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Regarding the spring on the YJ license plate/fuel door, I have success by wedging the gas cap in the hinge and I don't have to deal with the problems. The TJ's fuel opening is much more user friendly though.
 
havasu said:
Regarding the spring on the YJ license plate/fuel door, I have success by wedging the gas cap in the hinge and I don't have to deal with the problems. The TJ's fuel opening is much more user friendly though.
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yeah I did that at first too. but with this little thing you add on it makes it much easier. I will take some pictures when I put it on and you can see how it works. yes there are work arounds, but this makes driving the thing more enjoyable to me.

anyway finally got the thing today.:rockin::rockin::rockin:

now first things first I did not expect this thing to be perfect off the showroom floor, I bought it as a project. I know I am going to have to do a lot of work to get it where I want it. they pulled it off the trailer, first thing the battery was dead, then it would not idle at all, and basically it runs like crap lol.
on the positive side.
but it looks as good in person as it did in the pictures. it is a very solid jeep, no rust in the body that I can see. very solid floors. it looks like someone has already swapped a weber carb on it. it has a 4x4 posi lock but it has not been installed. the seats are in good shape, and it has tuffy locking boxes for the center and glove box.

the front rotors and pads look brand new. not even any rust on the hubs to speak of.

I also like the wheels. I know that black wheels are all the rage these days but I don't care. I prefer polished aluminum. I would like the tires to be bigger, but really for what I am going to use it for they are fine. and will do me good for at least the next few years.

and the bad?

I don't think the weber install was done right. it sounds like it has a vacuum leak. the egr valve is not blocked off and it won't idle. probably also needs some adjusting.

a powersteering hose broke recently and was replaced but the whole engine is coated in grease.
the p.o. bed linered the floor but he was not very careful about how he did it.

overall I am pleased with it. here are some pics.

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DSC01394_zpsd9d505bd.jpg


DSC01396_zps6a56de87.jpg


DSC01395_zps80ecf036.jpg
 
I will take some better pictures when I can get it outside. first things first I plan to buy a few cans of degreaser and clean the engine up a bit then try to track down that vacuum leak and get my dad to adjust the carb. both he and my Daughter are psyched. My daughter is already laying claim to it as her winter school car lol.
 
Nice looking jeep! Sucks the PO didn't take a few more minutes to prep the bedliner but it still doesn't look bad.
 
Looks like you have a great Jeep to start with and I'm with you, I like shinny wheels over black rims.
 
I too like polished wheels over the black.
 
Please tell me he didn't "bedline" the gas pedal?
 
havasu said:
Please tell me he didn't "bedline" the gas pedal?
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yes, and the bottoms of the rollbar and the rollbar pad, and all of the bolts and plugs in the body as well. anyway all cosmetic stuff. I did a little more investigating last night and found out a couple of things. first the vacuum lines are all screwed up so I will need to go through all of them this weekend. second the vacuum advance on the distributor is just gone. you can see where it is supposed to be but it is gone. third there is no fuel pressure regulator on it. I found out the weber carb only likes about 2-3 psi of fuel pressure and the stock fuel pump puts out 6-9. so I will need a fuel pressure regulator and probably a new distributor. and then we will see if we can't get this baby running better.
 
mustanggarage said:
yes, and the bottoms of the rollbar and the rollbar pad, and all of the bolts and plugs in the body as well. anyway all cosmetic stuff. I did a little more investigating last night and found out a couple of things. first the vacuum lines are all screwed up so I will need to go through all of them this weekend. second the vacuum advance on the distributor is just gone. you can see where it is supposed to be but it is gone. third there is no fuel pressure regulator on it. I found out the weber carb only likes about 2-3 psi of fuel pressure and the stock fuel pump puts out 6-9. so I will need a fuel pressure regulator and probably a new distributor. and then we will see if we can't get this baby running better.
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All in all I do think you got a good Jeep here.

With some of those issues with the fuel system fixed you should be running smooth.

A good cleaning will be nice.

For sure you did good here.
 
Yeah, I'd take that jeep in a heartbeat. We can nit pick all day long but it looks like a fine purchase.
 
All in all yj's are great rigs, except for those square headlights. Look forward to watching the upgrades.
 
you see now i personally like the look of the square headlights.

anyway, we got a chance to work on it a bit the last couple of days. first I used three cans of degreaser and a lot of hot water to clean it up some. it could still use a trip to the car wash and a nice long washing with a pressure washer but it is a lot better.

then we put the fuel pressure regulator on and set it to 3 psi.

next we did a nutter bypass since the carb was already swapped to a weber.
then we removed the egr valve since it had already been disconnected and made a block off plate for it.

then we spent a lot of time trying to sort out what the heck had been done with the vacuum lines, and plugged all the spots that were not connected right. ran a new vacuum line to the distributor area.

swapped in a rebuilt distributor that had the vacuum advance. at this time we found out that the old distributors vacuum advance had just been broken off and the part inside the cap was just flopping around in there. no wonder it ran like crap. new cap and rotor,

then we tried to start it. here is what it sounded like on the first attempt.



set the timing to 8 degrees btdc, awesome. it now runs and idles pretty darned good. then we put a new set of plugs in and did some adjusting of the carb. and took it for the first test drive. drove all the way across town.

then we discovered several other things lol. first the front end needs some serious work. the steering box is really loose, we will try to tighten it but will most likely end up swapping it at some point.

second the water temp gauge doesn't work.

