Was-Clutch Is-Clutch

The title sounds a bit Dr. Suess. Must be too much reading to the girls. Anyway, back to the garage work. I promise not to rhyme Mr. Fox Sir.

After spending over an hour modifying six 5/16-18 x 1 1/2" bolts to replicate the special bolts Willys used to secure the pressure plate to the flywheel, I was ready for the 10 minute job of installing the clutch.

The top bolt is original, the bottom is a new grade 8 from the local Tractor Supply. I thought the unthreaded portion was going to be the perfect length and I'd only have to cut them down. Turns out I needed to add about 1/8" more thread.


Fortunately, I found the right die in my meager kit of threading tools. I spent some extra time with a thread file and thread restorer to dull the new threads a bit and remove burrs.

And after getting that all done it was literally about 10 minutes of work to get the clutch installed on the flywheel.

Motor Madness

After some delay, I got the motor mounted on the frame. I live in the suburbs so there's no triple pole teepee and chain rig in my front lawn. My neighbors all shake their heads at me over the grinder sparks and hammer sounds coming from my garage. Thanks to a buddy loaning me his engine crane so I at least look semi-professional and neighbor-friendly.

Motorin'

I spent some good quality time with the motor this last weekend. It was pretty dirty and greasy. A previous owner had decided to paint it red, even covering some old cow manure up under the water pump.

How it was before:


Mid-process of cleaning and stripping the old paint:


And after two days of wire-wheeling, scrubbing with Simple Green, STP Engine Degreaser, rinse and repeat:


I got to be a pretty big fan of those open cell paint strippers you put on a drill. Even at low RPM it took off a lot of rust and old paint and never plugged up. I burned out my Dremel tool using the mini wire wheel, but I got all the little spots cleaned out pretty good anyway.

I painted the motor Hemi Orange even though it is obviously not a traditional or original choice. What can I say? I like the orange on black contrast. Plus, the Hemi Orange is worth like +15 HP. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

I still have to clean up the manifolds and replace one of the long studs. Someone did a farm repair and replaced one of the manifold studs with a bolt and three or seven washers to make up the length difference. Farmers. . .

Rollin', rollin', rollin'. . .

It is off the jackstands! My wife, Alisa helped out a lot on this segment of the project. While I worked on mechanicals, she got out the paintbrush and the SEM Rusthield. She painted up the axles and spots I missed on the frame.

Sitting on 1" Rancho lift springs, it will be ready for some better tires in the 29" to 31" range. I'm undecided on whether to use the stock 16x4 rims or keep the 15x8 CJ rims on it.

I put the grill and rear shocks on just to fool around and see what it looks like. The grill will be coming back off shortly so we can set the motor on the frame.