1967 CJ-6: First Build

movin right along! Nice job.

 

Well worth in my opinion, nice work!

 

hah, the step-by-step, one-after-another, edited pictures makes it look like i did the work in 3 minutes. i was intimidated by the recentering at first but it really is as simple as cut, hammer, and weld...too bad that type of work doesn't help get the jeep to run...

 

Looking awesome! Gotta love the 6's...

 

You gotta love that. R)

It looks like it came out well. You're going to have them balanced, yes? We used to do this for dirt circle track cars where you just had to be in the ball park. For the street, you might find that a good balance job will help as you begin to chase down other problems.

 

This has got to be one of the most entertaining post on here! Looking good man.

 

My lower back will disagree with you...

Should I? When the time comes to buy tires...

I did some scatterbrain work. Mock set up here in there...I finally finished mocking up the fuel lines.

Inlet and outlet lines that came with the engine. I had to modify the bends a little.

fuel filter #1

I still have clips to install...

cut the hole for the filler

The hoses that came with the filler are short by a couple of inches


I also got my transmission to shift in gears now...took me a several tries to get the shift forks aligned. The cover is heavy and my transmission tunnel was obstructing the top from sliding square into the transmission. The shifter was bent in a way that it was hitting the dash and the shift knob was going to end up behind the steering wheel. I don't have access to a torch to heat and bend it properly so I cut and welded it instead...


I will be painting the interior, top, windshield, and doors with gloss smoke gray. I applied the first coat of smoke gray on the floor and wheel wells.


I positioned the tub on the proper spot also and installed the poly bushings and bolts...

 

I dont have a torch and figured,
I would have to take the shifter to someone who did.
But I tried it with mapp gas on my propane torch and it worked.
FWIW

 

I went out to a buddy's place 3 times and had my shifter bent, and still not right. Cut it in 3 pieces and welded it. I have about 1/2 " clearance to the dash- (Jeepster) It does take time to get that cover on, it's a pain. IIRC the reverse gear is the biggest problem. I have to pull mine again, one of the roll pins was broken off and the PO welded a bolt in it's place, but they never left enough stub for the shifter cover to lock in.

For what it's worth I have 35" BFG muds and no balance. I do know lots of guys running swampers that can't do the highway without balancing, I think it depends on the tire brand.

 

I worked at a tire sop for a while and having the tires balanced is good but some of the larger tires will not balance out totally. Wow great job!!

 

Got the electric fan mounting worked out...

I did a couple of attempts with scrap metal I cut but they looked bubbafied and required drilling and shaping (to get rounded corners), which really isn't that much work. I was looking for something easy that I can just weld. As I was looking for replacement scrap metal, I saw the Kawaski KX subframe that I had laying around that had some tabs.

Theres a few more on there I can use later.




fanblades still need to get flipped

 

I got some mixed bag progress this past few weeks...

My neighbor picked these up and sprayed with rustoleum. Surprisingly not as glossy as my roller job and had a few drips. I was watching him spray and most of the paint just flew in the air. I would've hard a difficult time brushing and rolling the grill and fenders though...and it's great to have them done the next day...

I'm officially a member of the white jeep club...


An update on my roller job...I've slowed down a bit and the passenger side is up to 16 coats now...I think...I seriously lost count. There was one instance when I had to remove a couple of coats because of severe orange peel: I made the mistake of rolling on hot metal and the paint dried too quickly leaving the roller texture. Applying coats became something I squeeze in here and there and I will continue to apply paint since I prefer thick paint. I was amazed at how well the several coats of paint applied over the course of the jeep's life, has preserved some of the sheet metal. Here are a couple of poseur pics of the paint job...
16 or so coats and counting...

Seven coats on the driver's side and counting...


A shot of my fan installed.


Encountered a problem with the radiator inlet being in conflict with the tensioner. I moved the radiator to be mounted about an inch higher...just enough to clear. As a coincidence, the fan is now more centered on the radiator...


After all that painting I was excited to begin prepping the windshield so I began tearing it down...

I thought I only had to patch a couple of sheet metal spots here and there but damn!...I uncovered some martian landscape after removing the gasket...


...and I haven't touched it since...

I got to the point in wiring the engine with the original harness that I needed to start integrating the chassis harness i got from EZ wire. I did the EZ wire workbook and tried to follow their instructions to a tee...The fun part was inserting the wires "one at a time" through the grommet. It was a good step since it forced me to look at the wires and become somewhat familiar with each wire that was passed through. Not just like jamming a bulk of wire through the hole.



It looks like a mess...but I can assure you it's under control



Good thing the gentleman who sold me the motor gave me something as complete as possible...aside from the engine/comp harness, I was also given the chassis harness from the astro van. I was able to find the fuel pump relay and a bunch of other parts, including the assortment of different colored wires, to use. Must've saved me some time from running to the parts store. Not a whole lot because I still make a lot of runs.

Here it is getting dissected in the autopsy room (aka the garage)...

fuel pump relay...


Shot of my seats installed. Definitely need to move the driver's seat back since there's not enough space for my lap under the steering wheel..


Thanks to the sensor/relay switch thread in the fabricator's forum...I went with the cavalier sensor. I called my local radiator shop (same gentleman who re-cored the rad a few years ago) and was quoted 15 bucks to have a fitting installed. He didn't have the correct fitting in his big can of used fittings so I ran to the nearest hydro shop (orme brothers: same place I got my fittings and hoses for the hydroboost setup) and bought a 5 dollar fitting. I'm surprised that a place like that, which specializes in fittings, doesn't have one that fit perfectly off the shelf. The guy had to cut and modify some double ended fitting using the lathe. I could've easily gone to autozone and bought a nut. At the end of it all it, the radiator guy charged me 10 bucks for the brazing, pressure check, pressure wash, and two squirts of paint...

