Well folks, sorry to have disappeared for over a year. Life got real busy, and I neglected to keep this thread updated. The great news is that I got it all put back together. The less great news is all the other stuff that happened that fought me at every step in the process. I had delivered the Jeep back to the owner about a month ago, and she drove it and had fun, then I brought it back and have been stuck again since.
To update from where I left off: I got the body off and found a few bad mounts on the frame, and the rear crossmember, so I replaced those. I coated the inside of the frame with some stuff from Eastwood that came with a straw, and coated the outside of the frame. It got new stainless brake and fuel lines, new gas tank/sending unit/skidplate, new rubber brake hoses, and new drums/shoes/hardware and rotors/calipers/pads. The steering gear was leaking at the input shaft, I planned to rebuild/replace the seal, but the shaft itself had enough corrosion that I just replaced it with a reman from RockAuto.
The body got new front floorpans, and both of the rear body mounts were rusted out and required fabrication to make new ones. The body sides needed some fabrication also were the front floorpans rusted out along the sides. The carpet and seats got a good scrubbing, and the side steps got repainted.
The wheels and rear bumper got powdercoated, and I hand painted the black stripe back on the wheels. New tires, and polished the original center caps.
The engine block had been sent to the machine shop to hot tank and check the bores, but the machinist had some sort of diabetic issue that put him out for a couple months. He recovered just fine, but then told me the cylinder bores were borderline out of taper, and that he couldn't bore the block at his little shop. So I found another machine shop, had the block bored .030 but then pistons were on backorder. Finally got the engine put back together this spring, and back in the Jeep with a new clutch and all new clutch hydraulics. I rebuild the carb as best as I could, and replaced alot of the vacuum lines. The vapor canister emissions system is all still intact.
I could not source a new radiator for a CJ with a GM 151, so I went with a chinese aluminum radiator for a CJ Chevy V-8 Swap from eBay for $140. After all this expert repair work, I still humbled myself by putting the distributor in 180 out, and spending more time than I want to admit to strangers to figure it out. But it ran, not great, but it ran. I also found out that the exhaust manifold was cracked in 32 places under the heat riser shields. So that came back off for me to fix.
And then I realized the fuel and temp gauges didn't work. Replaced those with OMIX gauges. Worked for about 2 weeks, then quit. Turns out the sending unit that I put in the tank (also OMIX) just broke and half of the resistor board was laying in the bottom of the tank. So it got another one of those.
It wouldn't go faster than about 52mph, and even with the Iron Duke I figured it should be a little better than that. I bought another NEW old carburetor, and I'm still fighting trying to get this thing to run right. Currently, ignition timing set at 12btdc with vacuum disconnected, then with the vacuum line connected at idle the timing advances REALLY far away from the scale on the timing cover. I haven't done enough digging to sort that out yet, but the backfire in the driveway when I shut it off was so loud I apologized at the top of my lungs for being "that neighbor."
