rang-a-stang's summer project/build

[rang-a-stang]

WOOOooo hoooooo!!!! Took it out on a tuning run this morning. I have a few things to tune:
1) it stalls occasionally when it is stone cold and coming to a stop
2) I still have to tweak my timing tables since adding the knock sensor
3) it has a minor surge to it when it's warm and idling

Got the computer all ready to go, fired it up, interfaced with the EFI, and started logging right away. Pulled out of the neighborhood, around the corner. it stalled. YES! got it in data!

Started the truck back up, no power steering. What tha?!?! muscled it into the parking lot and popped the hood. Belt off.
Grabbed the 5/8" wrench to loosen the pump/install the belt, and the pump was already loose. Ok, maybe I did not tighten it enough. Put the belt on, put some gas in, headed out to the open areas for a tuning run. It ran GREAT! I hit the 6K RPM rev limiter several times. No belt issues, no back fires, no overheating! Woo Hoo!

Then I hit the 101S toward LA. There is a really steep grade just as you leave Camarillo, toward Thousand Oaks called the Conejo Grade. It's a 7% grade to about 850 feet from about 10 feet. I would guess bottom to top is about 2.5 miles? Anyway, did 70 the whole way up: no pinging, no over heating, no thrown belts, no downshifts, just cruised! This is a huge event because this grade is a killer. If my truck can climb this grade, I would trust it to make it almost anyway... in normal weather... on paved roads... with no traffic... and not towing. hahaha! On the way home, stopped at the top, turned around and took this picture overlooking the Oxnard plain to make sure I can prove it!

When I got to the bottom of the hill on my way home, I sped up to 85-90MPH for a couple miles to get some data there. It has PLENTY more to go but I don't trust my tires at that speed. It rides as nice at 90 as it does at 55, just a little louder! HAHAHA!
I came home and ordered a pair of BJs Fiberglass rear flares to celebrate.
Working on my tune right now. Mostly on the timing. Set up a post on gearhead-efi asking for some timing advice.
gearhead thread on my timing
3 days in a row with Victories (rear stickers, pump pulley, now this run). This is not good. Means something really bad is coming...

[bkilby]

And the first thing to go is your memory. You must have forgotten you posted this. Haha! Just kidding. Sounds great Marc! Glad to see you're getting closer to perfection.



On that belt....make sure you romp on the gas pedal hard and let off quickly. The sudden change in rpm will make the belt shudder and let you know if it's coming off or not. I hope it stays on permanently!

[GWNashville]

Rang-a-stang

Yeah! If your luck is anything like mine. Defiantly something bad is gettin' ready to happen.

[SOLSAKS]

Cherokee looks great (nice photo)
decal looks great
glad you getting some victories Marc.

dave in NC

[bluehwy]

SWEET NECTAR PIE!!! I know that grade well. It's no joke... Super excited for you!

[Wagoneer Taylor]

Awesome Stuff Marc!! So happy for you!

[Bob Barry]

Nice to hear it is working so great!

[fulsizjeep]

YAY! Drive it like you stole it.

[rang-a-stang]

And the first thing to go is your memory. You must have forgotten you posted this. Haha! Just kidding. Sounds great Marc! Glad to see you're getting closer to perfection.

On that belt....make sure you romp on the gas pedal hard and let off quickly. The sudden change in rpm will make the belt shudder and let you know if it's coming off or not. I hope it stays on permanently!

I had to swap to my spare power steering pump bracket because the belt started to ride off. It did not come off but it got close. I took a good look at it and determined my pulley was in the correctly spot but not straight. After swapping brackets, it seems better.

Yeah! If your luck is anything like mine. Defiantly something bad is gettin' ready to happen.

Hahaha! Glad I am not the only one!!!

Cherokee looks great (nice photo)
decal looks great
glad you getting some victories Marc.

dave in NC

Thanks, Dave! It's been a long time coming (and a long way to go )

SWEET NECTAR PIE!!! I know that grade well. It's no joke... Super excited for you!

Awesome Stuff Marc!! So happy for you!

Nice to hear it is working so great!

Thanks, Gentlemen!

YAY! Drive it like you stole it.

