AC/Blower Motor

A couple weeks ago I recharged the AC to see if that is all it needed to work. Sure enough once I got enough freon in there the compressor clutch kicked in and it was blowing cold. Everything was working fine until the other day the fan wouldn't come on. The clutch on the compressor was still engaging so I knew it was something with either the fan or electrical. The fuse hadn't blown so I checked the resistor on the back of the ac duct. Everything seemed fine there as well. I lowered the fan/dash

and found pieces of a rubber gasket from behind the dash had fallen in the fan, and it was stuck in place. Pulled the pieces out along with some more rotted gasket back there and it fired right up.

Drum brakes and more

I had a bachelor weekend this weekend so I decided to get some things done that were going to take some time. First thing I did was reseal my valve covers. I have had some smoking under the hood and I'm trying to find it by process of elimination. First up was the valve covers. I took them off, pounded the bolt holes flat so everything would sit flat and I used the Right Stuff gasket maker to seal them.

After that it was time for back brakes. I didn't know what I was getting into, but they actually weren't that bad. I ended up replacing the shoes, all the spring hardware and the wheel cylinders. The drums were in really good shape. The shoes actually were too, but I figured why not change them out while I was in there.

Pulling Parts

I found a junker about an hour and a half from here that had some parts I needed so I went out and pulled some stuff. I got the bumper (which had the original marchal fog lights), roof rack, and headliner board. I will update with more pics later, but the headliner board was in such good condition that I pulled it. I took off the old material, sanded it down and put new material on. I'm pretty happy with it.

Front Brakes

I haven't posted in a while, but I've still been working on the Jeep. About a month or so ago I took on the front brake pads and rotors. It was a little more involved than I thought. To get the rotor off you have to take the entire hub off which meant taking all the bearings out. While I was in there I repacked the bearings. Below are pics. The old pads and rotors were in very bad shape as you can see.

Old Rotor and bearings

All the pieces after unassembly

Old rotors, pads and grease seal

The old pads had worn deep ruts into the rotors

New rotor and pads

Dome Light Troubles

Alright, well I thought I had found the issue that was causing the failure of my dome lights. Just like most wagoneers the connections at pillar b were corroded. I was happy this was all it was...then it wasn't all it was. I realized after cutting the wires that they weren't hot either. I traced them all the way back to the front of the car to this connection, which wasn't connected. The previous owner has obviously done some major rewiring, but now I don't know what the wires are supposed to be running to? Any ideas?

Also, as you can see in the pic below the under the dash light is also disconnected. It would make sense to me that they would plug into each other, but the dome light connector is female 3 prong and the under dash light is male 2 prong. 

Coolant Temp Sending Unit

While taking the intake off previously I broke the top of the old temp sending unit. I have ordered 2 of them now and they seem to be too big. I'm thinking the manifold expanded just a hair and made the hold slightly smaller than it originally was. The stinger of the new temp sending unit won't completely fit in the hole. It stops before getting to the threads. You can see what I mean in the pic below. That is pushed in as far as it will possibly go. This is the exact OEM replacement part mentioned on teamgrandwagoneer.com

New Lifters and Pushrods

Got the intake off, and the old valley pan was a MESS. Actually everything was a mess. This was a before pic.

After I got the valley pan out low and behold, the top of the broken lifter was just sitting there in the bottom of the valley. It really didn't look damaged, just not in the lifter where it was supposed to be. Below left is top of the lifter (the part sitting in the valley) and bottom right is the bottom of that lifter. Still in pretty good condition.

So, I pulled all the rocker arms, pushrods and lifters and replaced the old pushrods and lifters. Some pushrods were good, some were completely clogged. You can see through one here and not through the other.

While I had the intake off I took the opportunity to completely clean the valley and the intake. I also painted the intake and the valve covers to clean them up a bit. The last pic is the valley completely cleaned with the new lifters and pushrods installed.

After doing all this I put it all back together with the help of a friend, cranked her and she ran like a champ.