Been busy

Hey y’all, Long time no write.

Ok, well I did write one, but it was late at night and rambled on and on, so I deemed it unfit for posting and deleted. Win some lose some.

Life has been strange for me recently. I finished up A term for my one class and no others that I needed were offered B term, so I was stuck with a month and a half of no classes. The obvious thing would be to get a job, however my schedule in the fall is so messed up I was unable to work after school started. Given that I could only work for a month and a half, and with the current job market it became quickly obvious that I was not going to find a job.

Luck was with me however and another possibility opened. Some of you may remember last November I tore apart my Wrangler to do a full frame restoration and drive train swap. Money and lack of hardware sent the project to lie around the yard and garage in pieces. Well, right when I came upon this mass of free time I also came across a great deal on a transmission, transfer case, and axles out of a 1978 Chevy K10 truck. Add to this an engine my roommate didn’t need, a different transfer case and some other parts and I now have the drive train for the jeep.

So I have spent the last few weeks working everyday on getting the parts ready to go in the jeep. Some people are content to just throw parts under their rig, I prefer the approach of rebuilding everything now, while I can move around easily and not crawl under the jeep. The plan for the drivetrain is a mild Chevy 350 engine, a Turbo 350 transmission with a shift kit, NP203/Dana 300 doubler, Dana 44 front and 12 bolt chevy rear end. The suspension will still be leaf sprung with the back end stretched out. The axles will have 4.10 or 4.56 gears and somewhere between 35-37 inch tires. Really depends on how much space I have after I am done with the suspension and body work.

Now for those not as familiar with jeeps and more importantly me need to understand something. This is not a normal jeep you will see on the road, or that your neighbor bought and threw a lift on with his buddies in the driveway one weekend. Nothing about this is “bolt-on”, nothing is designed to be used in this way. I am taking parts from about a dozen different vehicles when I am done and put them together in a way that will be the best for what I want.

An example of this is the parts I have ordered so far. Only 1 of them has had anything that might be construed as a manual. The manual consisted of 3 pages. The first was a list of parts, that took up the page, the second a list of modifications that must be made or taken into consideration, and the last page was a rough mechanical drawing of how it bolted to the other parts. Oh, and the modifications page was not how to do any of the modifications, just that they needed to be done. The rest is for you to figure out.

The total work of this jeep will include, and I know I am missing some things: welding, gear setup, engine rebuilding, suspensions, steering design, brake design, roll cage, custom mounts for the motor, transmission, transfer case, electronics and more. All of this I am going to do, none will be farmed out to do by a shop. This will be a testament to me of what I can do. Plus, as an upside I think I will be able to bitch about any car and not feel bad for the designers, after all I will have done their work, in my garage.

Now, I want to go ahead and extend an invitation to anyone who wants to learn about cars. If you want to learn how to work on cars, how they work, how to weld, metal work, rebuild and more you are more than welcome to come and help out. Just wear old clothes, sturdy shoes (never mind that I run around in flip flops, I’ve hurt myself enough to know better) and if you have a favorite pair of safety glasses or gloves bring them along. If you want to learn a specific thing, let me know and I try and figure out when that will be getting done. Oh, and I work late most nights due to the heat, just give me a call.