Spankrjs 1986 "Ploy-Boy" CJ-7

[John N]

I’ve learned from over 30 years of having a plow truck, if you’re prepared with the plow mounted on the truck and the bed loaded with snow/ice melt chemical, a spreader and a snow blower, nine times out of ten, it isn’t going to be enough snow to bother plowing.

 

[Belizeit]

I’ve learned from over 30 years of having a plow truck, if you’re prepared with the plow mounted on the truck and the bed loaded with snow/ice melt chemical, a spreader and a snow blower, nine times out of ten, it isn’t going to be enough snow to bother plowing.

So what you are saying is if Raymond still had the plow mounted on the Jeep we probably wouldn’t have more than an inch of snow ? I did some Raymond redneck math. 9x out of 10 = 10 inch total. Let’s get that plow back !

 

[ag4ever]

Saw a photo today indicating Baton Rouge got 8”. That’s nuts. Houston only got about 2”. Luckily I flew out to Vegas on Monday and missed all the fun back home, and barely got on the last flight before they closed the airports.

 

[spankrjs]

Glad no tents have collapse, that stuff gets heavy

Swept the two tents off this morning and the plastic shed roof. 6" of snow on all of them. Even though it quit snowing, with all the trees in my yard, everytime the wind blows it starts snowing again

 

[bigwalton]

Worst case roof loading is rain on sitting snow, so getting them clear is a good idea. Just talked to a guy who lost a 64x144 fabric quonset to snow that he needs to replace. You officially had more snow on the ground than we did here... just gotten dustings or an inch here or there, probably no more than 2.5" out there right now depending on where you look.

 

[John N]

So what you are saying is if Raymond still had the plow mounted on the Jeep we probably wouldn’t have more than an inch of snow ? I did some Raymond redneck math. 9x out of 10 = 10 inch total. Let’s get that plow back !

Yep, pretty much.

 

[spankrjs]

Ironic that the only snow left in the yard is next to the plow Jeep

 

[mhinchliffe]

Those are frozen tears........

 

[spankrjs]

I have been busy with the red Srambler transmission and yard work around the house. At my job, I've been playing handyman, I have hand scraped and sanded two of the four concrete block walls of the old cabinet shop building, around 3,200 square feet so far. I have also been filling all the holes in the wall where assholes back their pickup trucks trailer hitches into it, about 500 pounds of concrete!! I have been prepping it for the painter: a coat of sealer on the bare block, spot priming where necessary, and two coats of paint.





When I get finished with this, the square footage I have left on this 1986 CJ7 will look much more manageable

 

[spankrjs]

Been too busy having to actually physically work at my real job to have any energy left for this one. I wanted to get a concrete slab poured this summer, to make it easier to take this Jeep apart, just too busy.

But, I did at least piddle with this one today. Made a temporary gas tank out of a one gallon gas can and a piece of 5/16 brake line. Ruined the crappy spout it came with but I hate all those stupid safety spouts anyway!!!!



And installed, with the battery I bought for this Jeep several years ago. Not recommended for driving on public streets LOL.



The Jeep was filthy from spring pollen and bush hogging/grass cutting. I actually have a car cover I bought for this Jeep, guess I should use it.

Anyway, like one of those click bait internet pictures about barn find cars.....





Like I said, filthy......



TA DA!!



And of course, did not follow my own advice, decided to drive it around the 1-1/4 mile neighborhood loop, ran out of gas half way through LOL!!!!



After a walk of shame back home to get more gas, Jeep back home. I reckon I should have splurged on a two gallon gas can!



Need to get to work on the slab and get an aluminum car canopy ordered, get back to work on this one this fall, after hurricane season. No need in disabling it now, in case I need to move it.

 

[bigwalton]

“It ain’t gurglin’”

 

[spankrjs]

So, I thought this one ran out of gas, nope, she is dead in the water. Acting like no spark. Consulted the FSM, checked the coil.



Broke out the multimeter, tested the coil, coil is dead. Probably the original coil from 1986??



New coil tested out fine, installed it, still dead.



When it died a few weeks ago on the side of the road I swapped in another ignition control module, no change, so swapped the old ICM back in and it started up. Not wanting to just throw parts out of it, followed the charts from the FSM.



Did the above test, spark from coil with 4 pin connector plugged in, no spark with it unplugged. On to Step 5.



Ohm'd it out, way over the above stated value. So, check grounds.

The negative battery clamp has been cracked for awhile, so swapped on a new end, still dead.




Went to remove the distributer cap to check the ground screw inside, I have never seen a distributer cap hold down screw more corroded in my life!!



Got it out, surprisingly everything inside LOOKS OK.



This should be the distributer ground screw, looks OK.



Not corroded at all.



Will swap on a new cap, rotor, plug wires, and spark plugs while I'm messing around. Will check the two black ignition ground wires next. They are bolted to the block with the recently installed ground wire, should be OK. Might be a ground issue somewhere in the harness.

That's it for now.

 

[Belizeit]

You will get that rebuilt yet one item at a time.

 

[AJ2393]

I had this "no-start" happen to me before. I would take a few minutes and check the connection to the coil in that plastic Motocraft U shaped connector. Essentially, the wire terminal spade wasn't making a proper connection to the coil, and thus the no-start condition. That connector really is the worst. If either wire connection "wiggles" even a bit with the connector plugged in, the wire terminals are probably not seated correctly. Once I push it back in until it's tight, the Jeep would fire right up. Just something simple worth checking.

 

[spankrjs]

Messed with this one some more last night. Usually the distributor cap has two different sized screws. Someone must have stripped this distributor out because a stock distributor cap would not screw on. Ended up running a10-24 tap through both holes and used 10-24 screws to secure the cap.

Stock cap screws on top.
Old installed screw in middle.
New screws I used on bottom.



I used my old leftover "TeamRush" upgrade parts on this Jeep. Basically a Ford cap, rotor, and plug wires.



I also checked the ground connections on the block, they were all clean.

Hooked up my spark tester on the coil, started the Jeep up, no spark.



I have been using my handy dandy remote starter tool, key left in the ON position. Realized I need to hook up the red wire on top of the solenoid when trying to start the engine or the ignition doesn't do squat!!! I pulled both wires off the top of the solenoid to hook up the remote starter, but I only need to hook up rhe remote starter to the blue wire terminal and leave the red wire hooked up.

Red wire hooked up, spark!!



So, we have spark now. But, now we have no gas to the carburetor!!

I'll mess with it some more tomorrow.....

 

[spankrjs]

Messed with this one earlier today.

Turn engine over, no fuel.



Gas in a cup straight to the pump, get gas out the other end so the pump is good to go, despite it's looks LOL.





This ended up being my fuel issue: last time I put fuel in the little one gallon can I installed the spout like the picture below. Problem with that, fuel pipe only goes down into the tank about 2". Flipped it down, reach the bottom of the tank, good to go.



I had been running the correct fuel filter with the return nipple.



Problem with that, since I dont have the gas tank installed, pretty sure I'm leaving a trail of gas behind me LOL.

So, installed a one in, one out filter for now.



Speaking of gas, the fuel gauge did not work in this Jeep when I received it. Since I temporarily pulled the rear light/fuel tank harness inside the body when I was painting, decided to ground the sender to see if gauge would work.

Not grounded:



Grounded:

 

[spankrjs]

After correcting my fuel tank fiasco, engine started right up like a champ!!



Warmed the engine up, turned it off, removed all six of the spark plugs while the engine was still hot. I learned my lesson about pulling spark plugs out of cold engines when I messed with a Ford Triton V8 a few years ago, never again LOL.

Probably not the factory plugs, no telling how many miles on them, but they looked great IMO for a carburetor engine that sits up.



Put another set of Autolite 985's back in, fired back up no problems.

Took it for about a mile or two drive, running great!!



Glad this one is running again. I really need to get the concrete slab poured so I can really get back to work on this one.

That's it for now!

 

[spankrjs]

Progress!!!!!!



I buried it

 

[spankrjs]

Concrete at 6 tomorrow morning.

 

[spankrjs]

Concrete showed up at 6, we had it down and screeded off by 7:30, edged and bull floated by 10. BUT, weird weather, concrete took forever to set up enough to put the trowel machine on it. Finally power trowled it and left at 5:30!!! The concrete guys have a 9,000 square foot slab to pour starting at 3am this morning, same concrete mix, so they called plant and slight adjusted mix for tomorrow.

I'll take a better picture in the daylight