Build Thread 1985 CJ7 build.

[Vikingone]

Finally got another Jeep!!! 19 years ago I owned a 79 CJ5 and loved it. Then my son was born. Living in upstate NY at the time it just wasn’t deemed safe for a baby to be in so away the CJ went. All these years later my fiancé’s uncle bought this Jeep. She needed work but told him I love Jeeps so I will be glad to help out. Well over the course of the year she sat. I told him I was gonna steal it. Every time I said let’s work on her I got. “Don’t have the time right now.” Well in a moment of weekends he called my fiancé without me knowing and told her “if you give me x amount of money it’s all his.” So for my birthday she surprised me with the title. The starter and flywheel are colliding but I got her fired up one time and drove her home. So now the fun begins. I’ve already started working on things but will still post pictures of what has been already done. I should note. This will be a slow build. A lot of financial responsibilities but slow and steady wins the race I guess.

 

[Vikingone]

Sorry the pics were sideways.

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[Vikingone]

So spent the day today tearing down the steering column. All four bolts were very loose. Decided to buy new bearings while I’m in there


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[Vikingone]

So today I braved the south Florida heat and humidity and went out into the garage. My fiancé was on a kick of watching some dumbass show. So while I’m on hold because of the steering bearings I pulled the Transmission . It’s not stock. This I know. It’s a T-18 . Things just look odd. Gotta figure things out with it. But nonetheless she’s out.

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[Vikingone]

So it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything here. Money has been extremely tight. Left my career of over twenty years and decided to go back to school for a totally different career. Now the wife is pregnant and not working so this is still gonna be a slow go build. Steering column is all apart. Transmission and Transfer Case out. Gas tank out. Ive learned I’m completely disorganized and bounce all over the place taking things apart because without a lot of funds I like trying to keep SOMEWHAT busy on her. Living in south Florida I’ve decided to go with a beach cruiser kind of theme. This rig really won’t see much off-roading. Now I was a mechanic by trade for years but working in the dealership world for many years we didn’t rebuild too much. Dealership answer is to just replace with a new unit. Also. My electrical expertise SUCKS. I HATE IT AMD ALWAYS HAVE. So I’m sure I’m going to learn a lot from you guys. But for today I decided to clean and paint the steering components while I have everything apart. When I was originally putting the steering back together (the bolts for the tilt were loose) I had a problem with the key release not working. Well after disassembling multiple times I found the plastic piece on the lower shroud broken. Can’t find one anywhere. I can’t find a good picture on how the spring sits but am going to try and fabricate something to work. But as I said. Cleaned painted and cleared some parts.

Also found some nice nerf bars at the local pick and pull. Couldn’t pass up 40.00 for the pair. Going to clean em up. Hit em with some paint and install.

Also figured while the steering is apart let’s give the steering wheel some love. Going to clean up the years of grime on it and possibly wrap her with some paracord. Pics to come. Thanks for reading this drawn out post and wish me luck.


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[Vikingone]

Had a few minutes this morning to tinker around a bit. I get up fairly early and well, my wife is basically narcoleptic being 21 weeks pregnant. So I took the steering wheel and cleaned up all the years of grime and filth and ran some scothbright over the metal parts. Also started cleaning up the horn pad. Funny thing is is that the horn pad was black but upon cleaning it the black was coming off showing a light tan. I’m assuming the PO spray painted it black. I really like the tan seeing that she’s gonna be a beach cruiser.

Does anyone have any good ideas for getting that black off of the horn pad. Been scrubbing and scrubbing and she’s a tad persistent.
Also took the starter apart because of the grinding on start up which wiped out my flywheel ring gear.

Ran the starter gear across the flywheel and she meshes perfectly. So still have to figure out why it’s grinding and by the looks of the flywheel gear the starter gear isn’t coming all the was out.


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[Project86]

You might try looking for some Chevy steering column parts for close to the same years. I put a link to a steering wheel tear down in one of my threads and it was right on point. Read through the "3rd time down the rabbit hole", it is on page 2.

 

[gert]

sweet dude just found your thread, not sure how to get the black off without hurting the horn button, you could try vynl dye to change it to a color you like

 

[mtnwhlr]

That looks like a Cherokee horn button to me. Could be why it was painted.

 

[Vikingone]

I’ve been super busy the past few days and working a lot as well. Bartending till 3:30am and getting home by 4am tends to waste your next day in order to sleep. But I did do a few things today. I took my steering wheel and decided to paracord wrap it.

Also started to take apart the gauge panel.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to get to labeling the wires and get it completely apart. The plan is to do a little body work on the gauge panel. Clean up the gauges and have the gauge panel custom painted. We shall se what tomorrow holds.


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[Project86]

Thumbs up on the paracord wrap. I'll send mine right over.

 

[Vikingone]

Thumbs up on the paracord wrap. I'll send mine right over.

Anytime!!


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[Project86]

Try spraying a little CRC Brakleen(or solvent of choice) on a rag and work a small area on that horn button.

 

[Vikingone]

Try spraying a little CRC Brakleen(or solvent of choice) on a rag and work a small area on that horn button.

Good idea. I’ll give that a try.


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[Scout1067]

That paracord wrap looks sweet. I hadn't thought of that but now I am. It's not like I don't have a couple of "spare" spools of 550 cord that fell into my duffel bag before I retired. LOL

 

[Vikingone]

That paracord wrap looks sweet. I hadn't thought of that but now I am. It's not like I don't have a couple of "spare" spools of 550 cord that fell into my duffel bag before I retired. LOL

It was tedious but easy to do.


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[Vikingone]

Squeezed in some time before I have to get ready for work tonight. Had a flywheel off of a wrangler that I got at the boneyard. Well it’s different BUT the ring gear is the same. Heated them up and got them off.
Well put the flywheel in the freezer and heated the ring gear up with map gas. No luck. Kept heating and heating. Still no luck. Fired up the grill and put the ring gear on the grill for ten minutes and boom. Dropped right on.
Also took one of the boneyard find nerf bars and took them down to bare metal. I’m OCD like that.
Another tedious endeavor but at least one is ready to be primed and painted.
Until next time .....


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[gert]

Ring gear must have been shedding the heat to fast, pretty cool trick with the grill


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[Vikingone]

Ring gear must have been shedding the heat to fast, pretty cool trick with the grill


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I’ll tell you. I was feeling defeated. Sitting in my back yard and saw the grill. Then bam!


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[ttuseth]

Question, did You look closely at the ring gear, is there a front vs back? The bendix on the starter obviously has a slant on the gears to get it into place but does the ring gear have any similar feature?
I only ask as that was one of the comments when I called luk for customer support on my new parts.
Fairly certain I'm going to have to tear apart my drivetrain again but anxiously waiting to hear if your fiddling fixes your grinding noise.


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