3rdelement

iTrader: (1)

so for a while now ive been trying to figure out what second vehicle i wanted. after lots of discussion and searching i settle on a Jeep Grand Wagoneer. I was luck enough to have my dads support in this project. on christmas last year he wrote me a letter and said if i find the truck and negotiate a good deal, he would buy it...and then it was upto me to buy parts and put in the wrench time. he would help as much as i wanted. so the search began. after 4 months i found an ad on craigslist from a wagoneer owner who wanted $650 for the jeep. I made the call. the guy sounded like he was on the road and wanted to know if he could call me right back. he did. come to find out the guy was driving it to the scrap yard. they had offered him $400 for it. and he needed the money to fix his daughters brakes. I asked if it was worth the $400 they had offered him. he assured me it was. So i told him if he could wait a day i would come up and check it out. so saturday morning my dad, sister and I headed for ft. collins. (of course had to stop at johnson corner for some cinnamon rolls) then we continued on. found the guys house and there the jeep was. sitting in the front yard. i know it would look like a hunk of junk to most. but with the vision of what it would look like completed, i was excited. So we met Daryl, the owner. and he started it up and let it run. it turned over and started. nothing special. and once it warmed up it did smoke real bad and had a tick to it. knowing i would be doing an overhaul anyways i wasnt really concerned. every switch and electric control worked in the interior. amazing a jeep from 1985 has rear defroster, power mirrors, and electric windows and cruise control. so i gave him $400 and he asked if i would like to do some maintenance on it before we took off for colorado springs. See, we tried to get a uhaul or ryder trailer. but no one in colorado would rent us one to carry this tank. :-\ so we had to do our best to baby it down to the house. anyways we changed every fluid in the engine, every filter, checked and changed anything that we could. this guy you could tell, really loved this thing. And i noticed from time to time, he would tear up when working on it. after a few hours he told us what the story behind the jeep was. see he had a son, and he and the son always built cars and had projects they would work on. this jeep was supposed to be one, but his son had mental problems, and one day he came out and found that his son had committed suicide in their garage. so since then(been a year) this guy hadnt gone into his own garage. and had always gone to other guys houses to do work. but because he knew we were excited about the jeep, he wanted to make sure it would make the trip. and so he made his first journey into his garage, to help us. i was touched. they say restoring cars isnt about the car, its about the people. that made sense that day. well daryl was a good guy and signed the title over and filled the back of My jeep with parts he had for it. that he had just never put on. he shook my hand, and wish my dad and I great luck with the project. made us promise to bring it buy when we got it looking good and running good. We of course agreed. I started off on the journey with my dad in his dodge nitro close by incase we had any issues. filled up for gas once and made the trip to colorado springs. the truck kept up on the highway pretty good. but when stopped it would smoke horribly. figured it needed a set of valve seals and a good clean up. here is a pic of it after the trip home.



well several months went by i did what i could to the jeep to make it presentable, removed the plastic gunracks from the rear windows, removed the purple tint by hand with a razor blade and googone
(heres a pic all clean)



, my dad ended up buying a house 3 miles from my work in castle rock. he invited me to move in with him(since he and my mom split this year) so i said sure. it took a few months but we actually moved into a great house....and the garage prep followed shortly. built a crazy strong work bench, 4 banks of florescent lights, a full audio system, even a computer with wifi for when we needed research. He cleaned out the entire garage and dedicated the space to the engine rebuild.



it took a couple months but i tore down the engine to the block and built it back piece by piece. i polished every bolt and painted any surface that could be...here is the build thread.
http://www.ifsja.org/forums/vb/showthread.php?t=128076

after all was said and done. the engine fired on the first shot. and runs amazingly strong. here is a pic the evening it started. parked on the driveway instead of in the garage:



i am hopefully getting a new carb for christmas. i rebuilt one, but its acting real flaky. and there is lifter noise when you bring the rpms up and then drop them. but thats easily fixed with some rocker arm shims from crane cams. that will be taken care of this weekend hopefully. next i need to drop the gas tank, replace the sending unit, clean all the contacts, and replace the rubber fill hoses. those rotted away a long time ago, so getting fuel into the tank is a challenge.

my goal was to have it running before the fist snow, and we had that just in time, i needed all new tires. these had rotted away. my dads dodge nitro has a great set of cooper discovery snow tires. but they were $750 a set. he told me i should keep looking. found a guy on craigslist selling a set with only 5k miles on them. got the and installed them all for under $300. the guys at the tire shop were in awe of my tank. lol it was funny.


all in all, this is a great project. i may keep it for a while and refurbish the body and get a killer paint job. or may just sell it after this winter and pick up a cherry one. Either way, its the journey that counts, not the destination. Thanks to my dad for all the help. and for all the lessons. these v8's are fun.
and the $15 insurance each month is spoiling also

here is a picture of it photoshoped with the new grill i need to just buy already. and a new bumper(also just a black stripe)



thanks for reading. lil blue lex is still my daily driver and doing great

lookEVO

iTrader: (1)

Nice whip maan

3rdelement

iTrader: (1)

update on the jeep:

for christmas i was spoiled:
-a new steering pump and reservoir.
-a new high pressure power steering lines.
-a new plastic glove box.
-a set of door lock springs
-a full set of black carpet from bj's via acc.
-a new set of ecode hella lights and bulbs
- ~~~i have a brand new carb fully tuned and adjusted for altitude before it left the shop. during the install of the carb we found a huge vacuum leak in the carb to intake gasket. fixed that.

dropped the fuel tank, replaced the sending unit and fuel sock. also replaced the fuel fill hoses. also moved the electric fuel pump from under the hood(previous owners idea of a good location) and placed it back on the rear cross member above the rear axel. wired it and plummed it. fires like a champ now.

next she got an all new battery and then purchased the cs144 alternator from a mid 90's cadillac 4.7l engine. it outputs 140 amps at peak, and at idle supplies the jeep with enough juice to run the heater and lights at the same time. upgrade from stock.


before the actual install of the cs144 alternator, i had to remove and alter the path of wiring for the old school ammeter. replaced it with a sunpro volt meter and customized the gauges to look stock.
you can see the new voltmeter here


also replaced the outside air ***** with some custom made by a IFJSA member.


also purchased a set of mb quart 6.5" components and an alpine deck.
this is them getting a test before install. they came with grills that allowed you to run them as coaxial speakers or separates.


the door panels took some work, but was able to mount the tweeters in such a way as to raise the sound field. i do have some shadowing from the original speaker grill. but that will be addressed when i do the color change to black on the panels


here are the speakers installed after enlarging the mounting brackets from 5" to 6.5"


the alpine deck installed fairly easily, took some adjusting but went in great.


found a vintage original 1970's j10 jeep mirror. its flawless. gotta love ebay!


also purchased a "final edition" wagoneer grill. in 1991 they made very few wagoneers. this is from one of them.
before:

after:


i got tired of the random colors of grey and green the paint was showing so i taped it all off one very windy saturday and went flat black. i also removed the bumper and installed the rubber middle pusher bumpers.



this is where i am sitting now.
i need to install the rear speakers (identical mb quarts)
I need to install the 1430watt kenwood amp for the 2 15" solo baric subs
I need to remove the entire interior and sound deaden, then install the black carpet i have
I need to install the new power steering pump, hoses, and find a j10 steering box(it tightens up the feel)
I need to install the 4-6" lift with new shocks
and
I need to tint the jeep.

this is my goal*(without the lift)