Yeah i hate the chrome too. I can live with it for the price tho. Hopefully soon to get a new set of black wheels after selling my old set of tires and wheels. I figured the balancer was gonna be alot more time just getting to it instead of actually replacing it... I guess that's true about just about everything tho. Oh well I guess I'll just keep throwing money at it haha.

It's my fall break and I'm starting to work on the jeep again. Today I got the front bumper painted black, new turn signal lenses installed, and working on getting the harmonic balancer (aka vibration balancer in the Haynes manual) pulled out. I have everything ready other than pulling the radiator out. I need to take pics of the pulley, it appears that the pulley is coming off the "housing". I will get some pics up tomorrow. The gf's brother wants to take his f150 out to get some mud on it so should get some wheelin pics soon too. I always end up having fun and forgetting a camera so when I take the Jeep I'm trying to make sure I have the camera. Mby the gf will start being responsible for the pics with her nice camera

Welp after about 2 days of working on the Jeep I drove it tonight. The harmonic balancer is replaced with a new one and no squeaks! The balancer was only $50 from O'Reilly's and about $25 worth of coolant got me a much quieter engine. The work was all pretty easy just kinda a pain to take everything off. Either way it was a good weekend project.

Below is after I pressed off the balancer:





Old balancer (you can tell where the pulley part is coming out of the housing. I think someone might have tried to use a gear puller to pull the balancer out and effed it all up)





New Balancer!!!



Poor Jeep stripped down



New balancer on!



Also got the bumper painted. I love black spray paint



Ready to Ride with the painted front bumper and new clear turn signal lenses. It cleaned the looks of the front up alot:





And well I got the trans oil all checked and at the right level and for the next few days I will be trying to get the coolant all good to go. I hate the stupid reservoir bottle btw... oh well hopefully I will be out wheelin or something soon! Hope yall like the progress. I absolutely love this Jeep!

Looks great! What are you drinking in the 3rd and 4th pic in the above post?

lol that was a bud light but just a can for dip haha

Drove it to work and school today! Had to put some more coolant in it. Trans oil is now good too. I'll prob top off the coolant tomorrow morning before school too. It feels good to have it not squeaking though!

Hey man its looking good. I like the black front bumper it changes how the whole front end looks. And ya haha i hated that dang coolant tank

comin along real nice. I love the rack you built. I cant fit in my garage if I made one of those. Hate parking out in the snow during the winter. hard call to make there

Thanks man. I'm finally getting used to the little tank. If I squeeze the hoses b4 I run it for the first time I can get a bunch of coolant throughout the system. I just keep an eye on it now and fill it up every now and then. eventually it will get to a point where I don't need to fill it up anymore. It's stupid but I got the hang of it now.

Hopefully this weekend me and the gf are gonna go try to find some good dirt roads. Pics soon to come!

Well... I've had a rough weekend. First off, Saturday, at work I left for my lunch break to get some tacos. I hopped in the jeep not worried the least bit anything was wrong... and boom, it the jeep wouldn't turn over. I'm not sure if I've posted this before but this would be the third time my starter has acted weird. I immediately knew what was wrong and what tools I needed to fix it. I got a friend to come by and drop off the tools I needed to pull the starter. I got it off and took it in and bought a new one. It seemed to have a bearing inside it going out and grinding bad. I got the new one before the lunch break was over and it worked great. Actually the started is much quieter now too which is kinda nice.
New shiny starter:



So Sunday it was really nice outside and thought it'd be fun to take the gf out to interlake to do some light wheeling. My cousin and her brother ended up coming to make a fun little trip...









On the way home the jeep started running very hot. When I pulled it over the coolant was boiling over and engine oil was everywhere. At this point I was pissed and I was in a time crunch. Had to call dad to pick me up with the trailer to pull me home full of shame. Turns out my blow-by had filled the air filter up and was causing all kinds of problems. I think that the coolant system hadn't been cycled completely before running down the interstate got it hot. I ended up going to the junkyard today and buying a new air filter box. This one fits much better since my last one swelled out a bit.



