What are you working on today??

Spent the past few days fixing several leaks. Swapped out the original PS pump brackets 10 years ago for a CVF Racing setup. Required going to a saginaw pump. Bolted right in but had started leaking.

Transmission line was leaking at radiator. tightened up the connection.

The gas tank vent connection was leaking. replaced old hose with 5/16 hose and fuel line clamps. The ones with the worm drive ate through the rubber over time.

The speedo had quit working completely, found the Dakota Digital cruise control sensor had been cross threaded on to the speedo gear housing. The square rod between the gear and sensor had broken because of this. Ordered another housing from ebay. In the mean time I was able to remove the housing, mount it in a vise and carefully thread the sensor adapter back on correctly. Another sensor was ordered and installed. Initially I only replaced the square rod and the speedo still didn't work so I put the new sensor on and it worked. Unfortunately the needle was bouncing around so a new speedo cable from autozone was installed. Now the speedo works like new.

Backed the nyer out of the garage and washed the floor with the pressure washer.

Ready for the road trip next weekend.
 
I iwas thinking about doing that to my visors. Any tips on doing this?
When you pull the original covers off you can see how it's tucked into the areas for the shafts. I pulled the shafts out so I could clean them up and make it easier to tuck the new material. I cut the binding from the same material wider than needed. After I sewed them I trimmed the excess width needy to the stitching. It's pretty easy if you have a big commercial swing machine.
20200302_082040.jpg
 
When you pull the original covers off you can see how it's tucked into the areas for the shafts. I pulled the shafts out so I could clean them up and make it easier to tuck the new material. I cut the binding from the same material wider than needed. After I sewed them I trimmed the excess width needy to the stitching. It's pretty easy if you have a big commercial swing machine. View attachment 469175

Thanks for the info. I bought a sewing machine on ebay when recovering the interior panels and stitching a headliner. Nowhere a industrial as yours is. Had to have it repaired once because the material is a lot thicker than normal clothing and the alignment was screwed up. After that I went really slow so it wouldn't fail again.
door.jpeg
 
I've been having issues with leaking gas when the tank is full, so it was time to replace the tank. I had the good fortune of being able to use a friend's lift, and my oldest son was in town for a visit so we did the job together. It went pretty well, no major issues. A couple of pleasant surprises - the nuts on the J bolts loosened right up like I'd put them on yesterday, and the bottom of the trunk floor under the tank was like new. :thumbsup:

For those who may be wondering, I got the tank and other bits from Vans. The tank fit perfectly!. Here's a tip if you get a tank from Vans - use their eBay store to avoid the shipping charges.

IMG_1928.JPG


IMG_1936b.jpg


IMG_1941.JPG
 
If those are all spectra then they will have many 66 Mopar for everything except the new yorker for bolt in.
 
Finally got the other Mopar back on all 4 tires. C-gussets, a minor truss, reamed the new knuckles to fit my 1-ton OTK steering, boxed the passenger side upper CA mount, boxed the track bar mount, and reinforced it, and a heims on each movable link including the track bar. I will say, one of the down sides of making your jeep articulate better is that it makes reinstalling the axle incredibly difficult because EVERYTHING moves. It was like trying to wrestle a 200lb wet noodle that fights back. At first I was a little miffed because I scratched my new rattle-can paint job on my floor jack, but then I kindly reminded myself, "this thing is going in a rock crawler dummy, you're going to scratch the junk out of it on your first run." As I said, I was very kind to myself. Never mind the hillbilly paint booth, sometimes I can be a bit too pragmatic for my own good.

As far as the regear goes, the old gear housing was in good shape, but the C's were shot, so I grabbed a new housing from the junk yard, and threw my old gear set/locker in it. Just for grins and giggles, I decided to throw my gears in the new housing without changing any shims, just to get a baseline of where we were at. Turns out, backlash was within spec at 0.009" (spec is 0.005"-0.010"), but the pattern didn't look all that hot, and I tend to like to set gears up on the tighter end of the spec for rock crawling applications (less backlash means less likelihood of shearing a gear tooth). Lo and behold, I made a 0.005" pinion depth change, and it brought my backlash down to 0.006", and the pattern was gorgeous. Dif cover back on, filled it with oil and threw it back under the jeep.
IMG_1873(1).JPG
IMG_1817(1).JPG
IMG_1819(1).JPG
IMG_1821(1).JPG
IMG_1820(1).JPG
 
That is some bad *** work! Rock crawlers are so much fun!
Thank you much! I've thought about completely linking it out (3-link up front with a 4-link out back), but since it's an XJ (unibody) the plating required alone wouldn't be worth it. If I ever want to go bigger than where I'm at now, I'll likely just build a tube chassis buggy. I've got dreams (and a build list) for turning my '95 stroker into a 2.5 ton rockwell tube chassis buggy, but that'll be after I finish my C-body. Somewhere in the year 2035 to 2040 timeline. lol
 
XJ's are great. I own 4. Nothing goes further in Colorado. (automotive)
Agree, if you go further, it's gonna require a lot of strengthening of that chassis.
Best to keep the tent truck how it is as it will go about anywhere now.
A tube chassis crawler can be very fun. I've ridden in a few. It's incredible what they can go over.

