Well …

June 5th was my birthday.  For my 45th birthday, my mother gave me some cash and said ‘get yourself something special’.  It seemed simple enough.

I decided to get myself the rear lift for Biscuit that I’d delayed ever since I discovered my rear springs weren’t quite as high as I had thought they were (can you say mismeasurement?).

Fortunately, I’d had the fore-sight (yes, it does happen now and then) to use some late 1980s cherokee springs in the rear, because they were inexpensive and widely used.

So, on Saturday June 5th I dropped by the Japolpy Jungle in Nampa, tools in hand, sun in the sky and enthusiasm high, for some shopping!

You see, I’d done some research and it turns out that the folks with Cherokees have been using Chevy S-10 and similar vehicles as low budget lift solutions. Simply using the eye-cutoffed main leaf, builders can achieve a 1″ plus lift.

So, I went in search for a S-10 of some kind.  Low and behold, I quickly found a S-10 truck with no truck bed, which meant NO crawling underneath the vehicle — halelluah, it truly is my birthday 🙂

Even better, there was little rust, so the nuts and bolts came apart easily.  Not only that, but I gained some extra karma by loaning some tools to a couple guys who hadn’t quite brought what they needed. I was set … or thought I was ….

After gathering the springs and a few extra hoses, clamps and other items, I left Jalopy Jungle and looked forward to a quick and easy lift.

Of course, it’s never that easy ….

As dumb luck would have it, when I first aligned my rear drive line, I set it up so that my drive line went straight out from my rear pumpkin and only angled from the transfercase.

A simple lift of 2″ with a couple of the leafs from the S-10 Blazer obliterated the dumb luck.  2″ of lift altered the geometry of the rear driveline enough to create vibrations that rattled the vehicle at speeds as low as 30 mph (seriously rattled).  At first, I thought the vibrations were the result of bad u-joints, a bent driveline, a loose transfercase output shaft, and more.  I also tried changing up the spring height, installing different variations of springs 7 times.  Finally, because of the Dana 18 gears I installed in the Dana 20, I was able to rule out everything, but the rear drive shaft, because I was able to cruise down the road at 30 mph using the front drive line.  So, the problem was with the rear driveline … damn!

So, I chose today (Saturday the 12th), a cloudless, beautiful windy day in the 80s when I should be jeeping, to be crawling around the garage finding a solution to the problem.

First, I started from scratch.  I rebuilt the old springs and took Biscuit for a drive; good news, there were no vibrations.  So, it was the lift and the geometry of the rear driveline that was causing the problem.

Next, I lifted the rear using only 2 long leafs from the S-10 with eyes removed.  I also used a custom ‘angle leaf’ to compensate for the 1.5″ leaf.  Finally, I positioned an angular measuring device on the bottom of the pumpkin to insure it didn’t move much.

Well, after 5 hours of work, I can finally announce success!!!!!  No vibrations and I have my 1.5″ lift which leveled out Biscuit’s body.  So, tomorrow I get my delayed birthday drive.

Not only that, but after testing 3 different fuel gauges, I have a fuel gauge that properly measures the level … So happy birthday to me!

Here are some pics of the painful, week-long process.

BEFORE:

Jalopy Jungle:

The Wedge:

Sizing up the wedge:

After the wedge: It’s amazing the difference an inch & a half can make!

One little mod I’ve been meaning to implement was the installation of some drain holes for the driver and passenger side floors.  This allows the interior of the body to easily be sprayed out after a day in the dirt.

I knew I didn’t simply want holes; instead I wanted holes with stoppers.  But, I was concerned the stoppers would wear on the fiberglass. So, the other day I drove down the road and browsed around the local Home Depot store to see what I could find.

One idea I had was to check out the PVC aisle to see if there were any stoppers for PVC Pipe.  After looking around, I discovered some $.15 stoppers that could fit into 2″ PVC I already had.  So, I bought the stoppers and went to work.

First, I drilled 2″ holes with a drill saw.  Then, I cut two pieces (one for each side) PVC to about 4″ (my fiberglass body has two layers of fiberglass with a foam core).  I then used some handy marine glue to stick the PVC in place.  It takes the marine glue about 7 days to cure, but once cure, it’s there for life.  Here are the finished results — nothing fancy, but it gets the job done.

