Ownership Verified: BCS repeatedly breaks, fixes, and re-breaks his Jeep

That should last you for a while
 
Updates? None much to speak of! Fixed some rust along the upper windshield frame in prep for a windshield replacement and a bad Bondo job on the C-pillar - looks like the driver's rear quarter panel was replaced at some point in its life. No big deal, just clean, fill, and paint.

Despite having all of my lift pieces together (although not quite all my brake upgrade parts, still hashing out the steering), I put Jeep mods on hold while I work on a different for-pay project car:

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Doing some freshening and upgrading on a '65 289 Mustang for our family doctor. The pic is a few weeks old as the engine, trans, brakes, and steering are all stripped out of the car currently.

To-Do:

- Rebuild the 289 with a better cam to match the 4bbl carb, the engine is non-original and is actually a '78 302 block with '65 289 heads and crank and was rebuilt at least twice before it found its way into the Mustang. Good news is that it's within spec and needs no machine work, just a re-ring job with new bearings and seals.
- Swap out the 4-speed toploader & mechanical clutch for a WC T5 with hydraulic clutch
- Replace the front drum brakes with a disc brake setup
- Replace the non-power single-res master cylinder with a powered dual-res
- Replace the horrifically worn-out steering gear
- Replace all brake lines and fuel lines
- Replace most of the cooling system, add fan shroud
- Replace shagged-out steering wheel

Not a major restoration, but a few hours of work involved.
 
Mustang update:

- Bottom end of the 289 is back together
- Clutch master cylinder and associated bracketry installed
- Brake booster and master cylinder installed along with all front lines bent to fit
- Front disc brake assemblies are installed
- New steering box and steering wheel are installed
- New stainless fuel lines installed
- Wheel cylinders replaced
- Rear shocks installed
- Headers are ceramic coated


Still have to finish the engine, install all the new power steering parts, install the new rear brake lines, and install the clutch slave cylinder and brackets before the engine goes back into the car. Probably a month or so left (it only gets worked on one day per week, if that), plus I'm awaiting some SAE mandrels for my rivnut tool which I need for installing the power steering control valve bracket since the frame doesn't have the nuts installed for it.


In the meantime, the next project showed up:

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That's a 428 Cobra Jet that's being stroked out to 462cid for install in a '66 Thunderbird. I won't even start tearing that one down until the Mustang is finished and out of my hair. Jesus is it ever a heavy beast of a motor - even the intake manifold is cast iron.
 
Check out an old Cadillac engine sometime. The intake is half again as big and all iron.
 
Which caddys? I'm familiar with the late 40s to mid-50s cast iron caddy intakes, but they were mostly made of holes compared to the dual-plane 428 that extends down under the heads into the intake valley. It's a monster and weighs in the neighbourhood of 75 pounds.
 
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Not sure about the 50s models so much, but the 500 and variants from the 60s had an intake that weighs in excess of 100 pounds.

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Shitting christ. I'm getting a hernia just looking at it.
 
Not sure about the 50s models so much, but the 500 and variants from the 60s had an intake that weighs in excess of 100 pounds.

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I'll look into it further but I'm having trouble tracking down reference to a cast iron intake being used on the 500. The one in your picture there is an aluminum Edelbrock intake, BTW. :p

I know 454's had them but they were a comparatively small intake, dimensionally.
 
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I posted that so you could get a picture of the size of the intake. Here is a link with a ton of info on the big Caddy engines from 68(472) - 84 (368).

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/cadillac-500.318807/page-4

Stock caddy intake manifolds are a disaster for a "hot performance" engine. They do flow fine for a granny-mobile, but....
They can be ported to improve flow, but $$$$ to do it. The 368 uses a single plane aluminum intake, while all the others are cast iron dual planes. If you can find a 368 alum intake, grab it up quick!!! While it wont really improve performance, the weight savings are well worth the swap. The edelbrock intake is, however, simply superior.
 
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Mustang progress rolls on, the 289 4V is all finished up and back in the car along with a freshly built WC T5. Hopefully should have it out of my hair in a few weeks, when I can return to neglecting to work on the Jeep in favour of getting the Chumpcar running again. Sigh.


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So remember that axle I hauled out of the junkyard in mid-2010? Yeah, I'd have forgotten too if it wasn't taking up space in my shop forever. I finally hauled the lump out to where I could work on it and got to work freshening it up. I bought lots of parts for it ages ago (new brakes, new seals and axle/carrier bearings, etc.) but with the Jeep not being driven it wasn't high up the to-do list.

After a teardown, some sandblasting, and a fresh coat of paint she's looking a lot less fugly. Did all new brake lines (hard and soft) and welded/flattened the brake pad perches that get notched over time.

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Unfortunately, the teardown also revealed the LSD unit was totally thrashed, so I ordered some new clutch packs and gutted the carrier.

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Old and broken, new hotness! The clutch packs will soak in friction modifier and then I can start reassembling things.

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I think there are more bits than there should be./ Captain Obvious
 
Yeah, that would be bad.
 
Hahaha, well there you go then, shrapnel is as good an excuse as any for an upgrade. :lol: I've got a spare open carrier that I'll put an Aussie in whenever I get around to regearing, sadly no Detroit is available for this axle.
 
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Don't have the fancy tools used to reinstall your spider gears? Chuck the carrier in a vise and bust out a spare axle shaft.

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So with the carrier back together and the new carrier bearings installed, I dropped in the carrier, installed the new park brake hardware and reinstalled the axle shafts. All that's left is to put in the carrier crosspin bolt, seal up the cover, steal the rotors and ABS sensors off the D35, and bolt on the new calipers.

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Oh, and I have to figure out where the hell I put the U-joint straps and bolts, 6 years and one house move ago. Hopefully it's in the box I helpfully labelled "Misc. Jeep."
 
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Went to swap out the pinion seal, and discovered a big facking groove worn in the yoke. Had to get a reddi-sleeve from Yukon before I could reinstall it, which took a solid month to arrive. :/

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A special plate and a 3/4" drive ratchet make re-torquing the pinion nut easy. Torque is around 225 ft-lb, give or take - no point measuring the torque on the pinion nut, as the pinion rotating torque is the important value.

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Using an inch-lb beam wrench to check the preload:

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Now the diff is back together, but while I was waiting for that reddi-sleeve to arrive, a couple of new short-term project vehicles took up residence in my shop. So the axle has returned to its usual job of keeping my axle stands from floating away until I can get those vehicles out the door.

In the meantime, I've started mocking up the brake upgrade and checking spacing on the caliper/rotor.

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I don't remember ever seeing a beam torque wrench like that before and now that's the second one I've seen tonight. Crazy.
 
Yeah, they're not super common these days. My first big torque wrench was a beam-type (still have it somewhere as a backup) but pretty much everybody uses the convenient click-type wrenches now. I use a click-type for noncritical fasteners and an electrical strain-gauge type for important stuff. The tiny beam-type is great because it's such low-poundage (0-60 in-lb) and provides a constant reading (unlike a click-type), which is perfect for diff preloads which range around the 10-20 in-lb mark and have to be read while spinning. You can also use a more modern dial-type torque wrench for diff preloads, but they're like $300+ and I don't do enough diffs to justify the cost over the $25 beam-type.
 
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