Ownership Verified: Polishing a turd. 1973 GMC Sprint, with a side of XJ

Minor progress has been made!

First though, some of the bad stuff about the car:

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Rust! This area is definitely the worst cancer on the car. As far as I can tell everything else is surface rust, but who really knows. I didn't help this by starting some body work a few years ago, but the rust around this fender was already well established.

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Shitty body work! Fuck some body shop in Fresno. It was done before I owned the car so there's not much I can do about it, but I actually have the invoices showing what was "done" to the car. Supposedly several dents were removed, trim holes welded, etc. etc. but NONE of it was actually done. Just a shit ton of body filler and then paint. The work I started probably sped up the deterioration, but I started it in the first place because the lousy work was already starting to crack and fall off the car at that point.

It's enough to make me question just how far I want to take this project in the end, but it might end up being a good excuse to buy a welder and learn how to use it. Any excuse to buy a new tool, right?

Now for better stuff. Arachnophobes may want to proceed with caution, however.

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Gotta do the important stuff first. Wheels look much better with a little cleaning. They were badly neglected though, and there's a fair bit of pitting from leaving brake dust on them too long. They should be restorable though, if I decide to keep them. I like the old-school fat rubber look of the 15" rims on this kind of car, but there are zero performance tires available any more in the sizes I would need with a 15" rim. BFG Radial T/As and Cooper Cobra GTs are basically the only 2 options in my tire sizes. Going to a 17" or 18" rim opens up some options, and I can even get the same style wheel.

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Front brakes disassembled.

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Back of one rotor. Spiders/webs/egg sacs Every. Where.

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Seriously. Every. Where. I don't reach anywhere I can't see on this thing unless I have gloves.

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And that's why! It had a close encounter with the pointy end of a screwdriver.

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Yay drum brakes! I realized I've never actually worked on drums myself, so pictures were taken so I know how to put it all back together.

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And stripped down.

All rubber brake hoses were removed as well. The master cylinder will also be replaced; it's over 45 years old, so it's only a matter of time before it gives out.

I should now have everything I need to overhaul the brake system. New master cylinder, front calipers and pads, front wheel bearings and seals, wheel cylinders for the rear brakes, and new rubber hoses all the way around. The rear drums and shoes are actually in good condition, so they'll just go back on the car for now. I can always replace them easily if needed.

I'll see how much I can get back together tomorrow. It should actually be fairly easy, but those are famous last words.

Here's the reason for the year-long delay in working on the Sprint:
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I picked this up a year ago for next to nothing. It needed some work itself, but I wanted something I could use to explore the many dirt roads and trails around Southern Utah, and put two car seats in. It had some major leaks when I got it, including what I was told was a leaky transmission input seal or pump, but I knew about all of it and the price was right. The transmission leak ended up being only the pan, so that was solved by straightening the flange on the pan and sealing it with the proper auto trans sealant. The engine ended up needing a valve cover gasket, distributor o-ring, oil filter adapter seal, and a new rear main seal. I did all of that myself, and it's now one of the few leak-free 4.0 Jeeps around here (although I may have spoken too soon--the front pinion seal is seeping a little now). The alternator promptly died after I bought it, so it was upgraded with a much higher amp unit from a same-year Grand Cherokee, which required some grinding of the brackets to fit the slightly larger case. The headlights were recently upgraded with housings to replace the old sealed beams, and a new harness which drastically increased the brightness. Now I don't have to drive by Braille at night.
The one major problem I've had so far was the passenger side motor mount shearing off the block, which broke a mounting boss clear off the block and left two bolts sheared off in the block. I thought I was going to be scrapping the engine and doing an LS swap (oh darn!), but I found some awesome aftermarket mounts that take advantage of 5 additional mounting points on the block, so problem solved despite losing a couple of the stock mounting points.
It's actually not as big a shitbox as it looks, though it's not so nice that I feel bad about beating on it. It's pretty sound mechanically. I've got some plans to make a reasonably capable crawler/overlander, but for now it'll stay pretty simple. The general plan is if something breaks, it'll be fixed better.
 
Cherokee looks nice!

Also, was that a black widow?!
 
