Started working on my Jeep

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 12:22 am

So, it's been nearly 10 years since I've touched my poor little Jeep. The internal clutch slave cylinder sprung a leak & I just didn't feel like messing with it. Then I bought a house & had a kid & life just became too busy. So, I decided that I needed to finally do something about it before it became my daughter's project instead. Oh and as noted in a previous post, I needed to clean my garage enough to actually do the work. So, here's the progress so far.

I figured that if I'm gonna get my Jeep working again that I need to do it right. So out comes everything (brake booster, clutch master cylinder, steering column, ECU, radiator reservoir, windshield wiper fluid tank) on the firewall & on goes 2 coats of rust converting primer & 3 more coats of gloss black.

Same for the other side, only had to remove the battery tray & a few other gizmos on this side though.

While doing all the work, I recalled how loose the steering had become & decided to go all out & get a fancy new steering shaft. I painted it black because apparently they don't paint them. The old one is on the bottom for comparison. It's hard to tell, but the newer one is both thicker & better built.

And here we see it installed.

So, while I had everything out, I remembered that my heater blower motor had bit the dust as well. There's a mod to put a blazer motor that's much larger in as a replacement, but of course, I have to cut a larger hole for it. You can see that the hole is notably larger.

Here's what the dash looks like after pulling the entire heater assembly out. That took a good 4 hours. I could have just pulled the lower heater assembly in about 30 minutes or so, but I figured that I should re-seal the upper assembly because I recalled some water getting in through there.

Here's the driver's side before I put anything back in. And boy a lot of stuff goes here.

Everything but the proportioning valve installed (waiting on that so I can purge the brake lines). So that means that I have a charcoal canister in the bottom, the ECU, the radiator resivoir, the windshield wiper resivoir, the brake booster & master cylinder (along with various wires).

And here, I've cleaned up the wiring & hoses as best I could. I'm still hoping to do more work in this area.

I had to take a pic of these since they just showed up and they're so pretty. These will be part of the next update.

vwkess · Post by **vwkess** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 11:43 am

Cool! Looks like a fun project. My wife and I love Jeeps... will probably pick another one up in a couple of years. I hear you about kids taking up project time... we've had a car in the garage for 2 years that we need to finish. Our son just turned 5 so some time is freeing up now and he is getting old enough to help.

I going to play guess the year... '92?

DaMaN · Post by **DaMaN** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 1:09 pm

Nice job documenting. I appreciate you sharing and can appreciate the work involved in prepping things to do it the "right" way.

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 1:31 pm

What year and model of Jeep?

darcy · Post by **darcy** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 2:53 pm

dayem, i'm impressed!

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 3:26 pm

Thanks for the kind words. My first vehicle was a Jeep CJ because that's the only vehicle I ever wanted. It's the only vehicle I drove till I got a new house. Then I got my Geo Metro & between being busy & the high gas prices, it's been hard to convince myself to do much with the Jeep.

It's a 1987 Jeep Wrangler with a 4.2L I-6. It has the Peugot transmission that they only used for 2 years which is the bane of YJ Wranglers everywhere. I also already converted it from a 2-barrel carb to MPI just before mothballing it. It's already got Borla exhaust the entire length.

Things done:
-Cleaned & painted firewall & frame where brake fluid ate the paint
-Recaulked tub seams
-Repainted washer fluid bracket
-Repainted the charcoal canister bracket
-Installed external clutch master cylinder assembly from 1995 YJ
-Repainted brake booster
-Repainted the master cylinder
-Resealed the air intake vent for heater
-Rerouted the wiring in engine bay
-Replaced steering shaft
-Enlarged hole for heater motor
-Fixed molten plastic where blower motor resistor mounted (aluminum now)

Things to do:
-Re-install heater components
-Clear brake lines
-Install new calipers/brakes all around
-Install Lift Kit & shocks (want to clear coat shocks)
-Install Clutch
-Install New Transmission/Transfer Case (from 1999 TJ)
-Install New Driveshaft (need to measure before getting one)
-Drain & clean gas tank
-Install new fuel sending unit
-Install new body mounts
-Create a Dual Battery tray
-Install alarm
-Install stereo system
-Install digital gauges
-Install 250A alternator (will probably have to make new brackets for this)
-I'm sure there's more that I've missed

DaMaN · Post by **DaMaN** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 3:59 pm

I love your vacuum line plugs (screws, screwdrivers, etc) I do the same thing.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 5:40 pm

LOL, yeah, I searched my entire garage for something that would fit & the screw drivers were all I could find. One of these days, I'm gonna buy a bunch of plugs.

