Day 9

Made some more progress today. Got the Pro Flow intake harness plugged in (I’ll tidy up the runs later). Also figured out there was no place to mount the coil, so I fabbed a bracket to take advantage of the spare mounting points on top of the Sanden air compressor (test-fit with the coil in-place – I’ll paint it later, too). I worked on the engine harness a bit while Dave was busy underneath reinstalling the transfer case shifter, new transmission mount, and drilling out a snapped-off bolt Tom’s Tire World left me after installing the lift kit back in ’96. Toward the end of the afternoon, Dave installed the spark plugs and the passenger side header along with getting its pipe drilled for the O2 sensor. The worm gear clamps for the FAST O2 sensor ‘Strap-On Bunghole’ ran out of slots, so we had to make a run for some more clamps and a few more nit-noids. Hopefully tomorrow, get the other header and exhaust pipe in, reinstall the skid plate/transmission mount, and finish up the fuel system and wiring, along with hoses. Then brake pedal assembly and steering column and hoping to hear it run sometime on Friday with any luck.

Everything except the coil wires and Mass Air Temp sensor are plugged in – I’ll re-route them to make it pretty after I hear it run.

Installed the oil fill neck and breather cap, along with a bracket for the coil I made for the top of the air compressor.

Wow – those headers look awesome! Still need to get the heater hoses plumbed and finish up the A/C hoses (after the new valve cover goes on).

Day 8

Today was mostly underside stuff, so no pics of that. Here’s the Edelbrock high pressure fuel pump to feed the Pro Flow 4 MPFI sitting on top of the engine I mounted up yesterday. Dave got the torque converter bolts sorted out, and with the exception of the transfer case shifter, we’re ready to hang the exhaust and replace the transmission mount (underneath). I was on the phone with Scorpion Racing Products about the rocker arms (asking which studs I need to fit their roller rockers, and Norm suggested he could send some pedestal-mounted roller rockers to preclude the need for studs. So, we’ll be blowing off the roller rockers until the trial ones show up and I can see if they’re going to work (or not). After that, I tore into the Redneck’d wiring harness that came from Klooge, removed the Duraspark circuits, and got most of the leftovers identified and marked, now just need to figure out what the remaining 4 or 5 wires that had been clipped go to, repair them, then wrap the whole thing so it looks nice with all the new Edelbrock wiring I’ll start installing tomorrow.

Day Seven

After yesterday’s Cars & Coffee wiped us out, we started working on the top end (since the new shifter cable won’t be in until Monday-ish), and one of the intake manifold bolts decided to snap off… I won’t say who did it, but it wasn’t me. LOL! So, the better part of the afternoon was tracking down bolt extractors, and once that was done, we were done. Today started with pulling the intake, cleaning up the valley, harvesting some bits off the old intake we might need, and some overall general housekeeping before installing the intake, new distributor, and a good portion of the fuel injection system (OK, it was already loaded up on the intake, but it sounded huge). The shifter cable actually showed up yesterday as well – Bonus!

Pulled the old Edelbrock Performer intake and found this. Not so bad… of course, the water jackets on the back end were clogged, so hopefully they’ll work again after a good cleaning.

Here’s the one that didn’t make it. I’m thinking of cleaning it up, drilling a hole, and getting a nice chain to make someone a necklace. In all fairness, it was next to the front water jacket, so it probably didn’t have a chance of coming off in one piece, anyway.

All cleaned up and ready for the new intake. Gonna pull off the valve covers to load up the new Scorpion 1.7 roller rockers on 7/16″ screw-in studs.

After discovering the rocker studs I ordered were the wrong ones, we pushed through to get the new intake on. Looks pretty awesome!

Set the old valve covers on to keep stuff out of the rockers while we work on replacing the distributor.

Even though I’m a staunch believer in Duraspark, the fuel injection system came with this HEI distributor which is controlled by the ECU. I hope this thing runs as well as I think it will.

