3B Project

[Reserector [Veteran Member]]

That's good to hear! So is the horn, I suppose.

[81 CJ5]

Bought a 7x20 trailer, went to Eric's, and redid the header, and bent up an exhaust (in a hurry) yesterday. I don't like how it hangs down in the back so in the future I'll have to redo the exhaust again. I finished welding it today. Nice and quiet. It has a kind of "throaty" sound with the glass pack.

[Reserector [Veteran Member]]

Neat!

Sent from my SM-G970U1 using Tapatalk

[81 CJ5]

Got my tag/title. After a year I can get an antique tag.



Started to do some maintenance and things snowballed... Drained the engine oil and glued a rare earth magnet to the drain plug after drilling a spot for it to sit. I pulled the drain plug on the D20 not expecting a quart of gear oil to pour out. I wanted to seal the pan too so I removed it and then looked at the drain plug. It had metal bits on it and the pan looked like it was sprinkled with glitter. I went ahead and took it off thinking maybe the main shaft gear had come loose on the transmission causing some of the noise. Nope. It was tight so I just pulled it off for no reason (or so I thought).   Here it is on the healing "bench". Like a fool, I never once inspected it before mating it to the T98. Looks like it had some water intrusion at one point in time. There's pitting on a few different gears but the worst is in the picture. I noticed the air gap on the intermediate gear and thrust washer. I decided to find out how much. An .018" feeler gauge managed to slide between the case and thrust washer. I couldn't find a spec on that in the FSM but I'm thinking it's not within spec. I can move the rear yoke while holding the rear output shaft still. Either the yoke or rear output shaft is worn.  I picked up the windshield from the glass shop today. I called six other places last week and they turned me down. These guys actually can cut glass so they took the job and installed a new gasket for $208.





I ended up taking this thing all apart. I wish I had some needle bearings, thrust washers, and a good intermediate shaft on hand. The engine, transmission, and transfer case now have good clean oil in them.  Just a note. The yoke nuts took a 1 1/8 socket.




The shift fork hex screw takes a 3/16 hex bit.



The whole reason for tearing even further into this was to remove the shift interlock pills. I recommend using a magnet to move it to the core plug then you can pry it out with a screwdriver.



There are two of these interlock pills.



The core plugs that get knocked out when removing the interlock pills are .439" in diameter.



Of course, there was normal wear. So if you're like me and don't plan ahead or have a stand in dowel for the intermediate shaft, just use the shaft itself, and plenty of grease, and the needles will stay put.



I took the time to clean everything and do my best to prevent leaks. The yokes were grooved so I didn't knock the seals in as deep. We'll see how long it holds. I went for a drive and everything seemed fine. 

[81 CJ5]

This past Saturday a Jeep friend and I went to test our rigs out around Mobile, AL. He just installed a T18 into his 66 CJ5. My recollection of the weekend adventure...

In the past 3 days, I've had a grand total of ~10 hours of sleep so I am pretty beat. I woke up at 5:30 AM and drove to the gas station where I store my trailer and ended up having to wait until 7 AM for someone to unlock the gate to get it. By 7:45 AM I was home, loaded up, and ready for my 3.5 hr drive south.



When I pulled into the place and went to park, Scott was driving back to his truck and told me he had a driveshaft issue. Oh boy. Luckily it was an easy fix. The first thing I mentioned was I didn't want to go through every mudhole in the park and then the first thing we do is go through a creek. Scott tried to use his CJ5 as a submarine early into the trip while making a U-turn. Water was well over his hood. It's a good thing he had good brakes or it would've been a disaster. Everything was going well until I noticed my steering started to get hard to turn less than 10 minutes into the ride. I thought it was low on fluid but there was some on the dipstick. Engine rpm didn't make a difference in ease of turning either so I was really confused at that point. My arms are sore and the steering made me pretty miserable but I managed. Right here is where the steering gear broke. There were four people watching me try to turn it and boom it broke. I thought a u joint had broken, but as it turned out it was the box itself. Fudge. Honestly, I wasn't even mad, just in disbelief. They were all wondering how I was going to find a 1955 steering gear in the junkyard. What might've been the final nail in the coffin for the steering gear was a small tree my left tire hit when coming out of the last mud hole.





