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69 Chevelle SS... man.... and I thought it was a heart breaker when my '70 Nova got nailed in the rear quarter just 3 days after getting the exhaust done. 69 Chevelle SS will pull a MINT nowadays. Is your *** still sore from kickin' yourself?!?!?!
I had a '72 Chevelle SS454 with the 4spd in high school. I had bought it in Texas when I was 13, took me 3yrs to get it road worthy. I took my driving test in that car. Unfortunately lost it, a '66 Nova II and my mom's '56 Nomad in 2007 when a tornado hit the garage the were all in. I miss that car for sure.
I had a '72 Chevelle SS454 with the 4spd in high school. I had bought it in Texas when I was 13, took me 3yrs to get it road worthy. I took my driving test in that car. Unfortunately lost it, a '66 Nova II and my mom's '56 Nomad in 2007 when a tornado hit the garage the were all in. I miss that car for sure.
Replaced all the plugs last night with brand new NGKs gapped to .035". Noticed the #5 plug boot was damaged. Literally had cracks all the way through it on both sides of the boot. Decided to test it and see if it was firing regularly so I put one of the old plugs in it and stuck it up out of the way so I could see it with my motor running. Hardly fired at all. Swapped the #3 for the #5 and tested it (eliminating the possibility of a dead terminal on the cap at the same time) and it fired every time the rotor went around. So, bad wire.
Luckily a buddy of mine had a spare set of plugs. Brought 'em to me this morning along with a fuel pressure gauge. I went out on my break at about 0715 and swapped the bad plug out. Runs mint!
We'll see if my problems are solved now.
Also received the nutstrips that XJWonders makes. Shot 'em with some red oxide primer and some spare paint I had lying around... the resulting color was really nice. it's a shame no one will ever see these once they're installed lol....
Also finally got around to peelin' off the tires from the loaner wheels I got. Was going to swap them on to my mother in law's trailer wheels, but the tires that are on those wheels have been on there so long, they've bonded to the wheels. Gonna take them to a tire shop on friday. But the other ones came off pretty easily with the hi lift and tire tools.
Did some work Monday morning while I was waiting for my friend to show up with his ZJ so we could work on it a little.
Ditched the ZJ hitch from mine and finally got around to installing the XJ-correct hitch with my nutstrips from XJWonders. These things are really beefy. They're thicker than the OEM spec strips, the nutserts are pressed in, and then they're tig-welded to the strips. Crown Automotive's strips are same as OEM, and as much as I like JCR Offroad's stuff, their design kinda baffles me. The strips themselves look beefy enough, but the nutserts are round and just pressed in. I'm sure they'd hold up for a good long while, but I plan on keeping my Jeep for a good while LONGER. I've already had a frame nut break loose of the welds on my upper shackle bolt.... so I know it's possible for bolts to seize up and become near impossible to get out. Seems to me if a pressed-in nutsert broke loose - and it was completely round - that it would make things a little more arduous to get out.
So, just as my preference, I went with Neil's.... and I'm really happy that I did. They lined up perfectly, the quality was excellent, and the install was a LOT easier than trying to fish bolts through the frame rails and trying to get the stupid rectangular washers to stay still when tightening them down.
Pics, of course....
Before....
As you can see, things are pretty crammed in there.
Now I have ROOM for my exhaust and my shackles don't rub anymore. It's a little thing, sure... but just another little thing to make me a lot happier with my Jeep.
Just cause I can be a dick sometimes, it's actually NEAL! Hahahaha!
But... Everything looks good! Those nut strips did turn out with a cool color.
lol... yeah we all like to screw up his name spelling on purpose. Kneel, kneal, neal, neil, niel... I try and spell his name differently every time. I don't know if he's ever even corrected us on it, but we like to mess with him
Cheap thrills I guess.
As far as the color goes, it's really kind of a shame you can't see the strips lol.... I really wasn't planning on making them "purdy" just didn't wanna waste good black paint on something that wasn't going to be seen. Figured I'd throw whatever paint I had laying around that I'd probably NEVER use just to cover 'em up. Funny thing is, I think there's sill some left in that can.
