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82 4bt build

So I'm sure some of you are curious to know what I am getting for mpg with the 4bt. Well this is what I did yesterday.

Filled up the tank. While putting 9 gallons in the pump kept clicking off. I had to hold the handle slightly to keep it going. I filled it like that until it would click at the slightest amount of pressure on the handle. I noted the mileage at 963.1. Drove highway/city mix to the gym and drove back to the same pump and filled it back up. I overflowed the tank so bad that it leaked a good amount of diesel on the ground and I could see the trial dripping behind me leaving the gas station and still had some drips when I got home about 1 mile away. The odometer said 999.6. I put 1 gallon of Diesel in it. So 999.6-963.1=36.5 Miles. I'm not going to get super excited yet about the 36MPG until I get a longer reading. I have to do a good bit of things to the jeep still to make me know more about how well my engine is performing.
Here's what I do know about the jeep:
4bt rated at 120hp/275 torque. Stock injectors/stock non waste gate turbo
31" BFG A/T
Stock AMC and the casting number says I have 3.31 gears. Going to verify soon.
Speedo has a +/- flux of 5-7 mph
NV4500 5 speed

What I don't know:
RPM
Coolant Temp
boost
EGT
I don't know if it's tuned properly. I went off how smooth the engine sounds and how much smoke it blowing out the tail pipe, plus how well it pulls down the road. I can take it up to 70-75 on the highway and besides needing to rebuild my steering box, it does really well. Loud though.

I was going to put a HX35 Turbo and new injectors in the engine, but seeing as the engine seems to be behaving well I think I'll hold off and put my money in to other things.

I finally got custody of my little brother and I have to send off some paperwork to Air Force to get him as my dependant. He's been living with me since January so I'm told I will get back paid from january. I'm also getting my car inspected from the tornado for hail and debris damage. If they total it I'll just keep the car and take the money and not fix the cosmetic damage. I have to have the Air Force paperwork approved before I can move on base so in the mean time I'm going to move in with a buddy and that will save me a ton of money as well. It should all work out though. This has been a very busy and eventful 2013 so far. haha.
 
3/4 ton axle swap on the horizon

Bought a donor truck. 1979 Chevy 3/4 ton for 650 bucks. Going to clean and paint the flat bed and sell it. Hoping to get 500 for it. Going to take the 3/4 ton axles and put them under my jeep. 14 bolt full float rear and dana 44 front. I'd like to do a dana 60 front, but this will do since it was such a good deal. The truck also has a great running 350 4 bolt main. Behind that is a SM465 and a NP205. Both of which need a little TLC.


Instead of outboarding my front leaf springs I plan on 4 linking the front and then keeping the rear leaf for now.

More plans for the future:

1. Moving the engine back and up for better clearance.
2. Full Roll Cage
3. 4 link rear
4. bigger tires

I've been driving the jeep often since the weather is nice. For some reason my full soft top requires the flat windshield channel, bc it doesn't fit my curved end channel. So I've been using the bikini top or just topless. Like in this photo I went to a retirement ceremony in my dress blues uniform.

Just broke my brake cable today. Design flaw by me. At full turn I hit my shock and busted the line. Now the shock is bent so hopefully the next line won't break! haha.
 
Lets see if I can resurrect this thread after being MIA for nearly a year. A lot has gone on with me. I believe I have posted about my dog before a black english staffordshire terrier, but recently I got another pup, but not planned. I found a dog that was hit on the highway by two cars. I got there seconds after it happened. He was banged up and his front right leg was broken (both bones). I took him in and after surgery and multiple vet visits he is doing great. He did not look to be well taken care of by his previous owner. Here he is at the vet.
And here he is now.

He's a young pup, maybe a year old and a handful at times, but he fits well in the family and loves my other dog.

I also proposed to my lovely girlfriend that puts up with me being in the garage for 12 hours straight working on the jeep.

If you want a ring that doesn't bother you while turning a wrench I suggest getting a QALO ring. It's $20 and I am wearing mine until our ceremony and I get my actual ring, but I think I will keep wearing this one. It's awesome! Made of some rubber compound that is really comfortable.

Hopefully I'll keep updating this post until I ship off to training if I get accepted. I applied to retrain to Combat Controller, fingers crossed I get accepted.
 
