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Alpine Lizard Build Project

547K views 7K replies 116 participants last post by  Dadamsnv 
#1 ·
UPDATE: here are a few pictures as of 8-24-17
Tire Wheel Vehicle Automotive tire Car

Tire Wheel Car Land vehicle Vehicle

Tire Wheel Car Land vehicle Vehicle


here is a picture as of 12-16-14
Tire Wheel Vehicle Car Grille


ORIGINAL POST:

I'm sitting in DMV (bored as hell) waiting to get my new CJ5 registered. This seems like an appropriate time to make my build thread. I joined the forum about a month ago and have been pestering you guys even since. I'm excited as can be about this new project, and I can see myself broke as a joke and eating popcorn in just a few months.

Backstory: My dad loved old jeeps, but he was always taking care of us kids so he could never afford one. His love for them made me want one as I grew up. I finally graduated with my BS in mechanical engineering, and nailed an okay job, so I decided its time! I was cruising through Craigslist and found it! $3500 took it home. She has green MAACO paint and a couple of goofy dents, a part canvas part vinyl soft top that needs a couple windows replaced, and tore up seats. However, she's rocking a fesh new frame, newer body with pretty much no rust, a 2.5 in lift on softer springs, a T-18, Dana 20, and decent running 304 with 105,000 on it. I drove it home at 70 MPH with no issues.

Plan:

Stage 1: safety and functionality first. So it needs horns, seats, and street legal 4-point harnesses, plus whatever I need to make it function. Properly.

Stage 2: off road capability. SOA, 33x12.5x15s, high steer, ARBs, etc. I want to be able to kill a lot of the rubicon trail (I only live an hour from the trail head in Tahoe CA :))

Stage 3: classy appearance. I want to take it to a classic car show without being laughed off the strip. Hot August nights is a big classic car show around these parts and I want to enter it some day.

When I'm done, I want an offload beast that will crush the hills while dazzling street rod people, ya know, like Arnold Schwarzenegger in a tux. I will be doing it almost entirely myself (I just may have the tires mounted by schwab ;))

With that being said, here's a teaser pic. I promise I'll put more up soon.
 

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#4 ·
Looks like a good start. The first Jeep is the one you remember.
 
#5 ·
So I have it back in the garage again (Dana 20 had no oil and a huge leak), and I didn't take a bunch a pictures before hand, so I'll post what little I have. I put on the Spectre air cleaner after finding the K&N in it was too small and full of holes, but for the most part, It has a lovely tangle of plug wires draped over everything, moist spots everywhere, a rampantly leaking power steering resevoir, JB welded radiator, bent fan, and uncovered wires everywhere. The passenger side of the tub is the worst spot for body damage, there is a small dent in the tailgate area (there isn't a tailgate, just a weird panel), and what looks like some small hood dents around the hinges.
 

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#6 ·
So I'm about a month ahead at this point, so I'll just post stuff here and there until I catch up.

So the first thing I tried to do with the jeep was smog it. It wasn't running super well (like 20% fire on one cylinder), and I had no idea what the problem could be, so I figure smog would either pass or tell me what was wrong. Sure enough, no pass, and the smog number's consensus says "needs tune up"

I took it home and started pulling plugs to check the color and the gap. It turns out the drivers side was right on at .045" (HEI spec) while the passenger side was way off at .035" (stock spec). Thanks PO. The plugs looked pretty darn new, so I brushed them and gapped them and put em back. The were looking a little black, but I knew it was tuned too rich. One plug was really wet and black, and I knew instantly this was the problem cylinder. I looked at the plug wire and instantly notice the issue in the first pic. No wonder it felt like it was missing. I grabbed an old wire out of my box of bones, and slapped it on. Runs a billion times better.

Oh and I forget to mention, the Jeep came with an HEI, but it has no brand markings on it, so I'm guessing it's a summit brand? It also had 8mm summit wires, and summit has a replace a wire kit so I was able to get a single plug wire and have a matching set for $15!

I also did a brake fluid change and adjusted the rear drums, but I found a lovely suprise in the driver side drum. To be continued...
 

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#8 ·
85LaredoCJ7 said:
I think it would be sweet if you could get LOTLZRD on your plate. Try that instead.
You'll have to excuse me, i'm slow. What does it mean?? My guess is "lot lizard" and that makes me think you're calling it a parking lot crawler. Grrr! ;)
 
#15 ·
You old farts...hazing the new guy. Lot Lizard=truck stop hooker! BTW, our goals are the same. Trail tough, clean enough to do amateur shows, and fast enough to scare me. For a while! Then..
 
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#16 ·
Dadamsnv (FNG)...I couldn't let ya get that plate...w/o the meaning of the term in "some" circles. I didn't want ya getting exposed by truckers every time ya fillled up. Not that you're not a handsome man ;) NTTIAWWT! Of course the Mrs could make some money paying for parts!
This is the best tech/parts and fellowship forum on the webs. I've given, and recieved parts for FREE from total strangers (well not anymore) who didn't need them anymore. We're just like that. It was just your turn in the barrell. I'm a newbie too, been there. Hang around, you'll love it!
 
#22 ·
And now onto todays post.

Like I mentioned previously, I was performing some routine drum brake adjustments and inspections when I stumbled upon a happy little f-up. The PO had apparently blown up an axle and had it replaced (at least I hope it wasn't his handy work). All good right? Wrong. Whoever did the work did several things that warrant a kick square in the nuts.

1. Used a pry bar to remove the inner seal, and left two sharp little snake bites on the seal surface of the housing which tore the outer edge of the seal and caused a nasty leak. Some quick dremel work fixed it. Pic 1

2. Reassembled the axle with an outer seal meant for a larger one piece axle I assume because it didn't touch the new axle at all, just hovered neatly around it. Pic 2

3. Didn't torque the axel nut at all, it wasn't even finger tight when I pulled it apart, it was loose an floppy on its threads, thank god for cotter pins and castle nuts. This of course ruined the splines being all jiggly.

4. Used a ton of grease to assemble the hub, which melted onto the drums and caused the strange drifting phenomena that caused the inspection. The leaking gear oil didn't help either. Pic 3

So I pulled both sides apart and ordered Ten Factory one piece axles. All was well and good until I got rubicon front axels in the mail instead of AMC 20. It took 4wheelparts two weeks to figure that one out. A one week down time turned into almost a month. Thanks PO, and thanks 4wheelparts.
 

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#24 ·
Well since I had so much down time because of the shipping fiasco with the axels, I decided I'd put a horn on the jeep, lord only knows why there isn't one, or a windshield wiper motor, or windshield fluid pump, or...

First thing I did was polish up the horn connections underneath the steering lock ring. I knew this connection was bad because my multimeter was giving me an intermittent tone when I shorted the two wires under the horn button. Pic 1

I then used the existing relay and wiring, and simply mounted a new set of hella horns to a modified Home Depot shelf bracket which I painted black. Pic 2 & 3

I topped it off with a new 13" grant GT polished steering wheel. Pic 4.

Now I have horns and an unbent steering wheel!
 

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#137 ·
Well since I had so much down time because of the shipping fiasco with the axels, I decided I'd put a horn on the jeep, lord only knows why there isn't one, or a windshield wiper motor, or windshield fluid pump, or...

First thing I did was polish up the horn connections underneath the steering lock ring. I knew this connection was bad because my multimeter was giving me an intermittent tone when I shorted the two wires under the horn button. Pic 1

I then used the existing relay and wiring, and simply mounted a new set of hella horns to a modified Home Depot shelf bracket which I painted black. Pic 2 & 3

I topped it off with a new 13" grant GT polished steering wheel. Pic 4.

Now I have horns and an unbent steering wheel!
Ooo that's the wheel i want to replace my yacht wheel. thought about getting the grant steering wheel quick release anti-theft device?
 
#26 ·
Thanks hutch

It may look easy, but thats cause I'm a month or so behind on posts and the frustration has had time to pass. When I get all caught up, I'm sure there will be a little more frustration pouring though my posts ;)

I will include a few frustrating things for all to know about.

1. The steering lock ring is a B*tch to get back on! the spring behind it is really stout. I had to use a screw driver stuffed into the blinker lever hole in the steering column to hold down the ring while I put the c-clip back on, holy crap.

2. I had to drill and tap the aluminum pressed on steering wheel mount because it was all kinds of messed up, worst part is I had to do this while it was on the steering shaft because the threads were that bad, so keeping the aluminum out of the steering column was fun.

