CJ-3B 57348 69050

[Zach S]

Hey folks!

A little over 2 years ago I was cruising eWillys and came across a craigslist ad for a 1960 CJ-3B 1http://www.ewillys.com/2017/06/05/1960-cj-3b-boone-nc-2000/. Turns out, the dude who owned it works at the same place I work at and it quickly followed me to my buddy's farm where it spent a few months while I got it running.



It had a pretty bad habit of flooding the solex (I'll get back to this later) that was on it, so I put a fuel regulator on it seemed to help out. I also had to rebuild the brakes, the wheel cylinders were trashed and nothing worked.



In mid-september I drove it home for the first time, it was also the first time I've ever driven a stick. Here's a video of me making my way through Valle Crucis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJm8Lq7E9Rk. I also discovered that it had absolutely no power at all. I promptly got it stuck trying to climb my hill.



I managed to drag it up the hill and started working on stuff. First off, one of the leafs in the front drivers side leaf springs was broken, so that was fixed.



Then, I decided to rewire it and built a switch/relay box for everything.



I drove it around for a bit, but it still lacked power.



I managed to make it to a local brewery for a car meet-up and struggled on all of the hills. So, it lived there for a few weeks until I towed it back to the farm.

[Zach S]

During the time it was at the farm, I made an effort to find a place to work on it. I ended up finding a garage about 2 miles from my house that is an amazing place. I drove the Jeep from the farm to the shop (about 5 miles) and it was awful. It had no power climbing hills and it really felt like something was really wrong.




A few months before I got it back home, I picked up a carb and mechanical fuel pump from Old Jeep Carbs, and it ran so much better. Rick is the man with carbs. It ran so much better but still felt like something was wrong with the engine.

I decided to change the oil in the transmission and transfer case, and you'll never guess what it was full of. Water. Great. When I had the jeep parked at the brewery we had a lot of flooding here and I'm pretty sure that's where the water came from. My buddy and I proceeded to pull the engine out of the jeep and rebuild everything.




All of the bearings in the transfer case were seized and rusty, so that got rebuilt.






I also replaced the u-joints. The needle bearings were all rusted.



Then, we pulled apart the engine and found this nice crack someone farmer fixed back in the day.



And this nice bend in the frame near the transmission crossmember. No wonder the engine mounting plate is bent and the crossmember was crushed.



We had to cut the old crossmember out with a sawzall just to get the everything out.

[Zach S]

So, in the middle of all that, we pulled the engine apart and found that the bolt for the cam gear was stripped out and the cam gear was just sitting there.




This weekend is engine weekend, so we're dealing with all of this now.

On a lighter note, about 2 weeks ago I saw an ad on the facebook marketplace a dude close to me posted about parting out an old forest ranger CJ-3A. I took a quick trip down the mountain and picked up a 50's Sears Aluminum Deluxe hard top and a new fender to replace my rusted out one.




That's my next project.

I just finished packing the front wheel bearings and welding the holes in the (drained really well) gas tank so no more fuel leaks. We also changed the valve springs and cleaned up the valves.

That's pretty much where I'm at. I'm looking at picking up another engine in the next few weeks and I think we're just going to put the one I have back together so I can drive this thing. It's ridiculously nice here and I'm only 5 minutes from the Blue Ridge Parkway. I really want to take this thing for a drive.

[Zach S]

I almost forgot, last weekend we pulled the covers on the differentials and they looked great inside. One of the first things to look good on this thing.




Then filled them with 90 weight mineral oil from Tractor Supply.

[athawk11]

Hi Zach,
This is an excellent documentary on what looks to be a fun project.  Thanks for sharing it.  Keep it coming.

[Zach S]

Hi Zach,
This is an excellent documentary on what looks to be a fun project.� Thanks for sharing it.� Keep it coming.

 

Thanks! Working on this Jeep has been a great learning experience and I plan on keeping it going.

[Zach S]

Just incase anyone is rebuilding a Spicer 18H PTO selector, here's the bearings and seals I used.

• BCA 205-S Ball Bearing (x2)
  
• National 473229 Oil Seal
  

The poppet balls and springs are the same ones for the transfer case and transmission. I picked those up from Walcks.

[oldtime]

I see that you got plenty to do on this one.
Be sure to drive and enjoy it as soon as you can.

[Zach S]

I see that you got plenty to do on this one.
Be sure to drive and enjoy it as soon as you can.

