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:

I made an puzzling discovery about bell cranks the other day. I ordered a rebuild kit for Rusty’s bell crank. When I began assembling it, I discovered the original and new bolts were different. So, I had to use my old bolt (which fortunately was in good shape). Going back online, all the bell crank rebuild kits show the left hand bolt below (anyone need a new bolt .. I don’t). Do any other jeeps use the shorter bolt in their bell cranks?

Both of the DJ-3As have the same setup. The bolts they use lack an indent (used to secure the bolt to the bell crank mount). They are slightly shorter and 1/16th larger in diameter than the replacement crank. The DJ bolt lacks the hole at the end.

Here it is reassembled. The horizontal bolt clamps the unit together, but does not anchor the bolt.