So where to begin, i knew my little Go Devil needed some TLC in the form of an overhaul, but by treating her well with good oil and checking the oil level i had hoped to drive it this summer and do the overhaul this winter. Unfortunatly not. On my way to the Dutch Jeep Camp 2016 all of a sudden the oil pressure dropped to zero from 35 followed by the sound of marbles in a metal bucket under load, end of story, stranded 45 kilometers from the event.
Luckily we drove together, my friend had his TJ on a trailer so we switched places and after help arrived to tow my Bantam trailer we continued our journey. When we arrived we unloaded and settled in for the event. Because we volunteer for the club we arrived a week before the event to help with all the preparations needed. It was on a saturday and i spend the sunday helping out and contemplating what to do. On monday morning i started to call around any known supliers and friends if they had a running engine lying around. If we found one we would swap it so i could be driving again by Friday. Luck was on my side when i called Joop Staman who has a company dealing in historic military vehicles and has one of the largest collections in Europe. He had several L134 overhauled engines in stock (and even more goodies beyond imagination, original engines in airtight boxes, overhauled Sherman engines ready to be installed, several tanks of different brands in different stages of restoration, US and German halftracks, aircraft engines, trucks etc. etc. etc. So of i went to get the engine.
This one came from the Hotchkiss factorie stock and recently had a full check up and was ready to run. We also had to get some other parts for my friends TJ and others whoi had already arrived but no time to prepare their Jeeps. It was a 750 kilometer roundtrip before we arrived back at the event site. On tuesday morning we set to work and in no time we had the engine out.
Spend the rest of the day taking the parts of the old engine, cleaning them and while they were out, gave them a coat of paint. By the end of the day the engine was ready to get back in. We used a crane for support, a snatchblock and a winch to haul it out and back in:
Allas, first time in did not go as expected, the engine support plate was the wrong one
It had the early style with both brackets facing backwards instead of offset in the CJ3a. Took the engine back out and then went to work on the old engine to get the engine support plate off and on the new engine.
The old timing gear was very worn and damaged not sure where that came from, as far as i could examine the old oil there where no large pieces of steel from somewhere else in the engine, just tiny shavings from most probably the bearings. Both luckily came of pretty easy and without damage, after calling a specialist i was not to happy to tackle the timing gear since according to him it was a matter of "It will come of in one piece or it will not, just pray"
It was hot the entire week and in between helping out for the event and working on the Jeep we were getting pretty tired. And when you are getting tired you make mistakes. Once the engine was in with the correct mounting plate i set to work to install all the other parts.
On wednesday evening we were ready to crank it, nothing but the zoom of a starter not hitting the flywheel?
Inexperience, the heat and all the other work in between i completely overlooked the flywheel and neglected to compare the flywheels (i got a new with the engine) i then found out there are 3 different flywheels. 97-Tooth flywheel which takes the 10-tooth starter and 124,129-tooth which take the 9-tooth starter.
to be continued
