Build Thread First cj7 build 1985

[85Renegade]

A few little odds and ends...

First off, I was driving around when I heard a pop, she started to run a bit rough, and louder. I thought what now!! I got home took a look and found the plug I had used on the exhaust manifold must have worked itself out. Vowing to not have this issue again... I took the old valve cut the vacuum portion of it off, plugged it with jbweld, then hit it with some gasket maker take a look...











Cigarette lighter back in... Works too.



Lastly I got around to relaying the headlights... This allows you to run brighter bulbs and also makes sure your getting the most amount of juice possible.

Got the power from the starter selioned...



Old H4 plug this is where I plugged the new socket into to get on, off, high, low... Etc



New grounding bolt....



Looks so sad without its eyes.. :-(


Grounding bolt other side...



Wires nice and neat...





With relays in place..



Low



High



It's hard to tell if they are much brighter I'll be able to tell at night.... I did this on my 85 jetta and it was a day and night difference... Pun intended..

 

[85Renegade]

Got a few parts thought I'd post them up..

Kc light... Hinge brackets









Installed







Hubs I'll need to upgrade to 6 bolt from and older cj... One is brand new the other is used in great condition though... I plan on rebuilding the used one got a ridiculous price on it 30$..





I'm starting to collect my yj suspension swap parts... As you know I have the yj springs waiting... Here are the shackle parts 3/8 thick... Crazy solid.





Look what was hiding under the hood vent...





All vacuumed out...

 

[wm69]

Good score on those hubs! You just need hubs/rotors off a 79 IIRC.

On those hinge mount brackets, I ran them on both my Jeeps for a few years, then took them off. The glare off the hood was horrible, especially on my tan Jeep (darker colors help).

I put some H3 HID bulbs in KC Daylighter housings and attached the ballasts up uner the winch/crossmember on my front bumper on some reproduction OEM fog light brackets and they are plevery bright with no hood glare.

 

[85Renegade]

Good call on those lights I'll see how it goes but I'll definitely keep that in mind...

 

[85Renegade]

Just a quick mock up not wired in or bolted up properly, however it gives you the idea think I need black covers though.... What do you guys think? I think it's age appropriate.....

 

[wm69]

I love that paint scheme....

Yes, get the black grills KC offers for about $10 each.....(IMO).

I mounted mine like that, and had an identical set on the front bumper in the OEM mounting spots.

As I said, glare off the hood was horrible in my tan Jeep, not quite as bad in my green Jeep with badly oxidized paint, but still bad glare. After squiting through the glare for awhile I just quit using the windshield lights. I also discovered you can't lay your windshield down with those lights installed (if you are so inclined), so I took them off, and just got MUCH brighter lights on the bumper (put HID's in my KC housings).

I do like the way they look up on those brackets though. Just not very functional for my uses.

 

[85Renegade]

Let me tell you guys what's been going on about 2 weeks ago I backed the jeep out of the garage and the pedal went all the way to the floor before it caught. Having done nothing to the brakes since I got it I opened the master cylinder to see the front pedal reservoir empty...!! Knowing this was not a fix I topped it off pumped the brakes and the pedal came back up.... Now the brakes were never good in it since I got it and I figured I'd address it down the road. Another thing I've noticed is since I got it every time I step on the brakes it would pull to the right... This tells me the left caliper is most likely frozen....

Fast forward a week later I pull her out of the garage seems OK, head up my long driver get to the street get half way down the block doing 20 to realize there is no brakes... For a second you panic, I quickly looked for something to hit that would slow me down... That guys mail box will do.... Just before I'm going to hit it I decided to pull up someone's steep driveway and it was long enough to cook off my momentum.. Throw it in reverse then first and head back to my house... Remember my long steep drive way I mentioned earlier... Well the jeep picks up speed... I did some zig zags on the front lawn and down the driveway and come to a nice graceful stop in front of the garage.... I open the master cylinder to find it empty again....

I decided to check for brake leaks, all the lines as well as prop valve is bone dry... Checked out the front calipers nothing leaking.... Finally I see fluid dripping from under the master cylinder.

