74 Cj6 Aussie Rebuild.

Hello again fellow jeep tragics.

I've started on the CJ6 rebuild.
This will become our main jeep for 4 wheeling and club trips.

The diesel 3B is a little bit light in weight to tow the camper trailer we use, it does the job but the trailer weight when loaded up feels a little bit twitchy.


I started with a pair of 6's from the same time period.
The blue one is supposed to have good mechanicals and the grey one is a slightly better body. But not by much.

Tires on the grey ghost are almost new.


Stripped the grey one all down, and removed the driveline from the blue one.

Diffs.
Rear needs a rebuild, the front feels tight and looks good internally so they get cleaned up and painted.





Chassis and springs got sand blasted and painted.




Have ordered a lot of parts from Rockauto, big thank you to Fhoele for organising the on shipping to me because rockauto no longer send to Australia directly.

Nice set of lifted shackles already on the grey chassis and the spring bushes were also near new.

AMC 232 engine.
Engine compression test was pretty good. between 135PSI to 150 PSI across the 6 cylinders so that was good news.
Got it running with a rebuilt stromberg carby and a HEI distributor and it sounds smooth.

Then pulled bits off the motor so I could pant the block and when i gave the harmonic balancer a pull the cranckshaft roked back and forward.
Thrust bearing worn.

Added to the list of parts to get.
So the bottom end of the engine will be partial rebuilt as well.

Engines had exhaust extractors as well so bonus.

Body will need a lot of work, as usual with the jeeps I end up with.

Floor will be a total replacement effort.
Some side panel rust where the floor is attached but that is something I have dealt with previously so no problems there.

A previous owner boxed in the side panels for some reason, those will come off so I can do the body work.
I am thinking of installing storage boxes behind the rear wheels like I did on the 3B, they are very handy.
Possibly tray draws in the rear as well and maybe extra fuel tank somewhere.




Build plate and Australian compliance plate.
I am fairly sure it's a 1974 build but a Aust. 1975 compliance plate

 

It amazes me how well the CJ6 pulls a trailer. I have pics, somewhere on here, showing my CJ6 pulling a 2 axle trailer and skid steer. The popup Apache Ramada camper I use as well as a small regular camper are pulled all the time with Farm Jeep Willy. I figure it is because of the rear axle location and extra 20" of wheelbase.

 

YES!...another Browncoat build...looking forward to this

 

Nice work; keep the pics coming!

Mike

 

Merry Christmas to all.
Santa bought me a 48 inch hi lift jack and some pre set style tyre deflators for the Jeep trips.


Finished cleaning the engine components and got them painted today.



Nearest heatproof engine enamel colour that I can get to the original AMC engine blue.
Will go with black accesories. Fan, starter, alternator etc.


The bride is choosing the body colour of this one. So I won't be able to make it green.

She started of with the basic blue colour in mind, but now is leaning toward a sliver shade with a blue tinge.

I support this colour because it will fit with the nick name I am thinking of for it, the grey ghost.

 

Took a closer look at the thrust bearing and crankshaft today.

It seems the crankshaft has worn on the rear face enough to make a substantial groove into the steel.
I would have thought the bearing metal would have gone completely first, but apparently not.

So instead of a simple clean up of the engine and put it into use, I will be pulling apart the secondary engine we have stored to see if that crankshaft can go into this block.

 

It takes time to make this historic work but at the end it will be full pleasure. It is a witness of Australian history. And by the way, nice pro work.

 

I hope that you are not in the fires. I was taken in a fire in France, long ago, it is terrific. Since this bad period, our administration oblige to clean the woods, makes places to stop fires, etc... so it is better. I remember the pieces of burning wood coming from the sky, frightening. We escaped just in time.

 

And the explosions of gas/propane tanks in houses, like war.

 

Lots of smoke in the air but we are not in any danger thanks Alan28.

 

Just got an email that rockauto will once again ship to Australia.
Good news.
Means I wont be annoying Frank again.

Here's some unusual crankshaft wear.
This is the 3rd journal where the thrust bearing is in the AMC 6 cyl.
It wore a groove approx 1/16 inch deep into the crankshaft metal but the bearing was worn only slightly.
This allowed the crankshaft end play to be wildly excessive.



So I grabbed another engine I had as a spare and checked the compression to see if I might just go with a second engine.
But the compression numbers were not as good as the first engine, so I dismantled the crankshaft out of engine 2, checked the journal dimensions were the same, and installed that crankshaft into the first engine.

 

Have become a big fan of using molasses as a rust remover after using it extensively on the bren carrier restoration.

Parts that are awkward to clean up with a wire wheel or where the quantity and fiddly nature of a part means that grit blasting is expensive or harder to do, lend themselves well to a soak in molasses and water mix for a few days then a pressure wash to get rid if the rust residue.
A drive sprocket from the carrier demonstrates the effectiveness.

You can see the stripped and almost grit blasted look of the half has been pressure washed.

These jeep parts did well in the mixture and cleaned up easier than spending a few hours getting covered in dust.
Still needs a light wire brush occasionally to rub off the flash rusting that happens if you leave them a little too long before getting a paint layer on.

Painted


The mixture removes the rust but does not affect paint, rubber or any non ferrous metals.

 

Still learning something new every day I love this place.

 

You didn't annoy me at all. I was glad to help! It's fun to make friends in new lands and help fellow Jeepers in the process. I'm glad they got there finally!

 

I have also use molasses and water mixture for rust removal. Works well but does require some time for soaking the part in the mixture.

 

I've never tried molasses. What ratio of molasses to water do you use?

 

I don't know to ratio that browncoat used but in my case, surprisingly it wasn't a very strong solution. I was refurbishing an old Dietz oil lantern. I used a ratio of 12 oz. of molasses to about 3 gallons of water in a 5 gallon plastic bucket. I needed enough liquid to cover the lantern when I set it into the bucket. I soaked the lantern for about a day, removed and rinsed with plain water and lightly buffed with a Brillo pad (not SOS pad). It worked very well.

 

I used approx 1 part molasses to 9 parts water.
The latest jeep parts took around 2 or 3 days to treat.

But the mixture does get a funky smell after a short time.

 

That's about 3 times the strength (molasses to water) that I used on my lantern project.