The one ton axle swap has already began, but it died off as soon as it started. Through the axles under the jeep and left it on jacks for months. Now I not only have the time and money, but I have to get it done just in case I get picked up for training. So here is a quick update.
The rear 14 Bolt is in the rear. I'm keeping the rear leaf sprung.
I stripped the interior and started making my life easier for future issues. I relocated my fuse box to the glove box. Built a custom box for it and it turned out great. Need to run wires now.
Here is the original spot, just left of center on the firewall.


And here it is now in the glove box.


Cleaned up and painted the Dana 300. I used Hammered spray paint and that stuff is amazing! I painted the front axle with it and it has held up really well. I'll keep using it on a lot of things and it blends easily just in case you have to grind off to make fixes.

I bought 4 H1 wheels and was going to re-center them, but when I went to buy a 5th wheel the guy had a ton of wheels that are already centered properly from what looks like to be factory. I traded him my wheels and gave him money in exchange for 5 pressed center wheels plus a 5th 37' tire. All in all 5 wheels and tires plus rock guards cost me 900 bucks. Not a bad deal!

Painted them with that rustoleum hammered spray paint.
 
Now on to the front 4 link set up. This is a learning experience for me and my first time doing a 4 link. I understand the concept and I have done a lot of research seeing what will work best for me. I didn't want to use an anti-rock bar so that's why I am keeping the rear leaf sprung, but I still want to drive highway speeds. I understand that triangulating the links properly will keep the axle in place well and allow for high speeds. I started setting up the lower links, but mocked them up while the jeep was lower than it's future ride height. This made the axle sit too far to the rear. I didn't notice it until I threw the fender on. Luckily I only spot welded the lower links in position. A quick cut and a move forward will fix it.

A few more pics of the mock up.


The upper links clear, but just barely. I'm hoping that I can sneak an inch or two back on the engine when I build new engine mounts and with moving the axle forward I'll have plenty of room to clear the upper links at full compression. I ordered shock hoops that I'll be mocking up when I get back from camping in Big Bend TX til the 25th. I'll be running Sway-away 2.0 Air Shocks up front. More updates to come on all this.

This is how it sits now.


Now it's so easy to see how far back the axle is. Live and learn.
 
Awesome!! Congrats!! Any women that puts up with our hobby is a keeper!
 
Congratulations! It's good to see you back.
 
Bad Karma said:
Awesome!! Congrats!! Any women that puts up with our hobby is a keeper!
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Yep she is definitely a keeper. She has even made it out to the garage to help out and even welded once. She welded better than a lot of build threads I've seen! ha.
 
I leave for Big Bend TX with some buddies this friday so I don't know how much I will get done, but I'm going to try to knock out all that I can. I've got two things coming up that I will need help/advice from you guys on.

First is that my body mount nut plates are all rusted out. I guess it's the only rust I have because ther is none anywhere else. I was thinking I'm going to need to take the tub off and cut them out and then weld in new nut plates. Seems to be the simplest route to go.

Also I am looking at designing my own rear tire carrier and from what I have researched I may be the first to do what I have in mind. I'm going to be drawing up details on it and posting when I get a chance to get input. Here is the concept. I have 37" tires and I don't want to lift them up on to a normal swing away because it's a terror on my back and might give me a hernia. haha. I've looked at the drop down tire carriers and they are not a bad idea and will go that route if my design is not worth it or just not that great. So my idea is a hybrid of the drop down and swing away. I want the tire to drop down but stop at a certain height and then pull a pin and rotate the tire so it is perpendicular with the ground and maybe just slightly off the ground. I think the hummer has a similar concept where it swings away first then lowers to the ground. The spindle will be mounted in the middle on a cross bar that will be connected to the hinges to drop the carrier down. Tough to think of I guess by me explaining, but I'll get some drawings together so we can hash out the idea and see if it will be neat to do. In my head it looks cool and will be neat to be one of a kind. Time will tell. The first design might be super rough, but I can always design a better looking one down the road. I just enjoy making it my own.

Cool things to come hopefully and maybe I'll have plenty of time until I get picked up for retraining and have lots of jeep time ahead of me! Good to be back guys and looking forward to updating this build!
 
AllxHeart said:
I leave for Big Bend TX with some buddies this friday
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Wish I were headed to Big Bend, Love that place. Planning the next trip over Thanksgiving, will be the first trip for the Scrambler there. Even own some land between the parks out there.
 