Day Five

Finally, some actual progress. Started in on getting the transmission cooling lines plumbed for the radiator-side, and ran into a major snag that had us chasing fittings late Wednesday, yesterday, and early this morning. After no joy actually taking the radiator to O’Reilly’s for some help, Dave noticed something about the fittings just before we left, and wound up going a whole different direction, and put an end of the ATF cooling line slog. Once we got the ATF cooling lines plumbed, jumped over to the oil pump and oil pressure sending unit. As I was getting ready to start in on the shifter cable, I noticed it’s for a GM 700R4/TH400… which is not an AMC TF999, so I ordered a new shifter cable kit from Summit and it’ll be here [hopefully] Monday. Hit some more tomorrow (probably top-end: intake manifold, fuel injection, and roller rockers).

Pic from the other day when Dave got the power steering pump installed… just gotta plumb it back up now.

Here’s the first attempt at adapting the radiator’s cooling line flare fitting using the adapters they sent with the radiator. No Go – this comes up too close to the top of the sway bar.

Here’s the solution to the sway bar interference issue. Little did we know that one of those fittings was correct in its size, but didn’t fit, and the other was ‘smaller’ but did fit. Took us WAY too long to figure that out. Regardless, a 90 degree fitting is needed here to keep the lines off the sway bar.

After 2 days of chasing fittings, we came up with a completely different set of fittings that worked. Dave’s ‘Mark-1 Eyeball’ saw that the ATF Cooler inlets also had female threads, so rather than using the adapters that came with the radiator, we went that route, and now it’s all good.

Dave got the oil pump installed while I worked on coming up with a solution for the oil pressure sensor. The previous owners had a redneck-engineered solution that had both electrical and mechanical oil pressure sending units, but the oil pump line had broken off a LONG time ago (which is likely why the engine and transmission were caked in oil when I got it). Dave’s ‘Mark-1 Eyeball’ saved the day again when he noticed one of the oil pump drive gears had popped out and landed on top of the front axle housing.

Got some new power steering pump hoses at O’Reilly’s, but the pressure line didn’t work. Turns out, the pump has a bolt-on stinger for the old hose that wouldn’t work with the new hose. But, I can remove the stinger if needed, so I’ll keep the new hose as a spare and hope the old hose hangs in there.

“Dave was here – 2022.” Something of a tradition started by my old friend Jim Eimer.

Day Three

No picture updates today, but Dave got the power steering pump installed and plumbed while I farted around trying to organize (read: find) some of the parts I’d ordered awhile back, and the container with all of the fasteners I’d removed while cleaning the engine. That was after chasing down a few parts: hoses, belts, fasteners, and some 5/16″ barbs for the radiator (the Inline Tube transmission cooling lines don’t have flare fittings for the radiator, just bubble flares on the those ends). It was either find some of those for a short run of silicon hose (as Inline Tube suggested), or cut off & flare the ends after chasing down some flare nuts – either way, it was a trip to a local parts store.BTW – I now have 2 complete sets of 304 block Freeze Plugs if anybody needs a set. LOL!

Day Two

Got the condenser and radiator mounted, and rewired the H4 Relay Kit to pop out the driver side (to leave room for the A/C hoses). Meanwhile, Dave got the alternator and A/C compressor mounted up. The Nostalgic AC instructions leave a bit to be desired (compared to the Classic Auto Air system I put in the Mach 1, so it was a bit of a slog). Also made a custom bracket for the dryer, since the fenders open up – the dryer needs to stay put, so it’ll live where it’s supposed to, just not nailed to the inside of the fender. “Swedged” my first A/C hoses today as well, so that was fun. Also drug the Redneck Dual Exhaust out of the overgrown part of the side yard I haven’t been able to get to since the Jeep is jammed up against that side of the carport, so it’s ready to go when it’s time to hang it. Tomorrow, I’m diving under to work on the transmission stuff (shifter cables, cooling lines, etc.) and Dave will probably work on getting the power steering pump back into place – we’ll see.

The front end is done (providing it all works when I plumb and wire everything, that is). Dookie won’t know what to do, as he’s never had a fan shroud since I’ve owned him.

