A little project update on Chug A Lug

CHUG and I went Garage Saleing this morning. The town 4 miles away from me had 3-4 dozen sales in a town of 2500 people so great density.

AND I SCORED a Beautiful condition SNAP-ON Dwell Tach and matching Vacuum/Fuel Pressure gauge. The seller said both worked perfectly They look like they were very little ever used. The pair for $50

Comparing to eBay untested unit prices I did good not great but as the last Dwell tach I bought off eBay was said to be NOS and did not work at all. I'm pretty happy.

I also scored some large C Clamps and some Aluminum Tubing that will go well with my stock pile of materials.

And I made a super good deal on a Pair of Hoya Camera filters that the guy gave me both for $1.00 I'll sell for $30 and $10 if they aren't in better condition then the ones in my set in which case I'll sell those!

And I got to drive around for 3 hours in CHUG.

Perfect day here in the Willamette valley. 

I took the Willys out on “patrol” for an hour or two. 

We are going to have to get the Oregon boys out for a group ride one of these days. 

Interesting I was in a discussion about something else when someone made the comment"Your CJ-2A can go 60mph?"

And I got to thinking about the Dyno run CHUG made, It reached 4300rpm in Overdrive. Granted it wasn't dragging its butt down the road or breaking wind. But with my gears and tires thats

97MPH  (Granted for not more then a few seconds)

So the fastest CHUG has run is 97mph!

no rod through the block no floating valves no blown head gasket no detonated drive train components.

So much for my jeep can't go that fast LOL

WOW been a while since I did anything to write about.

This morning I added 3 degrees to the timing (now at 12 BTDC)

I changed the Vacuum advance from the Port on the Carb to Straight manifold vacuum

Added my Fresh Air intake set up.

I went out on my "Test Track" and made a run the results put a smile on my mugg.

23.6 sec in the 1/4 mile at 55mph air temp was 6 degrees higher then the previous run record which was 24.5sec at 52mph

And keep in mind I am only using direct drive in 1st. As I still haven't got the OD adjusted to stay in Direct without having to hold the shift lever in direct (something a little hard to do while shifting the main shift cane) So I think I can shave a little time by running in Direct or at least being able to shift properly. I can tell its running a little to high of gear over about 45-48 mph.

SO a marked improvement for my changes.

OK I wanted to list all the spec's from yesterday

Mileage 17+ mpg

average speed 50mph with a lot of 55-60mph

engine temp sat at 180-185° the whole day Air temp was high 80's

Tranny oil temp ran up to 180° towards the later afternoon ran about 160° during the cooler morning

I noticed a marked improvement on hills with the replacement of the fresh air intake. I also notice I am running about 2in hg higher at a given load most likely due to better timing.

SO a while back I showed photos of the little Lunch/Drink cooler I made for CHUG to sit behind the console. I used PINK foam board R5 rated and thin aluminum construction.

Yesterday morning at 6:30 am I filled it using two 1" x 6" x 7" self contained Ice packs (not blue Ice) 4) 8oz cans of Diet Coke a 16oz bottle of water and a 12oz cold coffee in a glass bottle.

This morning at 10:30 I unpacked it to get the last Diet Coke and the Water bottle out. The Diet Coke was very cold to the touch the water bottle was similar.

SO I am pretty happy that MY little cooler will keep stuff about refrigerator cold for at least 28 hours I am sure if I had put more in it and another of my small blue ice packs it would go over 30 hours. Makes a great addition for the adventures and the car shows.

SO that time of year I enjoy the most is rapidly coming upon me. When work runs out of thing for me to do and I can work on CHUG and my other projects in piece.

With this in mind I have been thinking a lot on how I will get back to work on the Hard top. I still have the front roof section to frame up and more to do on the doors (mostly the lower half) But I will soon be tackling the skinning of the top.

The skin will be .040" aluminum and with only a couple exceptions will be Epoxied onto the frame work and the 1/8" Thick underlayer. I have been thinking up ways to "stretch" the skin over the frame work to leave a nice smooth surface. I have this pretty much figured out.

Its the epoxy I am stuck on. While 3M makes a panel adhesive that at first look would be ideal for this it being used in the autobody world. It has a short working time and is dispensed via a chalking gun type rig that would be hard to get glue on all the frame structures and then get the skin and frame locked into the stretching frame I am hoping to use. On the other hand there is good old JB Weld with almost a 45 min working time at 70° (most likely my shop will be not more then 50°-55° when I do this so maybe a bit longer). I can mix up a big batch of it in just a min or two and using a brush or use a Pastry pipping bag to get it on the frame work pretty fast.

A draw back to the JB Weld is the fact that once its setup its almost impossible to get off so if I make a mistake I could be in real trouble.

I can have my son help me with the gluing and assembly he has lots of experience with building models from lots of different materials and using many different adhesives. So that will help.

Can anyone think of any other kind of epoxy or adhesive that might be better then JB Weld?