Patterson has a Harrison Heater, common in the early DJ-3As. Attached at the bottom of the dash is an Ark-Less four position switch (Off, Low, Medium, High) that controls the fan speed. The switch wasn’t delivering current, so I spent the day figuring out how to pull it apart and clean it up in the hopes that the switch could be resurrected.

The switch is held together by a long pin in the center. The switch also rotates on this pin. To remove the pin, the rounded edges on the pin must be drilled/pressed together/or someone modified. I chose to drill out the ends.

Here’s what it looks like to begin (not my switch .. I forgot to take this pic .. thanks to the cj-2a.com page)

Note the small hole. That pin must be pushed out

Now, here’s my switch. It received some paint when Patterson was repainted (I believe the paint was touched up some at some point). Once I drilled out the end of the pin a little, I used the nail to push the pin through.

Here’s the other side of the pin. Now that it is sticking up, I can remove it.

Pin removed. I didn’t put much pressure on the pin when I first pushed it through, so I *think* the pin was already bent somehow.

Continue reading →

In case anyone’s curious, this is how Patterson’s vacuum reservoir is setup. Based on what I’ve read, a reservoir was important if running dual wipers. The vacuum begins at the manifold, then winds down under the body.

It winds up underneath to a reservoir tucked in between the frame and the spring for the parking brake.

This is a close up look at the TRICO valve on the reservoir.

This is a not so perfect illustration of how it mounts. Because of the support channels on the floor of the body, the reservoir had to be shimmed down about an inch. The solution was a set of three nuts between the body and the reservoir. Continue reading →

I pulled the head on Patterson last night. I don’t see any cracks in the block nor do I see any obvious signs of coolant, though there might be a tiny bit of residue on the tops of pistons 1 and 2. My initial reaction is that coolant is entering the oil elsewhere. The engine does appear to have a recently replaced water pump. Anyway installing that incorrectly would result in mixing coolant and oil??

The first two photos show how the pistons and head gasket looked right after pulling it. 

Then after pulling off the gasket and vacuuming up the dirt:

The head gasket:

The bottom of the head: