34 Years Later The Build

My dad and I are trying to bring an old project back to life.

We are planning to 1: get the engine running even if it requires a tear down. 2: separate the body from the chassis to make some fiberglass repairs, have the underside of the body sprayed with rhino liner, and paint the chassis with POR15 paint.

Photos:

 

We only had a couple of hours to work on it this weekend but after letting the oil sit in the cylinders all week it turned over nice and easy with the breaker bar on the pulley bolt. That was a big relief for my dad. Then we started stripping the body for removal. Dropped the top, pulled the seats & brackets, then removed the hood and the windshield. Let's see what next weekend brings.

 

Pulled the body off last weekend. Going to drag the chassis home so we can clean it up and eventually paint it.




Also cleaned the mold, grime and goo off the seats. Dad said they came out of a late 60's or early 70's Ford Mustang. They fold forward and in towards the center of the car so someone could get in the back.

Before:



After:

 

NIce looking seats. Don't look too far from factory. Leather?

 

Wow! Those seats really cleaned up nice. I noticed the Ford heater too.

 

Thanks, they feel like vinyl.

Thanks! Not sure what that came off of, but dad added it because my mom (then his girlfriend) kept complaining about how cold it was driving around in the Jeep during these New England winters.

Thanks Focker! The seats cleaned up much easier than expected, all we used was some generous amounts of Simple Green and elbow grease!

 

So we drained the radiator and found nice & clean green coolant. Filled it back up with fresh stuff and moved onto the engine. Pulled the oil drain plug and more green fluid unfortunately came out. YIKES! Not too much, about 8-10oz followed by fresh clean motor oil but it is still enough to cause concern. After the engine went into the Jeep in the 80's it was run for 10 - 15 minutes with no issues. Since we started working on it, it has been turned over a few times but not run. What are the chances that its just a blown/rotted out head gasket and not a crack in the block? When we get some time we will pull the heads and assess the internals.

 

Pulled the intake and heads off today and instantly found the issue.





Head is cracked allowing antifreeze to seep in from the water jacket.

Anyone got a good head they want to sell?

 

Put a "want to buy" ad in the classified section, someone will have a replacement available.

 

We found someone who had a rebuilt V6 and no Jeep to put it in so we're going to pick it up from him in a few weeks. He says it has all new internals including beefier crank and cam so we'll how it runs. If not we can steal parts from the two engines to make a good engine.

We recently started painting the frame and are about half way done. Probably going to wait until the engine comes out to finish up the front half.



In the mean time we ordered some parts from Walck's 4WD to take care of this trashed crossmember. Hopefully we will see those parts this week.

 

Before id condem that head id have it maged if im thinking correctly the Buick v6 engines need sealant on the head bolts if there not sealed right coolant can leak around the head bolts

 

Thanks for the tip! I will have to look into that. It wasn't leaking through the head bolts though, it seems the metal is just porus and was leaking through a spot that didn't appear to have any imperfections.

We got our new engine though. I will post photos later.

 

Its been a while since we've done any work on the Jeep. Some life events happened both good and bad. Here are some updated photos. Next steps are get the engine mounted, and fire it up.

Photo Jul 28, 12 23 20 PM by Joe Adams, on Flickr

Photo Dec 30, 2 15 21 PM by Joe Adams, on Flickr

 

Very nice!!!! Love the KB valve covers. Did you install the high pressure oil pump gears? You may need to run the short oil filter so that the frt. diff won't hit it. Keep us posted!!!!

 

Thanks @Jeepsterjim ! We bought this engine already rebuilt from a guy in town. He built it but never installed it, I think it was an early 90s rebuild. I know it has ratio rockers and a bigger cam but I don't know much else about it. I'm expecting a few snags when we drop it in to the frame considering my dad was the one to modify the frame in the 80s and never drove it.

 

Looks great. You might want to remove the paint from the tranny input bearing retainer. It may keep your throwout bearing from operating smoothly. Love the KB valve covers. Jealous!

 

Thanks for the tip! We need to get the bell housing off the old V6 before we can mate the engine and transmission, but we'll be sure to check it operation before putting everything together for the last time, and clean that paint off if need be.

 

Last week we had the bell-housing and adapter plate bead blasted and I clear coated them. Mounted them up today. I got this clutch fork book from Walck's 4wd but i think I might have the wrong one, or have it installed incorrectly. It fits the whole but it seems like its going to interfere with the clutch cable and its going to wear a hole into it. Any thoughts?

Photo Feb 29, 12 42 36 PM by Joe Adams, on Flickr

Photo Feb 29, 1 29 07 PM by Joe Adams, on Flickr

Photo Feb 29, 1 29 15 PM by Joe Adams, on Flickr

Photo Feb 29, 1 29 23 PM by Joe Adams, on Flickr