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82 4bt build

AllxHeart said:
Built a new clutch mount bracket. Still in the mocking up phase to get the throw right. I really thought I'd have a good christmas and driving my jeep but of course nothing works as planned when it comes to projects.
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So the previous owner used a painless wiring kit, but has both the inner and outer firewall fuse block/wiring block in the inside of the jeep which would be nice if it wasn't in such a hard position to get to. This painless kit is being a pain in my 4$$.
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Since I have very little needed in my jeep I am strongly considering doing a rock crawler style dash switch kit. Get rid of the old stock stuff and use something simplified. 12voltguy has a sweet kit.
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I can use the switch positions for electric fan, fuel shutoff solenoid, lights, heater blower, etc. The jeep itself is very simple so I don't see why I can keep it that way. This rats nest has to go. I'm moving to a house soon so I'll finally have my own garage and I'll tear down the jeep. Right now we are just trying to get everything running, but the wiring will bother me until I know how everything is supposed to be. Oh the woes of other peoples setups.

Has anyone had any experience with complete re-wiring or know of any threads? Just trying to gather up as much info as possible.

Merry Christmas to everyone and hope you got some jeep goodies!
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I know the feeling. I was dealing of a rats nest that went from a stock carb setup, to Holley FI setup, to Howell EFI setup all hacked together. That was one of the main reasons I started tearing mine apart. I couldn't stand not knowing what was what and what could go. I did a Painless wiring harness and kept the Howell EFI setup but ordered a new harness from them as well because the old one was so spaghetti-spliced into the original harness it was un-re-usable.

The painless setup is good. It is a general harness and has extra stuff like rear side marker wires/lights, wires for multiple ignition setups, everything to run an A/C system, and wires for an electric fan setup. I didn't need a lot of that but it is good that it is there. Much of it is terminated into the factory clips, especially for all the dash components and lights. Also has a very good instruction manual with detailed diagrams.
 
Thanks 53D.

I've been MIA because life just doesn't want me to work on my jeep it seems. I just got back from driving to Daytona to pick up my 12 year old brother. I'm getting custody of him so he is living with me now. Had to enroll him in school, buy him necessities, and now I'm moving so I can get him in the best school in the area. Lot of work for a 27 year old, but my brother will have a better life with me. Heck, I hope to get him in to jeeps! He will need a vehicle in a few years!

So everything engine mechanical wise is hooked up and doing fine. That wiring problem is horrible and my buddy is moving in a couple months so I will no longer have a place to store and work on the jeep. If it's not done by then, I'll just put it in storage until I can get it somewhere to work on. Otherwise I'll be looking to trailer back to my dads house. That's where I plan on tearing it all the way down so I can paint it. I drove it today and it road fine. I just blow a fuse every time I start it so it's getting a bit annoying. Things will come together, just takes time...
 
That's mighty good of you to take care of your brother like that, I know he will appreciate all that you are doing for him. Getting him into Jeeps would be a great thing, I think everyone needs a passion or at least a hobby to keep them busy and out of the worse things in life.

Glad to hear it is out and driving. I used to store my Subaru when I went on 3 deployments, it went at least 8 months each time and over a year once in a garage like storage unit in Hawaii. I disconnected the battery, put Lucas upper cylinder lubricant in the 2nd last tank, and Stabil fuel stabilizer right before I filled it up to put in storage. It fired right up every time I took it out.

Good luck with the move.
 
I finally got tired of chasing wires and decided to rip it all out and start from scratch. This is going to be a big learning experience for me since I never handle wiring. Luckily the diesel is easy in comparison to modern vehicles. I'm also very glad I took out the old wiring, bc it is an electrical fire waiting to happen. In fact, I almost had an electrical fire from the power cable grounding out and melting. I found numerous wires spliced together with a cable swedge and covered in duct tape. I'm going to spend the time and money to make this part of the vehicle very meticulous and well thought out. I am also looking at building a different dash. I've been looking around and I like a lot of the ideas guys have so I'll start drawing some plans and ideas up and go from there. For now the stock dash will do.
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Sorry for such a long update delay. Life has been busy for me. Active duty military, part time job, and taking care of my little bro takes up a lot of my time. I finally towed my jeep to another buddies place (location 3 for the jeep) so it is closer to me. My buddy took 30 days vacation and literally built this buggy in his garage. He has about $5000 in it and it runs and drives around without any issue.
This is my little bro in it.


So a little bad news... when I tore out the wiring I took the hard top off. I never bolted the front of the top down and the back bolts are rusted past fixing. So when we started driving down the road the top flew off and broke the glass. I was luckily driving behind the trailer and nobody was hurt. The top is still useable, but if anyone knows where to get glass for a half hardtop then let e know. ;)
Because the back bolts are shot I had to figure out a way to secure the top down. I bought some 300+ lb latches and bolted them in and welded in the low side.




So down to the wiring. My engine and jeep does not need a lot of wiring so I wanted to make the jeep as clean and simple as possible with the wiring. After running the basics for power and ground I got the jeep to start and stop by the key so now on to the lights.



I got the headlights wired up without a problem.



Now I'm working on wiring up the turn signals and brakes. I'm going to do some research on how to wire up the turn signal and brakes. The wiring diagram is making my head hurt right now.

I saw this scrambler on base. It looked really nice.


And here is a picture from my old squadron. I tear down and build up F22 Raptor engines now, but I really miss working on the Hercules.


Hopefully I'll have the wiring figured out soon or at least the break lights. I'm waiting on my muffler and the steering box hose fittings. Maybe I'll have it finished up this weekend enough to test drive it longer than just down the block.
 
