Old Red Maintenance Thread

Got the dash back in:


And ran the dogs around the property for the test run:


Everything seem to be working and I have self-canceling turn signals now!

I'll drive it for a week or so before I pull the steering gear for a rebuild.

 

Whelp, this is what the bench looks like after a quick clean-up the wiring project. Next will be cleaning this up:

 

The parking brake return spring was missing from the Jeep, so I finally got around to replacing it.

The Walck's spring seems decent if a little stiffer than the original on the '71, however the link from Walck's is too short for this vintage of CJ5. It's the shortest thing in the picture. The longer one is the original on the '71. The loopy thing is some high-tensile fince line to make a new one from scratch:


I straitened out the fence line and then bent the ends around a 3/8" bolt:


Close enough:


Installed:


I also bought a repo hand throttle cable did a little work on that. I found a brass bushing from something or rather, drilled a hole through it for the cable, and threaded it for a 6-32 screw:


Next will be making a bracket for the carburetor end of the cable and drilling a hole in the throttle linkage to hook the cable to.

 

In the last few months, the pinion seal on the '69 has started to leak. Since it hadn't done that before, I suspected a plugged vent.

Sure enough. Where's the vent hole????:


Oh, there it is:


It was completely clogged with an adobe-like dust/grease cap. That should solve that problem.

 

I've been gathering parts for the last couple of years to rebuild the Ross steering gear. Since this is on the near horizon, I pulled all the parts out.

I bought a complete gear from a forum member so I could do some of the work ahead of time. Here's the bulk of it:


Removing the Pitman arm nut:


Removing the Pitman arm with a Pitman arm puller of all things:


Those pins aren't pretty:


The horn wire tube got a little bent in shipping:


So I used a piece of pipe to pound it out:


It's pretty soft tmetal and easy to bend without kinking in the vice. Before:


After:


It's within about 0.020 to a straight edge. Good enough. I also re-peened where it's crimped to the base because it was a little loose. I'll still add some sealer there in case it wants to leak.

Other parts I have:

An NOS sector shaft. I has some surface discoloration from sitting on a shelf, but no pitting:


A used sector shaft that I had a maching shop rotate and TIG weld the pins on:


I'll probably use the NOS one.

A used Pitman arm with a very good condition ball and a repo Pitman arm. The repo is a little beefier, but the used one probably has more service life:


I have an extra worm that looks pretty good from this angle:


But has some severer pitting at the far end of the worm:


That's a no-go. I'm hoping the one currently in the Jeep is in decent shape.

The bushings in the housing have *just* perceptible slop fore/aft and none up/down. I'm not sure if it's worth replacing them. A lot of things can go wrong trying to swap them out for very little gain. I also noticed the new bushings I have are smooth and don't have the oil grooves in them. That seems bad for lubrication.

 

hand throttle cable . want some inspiration

washer with nut welded - teflon sleeve/bushing
and it floats on throttle linkage

 

Boy, I'm starting to get tired of working on these old clunkers.

I ordered new mounts when I ran into the issue of no space for the transfercase side mount bolt a few posts back. It's touching the crossframe in this picture even with a thin nut:


The new mounts are here and look nice:


Look how collapsed the old mount is in comparison:


But this leads to a problem. I remember the transmission barely jacking before hitting the floorboards when I was replacing the mount bolt. There is no way the new mount will fit. The proper spacers are in place on the crossframe, the the body mounts are not collapsed, and the mounting pads are all intact. What gives?

Hmm, the back of the T14 shift cover extends under the floorboards. This is looking up over the transfercase at the back the shift tower. You can see where it's been rubbing on the floor:


Interestingly, the shift tower boss on the '71 is shorter and fits within the floor opening:


I pull the transmission cover off the '69 for a better view. Indeed the shift tower extends past the floor opening:


I think this is because of a dealer installed back-up light kit that installed in the distant past. An early '69 did not come with backup lights.

As I mention in earlier posts when I was working on the wiring, it looked like factory plugs and wires for the backup lights routed independently to the back of the Jeep.

From what I can tell, this is a retrofit kit that included:

• Backup lights that match the later factory ones. These are mounted lower on the body than the later ones.
• A wiring harness that plugged into the ignition switch with an inline fuse. It would have routed along the top of the transmission to the switch, then along the left frame rail to the back of the Jeep.
• A new shift tower with a backup light switch. This tower is a different casting than the one on my 71 withe shift rails extending further back over the transfer case.
• A different transmission cover. You can see where the floor board was trimmed for additional clearance in the above picture.

This is the odd transmission cover in the '69. It has an added piece for backup-light switch clearance that is clearly not hand fabbed. It's stamped, folded and spot welded in place:


The bottom:


What the transmission cover in the '71 looks like:


All of that is academic. The problem at hand is I need to trim the floorboard and modify the transmission cover to get my motor mounts in.