I am also in the process of building a blow-by trap. This is phase one just to see how it works. and yes it is a Gatorade bottle.



Old air filter and box. You might be able to tell that the box is just a tad pushed out on the sides. Oh well, new air filter was like $7 and the box was $5.



I got it all ready to go and I started her up.... about 15 seconds went by before I heard something funny. I looked at the oil filter and oil was being pushed outta it as fast as it could. The sight of it made me sick. I ran to the door to turn the jeep off. Went inside to have diner and came out to find oil had drained all the way back to the jeep and the dipstick didn't show any oil was in the engine. Apparently it all flushed out while I was inside. I was to frustrated and ashamed to take a pic of it but I might tomorrow after classes. It appears to me that the oil filter gasket pushed out a tad. I don't know why all of this is happening all at once but I'm just glad it didn't leak like this while I was driving it. Tomorrow I'm going to go buy a new oil filter and some more oil. I'll drain the rest of it and fill it up with new oil and try it and hopefully it'll run right again... let's hope.
Sorry to rant about everything but if anyone has ANY ideas let me know. I'm kinda in the dark on this one. Thanks again guys, the people on this site are awesome!

Well I bought a new Wixs filter and some oil and changed what was left of the oil. I started her up and after running about 10 seconds the oil filter expanded and was pouring out oil through the gasket. I believe there is somesort of clog in my oil lines thats keeping it from pumping. I'm still clueless of what it is. I've now pulled the oil pan off and checking crankshaft and piston bearings to make sure they're okay. The rear one looked fine, but we'll see about the others. I've tried to read other threads here but I can't seem to find anyone here that's experienced this same problem. I think this is the 'hate' part of a love / hate relationship w/ my Jeep. I sure hope I don't have to rebuild the motor. If I am gonna do the rebuild I'll prob do the 4.7L stroker while I'm at it. I'll post some pics of the progress soon.

Here's a pic of the expanded oil filter. It's just sickening to look at:

That sucks bro but if you do a stroker kit post pics and definetly ask other people who have done the 4.7 their advice is priceless.

Got some progress done today. All the bearings looked good. They weren't perfect but they looked fine for having 170,000miles on them. Here's a pic of the 2nd one from the front. The rest looked the basically the same:



I also got to cleaning up the oil pan and painted it... you guessed it, BLACK. Hopefully it will keep it from rusting or anything.



I also got a pic of the new starter off it's really amazing how quiet it turns over:



Pic of the oil pump still on the jeep ready to be taken off:



I pulled the pump off and tried to take the check valve (what regulates oil pressure) off and it would not budge. I tried to blow it out with the air compressor but it was still stuck. I ended up breaking free by prying it with a screw driver. It was deff a good feeling realizing that my diagnostic was correct and the stuck valve was at least one of my problem(s). Here's a pic of the needle and spring out of the pump.



New oil pump ($75) beside the nasty old one. I guess that's what old crappy oil does to the inside of an engine:



I cleaned up the old oil pick up line really good and flushed it with carb cleaner and gasoline. I pressed it into the new pump and installed it all.



That's where I got tonight. Hopefully I will have the pan back on tomorrow night and will see how if it holds oil here in the next few days... Hopefully the problem was only the oil pump valve and nothing more!

The Jeep finally runs again! I pour some oil in her and pulled the plug on the distributor so it would crank over and get oil pumping, then I started her up. I think I might have fouled a plug when I cranked it over but that's not a huge issue. I also found out that the oil sending unit is bad (must have blown when the oil pressure skyrocketed). When I first started it, it blew a transmission cooling line from the radiator that must have been pushed off when we installed the oil pan. Overall I'm just happy it's back together. Tomorrow I'll be putting a new sender and plugs in it and cleaning up the shop.

The new oil pump installed:



Here's a pic of the cleaned oil pan with the gasket about rdy to go:



Oil pan back on:



Here's how it's sleeping tonight... and yes that's the transmission fluid all over the floor. It's sickening but at least it's one more thing that's fixed. Thanks for reading guys I appreciate it. I'm wanting to get the new bumpers built soon too.

how long did it take to take out the oil pump?