Nice progress. Judging by the aircraft pictured you are in the Air Force? How did you like working on the C-130's, I always loved that plane. Had a couple of instances in Afghanistan where an AC-130 saved our helicopter, once with "sparkle" from that huge IR light on one of the darkest nights I will hope to forget and another with some "sparkle" from it's 25mm cannon!

Were you with a special ops squadron? Just asking because of the AC-130 and the CV-22 pictured.
 
53D Scrambler said:
Nice progress. Judging by the aircraft pictured you are in the Air Force? How did you like working on the C-130's, I always loved that plane. Had a couple of instances in Afghanistan where an AC-130 saved our helicopter, once with "sparkle" from that huge IR light on one of the darkest nights I will hope to forget and another with some "sparkle" from it's 25mm cannon!

Were you with a special ops squadron? Just asking because of the AC-130 and the CV-22 pictured.
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I worked on the AC-130H for 3 years in Florida at the 16th AMU Special operations which became the 1st special ops squadron. Then I got stationed in England at the 352nd special operations squadron where that pic was taken and worked on the shadows (refuel) and talons (low level special ops). We did a lot of navy seal, green beret, PJ, CCT, air drops and mission supports. It's been a great career so far, but now my job is boring and not high tempo so I'm looking to switch jobs. I'd like to go special tactics, but with my bro and my girlfriend it will be tough to leave for 2 years of training with a family. I'm trying to find a compromise though.
 
Test drive cut short

I finally took the jeep for a test drive farther than 1 mile. Took the doors off and drove it to the car wash. While cleaning the jeep the radio was giving out warnings of a few tornados in the area. They were not heading my way at the time so I headed to base. The base has storm shelters anyway and I don't so it wasn't that bad of an idea. It drove great and I didn't have a single leak on it. The main things I need to accomplish now are:

Weld in muffler/exhaust
Get alignment done (professionally)
Anti wrap bar
Buy new power steering pump that supports hydroboost brakes too.
Get the turbo V band clamp in the mail. It really runs slow with no boost.
Build new body mounts (nut plates are rusted out)

The brake lights and turn signals were not hard to figure out. I knew the basics and just had to shoot wires until it worked. After a bunch of moaning and groaning for not wanting to do it, I found all the wires I needed in under an hour. haha.

After the above is finished I'm hopefully going to just enjoy driving it for a while. This winter I am thinking of going 1 tons. I want to put 35's on the jeep, but I will want to re-gear as well and I don't feel like putting money in the stock axles. That will be a big project because I'm just going to do a 4 link, 1 ton, and bigger tires at the same time. My buddy who builds buggies can build a 4 link in a weekend. I better start saving money now!

It's never ending! :D
 
Do your own alignment to help save the money. Your on leaf springs right now so about all you can do is adjust toe in. Not much sense paying a shop to do what you can do easy in the driveway with a tape measure. :)
 
OH CRAP you are in moore OK ..... Are you ok. That's all that's been on the news on the east coast today.
 
I emailed Alex, here is his reply:
"Hey Jason! Yea man I made it out of the tornado with no damage. Been helping all day and will continue to all week. I'm going to post on the cj-8 site soon about it all"
 
Ditto, that's the first thing I thought of when I saw the hometown and state. Glad all is well. Sister in Edmond did fine; Moore, OK on the other hand, looks devastated. Waiting a report. Be well.
 
jeepdreamer said:
Do your own alignment to help save the money. Your on leaf springs right now so about all you can do is adjust toe in. Not much sense paying a shop to do what you can do easy in the driveway with a tape measure. :)
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Firestone has alignment for life deal for 170 bucks I think. I can't remember what I paid, but it was around there. I took that since I plan on doing axle swaps, and if I ever mess with the front end I can just take it to them. I'll get my moneys worth. haha.
 
A big thanks to everyone that had me in their thoughts. I stayed clear of the tornado on Sunday, the F5 on monday, and just the one that happened Friday. The one that happened Friday was a lot closer to me. Still lucked out and didn't get any damage besides a little bit of character hail on the jeep. Nothing really noticeable. After the monday tornado I went down to the area and spent more time down there than I did at work. I'm lucky I have the job that still pays me even when I'm spending my week helping those he need it most. Here are some photos and stories about the people I came across.


This ladies son was home during the monday tornado. He was in his bath tub when a giant board came in the house, through the bathroom wall, out the house wall, in the next house wall, and through their inner wall. He survived with minor injuries, but the unfortunate news was that while trying to get his dog to jump in the tub, that board killed his dog. We managed to get a lot of the ladies belongings recovered.








This gentleman lost it all and all he wanted was the items that can't be replaced. I asked him what did he want me to recover and he said he wanted his mothers baby shoe, his baby stuff that was in a display case his father made for him. I was lucky enough to find those items and found a ring his father gave him, a ring his wife gave him when they first started dating, and a copy of the sermon at his wedding that his father did for his wife and him. It was very emotional, but I was very glad to have helped.




I'm sure a lot of you have heard about how bad the hospital was hit and the 7 Eleven that people were killed in across the street. This is my friend Megan that is an EMT and she was in the hospital when it hit. Her father watched the tornado hit the hospital knowing she was in there. Afterwards she was a first responder for that 7 Eleven. She spent about an hour looking for her truck to recover her things and finally found it.
 
Rescued this ladies washer and dryer she just bought 2 weeks prior. She had very high spirits.









 
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