Daily driver/trail rig project

Kyle, what does the shift pattern look like? By 2 high ranges I am going to assume you mean like the Dana 20 pattern below?

Dana 300:


Dana 20:

 

I remember the days I could move that fast too. Loll.
Nice work Kyle.

 

Prerunner1982: Yeah the bottom one (4L N 2H 4H) so I guess it's a Dana 20. Thanks a bunch now I can start price shopping for a rebuild kit, and also see if I can find that drain plug. Is the Dana 20 a decent transfer case? I could research it, but asking is easier.

 

I don't have any personal experience with the Dana 20, the CJ7 I grew up around had the 300 in it.

However it does appear the low range in the Dana 20 is only 2.03, where the Dana 300 had a 2.62 low range.

The Dana 20 was found behind the 1 ton Jeep J4000 truck so it would appear to be pretty strong.

Some good info: http://www.novak-adapt.com/knowledge/transfer-cases/model-20

 

So its been a few days since I've updated my project, but I have a good reason for it, laziness. Well anyway I finally got the rest of the front clip off, starting with the drivers side fender. I removed all of the stuff attached to it without much hassle, but I found out that the impact is too big to zip of the bolts holding the fender to the tub. A half inch ratchet won't even fit in there, so I had to use a 3/8 ratchet and a good deal of elbow grease. I also broke the stud holding that piece of silver trim on to the fender which was irritating, but at least both sides match now.


After getting the fender off I went about taking the grill off in a kind of backwards way. I unbolted it from the frame first and then removed the wiring harness from it, so it was pretty wobbly while I did it. Then I removed the stringers from the firewall. I decided to leave the stringers attached to the grill because it looks like they can be adjusted and I didn't want to mess with the adjustment. I also left the lights in the grill because I didn't see much reason to remove them right now.It was late when I finished taking the grill off so I went to bed, and stayed there for all of the next day. The day after that I had to run some errands. So "I'll do it tomorrow" turned into "I'll do it three days from now".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj1ZrPozuFM&t=733s

 

And here's what I did yesterday. I began by removing the alternator and power steering pump. Then I moved on to completely removing the wiring harness and most of the extra bits hanging off of the engine. The distributor cap, spark plug wires, oil filter, some lines that I don't know what they do, the carburetor, and some other odds and ends. All of that stuff came off relatively simply after which I moved on to the intake/exhaust manifold. I did not know that these manifolds where one piece, so that threw me for a loop, and I ended up dinking around with it for awhile before I figured it out. I did what a lot of guys my age do and got in a rush, so when I took the manifold off I forgot to remove all of the little stuff and ended up having to remove them with the manifold just kind of dangling there. I got it off anyway and that's where I stopped yesterday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GR0eiZ2scw

 

Awesome work to date dude. And just remember. You don't have to, not to mention, you can't do it all in one day. Take your time. A member recently posted a restored Willys. And it took 9 years. It may not take you 9 years. But could easily take 5 or 6. Just be patient, take your time, and have fun with it. When starts to feel like it's a job. It's time to slow down. Remember...have fun with it.

 

JKBob: I would take my time and do it perfect if I could, but the problem is my CJ is my day to day car and I have to have it running before I run up to Montana for collage in the first week of January.

 

Wow....your giving yourself like 2 months for a total rebuild. Wow... No pressure there dude. Lolll. So when do you plan on sleeping. Lolll. Just messin with ya dude. Well....you came to the right place to share your rebuild. We are.....Jeeps dot net. I'm not very familiar with the CJ. But there are several members here that are really good with them. Keep us posted dude. Look forward to your posts.

 

Will do, thanks your advice by the way.

 

Okay so I have removed the drive shafts and shifting levers from the CJ. The drive shafts surprised me by their minuteness. I'm used to working on big rigs so having to use a 1/4 inch ratchet to remove a driveshaft kind of threw me, but just because their small does not mean that they were easy to remove. The small 3/16 (I think) bolts holding the U-joint together had quite a bit of torque behind them and that small ratchet didn't give me very much leverage to work with, so I bashed my knuckles a few times when the socket slipped off of the bolt. And even after I had them unbolted they fought me. The grease had them sucked in there good, so I ended up having to be a little rough to pull the U-joints apart. But the worst part about it was that I lost half of the video I shot of me doing it because I let my micro SD card fill up and the time-lapse corrupted. In any case I got the little buggers out of there and then started working on the shifting levers.

Removing the shifting levers was easier, more time consuming, but easier. The first thing I did was remove the seats and center console just so that I had more room to play with. Then I started working on that plate that the shifting levers come up through, I guess you'd call it a transmission cover. First the shifting knobs had to come off which I got wrong the first time, but after taking the first one off I realized that the knob works like two nuts being twisted together in opposing directions so the second one came off easier. Then I unscrewed the boots and removed those and then continued on to the cover plate. Now I knew that there would be some kind of adhesive sealing the seams between the plate and the tub, but I thought that it was supposed to be RTV or something like that. It turned out to be a blue silicone which was far easier to peal away. Once done there I moved on to the transmission shifting lever which was easy to unbolt but ended up requiring a screw driver to pry the shift plate off. Then I moved on to the transfer case shifting lever which looked a lot easier. From the top it looked like all I had to do was remove a cotter pin and the pin holding the lever on would just slide out. Turns out there is also a bolt that needs to be removed first then the shifting lever comes off and then the pin comes out, which baffled me.