Hahaha! I wouldn't drive it any other way! LOL!
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Had a fun weekend. On the third Friday of each month my town hosts a "cruise-in" I have gone to maybe 5 of them in the 20 years I have lived here and never driven anything cool. My daughter got a job at a local custom car shop (the one I mentioned WWWAAAAaaaaay back here: Bones Fab post) doing office work and the owner asked her to drive his Convertible 67 Camaro to the event. I decided I would cruise in with them! Why not?!

My son and I cruised over to the shop. He drove while I kept the laptop open watching my digital dash. Since my last tune, it has not stalled at all! Woo hoo! I still have some work to go but it's to the point, I am good with handing the keys over to wife and letting her drive it.

My daughter showed me around the shop a bit and there are a TOOOooooon of cool cars and parts there. This was my favorite! A twin blown Gen 2 Hemi... MMMmmmmmm.... get in my Cherokee!!!

So the four of us drove over together (me and son in my truck, daughter, and the owner). The owner drove his 85 Toyota Pickup. There is a long story to this truck but I will summarize it like this: $90k spent on it, LS3 E-Rod (430HP, 425lb/ft, fully smog legal in CA), 4L60E, NP205, Dana 60, Dana 44. You can see it in the background above behind the Camaro, too

When I pulled up, I did a quick turn around the parking lot. I was the only Jeep there and I was the only AMC product there; in a sea of shoebox Chebbies, Camaro's, VWs, and Mustangs. Felt good. I parked next to a buddy of mine. Check out his 47 (or 49, I always mess up the year) Ford. He bought this truck from a widow in Havasu for $500. Totally complete. There was a tag riveted to the Flathead V8 showing it was rebuilt in in the very early 80's. The last registration sticker was within a year or two of the engine rebuild too! My buddy rebuilt the carb, re-wired the whole truck, changed the fluids, replaced the radiator, and is now driving it. Oh and new tires. He is into this truck for less than $1200 at this point. It is sooooo cool!!! His plan is to just drive it.



Next day a buddy of mine and I went Offroading. I don't quite trust my Cherokee enough to make the drive (it was a 2 hour drive away) so I took the wife's Pathfinder (my buddy was in his almost stock JLU Rubicon). I would take my Cherokee now that I have gone on it once and know what it is. Anywho, Cleghorn Trail up off the 15. Fun trail!
Alltrails link to Cleghorn trail
I consider myself a complete NEWB to offroading and this trail was nice because you can go the "easy" way or there are more challenging offshoots here and there. It was a good time to go because it is still a little green up there and the flowers are still blooming. When I got done, it looked like I had destroyed my wife's paint! I thought she was going to skin me alive when I got home. Luckily 99% of this washed off. We probably came across 40 rigs during the 4 hours on the trail; the only notable ones were a ghetto looking pre-AMC CJ5 (smelled like an open gas can it was running so rich) and a SUPER awesome Commando with tons, 4.3L V6/EFI, and 40's.




Got home and started on my rig. Next task for me is to paint the black area around my back and door windows.

I started by removing the back windows. I have done this a few times and the best way I have found to do it is to grab the gasket from the inside, bend it inward and push the corner of the window outward using the gasket. Use the gasket like a pusher while applying pressure on the window. Start at the upper front corner (with the flipper window closed) and get the front out. Then work your way down the top of the window. Take your time so you do not crack the window.

Once the window was out, I found a few tiny bubbles of rust. Both sides looked like this and all the spots were near spot welds. I was very happy with this (no heavy bubbly rust through)!

There was only one spot of what I would consider "heavy" rust and even that was not really "heavy". This is it after I wire brushed that spot (notice it did not rust through)

The biggest reason I am repainting the black is because there was rust starting to bubble between the seam where black side meets the yellow fender metal. This area is spot welded and seam sealed from the factory. I assume that the seam seal had failed on mine and that's why it has started to rust. The way AMC installed the seam sealer also leaves a little indention so water, dust, mouse pee, other can collect there and corrode the metal around it. I could not get a great picture of the rust but you can kind of see it here:

There was also a spot under my drip rail that had started to bubble a tiny bit, too:

So I took a metal dental pick and scraped out a ton of dust, rust, paint, and seam sealer out of the entire seam from door to rear.

Then I took a crappy Farbor Height brush to the seam. when I was done, there was no rust through. Whew!! I thought I would have a spot or two.

