[Chowlie]

That's awesome, excellent effort working through all that.

So cool to see it out an about.

You may have mentioned before, but any further plans other than driving? Any changes/ upgrades forthcoming ? (Not that I think it needs anything)

Hoss

Good question! I still have two or three oil seals I need to change out, and I'd like to finish replacing the front brake lines. I know, not really upgrades - just things still on the to-do list. lol

I'm not sure where the doors are but I'm hoping to find and reinstall those as soon as I can. They're not in our barn so I'm thinking they may be at my grandparent's place somewhere.

As far as any future upgrades I can possibly think of:

Find a cool use for the PTO attachment
Maybe install an electric winch and retire the mechanical one (or hook the mechanical one to the PTO? Hmmm....)
Larger tires when the current ones inevitably fall apart
Some hand-holds on the passenger side, maybe mounted over the glove box door. So far my passengers have all been a little scared of falling out. lol
Obviously, install the largest and most gaudy-looking LED bar I can find.
Rebuild the Carter carburetor. It's leaky and just needs to be done.

The main use for this ride will pretty much just be exploring/patrolling our 40-acre farm. It's largely unreachable unless you hike, and can take a good twenty minutes to reach the lower field that I can simply drive to in the Jeep. (That field by the creek I posted photos of earlier.) I eventually want to clear enough space that I can drive the outline of our property in the Jeep fairly easily. It's nothing that a few weekends with a chainsaw can't fix.

I forgot to post this before, but here's a short video I uploaded over the weekend.

I don't recall if I mentioned this before, but I cleaned up and reinstalled the "auxiliary heater." It's an old, aftermarket under-dash AC evaporator that's simply been plumbed into the coolant system for use as a heater. It actually works remarkably well, but it's kind of useless without doors on the cab. Full blast it pulls about 6 amps, so I installed a DC motor controller rated for 10 amps that I purchased on eBay for $5.99. I had it on a Toggle switch initially, but now I have full control of the fan speed.

 

[Chowlie]

If you had a pair of red and black checked blankets to throw over the seats it would be car show ready!

My town has one of the biggest Fourth-of-July celebrations for miles around. They pretty much let anybody ride anything they want in the parade, so I'm seriously thinking about shining and buffing the paint as well as I can and taking it. My four year old would love it. lol

 

[Chowlie]

Good news! Dad finally found the cab doors after looking several times. They cleaned up and bolted up pretty nice. Maybe we can enjoy that heater now while the cold weather holds out.

Also whittled out a 2" shifter ball at work last week. Might engrave the pattern later, but I do wanna make two more for the t-case. I've been machining and selling knobs to Cummins guys for a while now along with a few others now and then. I love making new designs and custom engravings for my own vehicles. Lol

Kinda random, but I also installed an automatic garage door opener over the weekend. Now I can finally take the Jeep out for an easy spin without getting in and out twi extratimes just to mess with the door.

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[Chowlie]

I'll be the first to ask. How much?

I usually sell knobs for $75 each, shipping included with PayPal. Just finished up the shift pattern on this one (also included if you want). I can also custom engrave whatever you want for an extra $25. Currently working on the two transfer case knobs.

If anybody wants a set of all three I'd do a combo for $200. Hopefully I'll have all three done for myself today or tomorrow.

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[Chowlie]

And just like that, we've got a full set.

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[Chowlie]

Nice and I'm thinking about it. I only need two balls. My only hold up is I wear a gold class ring on my right hand and have for 50 years. I used to keep the OEM knob painted but kept scratching it off with the ring.

I was considering making some out of pool balls--color coordinated with the Jeep if i ever decide what the future color will be. I have source for the balls and a plan to thread them but no way to do the engraving. Can you work with any other medium?

For sure, I can work with pretty much anything. If you want to get your pool balls together I'd be happy to thread and engrave them for you here at the shop. $5 each to drill and tap them and then $25 each to engrave. Never worked on a pool ball before but I'd be interested to try. lol

 

[Chowlie]

My plan was to drill a hole big enough to epoxy one of these into the ball. Everbilt 1/4 in.-20 TPI Zinc Rod Coupling Nuts-822251 - The Home Depot

Just curious, but I'm guessing you were going to use the 5/16-24 instead of the 1/4-20? The T90 and Dana 18 should both have 5/16-24 threads on the shifter unless you have something else.

It's super hard to drill a ball in the dead center unless you have at least a drill press and a vise of some sort. It's made of resin and plastic though, I imagine it would drill and tap rather nicely.

 

[Chowlie]

For what it's worth, I had a the black 8 ball and 3 red pool balls on my '83 cj7, my brother in law cut the threads in directly on his cnc machine and they worked very well

Hoss

Looks good in there! For whatever reason I've never considered messing around with pool balls until today. At 2.25" diameter they should be very comfy. I found three random numbers from an eBay seller for $12 so I bought them. lol

 

[Chowlie]

On a separate note, I still have a pretty significant oil leak around my rear axle yoke. I replaced the seal again and it didn't improve anything. There's not a wear line on the yoke shaft either. It slides in and rotates smoothly and feels like there's plenty of contact. Suggestions?