third the heater never did heat up, and the fan would not shut off.

when we got back to the shop we let it run for a while while we used an infrared thermometer to measure temps at the intake manifold and the hoses and found that the engine was not getting up to temp. we also at about the same time checked out under the dash to be sure there was not a vacuum activated water shut off. there wasn't.

so we figured the thermostat must be stuck open. drained all the nasty rusty disgusting water out and found that was not the case. there was no thermostat at all. so we went and got a new 190 degree thermostat and I cleaned up the thermostat housing. then My Dad wasn't feeling well so he went home. I then did some more work under the dash. I figured out that there was a spring that was dislodged in the switch assembly and it had gotten wedged in between the contacts that were supposed to shut off the fan. got that fixed. then I quit for the night also. I still need to figure out what is wrong with the temp sender. when dad comes back tomorrow we will ground out the sending unit wire and see if the gauge moves.
and put the new thermostat in and fill it back up. oh btw I also blew through the heater hose and water moved through it so I know it is not blocked. I should probably flush that with water tomorrow before I put it all back together.


anyway the thing is coming together pretty good so far.
 
ok time for an update. no pictures today sorry, I loaned my camera to my oldest daughter and did not have it this weekend, but I did get a quite a bit done this weekend although when I list it it seems like I should have accomplished a lot more given the amount of time I worked on it. it seems like whatever I do takes about three times longer than it should lol.

anyway we put the new thermostat in and discovered that the jeep would get up to temp and now the temp gauge is working just fine. however the heater still didn't work, and when we took it for a drive to test it I discovered that most of the bulbs in the instruments were not working. also the stereo did not fit right and was not working right.

I tried tightening up the steering gear and it helped enough to discover that there was a tie rod end that was shot. then I discovered that the steering gear was leaking from the top.

so I ordered a rebuilt power steering gear, new hoses, and a new tie rod end. they should be here tomorrow.

then, I pulled the heater plenum and cleaned all the old bedliner off it, then I swapped in an upgraded blower motor and a new heater core. new heater hoses, painted the heater plenum and reinstalled it. I also bead blasted the battery tray and powder coated it black. reinstalled everything and the heater now blows hot woo hoo. it shuts off like it is supposed to and the defroster and heater controls work right. I also fixed or replaced the gauge lights.

Then we installed the posilock cable to eliminate the vacuum disconnect. I made a bracked out of some angle iron and powdercoated it. the bracket that comes with it is very weak and easily bent up. mine isn't.:)

then my daughter wanted to help swap the stereo out of the cherokee and that took quite a while because the previous owner of the wrangler just cut the wires to install the current radio so I hacked the connector and wires from the cherokee and used it in the wrangler so now the radio is removable by just disconnecting the connector like it should be.

today we replaced the u joint in the front axle, and removed the steering gear so I can take it in tomorrow to exchange it for a rebuilt unit. I borrowed a pitman arm puller from o'reillys that is one tool I have never needed before. if I ever need it again I will buy it. I also ordered new powersteering hoses and a replacement tie rod end because most of the play in the steering was due to a warn out tie rod end.

once I get the new steering gear in and set the toe in, I need to patch a couple holes in the exhaust temporarily until I save the money for a new exhaust, but basically once the gear is in place the thing is pretty much road worthy. just need to figure out what is wrong with the horn before I let my daughter drive it.

then I can start doing some of the fun stuff.


between figuring out what I wanted to do and ordering parts and doing everything a couple of times and basically just running in circles that took me all weekend.
 
Nice to hear some life is being brought back to a YJ. I am the same way with wanting everything working properly espesially before others drive it. But why did you do the posiloc? What was wrong with the vacuum system?
 
Chris said:
Nice to hear some life is being brought back to a YJ. I am the same way with wanting everything working properly espesially before others drive it. But why did you do the posiloc? What was wrong with the vacuum system?
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all of the vacuum lines were cut off and most of the system was just gone. also the posi lock came in a box in the jeep when I bought it. they had obviously planned to do the conversion but did not get around to it. also I had a vacuum motor go out of my jeep in utah at an inconvenient time once and swapped to the posi lock system and found it to be a simple and basically fool proof fix. I considered swapping in an axle from the cherokee and just putting in the seals and getting rid of the axle disconnect all together, but since this jeep will probably not be going off road much in the near future I felt this was a better, simpler, and since I already had it, cheaper option.
 
I believe you can toss in a TJ axle shaft on that side and get rid of it that way as well. I am just a little biased on keeping a good system. People knock it all the time but in reality it is 20 someodd years old and in most cases just now finally starting to fail so in my book it is a good system that has worked well for a long time but in your case with everything cut up it will be easier to toss on the posi.
 
steering gear and tie rod end came in today but not the hose, so I will try to get it back together tomorrow. but I have not started my diesel truck in a few weeks and when I tried yesterday I saw that the block heater cord burned out again. so it wouldn't start and I ran the battery down. so I pulled it in the shop with my 4wheeler, let it warm up and put the battery charger on it for a couple hours and got it running. let it fully charge up, and I will keep it in the shop until I get around to fixing the block heater. it is always something lol.
 
Is yours a super duty with the 6.0? Mine is funny whenever I get an oil change it won't like to start without being plugged in for a week or two but when my oil get about 1500 miles on it it starts up fine. Let it sit a couple weeks it will take a couple batteries to get it going. If I plug it in it fire right up everytime.
 
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