That's my back yard. Carnage Canyon is INTENSE !!
Chinaman's gulch is a hell of a ride but Carnage is crazy!
 
XJ's are great. I own 4. Nothing goes further in Colorado. (automotive)
Agree, if you go further, it's gonna require a lot of strengthening of that chassis.
Best to keep the tent truck how it is as it will go about anywhere now.
A tube chassis crawler can be very fun. I've ridden in a few. It's incredible what they can go over.

That's my back yard. Carnage Canyon is INTENSE !!
Chinaman's gulch is a hell of a ride but Carnage is crazy!

Sounds like I need to come visit! My c's were basically toasted a long time ago when I went up Baby Bear out at flat Nasty. It was bad enough that you can hear my buddy Nick scream at me to stop because he thought I actually broke my passenger side C. Turns out, I just snapped the shaft, and popped the ball joints out. Recovery was fun though. lol The actual wheeling video doesn't get good until the very end, but you can hear my locker engage and just start shredding my passenger side half shaft. It sounds about like a typewriter being thrown down stairs. My buddy Matt wasn't kind with the titles of the videos. lol Best part is, I fixed her and drove it home.

 
Finally got the other Mopar back on all 4 tires. C-gussets, a minor truss, reamed the new knuckles to fit my 1-ton OTK steering, boxed the passenger side upper CA mount, boxed the track bar mount, and reinforced it, and a heims on each movable link including the track bar. I will say, one of the down sides of making your jeep articulate better is that it makes reinstalling the axle incredibly difficult because EVERYTHING moves. It was like trying to wrestle a 200lb wet noodle that fights back. At first I was a little miffed because I scratched my new rattle-can paint job on my floor jack, but then I kindly reminded myself, "this thing is going in a rock crawler dummy, you're going to scratch the junk out of it on your first run." As I said, I was very kind to myself. Never mind the hillbilly paint booth, sometimes I can be a bit too pragmatic for my own good.

As far as the regear goes, the old gear housing was in good shape, but the C's were shot, so I grabbed a new housing from the junk yard, and threw my old gear set/locker in it. Just for grins and giggles, I decided to throw my gears in the new housing without changing any shims, just to get a baseline of where we were at. Turns out, backlash was within spec at 0.009" (spec is 0.005"-0.010"), but the pattern didn't look all that hot, and I tend to like to set gears up on the tighter end of the spec for rock crawling applications (less backlash means less likelihood of shearing a gear tooth). Lo and behold, I made a 0.005" pinion depth change, and it brought my backlash down to 0.006", and the pattern was gorgeous. Dif cover back on, filled it with oil and threw it back under the jeep.
View attachment 476679 View attachment 476680 View attachment 476681 View attachment 476682 View attachment 476683
Those are some strong bungies to hold that diff while painting
 
More fun at my house. Over the weekend I dropped the transmission and t-case in my Powerstroke to go after the flex plate. A weak bendix in the starter led to partial engagement of the starter pinion with the flex plate, and it chewed a few of the teeth in half. Talk about a fun job.

I will say that dropping the trans this time was significantly less treacherous than previous times because of the trans jack modifications I made. A couple of pieces of 3" angle, 8 stitch welds, and voila, the transmission didn't roll or try to slide off the jack while I was under the truck with it! lol

65004755483__7BB11545-D00F-445B-9114-FD76637148BA.JPG


65004754257__8A4A1A47-81DE-466B-8A34-D93BECC6FD03.JPG


IMG_1932(1).JPG
 
More fun at my house. Over the weekend I dropped the transmission and t-case in my Powerstroke to go after the flex plate. A weak bendix in the starter led to partial engagement of the starter pinion with the flex plate, and it chewed a few of the teeth in half. Talk about a fun job.

I will say that dropping the trans this time was significantly less treacherous than previous times because of the trans jack modifications I made. A couple of pieces of 3" angle, 8 stitch welds, and voila, the transmission didn't roll or try to slide off the jack while I was under the truck with it! lol

View attachment 480268

View attachment 480269

View attachment 480270
Good work!

I have to do the same thing with one of my powerstroke trucks…
 
66 SF 383/727 spun rod bearings and seized up after 12 miles at 120+ mph.
Gauges
BD3CFFC0-F674-4EF5-9CFE-F6EC13EBC070.jpeg
showed all was good till i let off and it died and that was all she wrote. Since have learned that B engines have slow oil drainback problem and that i most likely emptied the sump.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top