is close to a “perfect” position when driving. Your lever looks to have about 2-1/2” offset, so a little more “lean” should get it about right. The shift lever is the biggest compromise when using a Muncie or T10 in a small Jeep.

 

[ScottInAZ]

One of my Jeeps with the car side-shift (Competition Plus) setups has about a 2” offset to the right at the base of the shift lever. Then the shift lever “ leans” a little more to the right. The shift handle is close to a “perfect” position when driving. Your lever looks to have about 2-1/2” offset, so a little more “lean” should get it about right. The shift lever is the biggest compromise when using a Muncie or T10 in a small Jeep.

yeah, this has the Competition Plus on it with a good amount of offset, but being rather large myself, it needs a bit more…..

 

[53A1]

Im average beer drinker size at 220/5'11. It's super cramped with a front tank. My leg sits over the offset and amazingly doesn't rub. The down gears, I only have an inch or two before it hits the tank. I even had to build a custom sheet metal shelf for my foot. Amazingly all this works but it's tight.

 

[ScottInAZ]

what a morning so far....

New larger radiator came on Weds, so being off today, I decided to get it installed... and what a saga it has become...

New core is thicker, so ran into some interference issues... radiator will have to sit a bit straighter up (no biggie, just need longer upper core supports)... and the lower hose is now definitely interfering with the power steering hose, so the core has to drop about 3/4"... I dont have 3/4 of an inch, so out came the cutoff wheel, and the crossmember got notched for the lower hose... thats now all boxed back in, and the core is pretty much ready to install....

I will need to wire in the second electric fan, as I now no longer have an engine driven fan... no room for it with this setup. Oh well, the one I had was about useless anyway....

Since I had the front end all blown apart, I may as well install the new damper.... so off that came, and the new one went right on. Need to get longer bolts for the drive pulley, but thats a non-issue...

the main casualty this morning though was the front grille... It fell over, and broke one headlight, a headlight adjuster, and the marker lights.... yay.... Now I get to wait for the Amazon man again....

 

[ScottInAZ]

ok, heres a few pics of the aftermath.... it hasnt been pretty to say the least....

Crossmember notched and new steel welded in.

front horn had to come off as well... it was gonna rub on the lower tank, and since nothing mounts to it, away it goes.... I cut the welds, its still usable in the future if I need it for something....

I have about 1/2" if clearance between the fans and the water pump pulley. I need to wire in the fans still... I have wiring in for one of them, the other I tried doing a piggyback, but no bueno... I couldnt get full speed out of them. So ill put in another relay and piggyback the switch to run the relays.

almost ready to put the grille back on... I may run it and burp the system first though, just in case there are any issues....

ahhh new radiator in... this one is a three core, as opposed to the 2 core that I had. It sits a bit closer to the engine, and some of the fittings werent in exactly the same spot, so a bit of re-engineering was in order this morning.... what should have taken an hour, took a good 6....

 

[ScottInAZ]

well, that is a result!!

Finished off the radiator install this morning, got the fans wired in, the wires so they wont get destroyed by the belt drive, and put some water in it (ill refill with coolant next week, I want to make sure the chinesium radiator is watertight....), and fired it up. First impressions are positive. Engine came up to temp just fine, I let it get to 180 and then kicked on the fans... and the temp dropped to about 155 or so with revving the engine a bit (the only pulleys I could come up with are underdriven unfortunately....) for some circulation. Before with the smaller rad, it would hover around 180, no matter what I did here at the house, and would get higher when driving. I still havent driven it yet, as I need to make new upper core support rods (mine are now too short... yeah, thats what she said...) and I need a new headlight and to rewire in the front turn signals. that can wait until next week, I have other stuff I have to do for this weekend....

I also repaired the headlight adjuster I broke yesterday, a little steel, a couple of pop rivets and a properly sized tapped hole fixed that right up, considering that the plastic bits that will break are pretty much impossible to find locally (i did find some online, but dont want to be down until they get here and I can install them.... so I made my own....)

