tranny leak fix and top on

The tranny leak that plauged me for gallons of fluid got fixed.  It turns out the tv cable ( part that goes from tbi
on the engine to the transmission)
Was leaking at the tranny.  The gasket was half crushed instead of inserted in the pan.  1/2hr , $5 fix and no drips!

Winter is here... I spent about
An hour getting the top on for
The first time.  The garage hoist made it "easy".
Theres about 24 (8 front and 8 each rear side) 1/4" bolts to tighten it down & 2 - 5/16" nuts at the rear hatch.
I used epdm foam seal stuck on the
front top and all around the sides.
I found that the passenger side windshield needed to be strapped forward about 1/2" to line up the holes, the drivers side went on no problem.

Hot Springs, AR and new leaf springs

We decided to hit Superlift park at Hot Springs, AR instead of barnwell mountain in September
This was a great weekend with no breakage sans the old leaf springs finally collapsed.
A JK rubicon snapped its front axleshaft, a YJ wrangler bent his tie rods, and a XJ Cherokee snapped his outer steering joint and yolk.

Add caption

This was rock to boulder sized entrance that led to a large rock slab angled at 50*.  For reference the severely stuck XJ has 33 12.50-15 tires.  Unfortunately for him the XJs wheelbase fit perfectly between 2 rocks and stuck him like a champ.

Don't let the pics deceive you, there are some serious trails here.  We still have 141 trails left to hit too!
 I found a tail the commando couldn't conquer- Baileys boulders..

View from the top of the mountains..



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fixes...

These are dodge Durango leaf springs That I swapped afterwards. They are 2.5" wide and 56" long- like the commandos.
 There is a little drilling due to the 9/16" eye bolts, and I re-drilled the centering pin back 1" on the main leaf to keep the 104" wheelbase

tire carrier finished...

Its not stock, but I didn't want anything that looked like an erector set bolted on either...
I started off with a complete spindle kit 1.25" diameter, with bearings and seals...
I had heard that 1" spindles start snapping with 37" tires, so I went a bit bigger with the 35" spare...


  Spindle and mount

 

The box in the center holds a complete scout 2 wheel spindle, wheel hub, and lockout hub as a trail spare...

This rack can hold my 225 lbs at full swing, just rocks the jeep a bit.

 

About 2 days of work, and cussing...

The red handle is supposed to be rated at 750 lbs of clamping force...

There's enough room on top for a hi-lift that's sitting in the corner...

 

 

 

 

 

 

As nice as it turned out- there is a caveat!    Due to the racks angle matching the tailgate- the carrier has to come past 90* (more like 120*) out to open the tailgate- food for thought

 

Megarun fixes-

I went to several big parts stores for wheel studs AZ, Oreilly, etc.. and they all pointed at the computer screen and said its not available. (who makes the Scout??) 
Went to a parts + plus and the guy behind the counter pulled out the dorman book and found some longer 1/2-20 wheel studs with 1/2" more length.
#667 I think??
These went in well and are long enough  that the new replacement 3/8" wheel spacer for the front threads the lug nuts on fully. I may tack weld the heads in place for extra support.


While I was under there I noticed that the tie rod end spacers:
http://jims73commando.blogspot.com/2013/06/steering-finally_18.html
had snapped their weld on the passenger side and were spinning freely in
the steering arm and doing the turning instead of the tie rod end.
They had cracked welds on the drivers side but were still in
place.   I guess thats what you get for slamming a jeep down from 2-3' in the air!


So I re ground the steering arms , pre heated them with a propane torch, and welded the spacers
top and bottom then smoothed the flats out.  If I have a problem with them again, I'll replace the
steering knuckles with extras and re-work the steering.  If...


I'm hoping to take it out in another week and give another -mild- shake down run.  First I'll check
every bolt on the thing though!

The shake down run was fun, ended up going up dewoody, thankfully a strap over the cage kept it from flopping over the first rock, after that it was all about throttle, throttle, steering, and throttle.

The rear springs are going to have to be replaced, the stock passenger rear main leaf has 2 extra curves in it and its sitting low.

 I think a check of nuts and bolts and fluids and it'll be ready for hot springs in september!

Megarun 14

Well, where do you start? How about here?

183' in 46 seconds. Winner winner, chicken dinner.
Yes it is on two wheels


>>>>   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXMAJ86I86Q&feature=youtu.be    <<<<


Check out at 41 seconds.

The crowds expressions are worth a thousand words

 While actually driving away from that beating, the drivers front wheel decided to separate from the jeep and
roll through the obstacle course, thus adding an extra obstacle.
The lug nuts holding the wheel spacers on, became loose ( check them if you have them.  loctitie and retorque them,)  backed out and stranded me in the middle of the main drag.
After getting new studs ( scout has weird sizes btw, has .625 knurl and .655  shoulder)
we discovered that the jeep studs went in, but could be knocked out easily, plus without the spacer, the tires rub the tie rod ends, So the weekend was over.

No other calamities to report really.

I installed some mid back bucket front seats and a free-to-me corbeau fold and tumble rear seat.
All were comfy.  I modified a cj7 fold forward seat mount to the passenger side, It worked great
until after this run I found the front of it was bent up a little.  Among the other problems, I will have to fix that
too.

pre 2014 megarun fix -brakes

In the spirit of Just Empty Every Pocket (jeep) I have been trying to make the commando where it can get road legal... ish The last item on the list was to install a parking brake cable. The jeep cable that was on the it was frayed and was removed during the axle rebuild. This is what I made the brackets for-

In prep of this the rear drums were removed. I noticed the parking cables in the drums were dangling and the brakes weren't extended. After looking at a diagram for 10 - 15 minutes to make sure everything is where its supposed to be, I had realized that the automatic screw adjusters were put in backwards (left to right) so everytime I hit the brakes in reverse the adjuster gave more slack to the brake system!
I reversed the adjusters and all is well. I put in the parking cable and prepared to hook everything up I had to cut the brake cable brackets off and move them behind the front mount of the rear springs where the frame starts to bend up, so when the axle droops there isn't a bind on them.
EXCEPT The new cable is 6" longer than the original. So off comes the t-case skidplate to move the parking brake front bracket, modify the length of that and when that was done, the cable rested against the flywheel- find flywheel cover and install. Not that easy. To install this, the left side exhaust that crosses over the flywheel had to come off, and the front driveshaft. Anyway a 40 minute job turned into 3 hours, but it is running again and has a parking brake!