Here’s the hole with the stopper in place.  I still need to put some herculiner around the edges to blend everything in better.

This image shows the stopper out and the top of the hole:

This image shows the bottom of the hole:

Just the two following updates tonight.  I’m gonna fix some food and relax tonight!

Today, May 15th, the Boise Foothills gods opened the gate at 8th South, which allows for four wheel drive vehicles to head up into the Boise Hills from 8th Street.

So, with the 82 degree weather, it seemed liked a perfect day to drive the mountain. Besides, my new tire carrier needed testing.

Taking off about 2pm, it took about a half hour from the base of 8th street to get near the summit, where a bypass road allows travel along the mountain ridge both east and west.  Along the way, at one point I heard the passenger front tire collide with portion of the fender that sticks out too far.  It make a very loud crunch and I saw the entire right side of the front clip lift a few inches.  Clearly a design flaw!  I got out to check out things out and my initial assessment was that nothing got damaged.

So, I hopped back into the jeep, drove upwards and, instead of reaching that bypass road,  I chose to take a mini 4×4 trail off to the side to checkout the vista that is right before the bypass.  That’s when things went a bit awry.

At this point, I got out and checked the fender more closely.  You can see in the pic that a crack has appeared across the fender … oops!  Moreover, there was some damage underneath the fender.  No worries though, I can repair it all; it just accelerates the need to fix the ‘header bumpout’ on both fenders.

So, after checking out the fenders, I snapped some pics, got back in the Jeep, and, to my amazement, had a problem getting it started.  The engine that was running perfect up to that point chose that moment to suffer some altitude sickness (it’s about 6000 ft there).   It just stopped starting and running normally.  And, without a clutch to feather, I had to rev the engine, drop it into reverse, and try to spin the jeep around so that I could point it down the tricky hill.

To make a long story short, I restarted the engine many times and feared the battery would die before I could get the engine working long enough to spin it around.  However, I did manage to get the jeep pointed downhill and, thankfully, did not kill the battery; but it was far too close.  So, I need to develop a strategy for managing the carb at those higher levels as there are many places at that altitude left to explore.

Here are some pics from where I stopped.  You can see how the trail disappears in back of it. I had to spin the jeep 180 degrees and get it pointed down the steep incline.

Here’s the crack …

Here’s a shot of the carrier with the jack tied on to the back.  I’ve got a solution for bolting the jack onto the carrier, but I’ll highlight that in an upcoming post.

Here’s me with some seriously ruffled hair enjoying the view.  I have yet to discover the jeep won’t start easily.

Here’s a panorama.

Among those odd-n-end projects I’ve been meaning to complete is the tire carrier.  Since I don’t foresee installing a rear seat in the near future, I decided to build a carrier that would blend in with the roll cage in a way that the tire would be inside the rear area when I install a top (another odd-n-end to-be-done project).

My first decision was to utilize the same strategy for the carrier I used for the rear view mirror:  cut a piece of roll bar tubing in half and use that as a mount to tie into the roll cage. I also wanted the carrier removable in case I wanted to add a rear seat and put the spare tire on the rear bumper.

In this pic I cut a section of tubing in half and then cut one of the halves into two pieces:

After widening them slightly, I have tested all three pieces on the roll bar:

On the longer of the three pieces, I have fashioned two sections of tube that will attach to the piece:

This tire mount was in terrible shape, so I decided to cut off the top piece and work from it:

Here, I have cut the mounting plate and have prepared some rectangular tubing for attachment to the plate.

You can see here that I have welded the tubes onto the half tubing.  I also ground the square tubing pieces and welded those onto the round tubes.  In addition, I welded the carrier plate onto the tubing pieces. Finally, I have added the lower bar and cut the tubes so they will conect to the bar:

Here are some pics of the finished product.  Again, the carrier plate isn’t perfect, but I saw no need to waste it and it works perfectly fine.

After fixing the sprinklers and getting the lawn ready for summer, I decided it was too nice of a day to waste any more it, so I pulled out my trusty Idaho map and searched for a local drive I hadn’t tried yet.

Sure enough, there was a dirt road about 15 minutes north of me that meandered upwards 12 miles into the mountains until it reached Spring Valley Summit (4500′) on Highway 55 between the Treasure Valley and Horseshoe Bend.