 

[ScottInAZ]

and a few more loose ends tied off this morning...

Since it was cool, and not in direct sunlight, I pulled out the timing light to verify timing with the new balancer.... Lo and behold, it was right where it was supposed to be according to the old balancer. I guess it hadnt shifted after all.... oh well, the rubber is still hanging out of it, so it IS suspect.... but hadnt actually moved yet.... Ill throw it on the shelf as a spare in case I ever buy another 50oz 302....

I also installed the new (to me) cast aluminum valve covers. I scrounged together enough bolts to do the job, and since the wife was getting tired of seeing them sitting on the kitchen table, it was time to put them on the engine.... I had glued the gaskets to the covers earlier this week, so a VERY easy procedure... didnt have to disconnect anything, and a flexible shaft with a magnetic nut driver bit in the end of it made short work of getting the old ones off, and the new ones on.... Getting rid of the rusty chrome covers and putting these on makes a huge difference aesthetically in my eyes....

 

[ScottInAZ]

well, not much to report this week... I made up new upper core support rods on Weds, as the ones I had made previously were too short where I had to stand the radiator up a bit.... $15 of steel took care of that.... Installed some gauge lights yesterday and can now see the speedo, oil pressure and temp in the dark. This should make driving into work a bit less sketchy (our town likes to run speed enforcement at night when there is no traffic to pace...), and I picked up some bulbs for the turn signal indicators in the gauge cluster. maybe now I wont be flashing my indicators for miles and miles..... not that anyone around here uses them anyways,..... but oh well. I need to install the horn as well... too many idiots have nearly nailed me already..... so I got a cheap 600 (yeah right) DB air horn... if they cant see me, they sure as hell will hear me....

on another note, the Jeep went with me on errands this morning, and I am happy to report the new radiator and fans have cooled it off about 20-30 degrees.... Highest I saw (after the spike when the t-stat opens) was about 182 pulling into my driveway after a slow uphill, and backing in... other than that, going down the road at 35-45 it runs about 175 or so... much better than the 195-205 that it was running at before.... Now I feel confident enough in its ability to keep its cool I need to take it up the mountain and see how it does.... worst case, I have to replace the cheapie fans (1700cfm combined) with some better fans that flow about 2k cfm each..... and if that isnt enough... I dont know what would be....

 

[ScottInAZ]

not much to report this week.... had to make an armor plate for the lower rad hose. it had been kissed by the power steering belt, so I took a bit of muffler tubing, some RTV and a couple hose clamps and made a mini "skid plate" to go over the hose where the belt sits.... its close clearance at the best of times, but this should stop the belt from making a hole in the hose at an inopportune time... I may need to revisit the hose routing, but that can be another day....

I pulled all 8 plugs out and checked the tune up... its better than I had hoped for. Light tan on all center porcelains, and no signs of "bad" things happening... I turned up the curb idle about 1/2 a turn, so now its about 600 rpm, which helped with the charging at idle (was idling nicely at about 400, but wasnt charging at that speed...). Also checked and filled (finally) both diffs, the transfer case, and transmission.... all were low.... Ill need to drop them all here before too long, but at least now they are full.... and I can see how bad the pinion seals are leaking, along with the trans and transfer case..... yay... not looking forward to resealing them..... I still want to back the timing off a couple of degrees, but that isnt a major deal. I just think its a bit far advanced at 22 degrees initial, but the engine is happy starting there, so I havent messed with something that works....

