Builds reviving "isabel"

[orangefj45]

hey tim. it is a husky from crap depot. it's the 7hp model. i can post the specs on it tonite when i get home.

 

[calfj60]

Georg,

Have you used it with the blast cabinet yet??? Or with any air tools yet?? I need a real worl answer from a real person I know as to wheter or not I should even be considering such a compressor...Trying to buy a compressor is more of a pain in the ass than buying a used car....all sorts or misleading and out right bad info...thanks I look forward to a real true answer....

 

[orangefj45]

hey tim. i have not hooked it up yet but will do so this weekend and give you a "real world" report.

 

[calfj60]

Thats what I am talking about....bring on teh real world tests.....

 

[orangefj45]

real world test: if you want to run a bead blsater all day, you're gonna need a mean-ass compressor. the one i have won't do the job. but it's definetly doing well with the air tools and some bead blasting. ironpig70 came over and blasted an exhaust manifold, turned out really well.
i got my drive flanges back from summers bros on friday. that was some fast turn around, just sent them to him on monday. they called me back tuesday with a quote and on thursday morning they were already resplined to 35s!
so i proceeded to blast them as well, even though i'm on major parts hold with the 60 front right now. i'm not going to see the rest of the parts i need for at least another week, most likely two.
still MIA:
high steer arms
heim ends
weld on thraded inserts for the steering components
disc brake bracketts
lock washers for the spindle nuts
not having the parts for the d60 kinda bummed me out but i figured i'd better stay busy doing something else meanwhile to get some of the other stuff done. i got most of the parts for the rad support cut and drilled. can't weld anything right now cause my best friend bob borrowed my welder for a couple of weeks.
also started messing around with the front bumper. i got one from peesalot that he bought from ccot i think. looks pretty beefy. hope it lets the 8274 clear my PS box. tried to mount the PS box only to find out that the AGR box is larger at the input than a regular saginaw and won't fit thru the hole in my x-member so now it's either modify the AGR box or run a regular sag box since the PS plates are fully welded in already.

 

[calfj60]

Georg,

I am not planning on running a blasting business but I don't want the thing to kick on every 10 seconds while using a die ginder...also which compressor is it?? I went and looked yesterday at the Depot...Thanks Tim

 

[orangefj45]

i also went on another mad parts search on friday since the dust caps on my drive flanges were junk. truns out that chrysler discontinued them about 15 years ago and there was never an aftermarket solution, since they are an odd size. after a few phone calls a budy of mine at a local parts house was kind enough to run the oem part # (which i was lucky enough to find) thru a locater and found roughly 8 of em left in the usa. i did find a place in canada that had 5 of them in stock so i bought them all. i figured i need one pair for these flanges, another pair for my "dummy flanges" (i will make a set of non splined flanges for street usage so the front does'nt always turn. this will have to wait until a lot of other things get finished first) which leaves me with one spare cause i know i'm gonna screw one up.

today i had some time left so i figured i'd get the york done. i was initially hoping to run it upright but that became a non-reality as soon as i put the front bib on the cruiser. the head of the york would have stuck right thru the hood. so i pulled it back off the engine, unbolted it from the brackett and removed the head. there is a small vent hole in the case between the crank case and the air cavity under the head. this hole needs to be plugged off or all the oil will pump out in a hurry. to do so, all that needs to be done is to run a self tapping screw into the hole from the top. pretty simple.
my buddy FC told me about that trick and mentioned that it would be a good idea to incorporate a breather in the york. one of the theories on why yorks blow oil thru the system is that the pressure in the crank case changes depending on temperature and oil expansion caused by higher temps. to prevent this, a small vent can be installed. i tried to figure out what to use for a vent and guess what?! the stock vent on the d60 front looked like it would be perfect. so i unscrewed it from the dana housing, need to run a longer breather on that anyways.
to properly vent the york crank case, i decided to drill and tap a new hole in the case. another option would have been to utilize the factory oil fill plug hole for the vent but then i'd have to unscrew the vent everytime i want to add oil and that's a stripped thread waiting to happen. so i drilled a new hole and ran a 1/8" pipe tap for the proper thread. installed the vent and guess what children? your dimb-assuincle georg forgot to see what side would be up and i promptly vented the now bottom side of the york. yeah, that would have worked really well for about 5 minutes until the compressor seized up.
so i had to pull the vent back out, find a pipe plug and install that with some liquid teflon. now re-drill the case on the opposite side and repeat the process. all this time i did have the bottom crank case cover off to make sure i would'nt have any aluminum chips in the crank case when i was all done with the mods.
finally got the york done and mounted where it needs to be. now i just have to wait for jeepindoug to finish modifying my double v belt pulley to work with my serpentine setup and it'll be done. except for running the air lines of course.

 

[orangefj45]

running the york horizontally also meant that i had to move my air intake/air cleaner assembly. the plastic intake was so long that the K&N filter would have hit the hood skirts, so i chopped about 8" of it and now it should work perfect. i'll just have to make a small brackett to help secure it in place and keep it from wanting to move back and forth. i also installed a new belt tensioner and pulley and a new idler pulley since the old ones felt a little chunky. i'll carry them as trail spares just in case.
this is what the engine looks like right now. i don't have the right belt on it yet since i do not have a new PS pump on there yet. but soon.

 

[orangefj45]

Georg,

I am not planning on running a blasting business but I don't want the thing to kick on every 10 seconds while using a die ginder...also which compressor is it?? I went and looked yesterday at the Depot...Thanks Tim

perfect for air tools. it's the husky pro 7hp model.

 

[orangefj45]

after the last couple of weekends having been fairly disapointing, i actually got some stuff done this time. and it felt good. even though i'm still hung up on parts, i was able to finish up a couple of smaller projects and proceed on some other stuff.
today i wanted to get the bumper mounted so i had to make sure that the AGR box would work and that it would be removable with the bumper in place. had to remove some of the material around the input of the PS box so it would fit into the frame.

 

[orangefj45]

after that, the box fit perfect and it's removable with the bumper in place. so i pulled the bumper back off (only had it held in place with 2 bolts anyways). put the new bumper bracketts on, along with the frame bracketts and tow hooks. figured out that i did'nt have enough grade 8 stuff in my "stock" so off to orchard. it's amazing how little hardware it takes to run up a $80 bill.
at least i have some spare hardware now, i hate running out.
got the bumper back on and all the hardware installed, put the PS box back in with a couple of bolt for mock-up only and then installed the one end cover of my warn 8274 to make sure everything would clear. no problems!!!!!
finally, things were starting to come together. Fc stopped by so i had to take a couple of hours time to have him help me hand up a pot rack in the kitchen for angie; gotta keep her happy, she's been super cool about me wrenching on the cruiser every free minute i have.
got that done and went back out in the garage. FC talked me into getting the front springs installed. we split the packs to flip the springs. got em put back together. knocked out the old cut up bushings and installed new ones only to find out that my shackles use 5/8" bolts and those would not go into the buching we were using, the stockers or at least a urethane replacement for the stock units.
instead of ordering the proper urethane bushings and having to get delayed on parts again, we decided to drill them out. i have tried drilling them out before in a drill press and it turned into nothing but frustartion and f'd up bushings.
so this time around, i decided to chuck them up in the mill and use a new end mill at high speed to "shave" the material away instead of trying to drill it. the bushings proved to be too soft to chuck up properly and would distort, so i put them in the freezer for a while. that made enough of a difference to make them easy to drill out.
got the "new" bushings installed along with the greasable spring bolt at the front only to find out that the flange on the bushings was too thick to use them with the rear shackles. pulled them back out and chucked them up in the mill again, this time to shave some material off the flange. worked like a dream. i made sure not to remove too much material, don't want to end up with the ever popular "death wobble".

