I hurt all over! 4 days of wrenching! |
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PhillipM
Member Joined: 28 May 2012 Location: Jackson, MS Status: Offline Points: 560 |
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Posted: 04 Sep. 2015 at 6:49am |
My buddy fell in love with the idea of owning a Willys so last Tuesday we went down in the country and bought a semi running CJ3A. The sheetmetal isn't too bad, the crossmember behind the seats has some rot, but nothing that can't be mended. the t-case and transmission seem okay, but everything else was shot!
My friend works offshore, 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off so he wanted to do a marathon rebuild. Goals are to have a bulletproof drivetrain, and do a so so job on the mostly straight body so he can take it hunting and not worry about scratching it up. Last Wednesday he started stripping it down to the frame. By the weekend there were parts scattered all over, but fasteners tagged and bagged and he had a guy come by and glass bead blast the frame and over the weekend he POR-15'd it. Monday. Rear axle was in horrible shape, there was water in the in the chunk and everything was rusty and had a lot of slop in the pinion, so we made a trip down to Brian Burt's house and came back with a better D44, a pair of rear springs, and a hard top, to boot. Mountains of parts start arriving on UPS. He talks me into basically working for him for the next three days to get it back to a rolling chassis. Whew! Tuesday. Split engine and transmission apart, pressure wash, degrease both. D25, D44 cleaned and degreased. D25 gets POR-15. More parts show up. New master cylinder and brake lines run. Electricians finally show up late to do the 50Amp plug for the wire welder so I can fix a spring hanger and weld the split splash shield under the alternator. Wednesday. Clutch. New clutch, pressure plate, fork, throwout bearing, and pilot bushing. Took a lot of time to get the flywheel on and off. There is a twisted off stud that mounts the exhaust pipe to the manifold so I want to lay the engine over on the stand to work on that. Gotta drain the oil first. BUST KNUCKLE on the drain plug! Gray lumps of crud come out so we drop the pan, remove sludge, notice a good bit of surface rust on a couple counterweights, take the oil pickup apart and clean all the goop out of it. Roll engine over and deciding to go for broke, use the cutting torch and some vise grips and get very, very, lucky and get the broken stud out! Chase the hole with a tap. Need some odds and ends, drive 15 miles to the nearest parts store, a NAPA in a small town, and waste an hour looking through the books, but manage to get brake shoes and a brake light switch on the truck for Thursday. They had two oil filters in stock! We get back and hang the D25, assemble and install the engine/tranny/t-case. POR-15 everything. Finally get around to popping the cover on the D44 and see five (5!) ring gear bolts GONE. Flushing things out we found some odd bits, including one bolt head. The center section was covered in gunk and when we cleaned it we saw that one of the bolts had hung in the ring gear and cracked the housing just in front of the drain. Cleaned it out good and replaced the missing bolts with bolts from the original axle. Thursday. Braze cracked D44 housing. Missing lug stud on right front hub, hole is too big for a new one so I brazed that in too. Assembled front brake shoes and new knuckle seals. POR-15 on cam adjuster threads is a PITA! Left front done. Pack bearings and install seal for right hub. Slide onto spindle, won't go! Galling on the spindle! Asked my buddy where the original bearings are so I can use one to see what's hanging up and he said they were in pieces so he threw them away. Use a grinder with a flap disc to knock off the galling. Slide the hub and drum on, outer bearing, nut... WTH? When spun the drum wobbled in and out about 3/4"! Hub ran true, drum warped worse than anything I've ever seen! New hub and drum on order. Brakes and hubs installed on D44 and adjusted. Front spring hanger for driver's side rear axle, (the one I had to weld up) is bent on the frame, which we knew, but didn't think it was that bad till we put the springs on. Large pipe wrench, cheater pipe, and copious amounts of oxygen and acetylene get things square. We had U-bolts made locally. Buddy messed up and got the spring plates mixed up and forced the front to fit, but couldn't get the rear to fit and after 3 hours of working on the rear with implements of destruction, realized the mixup. Meanwhile I have found TDC and in the process realize by thumb pressure, 1 and 3 have no compression (we bought it knowing it had a dead miss). I figure it's stuck and or burnt valves. Install new electronic distributor. Rebuild steering box. Have a new horn button assembly and since mine doesn't have one, I was anxious to see how the whole wire down the tube worked. When we bought it, there was no horn button and a grease zerk so I just told him it needs a kit. There must be 30 years worth of dirt in the tube. We worked on it with a rod, an air compressor, and finally for the money shot, a pressure washer! Chunks of mud, bits of wire came out but we were stymied by a metal disk of some sort way down the tube. I said, "Dude, I've been here 10 hours, I need to go home!" On the way in I figured that must be the remnants of the original horn assembly. We have whatever it is just about worked back out the top. We both have other things to do this weekend, I'm going bird hunting and he's spending time with his wife before she divorces him! I'm 46 and he's 29. I wish I had his stamina and he wishes he had my jeep knowledge. I crawled out of my truck at home and as I walked past my CJ2A, I just shook my head, I don't want to think about working on a Jeep for a few days. Wish I had a hot tub!
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"90% of all carburetor problems are electrical"
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bretto
Member Joined: 05 June 2010 Location: Orem, Ut Status: Offline Points: 1930 |
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Im dizzy...wow thats a lot to do in a short amount of time.
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dandjeep
Member Joined: 11 June 2015 Location: Lincoln, NE Status: Offline Points: 145 |
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But didn't you smile when you saw your 2a? :)
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47 cj2a #136749 Warn O/D 03 Rubicon |
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eestes1
Member Sponsor Member x 2 Joined: 12 Feb. 2011 Location: Mineral, VA Status: Offline Points: 1155 |
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Wow! You are one GOOD friend!
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Rick Estes
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PhillipM
Member Joined: 28 May 2012 Location: Jackson, MS Status: Offline Points: 560 |
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Of course I did |
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"90% of all carburetor problems are electrical"
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Flatfender Ben
Member Joined: 13 July 2014 Location: Nyssa OR Status: Offline Points: 2657 |
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Wow thanks for the story.
Keep up the good work |
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HunterS
Member Joined: 12 Oct. 2015 Location: Mississippi Status: Offline Points: 4 |
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Great Write up Phillip... I am the "buddy" with the cj3a I will add some pics so yall can see what we started with..
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HunterS
Member Joined: 12 Oct. 2015 Location: Mississippi Status: Offline Points: 4 |
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PhillipM
Member Joined: 28 May 2012 Location: Jackson, MS Status: Offline Points: 560 |
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I'd forgotten what it looked like in one piece.
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"90% of all carburetor problems are electrical"
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