 

[ScottInAZ]

Was never real happy with the steering ratio after doing the Saginaw conversion. Was waaayyyy too fast for my liking (about 3/4 turn of the wheel center to stop) and because of this the box still had loads of travel to cause havoc. So, today I replaced the pitman arm with a shorter one, 5 1/4” center to center, vs 6 5/8” center to center. I actually had bent the longer pitman arm with the box, and this also went into some “interesting” frame flexing as well. Old application was a stock intermediate CJ5, new application is a mid 90’s Chevy van. The fact that the arm is “raised” a bit also helps keep my drag link flatter as well….. a test drive confirms the ratio is slowed down quite a bit (about 1.25 turns center to lock). The box can still exceed the wheel stops, so I may go down to a 4” pitman arm, but we will see how this drives for now……

 

[ScottInAZ]

Well, that’s a result. I get that steering feel is highly subjective, but changing my pitman arm to the shorter one REALLY improved how the Jeep drives. No more getting freaky about a small movement making a HUGE overcorrection anymore. It drives pretty much “normal” now. Responsive, but not twitchy. I may still go with the 4” pitman, but while it may fit the physical stops better, it may also be too sluggish…. We shall see, they aren’t that hard to change…..

 

[ScottInAZ]

well, that was butthole puckering... and not in a good way..... took the Jeep up the mountain this morning, and it was going great, til it wasnt.... About 1-1.5 miles from the TOP, I came across a truck coming the other way, so I went to pull off to the side. the road is only about a car and 3/4 wide, so I was gonna let him pass... UNTIL I HIT THE BRAKES AND HAD NONE.... Yeah, that sucked. Got turned around, and in a flat (ish) area looked underneath, and sure enough, its pissing fluid from the back union... I thought I had separated the hose..... so I limped it back home almost 15 miles in 4 LO 2nd gear (or less) down the mountain, and in 4 HI the rest of the way.. by the time I got to the pavement, I had NOTHING left... the reservoir was dry, and the pedal just went to the floor.... so the only way to STOP was to turn the engine off, and use it as the brake... yeah, that wasnt fun.... thankfully I can backroad it 99% of the way home, so thats what I did, stop signs be damned....

Crawled under it, and sure enough the union for the rear brakes is leaking like a sieve... and the rubber hose wasnt parted, but it had just broken loose of the flare (how the hell did it do that, I wonder....) I replaced the brass union for cause (I had several others) and rebled the brakes... so its all back to the way it was before..... Hopefully it stays that way. tomorrow Ill go and rebleed them (can only gravity bleed, no helper) in case any air was still whipped into the fluid at the master.... then maybe I will see if I can make it to the top this time.....

perhaps I should carry some brake fluid and a set of wrenches next time..... being as it was what it was, I could have trail fixed it, and not taken nearly 2 hours to get home at 3-5 mph.....

 

[givemethewillys]

well, that was butthole puckering... and not in a good way..... took the Jeep up the mountain this morning, and it was going great, til it wasnt.... About 1-1.5 miles from the TOP, I came across a truck coming the other way, so I went to pull off to the side. the road is only about a car and 3/4 wide, so I was gonna let him pass... UNTIL I HIT THE BRAKES AND HAD NONE.... Yeah, that sucked. Got turned around, and in a flat (ish) area looked underneath, and sure enough, its pissing fluid from the back union... I thought I had separated the hose..... so I limped it back home almost 15 miles in 4 LO 2nd gear (or less) down the mountain, and in 4 HI the rest of the way.. by the time I got to the pavement, I had NOTHING left... the reservoir was dry, and the pedal just went to the floor.... so the only way to STOP was to turn the engine off, and use it as the brake... yeah, that wasnt fun.... thankfully I can backroad it 99% of the way home, so thats what I did, stop signs be damned....

Crawled under it, and sure enough the union for the rear brakes is leaking like a sieve... and the rubber hose wasnt parted, but it had just broken loose of the flare (how the hell did it do that, I wonder....) I replaced the brass union for cause (I had several others) and rebled the brakes... so its all back to the way it was before..... Hopefully it stays that way. tomorrow Ill go and rebleed them (can only gravity bleed, no helper) in case any air was still whipped into the fluid at the master.... then maybe I will see if I can make it to the top this time.....

perhaps I should carry some brake fluid and a set of wrenches next time..... being as it was what it was, I could have trail fixed it, and not taken nearly 2 hours to get home at 3-5 mph.....