I'm slowly getting there, my goal is to drive it by the end of this month. I'm optomistic.

[BillT]

Way to go Zach! I'm enjoying your build and repair. Keep us updated.

[Zach S]

Hey folks! Thanks for the encouragement, i'm slowly plugging along with the jeep.

So, this weekend hasn't really gone as I planned. I also don't have many pictures. Thursday evening I took the hubs apart, cleaned all of the old grease out of the wheel bearings and repacked everything with Lucas's Red "N" Tacky grease. The left side looked good, the old grease in it needed to be changed, but that's why I was there. The right side was more of a mess. There weren't any gaskets between the parts of the locking hub (Warn Lock-O-Matic M3B hubs) and the grease wasn't looking great inside of that one. Also, the bearings were different than the left side.

Then Friday night, after having a few post-work pints at the red bird, I threw the right side hub in my gallon of carburetor cleaner. I don't know why I forgot there were rubber o-rings in the selector part of the hub, but I did. So, I'm on the hunt for a 2.3in and 1.12in ID o-rings for the hub. If anyone can point me in the right direction to source some of those, that would be great.

On a lighter note, I spent yesterday hanging out with some friends down in Nebo, NC at Fonta Flora brewery and we brewed 50bbls of wild fermented Kvass. It should take a few months to ferment, hopefully we'll end up with a 3.5% to 5% beer. I also got to hang out and talk about sauerkraut and lacto fermentation with a bunch of beer nerds. It turned out decent.

[Zach S]

Hey folks! It's been a bit since I've posted any updates on the old 3B project, I figure it's time for an update! I've made a ton of progress since the beginning of the month.

First off, I've decided that it's engine month and it's time to deal with everything. We started off by flattening out the farmer fix for the crack block, then honed the cylinders and installed the pistons with new rings.




It doesn't look great, but it's flat and I'm pretty sure I found another engine I'm going to swap into this thing at some point.

Next, I took the bent engine mounting plate to the machine shop and had them fix the bends and started building the front of the engine.




This is about when I discovered that my camshaft bolt was totally stripped out and it was time I learned how to use a helicoil. For my first time dealing with stripped bolts in a cam, i'd say it didn't turn out too bad.



I got the timing gear cover on, rod ends torqued and the oil pan on. I'm pretty sure I screwed up putting the oil pan gasket on, but that's okay. I'll deal with that later.

Then, I finally got the engine off of the stand and started working on the flywheel side of things. That's when I discovered that I have an International Harvester flywheel on it. Awesome.



Got the clutch and pressure plate on and everything torqued down.




By Tuesday of this week I was ready make a big step and join the gears to the engine and I realized I've lost my throwout bearing return spring. I know I ordered one from Walcks a few months ago and it just disappeared in the disorganized shop. I'm going to dig through the shop tomorrow morning and see if I have any luck finding it. I ordered another one and it should be here soonish.

I've got a few more things to do while I wait for the part, this weekend I'm going to fabracobble together an alternator mount and do some wiring. There's a cars and coffee next weekend that I'm going to try to get the jeep to. I'm optimistic.

[Zach S]

Hey folks! It's been a few days since I've updated this thread, I've been waiting for the form upgrade to happen and it's been crazy busy at work. I have accomplished a lot this month and last night we finally got the engine in.

About 2 weeks ago I finally got the throwout bearing return spring I managed to loose and my buddy came by the shop and we joined the gears to the engine:




It was something I've never done, and an awesome learning experience.

Last night we installed the engine. It took about an hour (and a beer each) to get everything lined up and sorted out. We struggled to get everything aligned because one of the previous owners bent the frame and all that fun stuff. But, I had a few extra bottle jacks and ratchet straps. Eventually we got everything sorted out.




I've got to do a bit of traveling this weekend, so it looks like next week I'll get the head on it, finish the wiring and put the front end of the Jeep back together.

[Zach S]

So things kind of took a quick turn south earlier this week. We were trying to helicoil the stripped out hole under the carb and when we started cutting the threads, this chunk just broke off. It looks like when the previous owner brazed the chunk back on, they didn't do a good job. It also looks like they shoved a bunch of rtv in it and that's what kept the head on.

So, new plan. I'm going to pick up another engine tomorrow and go from there.

[Zach S]

Success! I've found another F134 that's stuck. This week we're going to pull it apart and see what it looks like inside.