The bolts are actually going to be replaced by breathers that just showed up today (they are transmission breather lines).

Koo Koo Mouse · Post by **Koo Koo Mouse** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 8:13 pm

OH this is good for the greased Lightning of PCA. I love what your doing there!

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Thu Aug 16, 2012 1:03 am

OK, I'm back. I haven't had much time to work on it lately due to... the Olympics sucking my life away.

Did some wire routing & wrapping. I'm still amazed that the factory pretty much just left the wires hanging free. So, I wrapped them all in tape & tied them out of the way.

Then I started on a dual battery tray that I dreamed up about 10 years ago & finally have the skills to make (been teaching myself to weld over the last 5 years). Here it is all tacked together.

Here it is primed and ready for paint.

Here it is after 3 coats of gloss black.

All mounted up & ready for batteries. I was able to use all factory mounting points.

Gotta have a way to hold the batteries down. That sucker was hard to bend & look nice. Threaded the ends myself with my cheap crap Harbor Freight dies.

And now we have batteries mounted & the 1/0 gauge ground wires ran. You'll note the monster ground terminal on the firewall. I ground all of the paint off underneath for high conductivity & then smeared dielectric grease all over it to avoid rust. I'm holding off on the power wire till I get the 250A alternator in the next pic mounted (needs a custom bracket).

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Thu Aug 16, 2012 8:59 am

Looking Good Man!

I hope to start work on my project (daughter's first car) in the next 6-8 months.. I just have to find a good body.. I have a 73 VW SuperBeetle that I have had since I was 21. I had a head-on with an 18 wheeler in it. So while the front end is trashed, the rest of it is ready for R&R. I just need to find a good body for less than $1000 and I can get started.

I may do what you're doing and start a thread showing the progress so my daughter can look at it later on in life and realize how much work I put into it. But, I still have about 12 years before I have to finish it.

Lots of time to teach myself how to weld/paint and what not.

eGo

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Thu Aug 16, 2012 8:19 pm

Yeah, I'm pretty happy with it so far. I know that I've put enough time into it lately that my wife is starting to complain that it's all I do. And I'm thinking the same thing as you. This is sort of a build log for me to look back at.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 3:21 am

OK, I've finally had a chance to do a bit more work. Actually, I've done a ton of work, but feel like I've gone nowhere.

First, we have the bane of my existance. This is what Chrysler chose to use to mount the body to the frame with. It's a capture bolt set-up. Basically, it counts on the little housing that you see to keep the square nut from spinning. This would be fine and dandy, except that you'll note how small that square nut is in comparison to the housing. If you give more than a mild tug on it with a socket wrench, it will spin in the housing. What's that you say? Just cut the bolt? Why sure..... oh wait, the capture housing is sandwiched between the floorboard & a sealed beam that can't be accessed without cutting one or the other open. So, basically, it's almost impossible to get PB Blaster in there to loosen the rust/bolt & you also don't want to cut/snap the bolt or for that matter even attempt an impact wrench. So, out of 11 body mounts, I've managed to remove 3 in the period of 3 weeks while spraying liberally with PB Blaster. Two of which were cut out because the housings were actually exposed (barely).

Next, I took a short break from the nasty rusty stuff to wire up some power door locks & automatic headlights. Here's all the wiring (pre-wrapping & tying).

All tidied up.

I had to remove the gas tank for numerous reasons. First, the gas is about 10 years old & was more like varnish. Second, it was necessary to get to two of the body mounts. Third, I remembered that the fuel sender had crapped out. I ended up ordering another only to find that they sent me the wrong one. I just ended up repairing the old one rather than dealing with the hassle. Lastly, there was some surface rust starting that I wanted to take care of before it got out of hand.

And if I'm going to do the fuel tank, I may as well replace the filter & fuel pump. The fuel pump is a fairly generic unit painted up. The fuel filter is a fancy-smancy one that racers use. I mostly wanted it for the stainless steel & aluminum construction (you'll notice a theme of avoiding rust, it's a mid-west thing).

Last on my list of things I've managed to do is to customize the original alternator bracket so that I could swap the original 90 amp Delco 12SI unit for a custom 250 amp Delco CS-144 unit. It still needs to be cleaned up a bit & painted, but you can see where I had to weld in a new piece in the middle as well as a tab on the top to hold the top of the bracket stiff.

DaMaN · Post by **DaMaN** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 11:31 am

Nice, I am going to start calling you PCA's McGyver.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 4:04 pm

LOL, thanks. He was my hero when I was a kid.