I scavenged the connector for the temp switch from the astrovan harness with a little mod. Some of the prices on those connectors get crazy sometimes. I had a 2 pin oil pressure switch connector and needed a 3 pin. I went to NAPA to get one and they charged me 28 bucks for a damn connector!. I held on to it for about a week but the cost was bothering me so I modified my 2 pin into a 3 pin (drill and donor harness) and returned the 28 dollar connector...now I have cash for the battery fund...

 

I'm going to guess, you paying in Swiss Francs?

 

that 10 swiss franc bill was a souvenir so it's worth more than its face value. i expect a full radiator service with that bill if i was ever to pay with it . i paid with good ol' u.s. green. i paid the hyrdro shop one of the new u.s. 5 dollar bills though...that bill i remember receiving and paying with...


i have two of those 10 swiss francs...one i will give to a former college classmate

 

long time no update.

I found a new job and took a break from working on the jeep. I just got back to it about two weeks ago.

I've been leaving loose ends here and there on the jeep and finally decided to complte those: tighten fuel line connections, connect battery, fill with fluids, install plugs, etc. After those were done I tried starting the motor and got nothing. So this past couple of weeks I've been troubleshooting and today was the day it finally fired up! (after 8 years)

some videos
first start...


2nd


3rd

 

It's alive !!!!

 

really glad the motor still runs after being comatose for years, especially since i bought the motor based on trust that it was good. took it's toll on the distributor though (rusty), which was one of the main problems with it not starting during the first several tries. had a couple of crossed wires also.

the tbi set up is tricky. when i first tried to start the motor and got nothing, i looked down the throttle body and the plates were dry and didn't smell like fuel. the first thing was that the power source going to the fuel pump relay was not making a good connection (used one of those splice connectors that i keep reading to avoid), then i connected it wrong. the power was cutting off when the key is on start (somehow ez wiring has their elec. fuel pump circuit powered this way)...should be hot at all times. should have tested the actual circuit intead of relying on the label.

speaking of testing, there was a mistake with ez wiring's fuse block on mine. the headlight power wire was connected to a completely different circuit on the block...one that didn't have a fuse in it and wasn't labeled 'headlight'...

all these crossed wires made me doubt the power source to the computer. same scenario with the computer. there are two wires that power the computer: one is hot at all times and the other is hot on run/start. i didn't have the other hot at all times and this caused a 'no start'.

once i was able to get the fuel pump to work properly. the next thing was to get the injectors to fire properly. this is were i think it's fundamentally different from a non-efi set up. correct me if i'm wrong but on a non-efi set up, the ignition and fuel delivery are two separate systems that finally converge in the combustion chamber. in a fuel injected motor, the fuel delivery (injectors, computer) is dependent and relies on the ignition sytem for it to work. i was able to jump a wire to check if the injectors were bad...they were good and was glad to see those expensive injectors spray.

that was the other cause of why the motor wasn't starting: the ignition system is suppose to tell the computer to fire the injectors. the signal wasn't being sent to the computer because of a rusted pick up coil and its components in the distributor. so the weird sounding conclusion was: i wasn't getting fuel at the throttle body because the ignition system was bad. how's that for convoluted?

once i got the injectors to spray properly and since i fixed the problem with the ignition and was getting spark...i was getting excited because i knew i just had to combine the two ingredients at the right time for a combustion. turns out the spark plug wires were one cylinder off. i did the whole TDC thing and connected the plug wires accordingly. i was nervous during start up but when i heard pops while cranking then i knew it was just a matter of 'keep cranking until it starts'...

 

Thanks, Jim

Got the engine to idle smoothly now. It was a bad coolant temperature sender. The problem was that the motor would idle roughly during warm up and then after about a minute or two, would kick in to fast idle (2000 rpms) for a very long time. The fast idle was the computer trying to warm up the motor. I tested the coolant temperature sensor and it was off the charts. it was telling the computer that the motor's temperature at startup was approximately 100+ degrees below zero. The rough idle at startup was probably the motor making the mixture too rich also.

Once I got the motor to idle nicely, I wanted to check if the electric fan would work. I first tried to jump the fan relay but the fan wouldn't spin. Again, wrong wire hookup, no power to the fan. So far my best investment has been in a multimeter, test light, and a cheapo wiring tool kit from pep boys.

As soon as I was able to jump the fan and get it to spin, I started the motor, let it idle and warm up so i can see if the temperature switch would turn the fan on...freaking ran out of gas before the fan could turn on. Which led me to check the fuel gauge that hasn't work ever since i finished the wiring and hooked up the battery. I've been avoiding dropping the tank but I tested the gauge it was good...i tested the sender and wasn't getting anything. I added a ground wire from the sending unit and still wasn't getting anything. I ended up doing the dreaded gas tank drop. Here's what I found:

broken circuit=broken wires


I tried to repair it but it didn't work. First of all, crazy glue just wasn't strong enough. The board kept separating as I was installing it. When I finally installed it, I checked the ohms and it was all over the place.

It was a failure so I ordered a new sending unit. By the way, I just found out today that I can order from 4WD.com and pick up the part at the local 4wheel Parts. I don't know if that's really a saving: gas to drive there or bus fare vs. shipping. I will be riding my bike to pick it up. I'm hoping that I'll run into some of those Ford shock mounts in the shop's trash can...we'll see...

here's my attempt at repairing the sending unit. I couldn't get the proper spacing between the winds.