Ok, so I finally got the Jeep out of the shop. I took it to Tar Heel 4WD here in Charlotte and left it in the capable hands of Andy for some rewiring and then asked him to keep going. He was patient, I was patient, and we worked through the many technical issues together.
1) rewired with new harness - now my tail lights work!!!
2) install the Speed Hut gauges (work great!!!) I might have gone short sweep had I to do it over again.
3) install a new radiator fan (also works great)
4) install new brake proportioning valve - this would have been a nightmare in my driveway...totally glad he did it and not me
5) Fuel tank cleaning and new sender - this is probably the most interesting one -
a) carefully removing the unspent shotgun shells lodged around the gas tank and between the skid (whaaa???)
b) removed gas tank and cleaned it out (was nasty with rust)
c) sending unit was toast and partly what had rusted
d) sealed the gas tank with a nifty chemical stuff - this took about 5 days of not doing too much, just waiting
e) installing a new sending unit
6) fixed leaking rear end and refilled with new fluid
After all of this I took it to the GoodYear dealer who was having a hell of a sale on 32X11.50 MTR's and had them mounted and I drove it home.
Unfortunately on the way home I discovered the tires rubbed when I turned left and the headlights still were pretty awful.
So, I put in some TruckLights LED headlights (totally worth it) and spacers on all 4 corners which fixed my rubbing issues.
Many of you have provided me excellent advice on engines and swaps and so forth and I appreciate every second of it and all the time on the phone and the hopeful but not working out possible sales of engines and so forth. Thank you all! I may still need an engine, but once Andy got the electrical working the engine really runs well! I think ultimately it was my horrible electrical job in summer 2013 that really hosed up my engine performance.
Now, on Wednesday I take it to a mechanic to get the following done:
1) swap the timing gears for a timing chain - I have not SEEN the gears, but if you take off all the betls it still sounds like there is not enough power steering fluid in the PS can and of course there are no belts so it can't be that. So, I am hoping it is gears instead of main bearing or something. Either way, I'll know later this week.
2) Do some simple tests to determine if new valve seals will improve my smoking issue. The oil pools in the cylinders, so I am assuming it is coming from somewhere (above, through the seals) and not going anywhere down such as past the rings. - hopefully it is just in need of new valve seals
3) determine if I need a new carb due to wallowed out butter fly valve shaft.
After that, it should be awesome!
So, after all that, today I took it out on a short trail near town to try to take a picture out in the dirt. It was more than I bargained for but it worked out OK; I even got to put it in 4WD! In fact, after my romp through the woods and down rutted trails and huge muddy watery troughs, once I got back on the road the whole Jeep seemed much quieter without all the clunks and clanks and shudders it used to have. Fairly quite actually! Maybe it just needed some rust and dust knocked off and things moving around again!!!
