Transmission & T-Case down…

OK – this sucker’s ready to go in. Got some more of the gunk scraped off, then slathered it with some engine degreaser gel, power rinsed it, and gave it a blow-dry. Gonna hit the engine hard tomorrow, then shove ’em into the Jeep before the weekend. I forgot how much I like jammin’ with Dennis Allen during the day on 101.9 The Fire while workin’ on my cars. Check ya again tomorrow, D!

Got some more gunk scraped off – probably another dozen or so ‘spoonfuls.’ Time to hit it with some degreaser gel.
Looks like I got a little more scrubbing to do on this side before the degreaser gel.
That’s about the best I can do with the wire brush and picking tools.
After degreasing gel, power rinsing, and a blow-dry. Good enough!
Good to go. I’ll pull the skid plate after it’s all in (and supported with the transmission jack) so I can hit the bottom again with the wire brush and service the transmission. It at least looks WAY better than it did.
It was even all gunked up in here. This’ll work. Ready to go in.

Look what I found

When Dave and I pulled the transmission & TCase out of Klooge, we saw this big ol’ chunk of grease, gunk, and farmland. In trying to get Klooge to a point Dave could take him home, I put this aside (under Dookie) and just got back to it today. Using a flat metal scraper, flat blade screw drivers, some awls & picking tools, a wire brush, and a serving spoon I found that had been re-purposed as a tool (somehow), I managed to get most of the crud removed. Still need to do more, but I’m getting close to almost being able to stuff it up under Dookie.

Here we are after getting a bunch of the farmland removed from the skid plate.
You know it’s pretty bad when you need to almost chisel the gunk off before you can take the wire brush to it. That stuff must’ve been around 1/4″ thick in places.
Here we are after about an hour of scraping and scrubbing the other side with the metal scraper and wire brush. Notice the clod of farmland stuffed in under the transfer case.
Here we are just before it started getting too dark to see. Still got more to go, but almost there. I must’ve removed around 30 or so ‘spoonfuls’ of greasy, sandy gunk by this point.

Engine Work

I got started this weekend tearing things down, starting with the peripheral things (wires, alternator, power steering pump, pulleys, etc.).

Looks like someone forgot to use dielectric grease on the boots. LOL!
When you lose the spacer for the alternator bracket, you improvise. LOL!
When the belt’s been on so long it remembers where it wants to be indexed.
This water pump’s toast… all gritty inside when it spins.
Nice to see the oil pan’s not smashed in… unlike the one that came with my Mustang. 
Well, it’s official – it’s a 304!
Got the pan off, cleaned up the old gasket on both the pan and the engine mounting surface. I put a wrench on the crank and turned it over, which was smooth as butter and each of the cylinders ‘hissed’ like they’re supposed to – so, BONUS! Then popped the cap on the rear main to replace the seal, but time got away from me searching for my torque wrench and it started getting dark (earlier than normal… Gee – wonder why). So, no more pics for today.

Back On!

So, since last February life’s kind of gotten in the way, along with the weather being too hot for my liking to work on my Jeep. Fast-Forward to last weekend when i finally made some time to get busy getting this project done.

I started with cleaning up the firewall in my Jeep. Pulled the battery tray, cleaned everything up, and painted the firewall with the same rocker texture and black engine enamel I used on the inner fenders. I hadn’t realized how bad things were behind the battery tray, so this cleaned things up nicely.

New Truck

So, I got a new truck thinking ahead about not wanting car payments heading into retirement. Here’s the whole story: http://www.mister4x4.net/cars/ram2.htm

Since my wife loves to name things (pool equipment, plants, cars, etc…), his new name is “Clifford” (‘The Big Red Dodge,’ of course). The whole process was relatively hassle-free, despite the bait ‘n’ switch by the Awfulplex and the entire day worth of driving just to go get it.

Here are a few pics (from the dealership’s website):

Some Progress!

Since I’ll be weathering the crap out of this one, I decided to just brush paint the chassis… yeah, I’ll never do that again since I have a dedicated airbrush booth. I also loaded up the underside with some course embossing and Elmer’s to simulate the caked mud we found under there… we’ll see how that turns out.

I brushed on some Tamiya Flat Black and sprinkled on some more embossing powder to hopefully simulate the crappy job of the rolled-on bed liner the previous owners put down. It’ll become flat black again when I shoot the body in the next few days.

New Project!

I guess I’m bored with my ’82 Mustang model kit or something… which is odd, since I’ve been working on it here and there since March 2018 and I’m still not done with it. I think it’s because I’m trying to make sure I get every little detail just right, and as I go along I think of more little things I can add.

So, I decided to start another project – one I can [hopefully] knock out in a few days, rather than years. Back in August 2020, I went to Austin with my pal Harry to pick up another 1980 Jeep CJ-7 (with a 304 V8 & TF-999 automatic transmission) to harvest the drivetrain and swap into my 1980 Jeep CJ-7 (that used to have a 258 I-6 & T-176 4-speed manual transmission). My BFF Dave came to San Angelo in January 2021 to help finish swapping the 258/T-176 into the ‘new’ Jeep (that he’s affectionately named “Klooge”) and took it home to Phoenix. As it sits, I still need to rebuild, warm-up, and install the 304/auto into my Jeep (“Dookie”). But that’s another story.