Doc Savage said:
Wish I were headed to Big Bend, Love that place. Planning the next trip over Thanksgiving, will be the first trip for the Scrambler there. Even own some land between the parks out there.
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Awesome! Got any advice on what to pack like must have items? We will be leaving gear in the truck and just do day hikes and camp by the truck mainly.
 
Back from my trip and it was awesome! Lots of hiking and we saw everything we wanted to see with one day to spare so I came home early and worked on the jeep!
The rear is already SOA so I added a longer shackle to make it level with the front ride height I want. My wife is 5'5" to give you a reference.
Welded up the rock ring and mounted a H1 wheel to give me an idea while setting up ride height. Still need to pull the front part of the wheel off and paint it again.

My shock hoops came in so I mocked up my shocks with unserviced shocks (I have two serviced ones) and spot welded the hoops in place. At this ride height the shock has 7" extension.


I've got to size of my tabs from 1/2" hole to 5/8" and I bought 2 different 5/8 bits and those tabs are not budging at all. Got to figure out a way to get them sized up soon because it's stopping me from installed the four link permanently. In the mean time I'll finish the wheels and mount the tires on them and maybe get after the wiring. Can't wait for this jeep to be off the jacks!
 
The engine is out and the upper links are being figured out we will say. ha. The double triangulation for the links is making it a bit difficult for the engine to fit. I'm going to end up cutting my upper links shorter than they are right now which is 36"s compared to the lower 40" links. Probably take them down to about 70% of the lower links. It will have to make do because I have a hard deadline now to get my jeep driveable or at least capable of getting on a trailer. I have a single garage at the apartment to store the jeep, but no outlets to work on it. :(

I got selected to go CCT (combat controller) and I leave for training July 27th, but we are moving to an apartment June 30th for my wife to live while I am in training for 9 months. Here is a link that describes the job I'll be hoping to make it through training for. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCVL6i6NSuM

One of the guys on here, Mark, came by and checked out the jeep. Made me mad he only paid $1K for his Scrambler! haha. He pointed out the most obvious thing on my build and that is my 37" tires won't fit in the rear wheel well. Guess I won't be doing any articulation stuff anytime soon with it. He is sad that I'll be cutting my tub to get it to fit. It won't happen anytime soon. I'll update this with pictures later on.
 
Good to see you back, I was just wondering the other day how your jeep was coming along.
 
2 great weekends of working on the jeep and getting things done left and right now!

Pulled the engine and then did a bunch of measuring. Ended up cutting my upper and lower links because the original setup wasn't triangulated enough. This would have caused my front axle to walk down the road a bunch. Hoping to still drive it on the road I'm making it as tight as possible.
Here are the new motor mounts.


I don't if you can tell, but the engine side of the motor mount is a bracket I bought from ruffstuffspecialties.com that is used for an anti wrap bar. It's the side that welds to the axle. I decided to use it for this for looks and because it was easy to cut once and build on. Also the diameter of the hole was too big on the anti wrap bracket so I welded a shock tab on top because is had the correct hole size. It's nice using stuff lying around instead of buying more or shaping/cutting metal. I like how they turned out overall.

Now the engine is sitting in and the clearance looks good. I might be close on full tuck with the oil pan and upper links, but I'll deal with that if it happens.


Not happy about cutting in to the tub, but it was going to happen one way or another. This was so I could get the tranny as high as possible and give myself plenty of clearance.


This is what my clearance is now which is a lot better than before.


And dumb luck have it my driveshaft still fits. I have no idea how because I moved the engine back 6 inches at least, but I also moved it up too so maybe it worked out for me.




So now it sits waiting for a transmission mount and skid plate then I'll test for clearance and articulation and start putting back all the plumbing and wiring. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!
 
That's exactly where my set up is located, only I didn't cut the tub where the t case is located I just put a hole with a cover plate where I can take the bolt out of the t case shift levers
 
gaducker said:
That's exactly where my set up is located, only I didn't cut the tub where the t case is located I just put a hole with a cover plate where I can take the bolt out of the t case shift levers
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Is yours as high as mine too or did you use a body lift to get the dana 300 clocked? I can't clock my t-case much if not at all.
 
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