Getting closer – more stuff bolted onto the engine. Dave got the alternator, A/C compressor, and crank pulley back on. It’ll all look better with the new exhaust, valve covers, intake, and the rest of the ‘cleaned up and freshly painted’ parts he took care of yesterday.

JEEP TIME!!!

OK – On Leave… Check. Dave’s Here… Check. The Weather’s AWESOME… Check. It’s JEEP TIME! It might sound trivial, but I got the new headlights installed today, and it turned into an “All Day Sucker” project. It’s all about doing things in order so I don’t have to go back and take something apart to do something I missed, then do the other thing(s) all over again. First things first: headlights… then, the A/C condenser, then the radiator, and finally the fan and fan shroud. Once those are in-place, I won’t have to take them off again to do all the wiring for the headlights. Oh did I forget to mention I’m going with LED Halos and an H4 relay kit? (Had to wire all that up and make it nice).Dave was busy meticulously cleaning all of the engine bracketry, power steering pump, clutch fan, and got ’em all painted as well. Seems oddly fitting, since it all came off of HIS Jeep’s engine. LOL!!

“With One Headlight!” Dang, I liked that song. Here’s one of the new LED Halo H4 lights installed, compared to the old halogen style stock headlight. The old lights were Omega from a VW bus that had H4 bulbs, actually. The H4 relay kit should make things a LOT brighter, though.

Got ’em both in, now just gotta sort out the black spaghetti in front of the grille – that’s the H4 Relay Kit waiting to go in.

OK – we’re buttoned up for the night. Got the headlights, H4 Relay Kit, and LED Halo ballast resistors installed. Had to modify the factory headlight buckets, since the notches for headlamp alignment didn’t quite match the new [plastic] lights from Oracle.

Made me a Fuel Sump Bracket

Just built a bracket to mount the Edelbrock EFI fuel sump to the firewall. There’s a pinch-weld seam right where I wanted to mount it under the battery tray, so rather than destroy that, I made a ‘spacer’ mount for the sump unit. Turned out OK, it’ll look better once I paint it and mount it all up, and I can’t help thinking about how much nicer it might’ve turned out if I only had a real shop with some actual metal working tools to use (like a brake, big bench vise, etc.). Oh well – it’ll work. Also got the new hatch struts installed. No pics, but if you’ve ever seen a Jeep hatchback open and not falling down, you’ve seen ’em all.

Here’s another piece of the same sheet of perforated sheet metal I used on my rack-mount server fan bulkhead last year. Just 3.75 sheets of the stuff left. LOL!

Fits like a glove. Works like a champ. (Insert victorious old adage here).

It’s not really bent that badly – cell phone camera pic. It’ll look better when it’s painted and mounted up for real.

Steering Column’s DONE!

After chasing down the missing parts, and chasing my tail on a few things, it’s finally done and ready to go back in.

That steering wheel nut (top) acted like it didn’t want to go on, but after chasing down alternatives for the past few weeks, I finally just threaded it on and used a set of Vise Grips to run it down. It resisted (like I was cross threading it) for a few turns, but then ran down smoothly. When I pulled it back off, there was no damage to the threads. That rusty dust on the locking plate must be the stuff that had built-up and fought me through it all. Glad THAT’S done.

Got the wheel on! I had to ‘customize’ the Grant adapter kit to make it all work, but then again that seems to be the norm (I just hope the horn’s not blaring when I connect up the power – LOL!). Also epoxied the shifter knob on and made a new indicator needle. The indicator housing was missing a small plastic bit that locks it into place, but apparently a 3/4″ sheet rock screws works just fine (and will never be seen, anyway).

I made an indicator needle out of a piece of 3Doodler stock. I drilled a hole through the stock needle piece where its needle extension had broken off, and stuffed the 3Doodler stock into it, then cut to length. Hopefully, it’ll last awhile. It’s translucent so it might even light up with the dash lights… we’ll see, I guess.

Dookie gots new shoes!

Discount Tire let me know that my new wheels were in, so I picked ’em up this morning and swapped out the old ones. The Jeep’s only about an inch taller (over all), so it still fits in the garage, but the old ones were 26 years old and I wouldn’t be able to trust them at speed on the highway.