Eric's Postal Build Thread (was: Postal rebuild thread)

[bigwalton]

Looks great, Eric! Building a console is coming up quickly on my 'to do' list.

Building a console was always something I wanted to try ever since I saw Rubberhook's incredible specimen in person way back when, but I realized that I'm not a good enough fabricator to do it right and would likely never be happy with it.

I'll be happy to watch yours though, I can only imagine how sweet yours could come out with your mad skillz!

 

[bigwalton]

Oba

I managed to get my on board air setup working. Kate's happy that we'll be able to easily blow up her air mattress when we go camping now and no more searching for air stations after wheeling!! WOOT!

I'm waiting on a check valve and, after 4miles convinced me that I needed to upgrade the oiling/filter setup for proper oil addition and removal, I got a true coalescing filter and a mist lubricator off of ebay on the way, but it's together enough to test.

I'll do a schematic showing what I ended up going with. It's just using the Sanden AC compressor that was already on the 4.0 I swapped in. I'm rather shocked at how fast it manages to pressurize at idle (haven't played with it other than to see that it worked and didn't have massive leaks or blow up). Got up to 75 PSI real fast

I'm using the factory wire from the Cherokee wiring harness that was for the A/C clutch lockup. One thing to note that threw me was that I assumed it would need 12V to lock and it actually needs a ground

 

[bigwalton]

While waiting for the final OBA parts to come in, I finally got to a project that's been sitting, waiting on the shelf, nagging me, taunting me every time I walked by...

before:

after:

These lights have sentimental value for me. They were part of the original parts haul from 4WD Hardware that I installed on the stock front bumper for the drive back from AK. There were a couple nights where we would have had to stop due to fog/mist if it wasn't for them. When I did the Runck bumpers, they had no means by which to mount them and I got in a rush (typical) and just threw them on the shelf. I joke about them calling to me from the shelf, but I really did always feel bad that I hadn't managed to mount them up.

A while back I got the bug to get them on and found good spots that just required a simple angle bracket. I made up the brackets from some angle on the shelf, but never got around to installing them, so the brackets joined the lights on the shelf in their taunting.

So tonight was the night, they're all welded in, mounted, and wired up (and bright as all get out). Tomorrow I'll pull them back off and paint the brackets.

Between these and the new Delta headlights, I should be able to see.

Oh, and it's really amazing how much better a MIG welder works when you turn the gas on that's your tip of the day from me to all of you.

 

[W.R.Buchanan]

Eric: before you jump off the cliff on your engine install, have you considered using a MBZ 617 diesel...

We have a bunch of guys over at 4BTSwaps.com that have used them very successfully.

They have the same power that your 258 had and more torque, and in addition you'd be looking at mid 20's on fuel mileage! You can buy a whole car for $5-700, and if you look on the website there is several sets of directions on how to do the adaptation.

Or you could just do the 4.0 and enjoy it. either way there is a night and day difference.

Once I put EFI on my Mercruiser CJ5 181 chev motor. I finally had a jeep that ran reliabily. It was nite and day and would even run upside down. (tried it!)

I asssure you, you haven't experienced that with the 258. the best running carb in not even in the same league as EFI anything.

Good luck on your swap it should go fairly easy. I assume you are going to keep the D300 so you don't have to change the front axle?

Randy

 

[bigwalton]

Finished the engine swap last summer man, check the date on the posts

Yes, I kept the D300.