Not a whole lot going on as of late. Been working a lot. My last day off I made time for the kids. Taking them to the park like I intended didn't pan out, but I was able to talk my son through changing out broken training wheels on his bike.
...and of course my daughter wanted to wear daddy's safety glasses...
Update to the water pump situation though, as much as I love Rock Auto, I have to give them a thumbsdown for the MOPAR water pump purchase. Evidently, the part number for the water pump changed in '00. So the pump I bought, although is exactly the same from the beginning of the 4.0's production, only "fits" the '00 and '01 model year. So because I bought a water pump that wasn't for my year jeep, it's not covered under warranty. I haven't called them yet to argue the point yet, but I will at some point. Pretty sure I'll just take my money back this time instead of a replacement.
The good news however, is that the pump I pulled off was bought through Autozone with a lifetime replacement warranty. Picked up my new water pump last night at no cost to me. So hey, if I have to replace a water pump every 6 years well, that's not great, but it's better than paying twice as much for the OEM stuff and having it be bad right out of the box and not be warrantied.
Also ordered a new set of plug wires. 8mm Accel. The motor started missing again. Not terrible, but it is to the point that, once it's warm and you're at cruising speed, it will miss and cause a decent "hiccup" when you're going down the road. It was driving me nuts and I couldn't quite figure out why. Then, on a hunch, I opened the hood one night and could see a few of the wires themselves glowing a little every time they'd fire. Realized they were touching against metal objects (ac compressor, oil dipstick tube, OTHER PLUG WIRES) and that was part of the problem, but the other parts of the equation is that they're about a year old but suffered quite a bit of abuse with the excessive heat buildup from it running lean for so long (plus they're cheap AC Delco 7mm wires) and the higher voltage coil probably exceeds the capacity of the insulation... I don't really know about that one, just spitballin' there. But there's no breaks in the insulation to the wire and it's not jumping an arc to the metal parts they're touching, just making the plug wire glow from the point of fire to the point of "contact" to the metal. I'd get a video of it, but it's so faint you can barely see it, even in when it's almost pitch black outside.
And, for good measure, I ordered a new NTK O2 sensor since I'm quite sure the one that's in there is damaged from all the oil the Jeep was burning before.
Last edited by Basslicks; 02-24-2017 at 09:23 AM.
Reason: MOAR
How old is your boy? Try to rob him of those training wheels yet? He looks old enough to go without.
*sigh* well, he and my older son BOTH would be. They're on 20" bikes. Dyllon (pictured) just turned 8 and Jordan is 9. Crappy dad that I am hasn't had time to take them out and teach them 'cause of how much I work.... well, that and they outgrew their first bikes a couple years ago.
My hope is for them to pick it up quick and use the training wheels as little as possible for as short a time as possible.
*sigh* well, he and my older son BOTH would be. They're on 20" bikes. Dyllon (pictured) just turned 8 and Jordan is 9. Crappy dad that I am hasn't had time to take them out and teach them 'cause of how much I work.... well, that and they outgrew their first bikes a couple years ago.
My hope is for them to pick it up quick and use the training wheels as little as possible for as short a time as possible.
Hahaha, sorry man. Didn't mean to make you "drop your head" so to say. Dad's gotta make that money so they can have those things. Know it sucks to be gone, but they'll definitely thank you for it in the future (if they don't already).
Yeah I hope so. Saturday was a wash. Had planned on knocking out my water pump real quick in the morning and then taking them to the park to ride. Pulled the old pump off and noticed the fan pulley seemed real loose. Thought maybe the brand new bearing I just bought had went bad so I put the old on back on. Noticed that the hub flange that gets pressed onto the hub bearing was not a real tight fit... crossed my fingers and kept moving forward bolting everything back up. It's not like any parts stores sell that part, and the junkyards had already closed up for the day.
Got everything tightened down and started her up. Could definitely hear the stupid flange rattling around on the hub bearing. Went away as the Jeep warmed up so I thought "okay, maybe now that it's heating up, the bearing spindle has expanded and it will be alright"
Nope. Stupid thing came off, fan and all and destroyed yet ANOTHER fan shroud. At least it didn't take my radiator with it.
01-19-2017, 07:06 AM
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