 

[orangefj45]

then we put the springs on using greasable shackle bolts and called it a day. stopped by FCs place to pick up his big 220v welder so i can keep going on my x-member next week and hopefully get this rig fired up. this is how it sits now. and yes, i need more space. doing all this work in a 2 car garage with another vehicle on jack stands next to the cruiser makes for some "creative" thinking every once in a while.

 

[cruzrfan]

Georg
Isabel looking good and the write up is great I enjoy read some of the details you go into. gives a real idea of all you are going through. Unlile me I mainly put up pictures with captions, keep it up.
Final got that pot rack up that was there last time I was up all good things take time I guess that what I keep tell myself

 

[orangefj45]

here's the rest of the fab work don aka FC and i did over the weekend.

 

[orangefj45]

got my borgeson steering shaft in the mail yesterday, so i spent a couple of hours out in the garage installing it. pulled the steering box back out, painted the colapsible shaft and the steering joints to keep all that stuff from rusting. did'nt have to do any trimming, the shaft worked perfect the way it came. installation was a sinch, just add a small amount of loctite, tighten up the allen bolts and lock nuts and you're done! it's slowly starting to look like a cruiser again.

 

[Texican]

Let me share one of my wrecking yard finds, go source a clutch fan off a 3.8 T bird, late 80's , 7 blades, reverse rotation, 17" I think, and fits the FJ shroud like a glove.......

 

[orangefj45]

i'm running an aftermarket aluminum rad so i'll have to build my own shroud. it is half price day at our local pick-n-pull this weekend. i'll have to check out those fans while i'm there.

thanks for the tip butch!!!

 

[orangefj45]

my ongoing and seamingly endless quest to "build right" and "do clean work" continues. i hope that does'nt make me sound conceeded, i'm just trying to achieve those goals, not claiming that i do.
today during my comute to work on my "comuter-scooter" i was thinking of ways to improve the cruiser, as always. the front axle and all the parts still needed were on my mind and i got to thinking about the drive flanges. all the pics i had seen showed them being held in place with a set of bolts. since i want to make them easily removable, i figured it would be a good idea to use studs instead of bolts. the plan is to use the drive flanges on the trail and a set of "dummy flanges" on the road to and from the trail. these dummy flanges would still hold the outer stub in place, but it would be supported by a bearing and not positively locked to the hub. this would eliminate my worries about the front driveshaft constantly spinning when the vehicle is driven on the freeway and around town.
so once i got to work i called the local supply house and had them send over a set of 16 studs. no big deal, they even had them in stock and at 74 cents a piece i could'nt complain.
on my way home i got to thinking again. trying to remove a prefectly machined flat surface from another one on the trail would not be that easy, especially if there is a series of 8 studs loacting them perfectly paralell with each other at all times and angles. trying to seperate them would prove difficult to say the least, especially because there would be a layer of silicone making the job even harder and it would be next to impossible to do so without damaging either mating surface.
the answer was simple: machine a pair of flat reliefs in each flange at opposite ends so it is possible to insert a pair of screw drivers. by twisting them they would start to seperate the 2 parts from each other and the rest won't be a big deal. sounds goo in therory anyways. only one way to find out.
here's a pic of the flanges after my simple mods:

 

[orangefj45]

next i installed 2 studs on the hub at opposite ends and slid a drive flange onto it. worked perfect, even a little tight, but that's better than a crummy fit anyday. i grabbed a set of 3/8" grade 8 flat washers and nuts and installed them as well. the flat washers were just plain too big in diameter so the washer hung out over the outside edge of the hub. that neither looked good nor would it prove beneficial on the trail. so i grabbed a set of 5/16" washers and drilled them out to 3/8" one at a time. i like to use a makita with a unabit when drilling out washers because the bit will both center the drill and hole in the washer as well as creating a nice chamfer when it's done. i've done this before to get a good washer to bolt fit. i don't like how loose the washers fit when you use a 3/8" washer on a 3/8" bolt. call me anal, i don't care.
here's a pic to show the difference. it might be a minor detail but it's all part of my "quest". ;p

 

[calfj60]

Georg, You are the man.....I am always impressed with what you have done...keep up the good work...