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New member here.

BDCCLARK

BDCCLARK

Active member
Lifetime Member
City
gravois mills
State
MO
I'm in! I just bought a 1981 cj8. It's a 4.2 four speed model. It runs and drives well so far. I drove it home two hours. Someone must have messed with the gears in the 300 because it has 35s currently and I'm driving slower than the speedo reads. From my rpm calculations it has 3.73s in it. Does that sound right for a stock 4.2, four speed jeep? It also has a 2:1 steering quickener on it which I find very strange. Any ideas why that would be other than the obvious? Anyhow, I'm here and I'm very excited about my new to me Scrambler. Chris

1981cj8.jpeg1981cj8 (2).jpeg
 
Looks nice, welcome aboard! :cheers:

What's a steering quickener? :shrug:
 
Thank you. A steering quickener is a steering ratio improver making the steering much less total lockout left to lockout right. In other words, if you're driving straight with a stock steering box and you turn the wheel your tires will turn X. With a 2:1 quickener they will turn X times 2. So a quarter turn to the left or right would turn in to a full half turn of the wheel. They are much more common in circle track cars. Would the stock steering box be that slow of a turner? I do have power steering.
 
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First, welcome to the group!

Second, we are picture mongers...you failed! Need more pix! Especially one of the steering doubler.

Third, if they changed something; I hope it was the gears in the diffs.... if you give us tire size...rpm at a specific mph at highway speeds in top gear; we can likely help you guess at gears....

Fourth.... a lifetime membership here will pay for itself in 3 months (and I don’t even get a cut)
 
Welcome!! :cheers:

Plenty of ways to determine your gear ratios manually, if you’re not certain, I’d definitely want to figure that out and get the right speedo gear in there.

Ditch the steering doohickey fo’ sho’. Just an awful idea in a lifted CJ IMO.
 
I already did the rpm calcs. That's how I came up with 3.73s. I will upload a picture of (a picture) of the quickener.

Thank you both for the welcome.

Before I correct the speedo I am going to ditch the Boggers.

q;uickener.jpeg
 
BDCCLARK said:
I already did the rpm calcs. That's how I came up with 3.73s. I will upload a picture of (a picture) of the quickener.

Thank you both for the welcome.

Before I correct the speedo I am going to ditch the Boggers.

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You are definitely better off figuring out your long term plan; and only buying things once.......

One option; instead of replacing the speedo gear (probably at least 1/3 of the members here have gone this way) is to replace the old CJ speedo/fuel/temp gauge with a Speedhut Jeep Speedometer. The jeep temp and fuel are known to be unreliable with only poor quality replacement parts (unless you wander the earth searching for NOS OEM parts). The Speedhut is expensive; but worth it. It is a GPS speedometer that doesn't need a cable to the trans case (just an antenna in the fresh air cowl). It is also stepper driven with LED lights; which makes it much easier to use at night... You can customize the gauge face and LED colors.... It's a very nice part.
 
tower210 said:
You are definitely better off figuring out your long term plan; and only buying things once.......

One option; instead of replacing the speedo gear (probably at least 1/3 of the members here have gone this way) is to replace the old CJ speedo/fuel/temp gauge with a Speedhut Jeep Speedometer. The jeep temp and fuel are known to be unreliable with only poor quality replacement parts (unless you wander the earth searching for NOS OEM parts). The Speedhut is expensive; but worth it. It is a GPS speedometer that doesn't need a cable to the trans case (just an antenna in the fresh air cowl). It is also stepper driven with LED lights; which makes it much easier to use at night... You can customize the gauge face and LED colors.... It's a very nice part.
Click to expand...

Excellent point.
 
Yep, ditch the steering quickener...but I agree with the previous owner...the stock steering gear box ratio in the CJ's is painfully slow. I always swap the box out to a full size wagoneer/cherokee (SJ) box. They have a much better ratio (3.33 turns lock to lock I think...) I even run the longer SJ pitman arm to get a little more.

Good luck with your project!
 
Thank you. I've read that people swap in H1 boxes. That's a new one on me. I've been building cars and trucks and jeeps for three decades and never heard of an H1 box swap. Apparently it's a direct bolt in and it's variable. Full size Wag boxes are plenty good from my experience too. I'll look in to that one. Are they a bolt in too?
 
I think it’s bolt in....but I think they have become in short supply........
 
tower210 said:
I think it’s bolt in....but I think they have become in short supply........
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They're perpetually in short supply. If you're patient (checking on RockAuto), eventually one will load in your cart and you'll get all the way to checkout. When I started looking, it took me maybe ten days for one to last long enough on the site for me to check out.
 
Welcome to the group and the sickness of longer is better! ;)
 
Welcome to the Scrambler world. I'll echo what the others have said, scrap that 2x steering ASAP. Sounds dangerous for any street driven vehicle. Haven't ever replaced a box with the H1 but have replaced one of mine with a new (not re-built) oem style box. Rock auto does carry the new oem style and ratio boxes. I also believe AGR in Ft. Worth, TX will rebuild an oem box with all new gears and guts to factory specs.
 
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