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Project “couple loose screws”

9K views 137 replies 8 participants last post by  Talbert 
#1 ·
This is my ongoing build of my CJ crawler
 
#2 ·
After finally giving up on my old XJ I had had since high school , chassis and body was bent far beyond repair and too many cracks and bends in the cage and complete destruction of the engine and trans I had to move on to a new jeep , thus I found my self where all great disasters start ... craigslist ... I found this cj for a whopping $150
 

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#3 ·
The XJ right before it’s death had a radius arm front on coil springs and triangulated 4 link rear Dana 30 and 8.8 4.88 gears and lunch box lockers
I decided to be cheap and move all the rear suspension parts to the CJ , sold the radius arm kit to a friend
In hind sight I would have done the rear as a true double triangulated set up but since it was already made I used it
 

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#4 ·
The front and rear are stretched quite a bit to make 105” wheelbase and to help with drive line angles

Also the fuel tank should be pretty interesting, it’s a keg in a bucket , I have some fake ice to put around it and ratchet straps to look like they are holding it down with a tap as the filler , I’ll take more picture of that when I’m finishing it up , I’ve never seen it done that way yet and I hope to be pulled over some day and have the cop as me about it lol
 

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#5 ·
A few months ago I had picked up a th400 trans with an adapter to the np231 for a few hundred bucks , I originally was going to put in a tbi gm 350 but one day I was strolling there the junk yard for something else and ran into a LS1 that was almost all pulled out so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity
 

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#9 ·
Motor mounts

After tacking in the motor mounts and pulling the engine in and out to make sure it would be removable if need be I decided to go ahead and weld up the mounts completely in 1 pass. , in my foolishness or eagerness I had forgot that the metal would distort some from the heat and would move around a bit , so when I went to install the engine the next day it didn’t fit! The space for the engine had shrunk about a 1/8th inch , thankfully I was able to fit my port-a-power between the frame rails and press the frame apart as I dropped the engine in place
 

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#14 ·
Made some really ugly double shear knuckle brackets
I’m not too worried about how this axle turns out I’ve got plans to re tube a d44 down the road but this axle came off the old jeep so I’ll make it work for now
 

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#16 ·
I got a half way finished roll cage off craigslist for a 150$ ! I added a bunch of gussets and more cross bars to make it a lot stronger , then made some frame tie ins where I thought it could sure use some support if it was ever upside down
 

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#17 ·
Worked on mounting the wintry down in the frame to have more room for the grill and radiator, it’s goint to be a tight fit for everything since I moved the drive train up so far to have a better rear drive shaft length , but I’ll show more of that later
 

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#20 ·
I chose solid mounts for simplicity and to add some strength to the front of the frame since the only thing that connects the front part of the frame is the winch mount , don’t know if that was the best idea but that’s what I thought
 
#21 ·
I’m sure there is a point in every project like this but it seams to me the universe is fighting against me and I’d rather go to work than work on this dam jeep .
So the engine is completely assembled and I got to run it for the first time , however it only ran for a minute before it decided to stop running, despite having new bearings new pistons new rings new main bearings and all new hardware I some how managed to spin a rod bearing
I have no idea how the spark plug got bent down but the plugs are shown on the order they were removed , the bottom row is the pass side plugs number 6 rod seams to be the Guilty party , however number 5 bearing shows some damage too
As the only thing from the junk yard that’s left in this motor is the crank and the block Ive decided it was my error some how
This block has caused me nothing but trouble , I’m considering scrapping it and going with a different motor
 

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#22 ·
For anyone like me who spent countless hours on the internet looking at how to ls swap something or just looking at all the cool builds , and people doing crazy stuff in there garage without any wifely supervision, know that it is possibly the most aggravating thing you will ever undertake ( yes more aggravating than explaining fiat currency to a liberal ) but also the most rewarding , know that this will either be a 7 cylinder motor or I’ll put a new piston in it every weekend on the trail before I ever give up , I know it can be done better and with more money it could be a lot more reliable, but I’m like everyone else and have a real world budget.
I guess this is my rant for the day but I will rebuild and someday drive this f###ing thing on the trail so I can break it the props way
 
#26 ·
Now that’s it’s running good I’ve got a few engine things to button up and run , exhaust will be tricky to run but I’ll have to figure out a way to make that work as well as finding a radiator that will fit and keep everything cool
 
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