Build Thread 79 CJ7 "They’re coming to take me away aha"

[mriplaybass]

We have made a fair amount of progress the past week or so. The valves have been ground, and the heads assembled with new valve seals.



Before and after on 2 of the exhaust valves.



It took awhile to get the pistons clean, but finally that part is done too.





Some of the push rods were partially blocked, so a little carb and choke cleaner followed by a pipe cleaner and a blast of compressed air and they were ready for installation.



After that, the heads were installed along with the rocker assembly.





I was on the fence whether or not to use the old harmonic balancer. The rubber was pretty chewed up and dry. Then the wife looked at it and noticed that one of the pulley bolt holes was broken!


A replacement is on the way.

 

[gert]

man thats some progress I love building engines looks like you having a blast there

 

[mriplaybass]

man thats some progress I love building engines looks like you having a blast there

Most fun I have had in a long time! I just wish that I didn't keep finding little things that are needed as we go along. It seems that we spend more time waiting for UPS to come down the driveway than actually making progress!

 

[mriplaybass]

Things have gotten to a point where there has been so much to do that I keep forgetting to take pictures of the progress. But the work continues!
We decided to do the Blazer heater blower motor upgrade. Oldjeeplady took the whole thing apart, and cleaned, scrapped and washed everything. I then soda blasted the air control doors and other rusty metal parts so that they could be painted and new foam seals put in.


I made a template out of poster board and put it over the old hole. Then I marked it with a sharpie and cut slots up to the line using a cut off wheel. Using a pliers, the tabs broke off easily. All that was left was to file down the rough edges using a carbide rasp in my die grinder.



Heater box was taken apart, cleaned, and repainted. Blazer motor installed, and ready to be installed.



There were some old rusty Edelbrock rocker covers on the engine that actually polished up fairly well, but in the end, there were just too many places where the chrome had completely peeled off. I blasted them and hit them with some Dupli Color “chrome” paint followed with several layers of clear, and the result was not half bad.









The PO had installed a T18 from a J series truck into this Jeep, including the roughly 5 inch spacer between the transmission and the bell housing. Last fall, we picked up a T18 w/6.32 low with a Dana 20. We decided that now would be a good time to make the switch. The transmission was in great shape, so we replaced the seals and gaskets and were set to go.









I switched bull gears and used our original transfer case since the one that came with the transmission did not have the Tera Lo gears.
Since the rocker covers turned out so nice, I thought that I might as well paint the alternator too, but when I put it up on the bench, I noticed close to 3/8” of shaft end play. When I opened up the case, this is what I found.



Oh well! I had been debating if I should get a larger alternator, and now would be a good time.
We ordered a 105 amp 10si. CHROME!!

 

[mriplaybass]

We had been wanting to replace our fuel gauge. It’s the last thing we can think of to be able to stop guessing how much fuel we have. Already tried new sending unit, direct ground to battery for both the sending unit and the gauge, and all new wires.
The old gauges were rectangular, and the new ones (fuel and water temp came as a set) were round.



I partially drilled the rivit holding the blue light diffuser which allowed the diffuser to swing back and forth allowing me to fit the new larger round gauges in.



We used some large thick shrink tubing to make an extra insulator between the gauges and the housing.



Assembled and ready for installation.



After we clean things up!



After many trips crawling under the Jeep and up into the engine bay, Oldjeeplady has things looking much more organized.

 

[Posi]

Good team work!
Looking good!
T-case gears aside the FSJ 20 is a better case to keep because of the U shaped shift pattern. Unlike the CJ case you will have independent drive axles without having to deal with the interlock pills.

 

[mriplaybass]

I couldn’t justify paying $35 + $10 shipping for a new oil fill tube. I couldn’t get the old one out of the stock manifold, so I bought a 12” piece of stainless tube from the local steel supplier for $3.67, and polished it by inserting a long piece of threaded rod with nuts and washers through it and putting it in the drill press. Then, starting with strips of 600 wet sand paper and gradually working up to 2000 grit I got a pretty nice finish. Then I used jewlers rouge from black to white and further polished it. All tolled, I spent about 30 minutes. Not perfect, but good enough for an off road Jeep! I am sure if I spent more time, I could get a mirror finish.









We decided to replace the OEM clutch rod with a heim set up. I bought some ½” cold rolled bar stock and the heim joints, and bent and threaded the rod.

 

[007]

That's awesome Bass! I might send you my stainless pipe. Mine is a tad too thick. Won't sit it intake and won't take cap...


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[mriplaybass]

Is it exactly 1.5" OD? If it is, put it in the freezer for an hour or so. When you take it out, wipe off the condensation that will form and coat the part that goes into the manifold with a light film of motor oil. I used a seal driver and the BFH and it went right in. If it is at all over 1.5" OD, don't force it, you could damage the aluminum manifold!

 

[007]

Mine is 1 1/2 on the nose. My manifold opening is 1 7/16.