 

[Chowlie]

To be honest with you I don't know what thread sizes I'll need. I have a T14 and a D300. I'd ask but knowing this Jeep like I do it would be a different size than anyone else's. Before committing I'd double check with a nut. The problem I foresee is how to get the old knobs off. There is no retaining nut. I can't break it loose by hand or with a strap wrench. My friend's son used a pipe wrench to grip the ball and a second to hold the shifter below the threads and broke his off at the thread line. How did you get yours off?

You and Hoss seem to think that the ball is substantial enough to thread. Hoss usually is dead on in his advice unless he has had more than one Dog beer.

One of my T-case knobs threaded right off, the other one I had to break loose with Channellocks. Maybe try to shoot some Kroil up there from the bottom edge and see if that helps loosen it up a bit.

Yeah, I feel solid about it. I just ordered a couple of cheap balls myself to try it out on. haha

 

[Chowlie]

My balls came in and I made a little fixture to hold them while I drill, just because I'm particular like that.

It was a little powdery when I cut it, but it drilled and tapped just fine. Now I need to try engraving one to see how it turns out.

 

[Chowlie]

Sounds like you are having venting issues and keep blowing out the seal. Early housings have a vent in the cover, it does not look like your rear cover has a vent built in.

So next is to check the housing as the end of the run of the tapered housings had a small vent hole on the back side of one of the tubes. It stayed this way until they went to the vent bolt at the brake line T in the later housings.

View attachment 4134217

I'll definitely look into that - but for what it's worth, it had still leaked a bit on the ground after I had changed the seal last time and before I drove it.

 

[Chowlie]

Like so?

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[Chowlie]

No turn it 90* to the right so that the 5 is visible in second or third gear no matter the transmission.

Gotcha. Seeing the number isn't really important to me, but I can see why people would get them just on that account. Lol

Tried engraving one and it worked out really great.

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[Chowlie]

After some research I decided to purchase a new Solex-type carburetor on eBay. Cost me $128 from a seller located in Arkansas, they're all inspected and tested before shipping. I was planning to rebuild the Carter YF (and I probably still will) but with rebuild kits in the $50 range and never having rebuilt a carburetor I figured I'd try one of these first. My engine runs a lot better with the Pertronix ignition, but it still misfires and backfires quite a bit in addition to the leaking. It also seems to run really rich with some really intense fumes and sometimes white smoke if I try to hammer down on it. I know some people prefer the Carter for various reasons, but I'm sure I'll be happy either way as long as it runs better. Any opinions?

 

[Chowlie]

The Solex finally showed up over the weekend. I'll try to rebuild the Carter at some point, but so far I'm very impressed with the Solex. Took about 30 minutes to swap over, the most annoying part was getting the fuel line to start in the fitting. I had to cut about an inch off the outside of the choke cable to have enough room for it to reach the lever. Pretty much fired right up and was a breeze to dial in the idle ratio and speed. Immediately noticed much smoother running and acceleration, more power, less smoke, and less crazy-rich smelling exhaust. Haven't climbed the hill with it yet, but I anticipate it not missing really badly anymore.

Only other thing I had to do was grind some material out of the bottom of the throttle rod hole in the floor pan. The gas pedal was originally rusted out of the floorboard completely, so we just had to mount it to a separate piece of flat steel and screw it down. I'll probably have to grind out some more because I still feel like it's not getting full travel.

 

[Chowlie]

A completely random update, but the Jeep has proven itself very useful around the farm over the last few months. It's just so easy to hop in and run do chores, pull out stuff, etc. One of my dad's buddies left this little "load hog" four-wheeler trailer in our barn so I hooked it up for some brush removal. And of course my little buddy wanted to hop in and ride very first thing.

Then we went down to our creek and dislodged an old bathtub that's been there for as long as I can remember. I had to cut up a couple of dead trees and some saplings to even get to it, but it was a fun adventure. I ended up tearing off one of the front flexible brake lines in the process, it just broke right off with all the rust on it. I'm gonna try to replace both of them this weekend, I already have the new ones in from Kaiser Willy's.

 

[Chowlie]

Well it seems my F134 is burning about as much oil as it is gas. (not really) It does leave a very noticeable blue exhaust trail everywhere it goes though. Anybody got some hot tips for maybe loosening the rings up some more? I put about a quart of MMO in the crankcase and gas tank just to see if it does anything. Might try pulling the plugs and soaking the cylinders in ATF for about a week.

 

[Chowlie]

I've literally done no diagnosis at all, so I guess I could start with a compression check. lol Doesn't seem to get worse when it's warm, but doesn't get better either.