1963 M38a1 Navy "sort of" restoration

[Dave Deyton]

Ouch! Can't give a Like! Like that you are doing better now though! Get better soon, that just sounds painful! Great Work!

Love this Jeep!
Praying for a full and quick recovery and many great "Jeepin Days"

Dave

 

[Royal-a1]

I won't leave you in suspense. First of all. The fall happe ed a little over a year ago. The surgery was successful. Physical therapy was tough but l was dilligent. I'm now fully healed.
Summer passed with lots if hiking, some river running and by August I was healed enough to even start rock climbing again. Finally Sept. Rolled around and I felt ready to tackle the oiling issue. So off came the fenders and out with the motor.

I pulled the crank. All the bearings looked great. Then the cam. It looked OK too. I had put in a NOS cam that I purchased from one of the big military surplus supply places. It said it fit the m38a1. But when I compared it to my original cam I could see it was missing the drilling that passes oil from its rear most journal out to the side of the block. (Some of you might see where this is going but I am new to Jeeps and f134 motors)
I figured it was a manufacturing defect. Fortunately I work in a pretty well set up machine shop. So drilling a hole and getting it to match up to my old cam was pretty easy. Then put the motor back together with some fresh gaskets etc... get it all hooked up.
Still runs rough. Lots of valve noise. No idle below 800 rpm Carb has to be open enough to run on the primary circuit. I let it warm up the it starts running really bad. Like it lost a cylinder. I'm really feeling bad now. Like what the heck? Can't I catch a break?
Maybe I messed up the valve clearances? So off with the valve cover again. Low and behold, a busted rocker arm. (Some more of you probably already know what's up) how the heck did that happen. I've never heard of such a thing. Did a little googling. And I think I know what my problem is. L head cam in an F head motor. The intake lobes are much taller and "pointy-er" on the L head. The F head rocker arms give a little mechanical advantage to the valve travel. Seems I was pushing the valves too far and snapped 1 rocker. So chalk that up to learning the hard(expensive) way.
Fortunately, I didn't damage anything else. So new NOS cam (for the F head this time) and A new rocker arm were ordered. And some more gaskets too! I really didn't want to pull the motor again. So l pulled the front cover and valve covers. Pulled the distributor, oil pump, and exhaust down tube. Removed the intake valve train and all the springs from the exhaust valves. Used some powerfull magnets and zipties to hold up the cam followers. Undid the front motor mounts to tilt up the motor and was able to replace the cam. Oh happy day! Then put it all back together. reset the valves for the umpteenth time. And fire it up. It runs soooo much smoother. I can't believe how nice it is. Except still no idle below 800 rpm

Time to call it a day. And come back to it with fresh eyes.

 

[Royal-a1]

I figured the carb still wasn't right. It was rebuilt with a kit from Mike's carburetor. And I followed his rebuild video. Took it all apart again and all looked OK. Checked float level etc...
Decided to try again. This time with a kit from Peter debella. Much better kit. I also found some excellent instructions that include a functional description. https://www.carburetor-parts.com/carburetor-repair-manuals. I focused on the idle circuit. This was the key. In the video Mike removes the bleeder tube bit does not remove the low-speed jet tube. It is pressed into the air horn. And the first kit I got did not have a new one(the second kit does) I noticed the jet tube has a unique shape at the tip and a second orifice about .750" up from the bottom. When looked closely at mine. It did not have the pointy tip or the second orifice. So I lightly grabbed the tube in a vise and wiggled it out. Eureka. There was the tip and the correct hole! Someone in the past had pulled that tube and put it in backwards. It looked OK to me so I just turned it around and pressed it back in. Reassembled. And it fired right up perfectly and idled like a dream. Honestly one of the best starting and running carburetors I've ever had.

 

[Dave Deyton]

Got a couple of carb kits from Midwest Military, good kits. Jeep still runs rich, got to look at that.
Good work sorting it out. I wish I could get more comfortable with those carbs.

Dave

 

[Royal-a1]

With a good running carb I finally felt good about registering and insuring the vehicle. I was able to use a 1963 plate a friend gave to me.

 

[Royal-a1]

So a week after getting the carb dialed. The speedo siezed up and the spring on the needle/seat lost its spring. Replaced the speedo. And the needle and seat. Running better now.

in the last month:
got the new seat cushions from OD Cloth(weebeewebbing) not cheap, but very nice. Finished up the winch mount. Rebuilt the parking brake shoes to reduce rattling. Better but not gone. Final stenciling. Fabrication of new rear seat hook. Added brass ends to rear seat main tube as it was about 5/8" too short.
I'll post a bunch of pics. Try to get up to current date.

 

[Royal-a1]

More pics

 

[Royal-a1]

So in the last week it we got record heat for March(mid 80s). I experienced what might be some vapor lock. So I'm working on putting a fuel return line in. I'll have to add a fitting to the tank. Also ordered a lock for the glove box so I can leave it in parking lots etc...
Here's a fun little pic. I wanted to keep the original foot switch for starting but the original 24v starter was long gone. So I made a small adapter plate that attaches to a couple of transmission cover bolts and holds a square D limit switch. This is mechanically activated by the foot plunger and triggers the starter.

 

[Royal-a1]

I got my fuel return installed. No negative effects. I'll have to wait for temps to get back into the mid 80s to k ow it it's fixed the problem. I tapped the inverted flare reducer fitting for 6-32. The drilled a .050" hole in a set screw to create a "return jet" pics of before and after.

 

[Royal-a1]

Any idea what these are? Only parts left over after the build that I could not identify. I tried posting in the what the heck is this thread. No responses.