mikes 1957 CJ5 restoration

I received my seat track last night so I was able to get it all done this morning. I am really liking this! The track gives me about 8" of travel, but that 3" to the back is the most important

 

since all of the pics in this thread got jumbled up when the website change, I thought I should post a recent pick of the finished jeep. The next thing on my list of things to do to the jeep is rebuild the carburetor

 

wow, I can't believe I have been fooling around with the carburetor for over 6 weeks! I have rebuilt the Carter YF 3 times, and it still runs like crap. I just received a new float in the mail, so this will be the last chance for the old carter. At the same time, I hedged my bets by buying a new Solex carb. The Solex arrived yesterday, so I took 10 minutes to through it on the jeep. One shot of started fluid down it, turned the key, and it fired right up and idled perfectly..... no choke or nothing..... ice cold! it stumbled when I hit the throttle, but that is no surprise, it was cold and I have done nothing to set it up yet. Very pleased so far. The only downside with setting it on the engine was the throttle linkage was too long so I had to bend the rod a little to fit and the 'choke' cable now attaches at ta 90 deg angle to the throttle linkage, so that will require a little finesse to get routed without interfering with the plug wires and throttle linkage. Otherwise, it was a nice fit.

I will install the new float in the Carter and keep it around for future tinkering in case the Solex starts to give me problems.

 

A lot of times old carburetors will develop a vacuum leak around the pivot for the butterfly due to wear on the shaft and housing so no matter how many times you rebuild them they never run quite right. Next time you have the old carter on, hit the base of it where the shaft the butterfly pivots on comes through the carburetor base with a little starting fluid while it is idling to check for a vacuum leak.

 

yes, you are correct... I already reamed and added bushings to the throttle linkage shaft as part of the rebuild. I am sure I eliminated all vacuum leaks. It just won't idle smooth and it won't hold any steady speed.... it surges. I have not given up on the carter completely. I will add the new float and check the accelerator pump settings one more time and keep it as a possible backup for the solex.

 

Well, as it turns out, I didn't like the Solex. it had a nasty stumble upon acceleration until the engine warmed up..... almost 10 minutes. yuck. and the acceleration was worse. I replaced the float and deep cleaned the Carter one more time. Then I removed the main jet that came in the rebuild kit and replaced it with the main jet that was in the carb originally. The old main jet had a much larger hole in it than the main jet in the kit. Jeep runs like a champ now.

While I was out on one of my test drives with the Solex carburetor, my brakes failed. Luckily, I did not crash or anything. I discovered that one of the brass washers on the 'T' of the master cylinder was the wrong size (from previous owner) and was leaking out fluid until the master cylinder went dry. I went ahead and replaced the 'T', bolt, and both washers. I also noticed while I was under the jeep that my rear driveshaft was missing 2 bolts at the transfer case and the other 2 were very loose. wow, dodged a bullet there.

now I just need to figure out why my fuel and water temp gauges stopped working.

 

now that my carb issues are fixed, I decided to take it to the mountains and try it out at an elevation of 5000'. it started and ran very well.... even took it offroad for about 20 miles. bouncing did NOT effect the carbs performance. my only complaint was that I could do 50-55 on the flats but the slightest hill and it would slow to only 40mph. that is a little disappointing... especially to the people stuck behind me.