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.

Patience, Grasshopper

I was fighting trying to get the flywheel removed. Pry bars and my 195 lbs wouldn't make it budge. I would work on it for 30 minutes or so, then move on to something else. That went on for 3 nights or so and I was about to get out the sledge hammer. Then, a friend suggested I use a little heat. (Why didn't I think of that??)

I went down to the local art supply shop and looked for some bee's wax to help the job along. They only had a 1 lb. block for $18, but the nice lady behind the register offered me a 50% off coupon when I complained about the cost. I'm not sure if I'm getting old or grumpy about prices, or what.

Anyway, I put a little heat on the dowl-pin bolt and then melted on some bee's was and let it wick into the junction. Let that sit for a minute or 2 then a little more heat. I put a nut on the end of the bolt and gave it a few love taps with one of my favorite hammers. One side popped on the first cycle and the other side took 4 or 5 heating cycles.

Anyway, it is off and ready to go to the machine shop for resurfacing. A new clutch kit from NAPA sits on the floor waiting.



I'm learning that patience is better than brute force on this project.