'Mater - '77 Cherokee S 4-door

[bigwalton]

Just like half the LED light bars and winches out there on pavement pounding JKU's....

Right, which is why I have photo evidence to prove that they DO light up.

 

[bigwalton]

Problem found and solved. The passenger side bulb retainer clip inside the light housing was shorting the power feed to the housing/mount stud.

Silver lining: I guess my multiple chassis grounds are sufficient ?

Let there be light! (That I’ll never use )

 

[Randyzzz]

Problem found and solved. The passenger side bulb retainer clip inside the light housing was shorting the power feed to the housing/mount stud.

Silver lining: I guess my multiple chassis grounds are sufficient ?

Let there be light! (That I’ll never use )
View attachment 84539

Glad you found it. I had a hunch...

 

[Randyzzz]

You upgrade the calipers to the Akebono's?

Came stock with them! Had to replace one because of a broken piston. This was my Mom’s daily driver, they bought the best one on the lot if I know them. Only has 86,000 miles on it! White with a sand interior, Limited.

Sorry for the hijack, Eric!

 

[bigwalton]

So I had a mystery issue pop up that started with some random missing under acceleration that progressively got worse. Idle was always fine. Initially revving it in the garage was totally fine, it was only driving while accelerating. Then it was happening closer to idle while driving and then it was happening revving in the garage. Still idled fine in the garage.

It stumped me, I couldn’t find anything, so I went through some basics and pulled the valve covers to check the valves and springs. Scoped the cylinders. Did a compression check. Swapped the plug wires.

The only thing I found was one spark plug that had the ground electrode inexplicably pushed flush down on the center electrode. Nothing in that cylinder, no reason I could find. Thought I’d found the issue but gapping it didn’t do anything.



Ended up changing all the plugs (discontinued Champion 4405 truck plugs that Jim Repp said that Jeep had found was worth notable HP on the dyno back in the day) and refreshing the eBay HEI with a new Accel module and coil, new cap and rotor (even though the old stuff looked fine).

Finally got everything back together today and reset the timing to 8 degrees btdc. Issue seems to be finally gone

don’t know if this video will work off of FB

https://www.facebook.com/1398885576/posts/10225161185602270

 

[jpnmaine]

Purchased a Scout years ago (late teens). Previous owner purchased the wrong spark plugs and installed them. All were struck by the pistons. Purchased the vehicle, removed the plugs, cranked the engine over and blew out the cylinders, ran it till it was to rusty to inspect. Sitting in my barn waiting.

 

[bigwalton]

Purchased a Scout years ago (late teens). Previous owner purchased the wrong spark plugs and installed them. All were struck by the pistons. Purchased the vehicle, removed the plugs, cranked the engine over and blew out the cylinders, ran it till it was to rusty to inspect. Sitting in my barn waiting.

Yeah, this was definitely not from a piston hitting it. Those plugs ran fine in the engine for the PO and were in fine shape when I prepped it for the swap, that’s why I didn’t bother swapping them.

 

[bigwalton]

Have been LOVING driving this thing. I accidentally peeled out of our neighborhood tonight going to get the kid from swimming. Oops now that I’m getting a little more confident in it I am putting my foot down faster and farther. The gas stations in town are going to LOVE me until the snow flies

I need opinions. I decided to make up a 401 sticker that I’ve had in my head since I got this engine... played with a computer printout today to check the sizing and possible placements. Definitely going with a 2” x 1” after that but I have to look at placement more... figured I’d ask y'alls opinion.

Mock up “sticker”, the font will vary from this slightly


fender option 1


fender option 2 (ignore the large one on the cowl, decided that one was just too obnoxiously large)


Fender option 3, but I don't think I'd actually do this for fear of harming the stock decal. I do kind of love the way it looks, but I was cringing even pulling off the small piece of scotch tape I was using today


Fender option 4


For anyone wondering, I did try below the Chief logo on the rocker, but to make that work, I need to do the larger sticker and I have to print a number of these at a time due to minimum quantities at the place I want to use... so I can't do both and the large size is just WAAAY too big for my taste on the tailgate or anywhere else other than on that one location on the rocker.

