project: crunchy roll (53 cj3a)

[Squishymonster]

I finally got around to mashing my tailgate into shape. It took some twisting and bending, and hammering a gas pipe through the upper rail. The left latch was ripped off so I did my first "for reals" body patch and it turned out pretty good. I bought my Hobart welder 20 years ago with this in mind and finally did it.

I made the latch from a weldable door hinge because I couldnt find hefty enough angle iron at the hardware shops.

Then today I dreamed up a Jerry can cage adapter because I wanted to try to mount it on the tailgate without drilling new holes. It took about 4 hours with fairly basic tools. Again, I didnt have angle iron so I welded my own. I learned some things and could definitely make a second attempt, but I'm pretty happy with how it works.

It uses 4 of the tie down holes, and the bottom has two metal loops that I bent around a piece of pipe so it latches around the bottom of the tailgate.

[mstokes]

Looking good! I love how the Navy registration numbers peek through. Supper cool.

[Squishymonster]

I finished installing my cj5 seat using the tilt brackets it came with. I wanted to do it without putting new holes in the bed so that meant building a custom bracket for the rear spring clip. It also seemed like a good place to put lap belts. (Roll bar planned for this summer or so.)

[Squishymonster]

I had no idea this logo was here...

[mstokes]

The seat bracket looks great. Very clean job. As for the jeep pressing on the front of the tool box, yes a very cool feature. If you end up replacing your floor and tool box cut that out and save it for a wall hanger. 

[Squishymonster]

Over the last week or so I've taken apart my bell crank, built up the ball with weld wire, re rounded it, replaced the needle bearings, and just got it all back together. I just got back from a test ride and wow what a difference. It's a pleasure to drive now. I went from something like 6+ inches of slack down to 1 or 2. It looks like the rest is mostly in the steering box but its definitely no longer on the needs-fixing-immediately list

Here's a post ride shot for the visual folks

[Rus Curtis]

Nice!

[Squishymonster]

My fuel tank was strapped down with plumbers strapping. The like-OEM strapping kit was one of the first items I bought and it has sat in the parts pile for several months.

Today I yanked the tank out, then decided to repair a couple of small sheet metal cracks in that area.

I also made a custom hold down bracket for the quarter panel. There was a bent bolt in there that wasn't being used.

I am currently waiting for the tar to dry that I used to stick the anti squeek to the bottom of the tank.

I think my tank is not original as it's missing the rear hold down bracket. I came very close to welding one on and then had second thoughts about the gas fumes left in the me tank.. I powered down the MIG then found some suitable horror stories online.

[Squishymonster]

I made it back out to finish things off. I stood the tank on end, filled it with water and did my brief grinding and welding work. It's all back together and I've made enough clearance on the floor to get my front left seat bolt in - though I need to replace the captive nut since I had to drill out the bolt and wasn't centered well enough.

[Squishymonster]

Oh man have I gone down a rabbit hole.

I bought a 12v fuel gauge, and speedometer cable. I was poking around behind the dash to see how to route everything.

I thought my choke and idle cables were in the way of the speedometer cable routing, and I have replacements so I decided to install the replacements and reroute

While doing that I realized that PO mounted the choke shaft actuator outside of its "cage" on the linkage and left off the spring. I fixed those issues then turned down my timing advance since I had been getting a light "dieseling" sounds on acceleration during all of my past test runs. I noticed that PO had only one bolt in the alternator and the brackets were not aligned quite right to allow a second. Took a mental not and moved on.

I took it for a ride like that and the acceleration and top speed were nice, but I was stalling while coming to stops.

In addition, the first time I stalled, the starter couldn't engage the flywheel so I nearly panicked that I was going to need to walk home and tow.

It did eventually start, but continued to stall at each stop.

So next step was to pull the starter and evaluate things. Found some worn teeth in two segments but not as bad as I expected. Removed, cleaned, and lubed the bendix. Made video of the ring gear for later reference.

Then I decided to start poking the carb with the immediate goal of idling with no choke. I'm slowly troubleshooting through that process.

I did find some choice high quality unicorn fuel in the bowl...

While idling the engine and messing with the idle and choke under the hood, the alternator suddenly slipped all the way into the fan... I killed the engine before it caused much problem then spent the rest of my Sunday evening recounting it with two bolts instead of one.

My fuel gauge and speedometer cable are still in the box

[SteveKfl]

You may want to look at Zack S post today about similar symptoms you describe and his was coil related...
Re: CJ-3B 57348 69050
« Reply #43 on: Today at 09:15:40 AM »

[Squishymonster]

I temp bypassed my secondary fuel filter with a bic pen. I can't think of anything more American than that!

I have a filter on the tank, but I wanted one on the carb. Then the tank filter was having a hard time pulling, so I put the pen in there until I get a screen filter.

[Squishymonster]

When I was troubleshooting my idle issues I swapped in my old idle jet. It improved things a bit but I had to dig further. When I tried to take out the idle well jet I didn't think that my screwdriver was going by the idle jet and I crushed it on the bright side (?) the idle well jet port was really gummed up, but so far I haven't got a chance to test with that cleaned and the stock diameter idle jet.

Enter Hobby Lobby amd Harbor Freight. I realized that I have a hand drill from HL and micro drill bits from HF, and it turns out the aftermarket jets are actually a wide diameter tube with a too small diameter tip attached. That makes it very easy to hand drill out. Now my jet is drilled and ready to test.

I can't quite tell if I got the right tip diameter since my OEM is crushed but it looks close and its certainly not going to be worse since it started too small.

[Squishymonster]

This... totally worked. I had to idle at nearly full choke before and was getting 18lbs vacuum. Now I'm idling with no choke and 20lbs.

I still don't know my idle RPM so getting that and tuning can happen now. I might see about getting a sticky for how to modify the aftermarket idle jets.

[mstokes]

Great information and update. That picture of your jeep after the test drive is iconic. The patina look of it is something I wish mine would look like when finished. So cool!