People have asked how the transmission swap is going. Well, fixing my parents house and finishing the book have trumped work on Biscuit, but I did trade for and bring home a low mile short block that *should* solve my engine woes. Here’s a picture of Biscuit and of the new engine.

After repairing a few more sonny-do-items around my parents’ house, I got a chance to pull the engine, transmission, and transfercase. As usual, a variety of expletives bounced off the less-than hallowed walls of the garage.

During the removal process I discovered that power steering box moves some when turning to the right. I *thought* it was a good idea to use the stock ’73 CJ-5 mounting unit to mount the steering, since I would have thought Jeep’s engineers would have been able to get that right, but it seems my place was misplaced. So, part of the rebuild process will be improving the mounting bracket.

On a side note, my father was busily managing the process from the kitchen. Everytime I went in the house he’d ask, “Is your transmission an automatic.”
“Yes, I’d say, but I’m changing to a T-18.”
“You know,” he’d say, “the manual is shorter than the automatic.”
“Yes, I’d say.”
“Ok, well good. You just need to be aware of that.”
By the time we had our third conversation about it, I was WELL aware!

Here are a few pics:

The cobwebs and dust on the hook suggest the garage’s engine pulley hasn’t been used in decades.

The engine is about to be freed.

The jeep sits just high enough to allow me to pull the tranny and tc out from under it. I’d like to say it was stellar planning, but it was really dumb luck.

There she sits, looking like she’s bleeding a bit. She and I had some good times, but our divorce will soon be finalized. Time for some thing different.

After I fixed my parents’ mailbox, repaired two broken outlets, and rewired some lights in the garage, I was finally able to start dismantling Biscuit for the tranny (and possibly engine) swap. Once I undo a few more  bolts, the engine should slide right out. I have a few more things to do before the tranny is ready to come out. But, that will be delayed a day or two as I begin work on several more house-related sonny-do projects.

One thing I learned as I drained the water from the radiator . . . it was much browner than I expected. There’s definitely some oil mixed with it.

FEATURED MAY 2010

Despite some sketchy weather this Memorial Day weekend, I still managed to get into the hills.  Sunday proved to be the best day, so I chose to head out of Boise on 8th street again — otherwise known by me as trouble road.  You see, every time I’ve headed out that road, something has happened (one time, the fan stopped working .. last time, I broke the fender and almost got stuck near the hill top).  This trip was no exception.

Fixing my Carb

First, let’s talk carbs.  I thought I had gotten the carb running well, but hesitation problems continued over the past week.  By Friday of this week, I was getting ticked off at not being able to floor it and go — instead, I had to accelerate slowly.

My solution:  find a Carter/Edelbrock manual and get instructions.  Sure enough, I found one online that described my problem.  What I thought was the result of too much fuel was actually a problem of too little fuel.  So, I increased my primary jets to .86.  I also re-routed my PVC valve into the base of the carb.  Those two changes made ol’ Lost Biscuit much much happier.  Nothing like reading the manual ….

Now, onward and upward until …

So, with the carb functioning correctly, climbing out eighth avenue into the foothills went smoothly.  As usual, I checked my gauges frequently, especially my temperature gauge.  So, it was quite a surprise when I looked down and saw that the temp gauge had lept to 260 degrees!  SHIT!  I pulled over immediately and shut down the engine.  I jumped out to lift the hood to let the engine cool more; however, much to my surprise it turned out the engine was holding down a ready-to-explode radiator hose.  As soon as I lifted hood, the hose separated from a connection tube and a geyser that could be seen from Yellowstone NP let loose.  If I wasn’t so pissed off, it would have looked pretty cool.

So, there on the trail I sit scratching my head.  After letting things cool just a bit, I quickly found the cause of the problem — a wire had come loose at the base of the fan relay that was part of the original connection. So, I spliced around that loose connection and the fan started working again.

Now, how to get some water into the radiator?  I had a total of one bottle of water on me, so  I poured that in; unfortunately, I needed another 20 bottles or so.  That’s when lady-luck arrived in the form of a puddle around 20 feet behind me — I think it was the only puddle along that entire road.

So, I took my bottle, gathered water from the puddle and filtered the muddy water through a shirt.  After many trips back and forth, I got the radiator filled, cringing the entire time.  But, I figured it would work until I got it home to drain and clean it.

Now, onward and upward for real …

But I was sure about one thing in particular … I was getting to the top of that road this time!  And I did get there, all the way to the ridge road — finally!   Once I got to the top, I was having too much fun, so I just kept going and exploring.  And so, here are some pics from the trip.

First is a composition of images taken from the ‘road’ that ran along the mountain ridge.

On the north side of the ridge there is plenty of green, while the south side is pretty brown.

Here’s a bunch of sheep munching along the hillside.

I wanted to make sure I can get through the snow.  Without a winch, I don’t want to get stuck.

Finally, near the top of the highest mountain, too much snow filled the road to allow passage.  So, I have to save the very highest roads for some warmer weather

And here is the view looking west of this road.  You can just make out Bogus Basin road which carves upwards to Boise’s ski area, Bogus Basin.

And yes, once I arrive back home, I immediate drained the engine of water and flushed it with additional water.  I also changed the way the fan relay was mounted and simplified the wiring so that the damn fans won’t ever shut down again!