I didn't get much done on Tuesday as I'd hoped; I decided to wait for a pressure washer to be delivered and give things a good spray-down before doing much more.

But, there was some slight progress yesterday.

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New parts! There are a few odds and ends missing from the picture, but it's boring stuff like bearings and seals.

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I got the new front rotors prepped with bearings and seals and installed them. The old dust caps were properly mangled, so new ones were procured.

I'll probably do the master cylinder next so I can flush the hard lines, and then get the new calipers and rubber hoses installed.
But, I'll be on the road this weekend so it'll have to wait. Hopefully I can get this done before it gets too hot. We're already up to 100F today.
 
I was able to make a little more progress today. I had a minor medical procedure last week that prevented any work for a few days (no worries, nothing big at all), and I've become a wimp when it comes to working in temperatures over 100F. Temperatures dropped a few degrees and I got home from work early enough to get a few things done.

New brake hoses are installed. No pics of the rear line as it's hard enough to work above the rear axle let alone get a phone up in there. Not much to see anyway.

Then I got the new/reman front calipers installed. I had a moment of panic where i thought I had bought two right-side calipers, but it was just me being an idiot and having them backwards despite the huge "L" and "R" cast into each caliper. Pulled my head out of my butt and the calipers went on without any more fuss.

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I'm giving Powerstop pads a try. Braking performance was never a strong point on this car - never dangerous, mind, just adequate - so I'm interested to see if some decent pads make a big difference.

If I'm not too lazy tomorrow I should be able to easily get the rear brakes back together, swap in the new master cylinder, and get it all bled. With some luck it'll go for a drive.
 
I was indeed lazy yesterday and didn't get anything done, but today I got the rear brakes back together with new wheel cylinders.
I haven't cared too much about making the old parts look pretty. Goal #1 is simply to get it driving (safely). Anything beyond that will involve body work, and if I actually do that it will turn into a major project and most of the mechanicals will be upgraded, so at this point as long as a part is going to work without breaking, it stays as-is. Kind of Roadkill Garage-ish.

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Sorry for the blurry potato pic. I didn't take any pictures of the process. It was too dirty, I was running out of light, and I was well past the swear word quota. At least they look like the picture I took before I tore them down, and there aren't any "extra" parts. On a side note, I officially hate drum brakes.
 
Temps today were below 90 so I got off my butt and got the brakes done.

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Out with the old. It still worked, but for how much longer? I'm pretty sure it is the original master cylinder, which would make it about 46 years old.

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This looks like crap but it still works, so it stays. If it dies, at least the car will still stop, unlike with the master cylinder.

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Much better. At least something on the car is shiny.

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Back on the ground.

I took it out and bedded the new brake pads. It even has rear brakes now! There's still some break-in to do, but it already stops harder than ever, even better than when it was my daily driver. I'm able to lock it up now, which I had never been able to do before (fat tires had more traction than the brakes could overcome). The Powerstop pads deserve some credit, though I suppose old tires could be part of that too. Not to mention all the brake components were already 35+ years old when I was last driving it regularly.

Now I need to do some tuning. I suspect the timing isn't quite where it should be, and it might still have a vacuum leak.
And it will need tires, which potentially means wheels as well because I have exactly 2 options for tires in the current sizes: BFG Radial T/As, and Cooper Cobra GTs. Neither of these excite me as they are really not performance tires, but there aren't any tires for 17 or 18" wheels that are the same overall size and aren't truck tires, at least not without spending $3-400 per tire. So, it'll probably get the Coopers just to keep it simple and keep costs down.
The exhaust behind the headers consists entirely of rust, except the mufflers somehow. It all needs to be replaced too, though it'll be a good excuse to finally put some more aggressive sounding mufflers on it. I think the current mufflers are old Midas specials, which are pretty tame, though I have to admit they've held up well; they were on the car when I bought it. It desperately needs something nastier.

I need to decide how far to go with this too. Even if I just drive it the way it is, it needs some bodywork. And if I do the bodywork, I might as well just do the whole thing right. And since most of the non-mechanical parts for these mid-70s GM cars are unobtainium, I don't know how bad I want to go down that rabbit hole.