Geeeez, glad you're ok!

 

[ScottInAZ]

Geeeez, glad you're ok!

thanks... After I got the seat cushion pulled out of my rear end, fixing the brakes took all of about 10 minutes.... thankfully its a manual with a pretty large engine for the Jeep... plenty of engine braking to be had coming down the mountain, just keep it slow in 2nd LO and it was right about walking speed..... took forever, but also very controllable on descent. I dont know where I lost the brakes, because going up, I dont really use them... keep it in 3 HI, and modulate speed with throttle..... Worked great, til it didnt..... and then it was an "Oh $hit, this is gonna suck" moment.....

all in all, the closest I got to hitting anything I wasnt supposed to was going in the parking spot... nearly took out the Harley and Jetskis trying to modulate the engine on/off with the clutch... in the end though, nothing damaged other than some lost brake fluid, and a $1 brass fitting that is probably still good, but I just didnt trust.....

 

[ScottInAZ]

well, time to take care of a few minor things today.... First up was the front end alignment. I now have nearly 500 (mostly road) miles on the Jeep since it became roadworthy. Enough to get a small amount of feathering on the right front tire.... Started with the drag link and getting the steering and gearbox centered. Needed to shorten the drag link a bit, but was out of adjustment for "shorter" so took it off, and cut about 1/2" off each end to give me some adjustment. (keep in mind this was a universal length from Speedway, just an out of the box component that I had done nothing to). With the gearbox centered, I got the wheels equalized (just a simple measurement from fat part of tire to spring, not scientific by any stretch) and checked the toe... I had nearly 3/4" of toe in!!!!! yeah, that will cause an issue. So I then adjusted toe down to about 1/4" total toe, and again recentered the gearbox and steering wheel.... Havent test driven it yet, but that should make a pretty good difference in handling. I may add some camber to it if it is tracking funny, but with it now in the ballpark, thats easy.

I then decided since the front end was already off the ground, I should probably check the front wheel bearings. Since I now have the correct socket, and dont have to beat on the nuts with a drift and a hammer, best to at least put eyes on them.... bearings were about right, but the securing nuts needed a bit of love..... which I gave them courtesy of a proper socket and torque wrench.....

Then went over the Jeep with a set of wrenches and sockets, checking the security of the nuts, bolts and assorted hardware to see if anything had rattled loose in 500 miles.... nothing major had come loose, so its onto the next 500 miles.... and time to start looking at paint and body.... first up there will be filleting the added on fender flares... some short strand fiberglass should make those look acceptable where they were stitch welded on..... but thats not for today, its scheduled to rain, and the mountain is already gettin some... Half tempted to roll up there and get some pics of the Jeep in the rain, but I aint got no wipers..... and I dont feel like getting soaked....

 

[ScottInAZ]

and now onto something I really hate... bodywork.....

As I stated before, this tub has some flares welded to it, and it needs a bit of a transition from the flat body to the flare that sticks straight out from it.... Short strand fiberglass (kittyhair) to the rescue. Grabbed a small piece of sheetmetal and cut a generous radius on one corner to act as a squeegee to slop it in there, and mixed up a batch.... I only had about 1/3 of a small can, so only got one corner "done" this morning, but I did learn a few things already...\

1) make sure your body around the area is flat.... I need to do some serious beating to the area in front of the passengers wheel well, its more than a bit wavy..... this will help get the fiberglass where it needs to be....

2) dont expect perfection.... this will need a second layer (at least) before its paint ready

3) acetone is your friend... cleaned the resin right off the areas I dont want to sand it off of later.....

