Brigham Alcorn

New guy, new to the Jeep world.

I have a long tale here, and hope others will enjoy it.
**TRIGGER WARNING** part of my story involves los of a pile of rare parts...

3 years ago my uncle gave me his rabbithole. He had a 1985 Jeep Cherokee with the Renault 2.1td engine in it. He had rebuilt the engine(he had a buddy who also had one of these jeeps, and was pretty into it. It came with a pile of interior spares inside of it, and a 3x3 cardboard crate of parts. That I never took inside, or even got into until this spring...

This jeep sat in my field for 3 years, and this spring I finally got around to messing around with it. I realized my uncle had, by the time I got it, installed the timing belt with the camshaft and injection pump 2 teeth off. I got that straightened out, and it fired up. That gave me hope, so I got it driven out the field and to the shop. My wife and I went to town, gutting the interior. Ordered up an ACC vinyl floor kit, stopped some of the rust I found underneath the rotted carpet. Not much rust, but i wanted to nip it in the bud.

Over the next few months we cleaned up the interior, getting it all put together. I licensed it 2 weeks ago, and we started driving it a bit. I put about 150 miles on it, and decided I should adjust my valves, because it had a little excessive rattle. Well, I thought it was a little... I pulled the valve cover off and was gutted... 3 of the 5 journals for the camshaft had broke loose. Like cam bearing caps. It was ugly. I ended up drilling the 'caps' to fit loosely over 8mm bolts, and drilled and tapped the head about 5/8" deep. So they now bolted down as caps underneath the rocker arm shaft caps(this is a fix. For now. I have friends in Europe trying to source a head for me). put the engine back together, and its been running great for the past 200 miles.

I upgraded the fuel filtration with a Standyne filter head, and a Mercedes-style prefilter. I built up an air intake out of exhaust adapters. Had new tires put on today. So far, so good.

Here's a link to my photodump, including derelict 2.1td parts...