Maybe I'll just slap a Roadkill sticker on it and call it good.
 
Very small update today.

I pulled the steering wheel off about 2 months ago to give it a good cleaning. The plasticizer seeping out of the '70s GM rubbery plastic creates a nasty syrup-like goo that makes the steering wheel sticky and disgusting to touch, and stains clothes. I used to keep a rag in the car just to wipe the fresh goo off the wheel every time I got in the car. I tried steam cleaning it together with Simple Green, which helped a little, but didn't do much to the goo. I did some research to see what others have done to remedy this, short of completely replacing the steering wheel, and learned about this stuff:

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Supposedly it will remove the plasticizer goo without damaging the underlying plastic/vinyl/whatever-it-is, and that does seem to be the case. It took me two months to get to it, but I finally tried it (I blame the hot summer weather we've had, over 105 most days over the past 2 months, but really I've just been lazy). The wheel is now not sticky for the first time in many years.

It doesn't look like much, but here's the much-improved steering wheel:

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Now, if I can get the wheel back on before two more months go by... (Actually, I'll get it on this weekend because I need to move the car so I can work on the XJ).
 
Today was Work-on-the-Jeep Day.

I did actually get the steering wheel back on the Sprint last night. I even went for a little drive. It needs tuning, but that will have to wait until next weekend.

Two main jobs on the Jeep today. Three if you count changing the gear oil in both axles.

Job #1 - fix the leaky front pinion seal.

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It wasn't leaking terribly yet, but was seeping pretty badly whenever using 4WD.

Disconnecting the drive shaft was easy. Everything was marked with a scribe so it would go back together in the same orientation, so as to prevent driveline vibrations.

Then the pinion yoke nut needed to come off. After scribing the nut and the shaft, it was Harbor Freight to the rescue:

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Torque spec for that nut is 160 ft-lbs, but this made short work of it.

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Nut and washer removed. The yoke came off without too much trouble. The seal itself was another story. A swear quota clearly had to be met before it would come out.

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The new seal was much more cooperative.

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All back together.

I also changed the gear oil while I was at it. The old oil was disgusting but there wasn't any metal in it, so that was good. The RTV under the cover was orange, so I suspect someone actually serviced this axle at some point.


Job #2 - New rear diff cover

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There wasn't actually anything wrong with the cover itself, but it was leaking. The fact Chrysler used a stupid-ass press-in rubber plug instead of a threaded plug was reason enough for me to replace it.

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In with the new. These are actually pretty decently priced, and a big improvement over stock. Much beefier, has an actual threaded plug, and keeps the same internal shape as the factory cover so the fluid dynamics inside will be the same - a lot of aftermarket diff covers are squared off which negatively affects fluid flow in the axle and actually makes them run hotter.

Obviously, I changed the oil in this axle too. The old oil was black and sludgy, and a less-than-expected amount drained out. This one had black RTV so I suspect this axle had never been serviced before. No metal in the oil though.

I'm pretty happy with the Jeep now. For the moment, it has zero leaks, which is pretty unusual for these Jeeps. "If there ain't oil under it, there ain't oil in it" often applies to these.
 
Another minor XJ update today. I haven't done much with the Sprint in about a month. It needs some tuning before I can really drive it much, and I haven't gotten to it yet. Part of the reason for that is I've been working on the Jeep more again. It's been perfect weather for trail rides so the Jeep has had higher priority lately.

I haven't done much mechanical work on it since the axle maintenance, but I've been doing a lot to get all the little things working better. All 4 power locks work now (most of the time), and I replaced the driver-side rear window regulator, so all 4 power windows now work(!).

Today I replaced the craptastic speakers that came with it when I bought it. I did some research on speaker size before buying 4 new speakers, which proved to be wrong. Everything I found said these have a regular old 6 or 6 1/2" round. Wrong, at least for pre-'97 XJs. Maybe the later ones do? Mine just has 5 1/2 inchers. Guess I should have popped the door panels off and actually measured (or measured the wide-open exposed rear speakers--derp). Since I already had everything disassembled, I decided not to send the larger speakers back and order 5 1/2" ones. I'm not terribly concerned about appearances with this thing, so the following ensued:


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This is what I started with. The stock-sized speakers is under the rectangular grill at the bottom front corner. The mounting flange fits into a recess so it fits nicely under the door panel.