It was perfect, as I live just off Hwy 55, so I could roar down the highway following my exploration into the ‘unknown’ and test out my new timing specs (I just readjusted the distributor to 13 degrees). With new jets and the timing dialed correctly, it seems to be running very well.

Along the way, I snapped a couple pics for your viewing pleasure.  In this first pic, I’m near the beginning of the drive.  That’s Squaw Butte in the background, which I’ve only climbed halfway so far (prior to having the jeep).

There were a number of mines along the drive.  Why someone parked a car onto of the entrance is beyond me … Maybe it’s called the Rusty Auto Mine?

Yesterday, I spent some time deciding how Lost Biscuit’s name should appear and where I might put an ewillys logo.

Building the Logo

The simpler of the two items to create was the eWillys logo ‘sticker’.  I took an EPS version of the eWillys logo, increased the size in photoshop and then applied it to the jeep.  You can see in the first image below, which is entirely a photoshop mockup, that it works pretty well.

However, when I increased the logo further, printed it out, and placed a paper version on the jeep, the logo appears washed out.  I think I need to embolden the eWillys name to give it a darker appearance when printed.  The actual sticker will be stuck to a thin plate (probably an aluminum plate made from a street sign which i can pick up cheaply at my local metal recycler).  That makes attaching the logo, and getting it positioned correctly, easier.

Finally, after staring at it over the last few minutes, I have decided to put some more white space above the logo itself — it feels too crowded at the top.  So, I’m going to center the logo a little more within the ellipse.

Creating Lost Biscuit’s name

Creating the Lost Biscuit name was more of a challenge, mostly because I needed to settle on a font.  I knew I did not want a pure san-serif font (think arial, helvetica fonts), because I felt that would be too angular and void of personality.  I didn’t want too much of a serif font (think Times or Garamond), as that would be too formal.

No, I needed something slightly modern and slightly whimsical, which is how I settled on an italicized Tekton Pro. After experimenting, I also decided to go with all capital letters (and increasing the size of the letters L and B) as it I thought it worked better visually.

In image 1, the photoshopped image, the size looks just about right.  I tried it in black, but decided white worked the best.  In the second image, I printed and cut out the letters, leaving small strips of paper to keep the letters connected.  Unfortunately, after all the work of cutting out the letters, I decided that 4″ tall letters were too tall.  So, I dropped the letters to 3 1/2″, which I think will work well (to be tested very soon). Once I finalize the design, I’ll head to a local graphics shop and have them made.

Sunday was a perfect day temperature-wise to take Biscuit out for a long test run into the Boise Foothills.

Of course, It took all of about 5 minutes into the hills before the engine overheated.  For some reason the auto temp sensor wasn’t turning on the electric fans.  So, using some extra wire i had, I wired up the fan directly to the electrical system, which bypasses the temperature sensor.

After resolving that issue, it took all of another 5 minutes before we hit a gate that wouldn’t open until May 15 … sigh.

So, I drove back down the hill, through town, and tried a different access road that’s on the East Side of Downtown Boise. This time, we found some trails!!  We even found some difficult enough terrain to engage four wheel drive and low range.

After an hour of driving, we found ourselves at the top of a pass and made a left, tackling some more difficult terrain.  We eventually hit some snow and figured that without a winch, turning back was the smart option.  When we got to the pass, I made a left and headed down the other side of the mountain.

As I managed to leave the map at home, we were travelling slightly blind, so we depended heavily on serendipity.  Eventually, we found ourselves at one of two tributaries to Lucky Peak Reservoir.  Because the lake is low, we could actually drive along the reservoir, which is where these pics were taken.

Instead of heading back over the canyon road, I took the highway back to Boise, which meant Biscuit got to drive at 55 for an extended length of time.  All in all it was a successful trip!  Here are some pics from the day’s adventure.

I made some more progress with the engine today.  I managed to get the oil to finally stop exiting the dipstick hole.  The cause was, as I suspected, related to the crankcase pressure. So, I spent some time fiddling with the PVC and breather system.

First, I bought a new PCV valve.  Next, I connected the valve cover ‘breathers’ together with the intake breather and fed them into the aircleaner.  Now that the pressure is a bit more equalized, the oil stopped getting pushed out the dip stick hole.

So one problem down, but now a new one.  The air getting cycled into the air cleaner was ‘dirty’ enough that it was affecting performance a bit.  However, I’m hoping once I get the new jets for the carb,  it will stop burning so rich, which will clean up the system.  That’s the theory anyway.

While I was researching breathing systems, I learned a bit of history about the PCV Valve. It turns out that PCV valves were invented during WWII to enable tanks to ford deep water and still have their systems breath appropriately.  Following the war, someone at the GM plant where the PCV Valves were built realized they could help combat some smog issues. You can learn more about this at Wikipedia.

I’ve been meaning to add a rear view mirror to the Biscuit.  A couple months ago I pulled a rear view mirror off an old Dodge truck at a salvage yard;  I specifically searched for a rear view mirror that could be bolted onto the jeep. I knew there were times that I would want to have a rear view mirror without the windshield, so connecting it to the windshield wasn’t an option.  Also, from past experience, I knew that the windshield flexes at highway speeds a bit, so it would shake a little less connected to the roll bar.

So, last weekend I took a small piece of flat steel and welded it onto a piece of tube cut in half. I then drilled and tapped a hole into the rollbar.  Then all that was left was to drill a couple holes into the mini mount i built, paint it, and attach it. It’s nothing fancy, but gets the job done!

It was a busy week with my kids.  This was a pleasant surprise for me as it wasn’t ‘my year’ to have them over spring break.  The boys continued to humble me with their video game prowess (with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 the game of choice); however, I evened the battles by destroying them at scrabble and monopoly (yes, real boardgames!) — I still got it!

As usual, there was plenty of food, along with a special celebration of my daughters birthday that included some home made chocolate fondue (into which we dipped a variety of items).  The chocolate fondue was inspired by a cheese fondue we enjoyed on Wednesday generously provided by the ewillys Swiss Bureau; So, many thanks to John and his family for that generous gift :-).

The night before the kids arrived (which was saturday night of last weekend), I attached the new heads.  They appear to have solved the leaking problem.  I still have some minor leakage of oil out the dipstick holder, but I think a little sealant should fix that.  One very noticable change is that the engine starts very easily now (though the new battery and alternator are helping with that too).  Now, I need to fine tune the carb (an older 500 CFM Performance carb) so that it runs a little less rich under heavy acceleration.

Below are a few pics of the kids playing for the camera:

So, I pulled the driver’s side head and inspected the head and cylinders.  You can see in the pics of the valves that the number #1 cylinder isn’t buring as well as #3 and #5.  Also, number 1 cylinder looked a great deal moister inside as well.  The head gasket appears fine.

I’m still uncertain what’s causing the problems as I haven’t spotted any cracks yet.  As a refresher, here are the problems:

1.  Some exhaust or blow-by escapes into the block and escapes out the intake manifold (or out the driver’s side head).

2. It sounds like it runs well until under pressure such as more than average acceleration, then it seems to run rough,  until the acceleration is let up a little.

3. Some coolant residual appears in various places after running the engine (in the form of a slightly white foam).

4. I have leakage of slightly watered oil that leaks from the oil dipstick and from the valve cover.  I can slow this greatly by disconnecting the PCV unit from the intake manifold.

Here’s a few pics (note cylinders #3 & #5 have a little liquid from pulling the head, but the #1 cylinder is much damper/oilier).

This weekend I spent some time messing with my engine.  One of the concerns I have had was that the whitish smoke that still slips out of the intake manifold hasn’t gone away.  I had hoped that was simply the rings not sealing, but I don’t believe it is anymore.

While checking the engine closely on Saturday, I discovered that there was some whitish, oily residue on the roof of the oil breather, which suggests coolant in the oil.  My radiator level was also a little low. Between that, the smoke, and the fact that it runs a little rough when under pressure, I now believe that somewhere on my left bank there is a crack. I suspect it’s the REAL reason the seller of my engine stopped using it.

Fortunately, I have an extra 3.8L block that appears in good shape (I’m already using the heads and crankshaft).  I would have used that block initially, except that it’s bored .030, while my Hypereutectic pistons are made for a stock bore.  So, I guess I’ll go back to .030 bore and the pistons that came with that block.

So, I’m going to get my block dipped and cleaned, pull the engine, rip it apart, and put everything back together.  It sounds like some good weekend fun …. I’m might redo the radiator setup while I’m at it — I have a new idea for that.