What Started As A Fairly Simple Job, Turned Into A Major Undertaking

One of the broken motor mounts.

Last year I broke the motor mounts on my Jeep pickup while trying to pull a stump.  Last fall I bought new mounts and started to replace them. What I thought would be a fairly simple job of jacking up the engine a little and replacing the mounts turned into a much bigger job. I got the bottom nuts off with no problem. The upper ones were very difficult to get at, so I thought I'd remove the bracket from the block. One of the bolts was rusted and I couldn't get it to turn. The socket slipped on the bolt and rounded the head. I then used a chisel bit in my rivet gun (or air hammer) to try and get the bolt to break loose and turn. Then water started to come out of the engine. I tried to catch as much as possible in a pan because anti-freeze is expensive.

The cause of the leak. The freeze plug was rusted and I knocked some rust loose trying to remove the bolt below it.

 Because of the location of the bolt it was hard to get a grip with vise-grips. All I managed to do was round off the head even more. Now I know why the bolt was rusted. The freeze plug had been leaking for some time, but with lots of stop-leak it wasn't a big problem. Just add a little coolant every once in a while.

 Decided to hang it up and moved the Jeep to where it wouldn't be in the way during the winter. Last month I started to work on it again. The weather was much nicer now than last fall, it was snowing then.

Well, that didn't work.

 Discovered that this position wouldn't work to lift the engine out of the Jeep. I positioned the truck with the hoist in front of the Jeep and securing the hoist to the front of the box. Even tho I put beams under the box to support the hoist, there is still a lot of twisting. It doesn't help that there are no rear shocks on the truck. Blog post Aug. 2012.

New freeze plug installed.

 After I got the engine out and in the back of the other truck, I was able to remove the rusted bolt on the bracket and the rusted freeze plug and put in a new one.

New motor mount in place.

 Once I got the freeze plug replaced and replaced the oil pan gasket and valve cover gaskets I had a friend come help me put the engine back in the Jeep. It didn't go as easy as either of us thought it would but after several hours it was in place with enough bolts in place to hold things together. Then I spent several days putting things together. Hopefully I got it to the point where all I need is some more anti-freeze and some gas and a battery.

The shroud for the heater core got damaged while removing the engine.

The shroud for the heater core is fiberglas and while trying to remove the engine it poked a hole in the shroud. I have a older Jeep Wagoneer and I pulled the heater core assembly off it and put it in the Jeep truck. The Wagoneer is a '67 and the truck is a '79 but both had the same mounting set-up. The older one was metal. Hopefully the heater will work as I plan on using the Jeep for plowing snow this winter and it would be nice to be comfortable. Not like my previous plow rig.

It Was a Good News, Bad News Sorta Day

Last Thursday I bought a new fuel pump for my Jeep plowtruck.  Figured the pump may be bad when even tho it is dripping oil wherever it goes the level in the crankcase was up past the full mark.  Also had lousy fuel milage altho it's hard to tell as the gas guage doesn't work and haven't really paid attention to the mileage when I'm plowing snow.  Anywho, yesterday it got up into the mid-20s, so thought it was warm enough to work on the truck bare-handed.  Got the new pump installed and was able to push some snow around.  We paid the county for driveway plowing(in this county they still do driveway plowing), so didn't have to worry about being snowed in while the truck was down.  I use the truck to plow areas the county doesn't plow like where The Old Lady's car and my pickup are parked.  Getting the Jeep running again was the good news even tho it wasn't fun doing the work.

The picture was taken when I plowed the driveway the first time.  The snowbanks are much bigger now.  Also it's much easier to plow now that things have frozen and it's colder.  When I plowed the first time the ground under the snow wasn't frozen and the plow would want to dig in and it was around the freezing point so the snow was very slippery.  Got stuck many times where the tires would just spin in place.

Picture taken while plowing snow after the first major snowfall back in Nov.

The bad news was my Packers lost to the Fucking Giants.(Spent several years one summer in New York and can't stand any of their teams because of arrogance of the sportscasters on the New York TV stations!!)

Plowtruck Project

 This is a '79 Jeep pickup that I am fixing up to plow snow next winter UP on the Tundra.

'79 Jeep with snowplow.

Below is a picture of the old chain that was slipping.  It would slip under hard acceleration and would not spin the wheels at all.  Tried pulling out some brush with the Jeep and it just sat there with the chain slipping and making noise.

Old drive chain.  Wonder why it was slipping??

New drive chain.  Hope this fixes the problem!!

Got the new chain yesterday and installed it.  Hopefully today I'll get the rest of my order, the special lube for the Quadra-Trac transfer case.

To test whether the repair fixed the problem I have a plan.  The rear bumper is bent and I plan on wrapping a chain around a tree with the other end hooked on the bumper.  Then I'll try to pull the bumper out straight.  That will show how well the four-wheel drive is working.

Snowplow Upgrade??

Below is a picture(one of the earliest digital pictures we have. It was on a 3 1/2" floppy that the camera used to store pictures, not like the little memory cards these days.) of me plowing snow with my old Jeepster. The reason it is topless is that I rolled it about 20 years before this picture was taken and as the top was the most solid part of the vehicle, it got bent out of shape and so I removed it. It is now parked in the field directly behind where it is in this picture.

Below is the same Jeepster as it looked this past summer. Maybe next summer I'll see if I can fire it up again and drive it out of the field. It's only been parked here for about 7-8yrs, but I think I can get it running again. It wouldn't be the first time it sat for years and I got it running again. I might need to air up the tires.

Below is the plow rig that is going to replace the Jeepster. It's a '79 Jeep J20. I bought it last year and this past summer I fixed the brakes, replaced the flexible joint at the steering gear box because it broke after I raised the cab on the driver's side and changed the angle of the shaft in the steering column. Changed oil & filter, put in new platinum spark plugs, and replaced the accelerator pump because it was leaking. I replaced the 16.5" wheels and tires with 16" ones as 16" are easier to find and cheaper than the old-style 16.5"are.

I still need to work on the driveline. I think the chain that goes from the transmission to the transfer case is stretched and worn and is jumping teeth under a hard pull or hard acceleration. I hope it's that and not the output shaft on the transmission that is worn as the chain is easier to replace than the shaft because the tranmission doesn't have to be removed. Either way it'll be another couple hundred dollars to get it ready to plow snow next year. The total for what I paid for the truck and what I will have put into fixing it will be less than a thousand dollars which ain't bad. I figure the plow rig alone is worth what I paid for the truck.