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The factory plastic liner was gone. It came apart with previous work I had done in the door, so I replaced it with the thickest plastic sheeting I could find at Home Depot and contact adhesive. It's quite drafty without the plastic, so it actually makes a big difference on keeping the interior warm or cool, and helps keep a lot of the dust out. It might even help the speakers sound better.

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The new speakers came with a fiber-reinforced plastic ring for surface mounting. It's not pretty but it is functional. I used it as a template for cutting away part of the door panel, then drilled through everything. It's mounted with screws and Nylock nuts in the hope that they won't vibrate loose like the usual trim screws do. The speaker and grill then are simply screwed to the ring. The previous wiring is quite the hack job but it works (for now) so it stays. If I ever replace the head unit I might redo it properly.

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And the finished product. It isn't pretty, but it's a huge improvement in sound.

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I replaced the rear speakers as well. Again, I used the mounting rings and just mounted over the top of the speaker pod thing. I also rigged up a simple strap in the center to hold the pod up better. Definitely a Roadkill-quality solution, but way better than what was there.

In typical Jeep fashion, it has found another way to leak. All the leaks I've fixed so far have stayed fixed, but the steering box decided it should start dripping now. I'll probably rebuild it since I can get a kit and a couple of tools I'll need for significantly less than a reman box, but I'm considering upgrading to a Durango or S-10 box. I'm not in any hurry though, as it's a very slow leak. It might be a good winter project.
 
I have a theory about old cars with leaks. They don't like being fixed, so just wait for a component to leak that doesn't matter that much and leave it. Then that will satisfy the leak gods and no other components will leak.
 
Said by every Harley rider, ever.
 
I have a theory about old cars with leaks. They don't like being fixed, so just wait for a component to leak that doesn't matter that much and leave it. Then that will satisfy the leak gods and no other components will leak.
I like this theory.
So far I've fixed all the leaks because all the leaking things so far could leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere. I suppose the transfer case will be next.
 
The Jeep has had a couple minor additions recently:

I was gifted a lightbar for Christmas and it only took me about a month and a half to get around to installing it.
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The mounts rivet to the A-pillar. I wasn't sure how that would work out, but it's actually quite sturdy.
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It was also a good opportunity to get a weatherpack crimper so I could install it properly.
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It's stupidly bright. (I manually decreased the exposure a lot for the picture).
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I also fabbed a simple mount for a whip flag. I learned the state requires a flag if you're on the dunes near where I live, and which I frequent.
The quick release mount is from Tusk, and the flag from Gorilla Whips, which I learned is based here in Utah.
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It's been a while since there has been an update on the Sprint. I've actually made some progress toward it being more drivable. I found the vacuum modulator on the transmission was bad and replaced it. This made a massive improvement in starting, idle, throttle response, brake action, to name a few things. Turns out fixing a massive vacuum leak solves all sorts of problems. I'd suspected a vacuum leak for a long time, but couldn't track it down.

It also needed a new transmission mount, which fixed some disturbing clanging sounds. Guess the u-joint isn't supposed to touch the crossmember... Sorry for the potato pic; there's an Energy Suspension mount in there somewhere.
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Today's project involved the XJ. The cooling system isn't great at keep temps down under sustained low-speed conditions, such as rock crawling. At road speeds it cools just fine, but at low speeds there just isn't enough airflow. So, we'll let it escape out the hood:

Started with bare aluminum louver panels from Rod Louvers.
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Primed.
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Painted with only the finest Rustoleum satin black.
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Holes drilled (I put rubber mats under the good to catch metal bits).
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The scary part. I did remember to shield the windshield from flying bits of molten metal from the death wheel, and the rubber mats protected the enginey parts. Lots of grinding and filing followed to clean up the edges. The cut areas were primed and touched up, again with only the finest Rustoleum products. I'm sure it won't take long to fade to match the rest, not that I care on this one.
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Et voila.
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Now it just needs a good test run. I do have tomorrow off...
 
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