My family took a trip this weekend and I stayed home so I had the entire time to work on the Jeep. I got a lot done and am in a great place with the project now thank to that time. Here is the list of things I got done and I have some picture but the one I will go over the most in this post will be the Advance Adapter kits. Here is what I completed this weekend.
- Degreased the motor and painted
- Cleaned the nastiness out of the head ports.
- Went to a pick and pull to get a new intake. Mine had a hole. I got it and degreased the nasty oil out of the runners and cleaned the rest.
- Got a dual fan setup from the pick and pull. I looked for a Taurus but they didn’t have any so I grabbed a nice set from a Ford Five Hundred. It is close but I will need to make some adapters.
- Painted and installed the new Dave’s motor mounts. These are a work of art. Very nice piece.
- Installed the Advance adapter kit to 90%. Will explain in a bit.
- Installed the brackets for the tranny shifter. Also lined up the dual transfer-case shifter and checked for clearance issues.
- Installed the motor in the Jeep to line it up. Right now, it is just clamped to the frame. I need to check for clearance on everything before I bolt and weld the mounts in place. That will be close to the last thing I do.
- Tried to install the headers but the bolts were the wrong size, so I ordered a new set online.
The Advance adapter kits is a nice piece and the company is great to work with. When the kit was in route to my house I got a call from Nicki. She told me the reluctor ring may not be in the box and for me to check when it arrived. The box arrived two days later and while I was looking at everything she called back to ask me again. I verified that it was missing and they shipped it out the next day so I should be getting that part today or tomorrow. I printed the directions and got to work on it Sunday morning. The shaft on the transmission has to be cut shorter for the adapters to work correctly. In the directions I noticed two measurements. On one page it said cut it to 3.85 inches and on another page it said cut to 4.10 inches. Now in my lifetime of home renovations I have learned to cut longer first because once you cut it too short it will always be too short. I cut the shaft to 4.1 and finished the assembly minus the reluctor ring. I converted the Dana 300 over which went surprisingly well. You do need a shop press for the job. I do not recommend using hammers to install the bearing and seals.
For the wiring I got about halfway through stripping the stock setup down and I could not get past the fact that I can’t move the ECU to inside the Jeep. I do not want it on the fender since I want everything to look clean and uncluttered. I decided to follow Mysunnshine’s advice and I splurged on the PSI wire harness. What a beautiful kit she is. When I took it out of the box I knew it was the right decision. The time I will save is massive when it comes to hooking it up and knowing this part of the conversion is a slam dunk.
I was hoping to get on the fuel system but I never made it that far. I really needed to get the motor in to clear up shop space for removing the fuel tank. I usually have the wife’s car in the other bay so space is tight. The next steps will be to install the fuel system, install the front-end accessories on the motor, installed the grill and radiator to test fit the fans. After that I will start on installing the PSI wiring harness.