Skid steer to the rescue. Afterward, when it got turned around we got the front tires in the skid steer bucket and it made it back to the trailer without an issue. We ended up backing it up the trailer. Scott volunteered to steer and I worked the pedals. After we got it loaded it was lunchtime. Scott made some bomb smoked chicken and sweet potatoes with strawberries and blueberries on the side.



We swapped out a tire on the CJ5 after lunch and got back to riding. I offered my wheels and tires but that probably would've been more work swapping them around than they might've been worth. The CJ5 did great out there and it would've been even better with MT's and a rear traction device.

 In this shot, it was actually a hill we were coming up but ran out of traction.



The last spot we ran through before loading up. I managed to go swimming right before taking this picture. Since my Jeep was broke I volunteered to be winch line guy for the remainder of the day anyhow. The driverside of the CJ5 was almost completely underwater at one point and I thought it was about to flip over. Ran out of gas right after winching out of this spot. We walked back to the truck and grabbed the gas can (since I decided to bring 5 gallons of gas at the last minute before leaving). The dauntless caught on fire by accident with a small amount of spilled gas but I got it blown out and found a water bottle to prime the carburetor with instead of the gas can.



All in all, it was a great day. I don't have much to say about my own junk since it didn't make it far before a major mechanical failure. Still, I made it much further than a JK that came through there. I busted my head open on the buckle welded to the cage. The way it was parked on uneven ground made me step into it differently than usual and I hit my head. It's a nonissue thing just me being a little careless.

[81 CJ5]

Steering gear carnage. If you look closely there are fragments from the remainder of those steel balls. This steering gear is toast.






The new steering gear arrived today and I installed it. The steering has definitely improved with the new to me steering gear. 

[83chevyk5 [Veteran Member]]

Where did y'all go in mobile?

[81 CJ5]

Where did y'all go in mobile?

Well, I should have said it was near Mobile. Patawomack ATV Park 
It's mostly for ATVs and UTVs but Jeeps can fit on the trails. It's a small park and I would've gone to Sicily Island but my buddy lives in Pensacola and didn't want to drive 7 hours for one day of wheeling. 

[Reserector [Veteran Member]]

Great story.

Sent from my SM-G970U1 using Tapatalk

[81 CJ5]

Finally got around to washing the 3b and trailer off. I don't like mud as I used to. Drove to college and took a final exam. Thankfully it didn't break down cause that was an important exam for graduation. Went on a big loop through a few different towns in the sticks; 48 miles of poorly maintained county roads. I'm trying to gain confidence in this thing after last week's failure. When I changed the oil in this I used Shell Rotella T5 10w-40. Well, I noticed it was smoking much more than it used to this past weekend and my lawnmower also turned into a mosquito fogger. Because it's burning oil so much the plug started to foul again but a burst at 4500 rpm seemed to clear that up.......Fhead "magic". 



Took apart my spare D18. Lucky for me it had a 1.25" intermediate shaft. Its sacrifice will not be forgotten. These are the gears (besides a bronco gear) to make a 2.46 D20. I'll also be swapping over to a tapered roller bearing also. My low range is around 62:1 and with the new gear set, it'll be around 76:1. Ordered the bronco gear and tapered bearing intermediate shaft kit. Something else I've been wanting for some time now is a flanged FF axle (D23-2) like my old GPW had. I'm placing an order for some parts. I have half the parts needed already so once my spindles are machined and I order axle shafts we'll be in business. Another reason for this is my current axle shaft(s) appear to be slightly bent, the splines are worn to a sharp point, and one is incapable of holding a wheel stud since the hole is completely wallowed out.