Long story short I simply have to remove the linkages connecting the clutch to the pedal and a few hoses and wires and then the drive train comes out. And sorry about the pictures everything I took came out blurry if you guys don't mind blurry pictures I'll post them, but I don't see the point in doing it right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKW9iViuEq4

 

So the engine, transmission, and transfer case are out of the Jeep. The first few things I did to it where to remove the power steering pump and attach the shop crane to the engine. The power steering pump was in the way and the reason I didn't take it off earlier was because the fittings where seized, but I found a different way to remove it which resulted in me chasing down parts all over the shop. Before attaching the shop crane I removed the valve cover because I was afraid of it getting squished between the chains as I lifted the engine. I left enough slack in the chains to clear the rocker assembly and then moved on to the transmission mounts. I unbolted the transmission and exhaust pipe from the cross-member/ skid plate thing, I used my impact wrench for this which made things so much faster. Next I needed to take the cross-member down, but before doing that I put a jack stand under the yolk of the transfer case so that it was supported. Unbolting the cross-member was easy, just zipped six bolts of with my impact wrench and it was free. When the cross-member came off, the transmission and transfer case dropped about a 1/2 inch before landing on the jack stand, which scared the bejesus out of me. After that I started to work on the engine mounts I freely admit making a mistake here. I removed the mounts from the engine block instead of from the frame which left them in the way. I had to go back and remove them from the frame in order to clear the engine.
Once the drive train was hanging from the shop crane freely I started to roll the jeep out from under it, but I ran into a few problems. First the engine mounts which I already discussed, then the jack stand under the transfer case slipped out and almost dropped it on the ground. And the biggest problem was that my hand crank load leveler couldn't be adjusted with all of that weight hanging off of it. I ended up having to jack the engine ( which was at about a 35 degree angle) high enough for the transfer case to clear the front cross-member. This meant that my one and only engine was dangling five feet off of the ground from a shop crane that I had never used before, which again scared the bejesus out of me. With it that high off of the ground I could roll the Jeep out from under it and set it down on a floor dolly so that I could start struggling with separating the engine from the transmission.
Separating the engine and transmission was frustrating and took way longer than it should have. At first it went smoothly all the bolts came out easy and for the first inch it slide right off. After that though everything bound up and left me fiddling with it for about an hour trying to figure out what was still connected. Turns out the transmission shaft was just bound up in the fly-wheel because the engine and transmission where at an angle to each other. With one being laid flat on the ground while the other was at a slight angle dangling from the shop crane. In any case I got it all out of the Jeep and separated now the real fun can begin, engine tear down!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTWO-S640wY

 

Hey guys quick question and then I'll post the full engine tear down. Can you put a 10.5" clutch kit in place of a 10.25" clutch. I'm asking because I found a pretty good deal on a new clutch kit, but it's a quarter inch larger than the clutch I currently have on the CJ.

 

I don't think the bolt pattern of the larger pressure plate will match.

 

I got my LUK clutch kit at partsgeek for around $90.

 

Check out Amazon pricing for complete LUK clutch kits too

 

Alright Thanks.

 

I'm going to start off with an apology to anyone following this rebuild. I'm sorry that I haven't posted any work for a while even though what your about to see has been done for about two and half weeks. I got lazy and then went out east to visit some family so those are my excuses. Anyway on to what I've done. The engine has been torn all of the way down and instead of a lengthy explanation I'm just going to show you guy's a bunch of pictures and a three part video (at the bottom) of the whole procedure.

This is the engine on the engine stand two days after ripping it from the jeep.


Here.s another one of the nice painted side. You'll notice that there is nothing attached to it like the distributor, fuel pump, etc... thats because I removed it all and put it..


.. into this box. For some reason I took the distributor out of the box don't remember why.


Here it is without the pan and head. The oil pump and oil pickup are still on there I didn't get to those until I rotated the engine and removed the pistons and crank.


Here's a shot of it from above so that you can see all of the oil baked on to the pistons. Cylinder five is particularly bad. Rear of engine is to the left, Front of engine right.


Here's a weird shot of the head from the side just had to show off the blue paint.


This will give you a better idea of what I'm working with. The head and crank are currently at Quality Auto being cleaned and inspected. I wanted the head inspected to find out if the valves are any good or not, and the crank is just in there to be professionally polished.


Here's most of the top end components minus the head and valves. You can also see the cam, oil pump, and main caps. I have it sorted out from left to right, left being the front of the engine.


Here are the pistons and connecting rod caps. If you watched the Intro To My CJ-7 video that I posted. I said that I was getting some blow by, and I thought it was the cause of my rear main blowing out and for my lack of power. Well every ring except for one fell off of my pistons when I removed them. So I think I was right.


And yes I have everything bagged and tagged. I'm in the process of cleaning all of this stuff up And I'm hoping to have it done by the end of the week.



And here is the three part video which shows just about everything I did. And to any of you who were subscribed to that channel here something you should know. I messed up the original somehow, but don't worry I made another channel with all of the same videos and even the same name. The channel is called VanderMonkey Adventures and the channel picture is a cartoon monkey. Here is a link to that ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr7UJIbSN3DXpmUHrCphw5g )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9qqq7KWQgo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCB6V4WtGvE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wai6l2BqBO4&t=51s

 

Nice work Kyle. Looks like it's coming along pretty well huh.