1984 Jeep CJ-7 Progress 2012 01 19

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Alright. It has been almost a mounth now since an update. As you can guess the plan to use this Jeep as a winter vehicle has not panned out. The original plan was to purchase and then drive the vehicle with no updates.

A lot has been going on in the back ground. The big event was taking my son out to South Dakota to the Hot Rod Institute. http://www.hotrodinstitute.com/
He is taking the Hot Rod Chassis class.  We purchased a 1949 Fleetline Deluxe 4 Door Sedan 1009 Special for his project.  The plan is to convert it into a gasser race fro my wife who has now gotten the drag racing bug.
Progress on this project can be watched at this link 1949 Chevrolet Gasser or on the Hot Rod Institute web site Arthur Lever’s 1949 Chevy Gasser 

So I told you that so that I can explain where the time has gone. We found and purchased the car, a straight axle for the front, four link for the rear, built a mock up of the 454 engine and turbo 400 trans that will go into it. Purchased a second 28 foot trailer to store it in out there. Hauled the dragster to Indianapolis for a wheelie bar install at Roo Man Motor Sports. Picked the new trailer up and hauled it to SD. Put the 1949 into it. Drove back to Indianapolis ,picked the dragster back up and returned home. I left out a LOT of the things that did not go as planned. If I included those this update would never get done.

	This is my son out in South Dakota.
I have learned a new law in physics. It you do not work on a project for a period of time it becomes a magnetic and attracts all kinds of junk. When you go to work on it again you have to spend the firs hour finding the project.
So there has also been some progress in the back ground on the JeepThis is what it looked like in the last update (see below left). I did not like the Plastic valve cover both for looks and they seem to always leak. I picked up an aluminum valve cover off e-bay, stripped it and repainted it the color of the engine (AMC Metallic blue (I really like the color)).I went to put it on and found that although there are holes in the head for the bolts they are not threaded. On top of that they are not deep enough to tread. I can get about four treads cut before the tap bottoms out. Turns out that the water jacket is only about 1/2 below the surface.I borrowed a 5/16 tap from a friend and cut the end off it to make a blind hole bottom tap and was able to get the whole hole tapped to the bottom (don’t ever loan me any tools (Frank told me I could cut the tap).Turns out that a 3/4 inch bolt is just perfect with the thickness of the gasket and valve cover.
	Also in the back ground the car nuts sand blasted the exhaust and intake manifolds, the exhaust manifold was painted high temp aluminum pant and baked in the oven to cure. The intake was powder coated with new powder from NIC which is an close match to the engine paint but not a perfect match.
	So now we are pretty much up to date. This weekend the car nuts got together and the first thing we did was try an figure out which way the exhaust manifold gasket goes on. (shinny side to or away from the block). After much research with no information provided in the manual it was discovered that stamped on the gasket is the word “this side away from the block” and we were able to proceed.
	The engine block surface was cleaned.
	The manifolds were bolted and torqued into place. Note the difference in the color of the intake to the block. It is more noticeable in the photo then when you stand there and look at it. The intake is powder coated and the engine is painted. The paint has much more depth to it.
	Frank, put the phone down and pick up one of the tools on the fender.
We also added the new emissions control to make the Jeep run much cleaner.Catalytic converters are designed to burn unburnt gasses in the exhaust, EGR valves are designed to suck unburnt gasses back into the intake manifold when deaccelerating to reburn raw gas that is dumped into the exhaust when deaccelerating.With this new set up of running a reburn spark plug you accomplish both these things and it is not to obtrusive looking.
If you believe the above statements I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I would like to sell to you. Please contact me.So here is where we are at now.