Tailgate option 1


Tailgate option 2


Tailgate option 3


Tailgate option 4


So all of this is kind of an homage to the 401 emblems used on the Javelins. I don’t like some of the details on the way they look exactly, I want the AMC logo and I’m not dropping the kind of money they want for repros.

Part of liking the placement behind the turn signal in fender option 2 (but properly aligned with it!! ) is because of how they did these

 

[timo439]

Given the patina, the bright colors are throwing me off. Could you do the same in more of a grayscale to allow it to "fade" into the rest of Mater? I vote for above the medallion

 

[Belizeit]

I'm more of the opinion of going stealth, and then if you are in the mood, drop the hammer and leave them in the fumes and tire smoke.

 

[bigwalton]

Given the patina, the bright colors are throwing me off. Could you do the same in more of a grayscale to allow it to "fade" into the rest of Mater? I vote for above the medallion

That's why I'm going with the smaller of the two, I think the photos showing only a portion of the Jeep (wife was parked next to me) is throwing this off somewhat, when you see it with the entirety of the Jeep, it doesn't stick out as much. Greyscale loses the logo, which was the point of this design. Trying to force it to look antiqued is just not going to come off, to my thinking. I also can't risk printing 50 of them at once and have them look like crap. Planning to sell off the extras to recoup my cost, so I just want basic AMC colors.

 

[bigwalton]

To be clear, the fenders are getting them and the tailgate. So vote for the best for each location.

I'm more of the opinion of going stealth, and then if you are in the mood, drop the hammer and leave them in the fumes and tire smoke.

Yeah, I get it... but no

Given that there's literally zero way to tell what engine is in it, even with the hood up, I just need this. One of them will go on top of the air cleaner, too.

 

[HighSierra CJ]

I vote fender option 2, and tailgate option 1.

 

[tower210]

I vote fender option 2, and tailgate option 1.

I'm exactly the same

 

[bigwalton]

I vote fender option 2, and tailgate option 1.

My gut reaction when I went to put the mockup on the tailgate was #1, that's why it was the first picture in that series. I wasn't sure if there was enough room above and below, though? I liked that it was sort of a list of the drivetrain, kinda sorta. 401 with Quadra-Trac

 

[bigwalton]

Trying to force it to look antiqued is just not going to come off, to my thinking.

I did just have a thought, I'll have plenty of them to mess around with, I could try some physical tricks to give it some patina-look before I even put it on... steel wool and/or fine sandpaper come to mind immediately... maybe even rubbing them on some concrete... hmmmm.

 

[HighSierra CJ]

My gut reaction when I went to put the mockup on the tailgate was #1, that's why it was the first picture in that series. I wasn't sure if there was enough room above and below, though? I liked that it was sort of a list of the drivetrain, kinda sorta. 401 with Quadra-Trac

I tied them “engine/drivetrain” together as well. It seems to flow really well. Good idea on putting patina on the decals as an experiment. You might get a really good look that way. I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with

 

[timo439]

That's why I'm going with the smaller of the two, I think the photos showing only a portion of the Jeep (wife was parked next to me) is throwing this off somewhat, when you see it with the entirety of the Jeep, it doesn't stick out as much. Greyscale loses the logo, which was the point of this design. Trying to force it to look antiqued is just not going to come off, to my thinking. I also can't risk printing 50 of them at once and have them look like crap. Planning to sell off the extras to recoup my cost, so I just want basic AMC colors.

Thats fair. I dont like "antiquing" either and if you are going to sell them you need the original colors.

Why not just go with the 70's AMC 401 emblem? I like the one below as opposed to the one you had shown with the shadow. That would slick in the fender 2 and tailgate 1 positions.

 

[designerRob]

I vote tailgate 1.

And I like fender 2, but either center it under the Cherokee word horizontally or line the right edge of the decal with the right edge of the last e (pass side) & lefts on driver side. And of course, lined up vertically with the side marker.

 

[bigwalton]

Thats fair. I dont like "antiquing" either and if you are going to sell them you need the original colors.

Why not just go with the 70's AMC 401 emblem? I like the one below as opposed to the one you had shown with the shadow. That would slick in the fender 2 and tailgate 1 positions.

View attachment 87326

thats the one I don’t particularly like and that costs $$$