3. I had to pay a shop $50 to pull the AMC 20 hub because I couldn't find a puller anywhere, and I couldn't figure out how to use my press on it.

I wish I had taken more pics of this stuff, but I get caught up working and don't want to stop
 
#27 ·
So, keeping up with the safety theme, I did a absolute ton of research on DOT approved four point harnesses. Turns out there is only one company I can find that makes them: Scroth. They make several nice race belts, are supported by all those (insert acronym) race organizations, and, best of all are DOT approved. I was concerned about the lap belt being safe for the lady friend and me, so I knew the four point would be a full time thing, but being glued to the seat sounded lame. It turns out, however, that Schroth makes a retractable four point that has an automatically locking spool just like a modern seat belt. I read a ton of reviews and It looks like with these harnesses I can maintain three point mobility with the added safety of a four point all in a DOT approved package. And talk about safe! Go to the website and watch some of their crash tests with these harnesses. They have an antisubmarine tech that works very well. Only bummer is the mounting point for the shoulders has to be the rear bench seat belt mounts, which will be annoying for backseat passengers. But I suppose I can keep the regular lap belts as well and simply use the quick disconnect to set the harness webbing aside while I have back seat passengers. Also they are a little pricey (Cheapest I found is $209 from Tunershop). With this great find I began looking at new seats meant for the four points. I quickly decided on the Corbeau Baja RS. Corbeau is an awesome company for jeeps seats. You can buy a whole lot of cheap crap these days, and it seems Corbeau is the real deal. Plus everyone online loves these seats, so I ordered some ($600 from Morris). I didn't buy brackets yet because I want to see how the seats fit without them. I will buy the harnesses when I have the dough.

In the meantime, I had some time to putter around and fix little things here and there while I waited an eternia for my axle kit. I started with the ugly t-18 shift lever. I pulled the shift lever out and pulled the dumb looking sedan shift knob off to find an mangled stump instead of thread underneath. I wish I had a pic of the poor thing. It looked like someone tried to grind the threads off and JB weld the universal ugly a$$ knob on. Thank god it didn't hold (I would still be trying to get it off). The shift lever was also covered in electrical tape, so i pulled it off to find a rust mess. I attacked it with loads of 180 grit and brought it to a shine pretty quick. I was going to paint it black, but the shiny steel with the sand paper marks in it was so cool, I decided to clear coat the shaft, and leave it looking bare. This of course all took place after the machine shop put 1/2" - 13 threads back on it a little further down the shaft ($50). I topped it all off with 8 ball I bought from a local pool hall. Drilling straight into a spherical object with a hand drill is NOT easy, AND the material the balls are made from does not obey the "when step drilling, the next larger bit will align to the smaller, previously made hole" rule. I got it threaded though, and it looks awesome on the shaft. I also ordered a new boot to put on it. I liked it so much I bought a 2 ball and a 6 ball for my future twin stick. I only threaded the 2 ball for now since I have a single stick t-case.

Last for this post, I relocated the rocker trim off of the fender hump to where it belongs which took some grinding. I attached a fixed side and an "original" side pic. This exposed some bare fiberglass, but whatever. Thanks PO.
 

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#28 ·
Still waiting for axles, so I figured I'd tighten up my steering a bit and throw on my ARB onboard air. I air down if I wheel hard, and I figure the ability to air down and up at a whim is one of the best wheeling mods you can make.

Anyway. I got to the steering shaft and gave it a wiggle to find that it was the CV style joint at the base of the steering shaft that was so terribly loose. The CJ wandered like it had ADD real bad on the freeway, and I wanted to completely stop this, so I bought a Borgeson steering shaft and tightened up the steering box. Now this thing steers like a new Honda.

I put the ARB unit on the sloped part of the driver side front wheel well. In previous pics you can barely see a black and decker power inverter bolted there (what the hell PO!). I Ripped that POS out an now the air lives there. Leek proofing it took a few tries, but I eventually got that little tank to lose only 2 psi a day. The wire harness is crazy looking at first, but it all goes together very easy, ARB did a great job on this product! It filled my 31" tire from 8 psi to 30 in one minute!

I also found a way to mount my steering stabilizer above my tie rod without it running into anything including the bump stop. It looks like a generic kit, and the tie rod mount had no way of mounting that wouldn't hit my diff. So I tool the grinder to it and made it fit ;)
 

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