4) Ill have to strip the whole body before paint.... the aforementioned acetone started taking off what paint was there.... I dont know what it is, but it aint good, so its gotta go..... yay.....

this is the flare before any work... this one is fully welded on, but the other three are just stitch welded....

such as this one.... its secure, so Ill just clean them good, and pave over it with kittyhair....

ok, we'll let that cure, and see what we can do with it....

ok, its got more divots than an amateur golf course, but its secure, somewhat smooth, and the next layer wont have to be as deep.... thats gonna work nicely.... and "finish" something that would either look like doo-doo under paint, or be a real PITA to remove.... Before I go any further with this one, ill "fix" the area that was causing me issues behind the door opening.... that has to be at least a little flatter than it is to let me form a proper radius for the fillet....

 

[53A1]

Bodywork is not fun. I would have cut it off and ordered some plastic ones.

 

[ScottInAZ]

well, its been a couple of weeks since I really did much of anything on the Jeep.... I did however order one of the surface conditioning tools similar to what Eastwood sells (of course mine is from Amazon) to begin stripping the paint and whatever else is on the body. It came today, and I have to say, it does a pretty good job of getting rid of everything down to bare metal. I decided the hood was a good place to start, so here are some pics....

plenty of surface rust on the center of the hood... the scotchbrite wheel should take care of that nicely

and this is about 5-10 minutes later, without trying hard. the scotchbrite eats the rust like nothing else. I would have gone through a mountain of sandpaper on that, and the wheel is still like new. Takes a bit longer on paint, so a different wheel may be in order for that, but the red scotchbrite still eats it without clogging.... and this is some crappy paint... I dont know what it is, but it comes off with acetone (and its "well cured") so I dont think its automotive or tractor paint, so it all has to go.... the lower layers are a bit more tenacious, but still strip OK...

it strips the rust out of the pits nicely, but this will take either a heavy coat of primer or a swipe of filler to make disappear.... no biggie here...

And some hardware store piss can primer to protect the fresh steel.. it will come right off again for further work, but it gives a layer of protection for now on the bare metal....

the monsoon and hailstorm we got on Friday night did a number on the new radiator. I should probably put a screen in there to help protect it... If it starts getting warmer, I may need to replace it again, if I cant straighten the fins...

and part of the reason for no Jeep work... we did a rescue on this little dude... My moms neighbor was flaking out and leaving him alone all weekend by himself (with my sister in law and mother puppysitting). Two weeks ago the owner declared that he had chosen the "person" over the dog (evidently his girlfreind he was going to see is allergic) and so had to get rid of him.... I couldnt let him go to the pound, so we introduced him to our other two dogs, and have been getting him acclimated.... he will make a pretty good scout for the Jeep when I get some more seats in it....

 

[ScottInAZ]

well, again, its been a minute since I did much on the Jeep. Between crap weather and other things going on, its been on the back burner a bit.... Still HAD been driving it, but two days ago now, it left me stranded.... seems the engine truly does have a roller cam in it (so made of steel) and the distributor gear didnt like that much... (Iron.... no bueno)... so it decided to shed about half its teeth and stop spinning in protest about 2 miles from home.... thankfully I was out to photo/video a group coming into town (Poverty Tour 2025, headed to Duct Tape Drags in Tucson, but spending the night in Globe here) one of the participants kindly assisted in troubleshooting, and we determined it wasnt the HEI module as I had figured when the rotor WASNT TURNING. They took me back home, I got my Tahoe, off to U-haul and got a car dolly, and dragged it home... This is what I found when I pulled the distributor

razor sharp teeth....

and these are just gone....

Yeah, all that material is now in the oil, and hopefully the filter, and NOT going through the bearings. I fished a bunch of filings and a couple teeth out with a magnet, but still... thats a lot of material to make forbidden glitter in the oil....

The shaft size is a stock Ford size, so back to Summit for a hardened gear, then it will be back in action after an oil and filter change.... Fun times, Fun times.... So much FUN, I want to beat the engine assembler about the head and shoulders with a small sledgehammer..... wrong flywheel, and now this... if you dont know what you are doing... JUST DONT DO IT.....