Body work shouldn't be required to install my motor mounts! I'm not sure how it all fit together when the back-up light kit was installed in the first place. They probably just forced it all in place hence the transmission rubbing on the floor.

The back bump of the transmission cover needs to be about 1/2" further back (about where the current end of the lip is). Thinking it would be easier to modify, I grabbed a repo from my flatfender part pile. It fits so poorly being a quarter inch short with 2/8 holes lining up that it would be more work to get it to fit before I even start modifying it:


Sigh. Modifying the original it is. So now it's time to do some body work so I can put in the new motor mounts.

On a good note, I replaced the bad back-up light switch while access is good:


And now the backup lights uselessly light up the Jerry cans but at least they work!:

 

Trimmed the floor plate to clear the shift tower. Started with the cut-off wheel:


Finished it with the die grinder. This is about where things will sit with the new mounts. It might just clear the transmission cover. Time will tell:


Next was propping up the transfer case and pulling the crossframe/skid plate:


Two crossframe bolts came out fine, one broke off, and the other stripped the head. I used the cut-off wheel to cut the nut in half:


I'll deal with these mounts tomorrow:


The rest of tonight was spent on the crossframe and skid plate. Scraped all the dirt off the top of the skid plate. This should make the Jeep a good 4lbs lighter:


It looks like the skid plate has done it's job more than once:


Off to the press to start straightening things out:


Between the press, the vice, and a 3 pound maul, it's looking pretty good:


Well, except the corner someone cut off to work on the exhaust. We'll just ignore that:


The crossframe had gotten hit hard enough to make it bent and blurry:


Back to the press, vice, and hammer:


And that's looking pretty good:

 

It was because of the jerry can in the way that I added a third back up light on mine, also added a three way switch to the backup light circuit so I could turn them on manually or flip to auto to let the transmission switch turn them on.

 

I think that's what happened to the old switch. Once of the posts is loose either from mechanically hitting the floorboards or shorting out to them and melting the plastic.

 

On to the mounts. Used double nuts to pull the studs from the old mount and install in the new:


Stud in the new mount. Extra rubber in the holes potentialy making it hard to get a socket on the bolt:


So I cleaned it out with an Xacto knife:


The slotted holes on the other side needed some rubber and metal removed for the bolts to pass easily:


I think the old mount has settled a bit:


Mounts and crossframe back in:


The anti-torque mount bolt clears the crossframe now. Yay! That's what started this whole process:


This is how high the transmission sits now:


It seems like I'll be able to bend the transmission cover just enough to clear without major surgery. One the left side of the picture, notice how close the transmission ear is to the floor. It's not quite touching but almost. It seems like the combo of new motor and transmission mounts has the drivetrain stitting a bit higher than stock. I suppose it will settle over time.

Another thing I wanted to look at was the exhaust. It's had a leak on the passenger side the entire time I've owned it. The pipe had been pushed rearward by a hit to the skid plate and you can see the soot where the clamp is no longer holding the pipe:


Pulling it out, you can see the the clamp is too big and almost fits over the flair on the pipe. The is also a split in the flared area:


This piece of pipe should be replaced eventually. I didn't feel like chasing down supply chain scarce parts so I fixed what I have for now. Here I am folding the flange lip in the press to make the hole smaller:


After welding and grinding the split, this looks much better:


Reinstalled with the pipe straight and a clamp that works:


A quick startup confirmed no leaks.

Tomorrow I'll reinstall the skid plate and figure out the transmission cover.

 

…and clean the transmission a little before you cover it back up.

 

Ran the dogs around the property with the partially assembled Jeep after dinner. Man it's nice having the exhaust leak fixed.

To keep Scott happy I scraped and wire brushed a pound of dirt off the top of the transmission:


Reinstalled the skid plate. It's no longer smashed into the exhaust and parking brake:




I rubbed the transmission cover around to see where it interferes with the shift tower. The dirt makes it easy to see:


It didn't need much so I gently worked that area out with the favorite hammer:


Back together! You can't really tell, but there's about 1/8" extra clearance at the back:


With that done, I'm going to have to stop procrastinating and start on the Ross rebuild. Not really looking forward to muscling the thing out of the Jeep.

 

My bad…it was the greasy TC that was bothering me. Bottom of the TC. Did you make that tidy as well?




There appears to be a bit of buildup remaining.

.

 

No, I left that dirt. I'd still be out there cleaning it if I tried to get that off.

 

Flexd it out in the ditch. Didn't get any tires off the ground so I need to find a deeper part of the ditch to max it out. Pro-Comp 2.5" springs.

 

Went and flexed it out to where the tires spin and it won't go any further. Not too bad:




It didn't get quite as far as the '71 with BDS spings in the same spot, but very close:


After projects, driving to the park with the '71, dinner, and chores, I started cleaning Ross steering parts:


Got this much done: