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Slowly gathering little parts while saving up for the headers. Correct lug nuts, hood release cable, headlight door and rotors/wheel bearings to get it back to five lug.
The previous builder drilled out the old rotors to work with the centerlines and the 8.8.
Haven't got to turn a wrench since the move. I needed it. I got it up off the ground and leveled it out. Not easy on a crooked *** floor.
Look at that pinion angle.
Good the thing they never finished the 8.8 swap. Im going to replace those perches with some longer ones to help with axle wrap and junk those hacked up U-bolts.
Got the pinion angle dummied in. Im far from getting it set in stone. The engine/tranny centerline was about 8 degrees down before I leveled it out. 5 degrees leveled out. Need it to be around 3. Got to get a trans crossmember fabbed up and decide on tire sizes. Then I can get the numbers to set the pinion angle. The current crossmember is a peice of 1x1 square stock. Didn't get a pic but it takes up alot of ground clearance and impedes on the route foe exhaust pipes.
Got rid of ^those lug nuts. Seeing those on the centerlines made me twitch.
I bought a plastic welder. Need to fix a few broken mounting tabs and some cracks.
Going to use this one for practice. Took them home with me to keep busy. Hate not having my projects at home. I pretty much spent the rest of the day taking measurements, started the Jeep and Caddy then cleaned up around the garage a little. Was a great day.
Banged on the Gremlin Saturday. Not sure how much longer the garage situation is going to fly. I have to get it carport worthy just in case. Taking full advantage of the garage while it's still available.
Got a deal from a buddy on tires. Cobras for the rear and Federals for the front. Rear tires are the same size as the slicks and the fronts are about to inches smaller. If I did my math correctly it should be at the ride height I wanted. Old tires were going flat after a few days so they had to go.
Getting ready to yank the motor to get the numbers off of the cam, investigate the bottom end, straighten out the firewall and clean up the hack **** wiring job someone did.
Thats just plain STUPID. You can get a grommet for under twenty five cents....
Got the numbers off the heads. From what I can tell there 64cc and made in 2010. Sending Dart a email this week to see what else they can tell me.
Got the grille pretty much repaired. Added a Gremlin man. Just need to strip and paint.
Been working on the grill and polishing the centerlines in the evenings. I quit drinking so keeping my hands busy is necessary. The grill and headlight doors had a lot of breaks, cracks and missing pieces. I used the plastic welder to get it all back together. It was a little tedious. That break/rectangular hole is where a clip goes that holds the stainless trim in. Five of these were broken.
Two of the top mounting tabs were broken.
Headlight door to grill tab was also broken.
I tried using the plastic that came with the welder bit it was garbage. It didn't adhere very well and was very flexible. So I decided to go ahead and chop up the broken headlight door and use plastic from it.
The biggest repair was right here where the hood release lever goes.
Used metal screen that came with the plastic welder. I also used the screen on the cracks.
Thats the hood release before the bondo. I reinforced almost everything with plastic epoxy. The next time around I will use the epoxy for the cracks instead of the plastic welder. The job will also go alot quicker.
Theres the Gremlin man that was added. Looked bare without it.
Now the bondo.... Haven't used the stuff since I was in the rust belt. Was never good with it and I didn't get any better on this project. Ended up getting frustrated and had to set everything aside.
On to the engine compartment harness. It was a mess. Poorly executed splices, melted and useless wires that ran the AMC engine. Going to re route the dummie light wires and match them to the aftermarket gauges. There is several vacant spots on the engine to cabin connection. Will be putting the cooling fan and water pump on some relays, tie the msd system in and probably upgrade the headlights. Probably some other things to. Bought some non adhesive electrical tape to wrap it all back up with.
Srarted to put together a headlight harness. Had all but one wire color to make it match the wiring diagram. Wasn't necessary but I had almost all the wire so why the heck not?
Ran one 30 amp inline fuse with two 40 amp relays on some 14 gauge. Need to make up my mind on what else will be plugged in before getting to deep into the factory harness.
Been procrastinating on polishing the wheels. Going to go yank the motor in the am (garage rent check got cashed). Pulled a late night polishing up last two so the car can roll around tomorrow.
The shorter front tires didn't get my front end down enough. Need to look into the coil springs and see what can be done about losing two inches or if there even AMC Gremlin springs. Was a factory 6 cylinder and those ain't 6 cylinder coils.
Getting closer to 0 Turbo.
Had a few hang ups and didn't get as much done as I wanted. Buddy flaked, Ford battery was dead and both Jeep batterys were dead. Then my harmonic ballancer puller crapped out. My body was not having it either.
The bottom end is what my buddy was told it was from the person he bought it from. A built 383. Not to long after purchasing it I got a little sceptical. Measured the stroke at 3.75 and crank is forged. Connecting rods are forged H beam 6.0" SYSC rods. Need to do some research on those. Never heard of SYSC. Pistons are probes. Possibly forged. Thats what my eyeballs and depth gauge gave me. I need to run some #s for exact specs.
Had to push these Jerks out to get the batteries charged.
07-17-2016, 07:42 PM