“Klooge” was a hot mess (more like a dumpster fire) that needed a LOT more work than we’d thought, which Dave is getting through in short order. One of my ‘things’ is that I like to build models of cars I’ve owned, and technically, I owned Klooge for about 4 months before signing him over to Dave, so I’ve decided to build a mini-Klooge (as I found him) as a result… I’ll build another version once Dave gets him back on the road and the way he wants him.

So, to kick things off, I scored another Monogram 2-n-1 CJ-7 kit from ebay (along with 2 more CJ-7 kits, so I can build one of Dookie when I first got him, along with the one after Dave finishes his work – I already have one of Dookie as he sits now… but after I get done with him [again] I guess I’ll need to get yet another one – sheesh). Today, I decided to get busy on “Old Klooge,” and cracked open the kit. My logic is that since he was such a mess, all I should have to do is pretty much paint everything flat black and weather the crap out of everything. I assembled the frame, suspension, and axles after trimming a ton of flash, then took the Dremel to the frame and ‘tub’ to duplicate some of the rust damage we found. There are a few holes in the frame, along with some rust ‘blow-throughs’ on the sheet metal. I also scored 2 sets of some AR-589 wheels (from another ‘Trucks – GMC 4×4’ kit) and painted one set silver (to simulate the aluminum wheels) which will just get weathered with plenty of dirt and grime (Dave’s planning on coating them black, so we’ll see how that goes). I also pulled apart and cleaned up the V8 the previous owner had ‘glue bombed’ during assembly (that’s as far as they got, fortunately – but they did manage to break the hood hinge piece). Then I cut out the transmission/transfer case cover from the floor, since Klooge didn’t have one when I picked him up. There was also a speaker hanging out of a hole in the dash, so I took the Dremel and punched a speaker hole in the dash panel. After all that, I also found some diamond plate styrene plastic from an online Hobby Store, so it should be here in a few weeks, which will add to the appearance.

Here’s Klooge on the trailer on the way home from Austin. Doesn’t look so bad, but little did we know. The hard top is for my Jeep, but I got the half doors for Dave, since he really liked having them on his ’92 YJ Wrangler “Islander” (which, I scored a Tamiya kit so I can build that one, too). All said, I think I have 6 more Jeep kits to build, so I guess I need to get crackin’.

And here were after spending a little time getting started with the kit.

Next time, I should have some flat black on everything, and hopefully start the weathering process for the engine, transmission, transfer case and wheels. I might wind up taking that giant catalytic converter out of there, since Klooge had a ‘Redneck Dual Exhaust’ when I got him.

First outing of 2021

Today, I took Frank out to get his annual inspection for registration, and decided that since it was such a nice day, I’d stretch the ride home out a bit and swung by the Vietnam Memorial at the airport. Since I have a cool new phone, it was such a nice day, and I’d always wanted some pics like this, I figured why not?

Always wanted a pic like this.
My favorite of the bunch – I love 3/4 views of these cars.
This one makes the hood look really big, and those are indeed bug splats on the windshield – time for a bath!
One of these days, I need to get the trunk lid properly aligned… the doors, too. Good job, body shop.
All that glass in the rear, and still can’t see sh!t out the back. Oh well, unless I’m backing up, I really don’t care what’s back there, anyway.

Almost 3 years, next week!!

I just realized it’s been 3 years (next Friday) since I started this kit. I need to get busy and finish it up!

Didn’t get a lot done yesterday, as I made these discs to help mount the wheels correctly. I’m using wider tires than came with the kit (just like on the real car), so they don’t glue together like they should. I “chucked ’em onto” a Dremel bit with a threaded tip, then trued ’em up on some 400-grit. They fit great!

Got the tires mounted up – they all sit right and still roll… unlike the other kit I made where they got glued on.

I just realized how much my work area has… ‘grown,’ for lack of better terms.

My airbrush workbench has also ‘grown,’ but looks more busy because I was building the WoW case when I took this pic.

That’s all she wrote

This morning Dave took off at Oh-Dark-Thirty for Phoenix, and had a helluva trip ahead of him. He experienced just about every kind of weather imaginable (ridiculous wind, rain, sleet, snow, you name it) but made it there with no casualties.

Here’s Klooge in his new home, about to be completely torn apart and restored by Dave.

new-home1.jpg
new-home2.jpg

And that’s pretty much that, I guess. As much fun as I had with “Jeep Week 2021,” I really hope to not have to crank so hard on a big project like that ever again… I’m getting too old for this.

Now I just gotta get my “Jeep 3.0 Project” off the ground, which involves getting that 304 torn down and to the machine shop (not even going to play around with this one), then clean up the 999 & D300 and service both, drill-out the D300 yokes to receive U-bolts (to get rid of those problematic U-joint straps I’ve always hated), clean up and repaint the drive shafts & brake pedal assembly, rebuild the steering column & automatic transmission linkage, install my Conn-Ferr 1″ shackles (up front), clean up the firewall, refurbish the engine-side wiring harness, obtain all of the needed engine & drivetrain parts, and put that sucker back together. Then I can swap the stereo head unit and tune-up the amps & speakers, adapt the TJ seat brackets to the CJ floor (to get those TJ seats lowered back down to ‘normal’ height), re-install the factory HVAC, install a BedRug carpet kit, paint the YJ top and doors, then take it to the exhaust shop for a new proper dual exhaust with a set of Magnaflows before ordering the Eagle 589s and 35×12.50 Swamper SSRs.

Sounds quick and easy if you read it fast.