I had to remove the factory emblems in prep, too. The "4 Wheel Drive" was piece of cake: I basically put the plastic pry tool behind them and they fell off...taking some paint with them...exposing little tiny spots of surface rust. Glad I did this now or these would be falling off soon! The Cherokee S Medallions were a to remove! I installed these a few years ago because they would have looked weird in the correct spot on the fenders without the stripes. The 3M adhesive tape did its job!!! I had to be careful removing them because I did not want to damage the metal behind it by prying on them.

Next up was some POR 15. I let that dry for 24 hours.

Here is that "heavy" rust spot from the earlier picture. POR 15 is pretty cool stuff!

Next up was automotive Seam Sealer. I resealed the entire seam on both sides. I tried to lay it in a way that fills the gap but does not go up the side of the truck. I was about 75% successful with that. Sanding it is going to suck. In the back, I put a little extra, again to fill the gap and prevent water, dirt, other, from collecting and pooling up. This body line does not have to be perfect because there is a decal that goes here. Hopefully that will get installed later this week. I also put a small bead of seam sealer at the bottom of the door window frame.



While that was drying, I turned to cleaning up my "4 Wheel Drive" emblems. They were tired and shoddy looking. They would look really bad if I put them back over fresh satin black paint, too. I scraped the old adhesive, paint, and rust off with a razor. Then I soaked them in brush cleaner for about an hour. Why brush cleaner? Because I have had a quart of it in a can for about 3 years and have used it once. I don't want to pack/move it when we head to Idaho. Plus I knew it would remove the paint.

Took them out, brushed them with a crappy brass Farbor Height brush and got all the paint off:

Painted the whole thing satin black:

Then too 220 grit to the raised letters.

Back to work this week! Hopefully I can wet sand all the black tonight, mask tomorrow, and paint the black on Thursday. I also need to find some time to work on the windows. They need a little bit of attention, too.

[GWNashville]

Rang-a-stang project.

I am loving what you are doing.

[J76137]

I am loving the build. I will have to work on my emblems now that I have a better idea about "restoring" them. Thanks for sharing that.

It is a small interwebs. I saw the Bones Fab bus on the Hoonigan channel a while back and fell in live with the idea. Maybe one day I will have something like that to carry my toys around. I think it is awesome that your daughter works there. Maybe a there is a future fabricator lurking around?

Here is the DT 192 link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap9o9C5P054

[rang-a-stang]

I am loving what you are doing.

Thank you sir! Now I just need to convince the wife!

I am loving the build. I will have to work on my emblems now that I have a better idea about "restoring" them. Thanks for sharing that.

It is a small interwebs. I saw the Bones Fab bus on the Hoonigan channel a while back and fell in live with the idea. Maybe one day I will have something like that to carry my toys around. I think it is awesome that your daughter works there. Maybe a there is a future fabricator lurking around?

Here is the DT 192 link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap9o9C5P054

I had seen that video a while ago too! He daily's that bus! i see him around town (mostly at the dog park) all the time. I wish (daughter fab'ing). There is NNNNnnooooo interest there.
***************************************
I got sidetracked. 78 WIDETRAC had these center caps (all 4 of them) and I PM'ed him asking if he would be willing to sell them. He was super cool about it and now they are going on here!

I have always been bugged by the front wheel having my warn hub in the middle and the back is just a black blob. The front was a closed hub I cut open and it always looked like geoduck to me. jsinajeep sent me a few cut off Jeep ends that he had removed from closed caps to make open caps a couple years ago and I was going to weld them onto my black blob hubs in the rear but never got around to it and was not confident I could do a very good job anyway.
So I bought these from 78 WIDETRAC and super stoked on them! They showed up at my door yesterday, and I dropped everything to install them. I had to drill my wheels to accept the bolt on caps. These are going to look amazing once I have my new flares on (they are sitting in a box in my garage) and the sides have been waxed and stickered!

[fulsizjeep]

Thank you sir! Now I just need to convince the wife!

Always! Especially when it's her Waggy! The caps go very nicely with the wheels.

[Rusty76]

Looks sick!

[Heavy_Metal_Thunder_81]

Thanks for covering how you dealt with the seam rust, Marc! I have the same issue on mine. Luckily I've had my windows out a few times and there is no rust under the gaskets either.

To be honest, when you told me about the black center caps on your black wheels i was skeptical. I WAS WRONG! They look fantastic!