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[gert]

Man that's looking sweet


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[EVERYUSERNAMEISTAKEN]

We decided to replace the OEM clutch rod with a heim set up. I bought some ½” cold rolled bar stock and the heim joints, and bent and threaded the rod.

Where did you find the heim joints? Id like to do this upgrade and think it can be done for a lot less than the Rugged Ridge kit.

 

[mriplaybass]

The whole set up cost me around $16 including the heim for the fork push rod. The heim joins are from eBay, and seem to be of good quality for a clutch set up.
ECON 1/2 x 1/2-20 FEMALE RH ROD ENDS HEIM JOINTS HEIMS | eBay
ECON 3/8 x 3/8-24 FEMALE RH ROD ENDS HEIM JOINTS HEIMS | eBay
I got the jam nuts at the local hardware store for around $1.
I am lucky from the standpoint that there is a steel supplier a few miles from my house that will sell any steel by the foot for about 20% over what a full length per foot pricing would be. Pretty sweet deal if you don't need a 20' or 24' piece.
If you have a securely mounted bench vice, you could probably make the bends with that if you don't have an actual parts bender.

 

[mriplaybass]

Mine is 1 1/2 on the nose. My manifold opening is 1 7/16.


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That does seem like a pretty tight fit. I do not recall what my exact manifold dimension was, but I called Edelbrock, and they told me that the manifold was bored for a 1.5" OD tube. I have never seen a 1 7/16" fill tube. Most of them are 1 1/4" or 1 1/2".

 

[Hedgehog]

Mr. Base - Many years ago I made my own clutch rod similar to yours, the difference was I just cut off the "L" at the ends and threaded the existing rod. As I remember (it was 1986) the rod was very hard and resisted threading, it was a great modification. Your work is always inspirational.

It is od that the oil filler is only swadged in place. My 360's pipe was loose, probably from the junk doing a sloppy job of pulling the engine. As it turned out the bottom was tweaked a little. After fussing with it a lot the tweaked part was cut off. With a block of wood and a BFH it was reset, although about 1" shorter than stock it hasn't moved since. My thought is, if the stock pipe won't come out carefully apply a punch and a BFH to knock it out. Then cut off the slightly damaged portion and reset it in place as out of necessity I did. ......come to think of it though, my manifold is the factory cast iron item, aluminum might not take well to a well used BFH.

 

[EVERYUSERNAMEISTAKEN]

The whole set up cost me around $16 including the heim for the fork push rod. The heim joins are from eBay, and seem to be of good quality for a clutch set up.
ECON 1/2 x 1/2-20 FEMALE RH ROD ENDS HEIM JOINTS HEIMS | eBay
ECON 3/8 x 3/8-24 FEMALE RH ROD ENDS HEIM JOINTS HEIMS | eBay
I got the jam nuts at the local hardware store for around $1.
I am lucky from the standpoint that there is a steel supplier a few miles from my house that will sell any steel by the foot for about 20% over what a full length per foot pricing would be. Pretty sweet deal if you don't need a 20' or 24' piece.
If you have a securely mounted bench vice, you could probably make the bends with that if you don't have an actual parts bender.

Thanks, this is going on the Colorado To-do list! I'm hoping that I can use my vice to make the bends. If not Ill find a shop to make them.

 

[mriplaybass]

With the engine finished, we lowered it back into the Jeep.






All the accessories were then bolted on.







We decided that it was time to retire the Mr.Clean bottle that we have been using for the past 2 years with a real radiator over flow tank. We will miss his smileing face! (sort of!)





The old crossmember was thrown together pretty quickly 2 years ago in order to make the Colorado trip. We bottomed out supprisingly few times, but decided that now is the time to gain some ground clearance with the new shorter driveline.
Old






New










I know some of you will say that this is over kill, but I do tend to over build things. I made the skid plate out of ¼” plate steel. Cut, drilled, and turned it over to oldjeeplady for descaling and paint along with a new torque arm.









Since we swaped out the J20 T18 with a T18 from a CJ7, the driveshaft had to be shortened by around 5” since the adapter was no longer needed.
The one in the back is just an OEM spare that I used for comparison.













When I cut the driveshaft for shortening, I discovered that it was only made from .065 tube. Even though it is a 2 ½” driveshaft, I did the math and found out that there would be about a 30% gain in shaft material by making the shaft out of 2” .120 DOM tube. I will be ordering the weld yokes and making a better one in the next few weeks. This one will then be a spare.
Since the exhaust was originally made to fit around the old crossmember, a bit of tweeking was necessary. We separated some of the pipes using the trusty smoke wrench and a BFH. Then I trued the slip points using a pipe expander. After some cutting, welding, and rebending, everything fit. We will paint and wrap some parts of the pipe before final installation. Hopefully, by wraping some of the exhaust that runs near the fuel lines we can reduce the problem of loosing fuel pump prime at high altitude.

 

[Alec79CJ]

I live the drive shaft work. Well done!

 

[mriplaybass]

I live the drive shaft work. Well done!

Thanks!

 

[PistolDave]

So when you fab your own driveshafts this way, is balance ever an issue?