Ironically enough two weeks ago I bought everything needed to convert my rear drums to rear disc.

The game plan is change the master cylinder to a corvette one slightly bigger to support the discs, change the rears, and rebuild the fronts... And see where that gets me. If need be I'll change all the lines as well..

I'm also working on a custom intake setup....

Here is some pictures...







Look at the color of that fluid hasn't been changed in at least 12 years probably more water then fluid....

Heres the calipers.. The pads got plenty of meat good Ole asbestos pads.... Probably a collectors item. Lol











Here is the intake setup.. Real tight tolerances here check it out...









More to come...

 

[mtnwhlr]

You know they call it a emergency brake for a reason. I'm glad you got it home ok.

 

[85Renegade]

Just picked up the new brake master cylinder from a corvette....much larger then the old one not to mention rust free a fresh. Since I had a minute I started bench bleeding it...







Look how nice...



Step one remove side plugs..



Poor fluid into it...





Wait till the fluid runs out on its own...

Forgot to take pictures of the last few steps there was fluid on my hands...

Basically you just use the plugs they give you and block those holes.... I then used a screwdriver end and kept pumping it till no more air bubbles came up. Took a good 45 min.

I didn't install it yet figured I'd let it sit a day and let the gaskets get acquainted with the fluid... Not sure yet if I'm going to replace all the lines from the start.

 

[85Renegade]

Oh bout that emergency brake... Lol those cables were seized since I got it

 

[85Renegade]

Got the nee brake master cylinder in place.. Bolted right up with no modification needed. Took it for a spin much better then it ever was, still need to bleed everything but already see improvement. There is going to be some huge upgrades in the realm of brakes and steering in the near future... Side note my powder coater arrived... That definitely raises the bar..

 

[85Renegade]

Well with the help of my wife I was able to get the brakes bleed. She did an outstanding job..... The brakes are real nice and firm has a hard time locking them up but still stops alot better then ever before.... Take a look at the color of the old fluid..... Big brake setup on the way..

 

[85Renegade]

I told you guys I was picking up a few parts.. Well here it is. I drove to PA to meet up with a fellow jeeper who's selling off a few things, really great guy. Let me show you what I picked up.

He has a 77ish Cj, so that means one thing big fat donkey brakes.. Take a look here.

Rotors with 6 bolt hubs, if you never held these you can't believe how big these things are...



Proper dust shields in great condition..



Matching knuckles...



Caliper mounts..



Big massive calipers the piston in this thing is big!!!









Warn premium hubs that came with it... As you know I have that new setup for hubs but good to have a spare....



Earlier this week I picked these up for the rear.. I'm planning on converting to discs in the rear...

Nissan rear calipers...



Mount for the caliper...



Rotors from a tracker I believe...



The plan is to get everything cleaned up real nice, then powder coat everything with the new coater I just bought.... I'll replace all bearings, bushings tie rods and ball joints as this stuff goes on.....

 

[85Renegade]

Little bit slow lately but something ill be working on soon...

I pulled out the soft top the original owner gave me, and it seems to be missing some hardware that attaches the door frames to the windshield. No big deal I'll make them... The top is the fast back version made by Bestop. There isn't much info about them and they appear hard to find.... Take a look





Full soft doors

 

[85Renegade]

I had a bit of time and was able to get the soft top on. It's very secure but I'm not sure how much of a fan I am. Might think about selling it.. Take a look.

I was missing a button or two, so I bought bestops button repair. It went so smoothly and easily, I highly recommend it.















Bought some new hardware.. Got these cottor pins at tractor supply very nice....



Now the windshield mount came from a 2010 jeep. Mounted up great...





Vertical door bar...



Bow mount...



Finished product....









What's your thoughts?

 

[mtnwhlr]

Can someone sit in the back seat with that top? I would think it would make the back seat useless but I have always liked the look of those tops

















'

 

[85Renegade]

Found some time today so did a little work....

My shift knob had been spinning, which is no big deal but extremely obnoxious... I know what ur thinking tighten jam nut, however the knob seemed to be stripped internally. I found a nice Hurst shifter from back in the day on eBay and even though it had some miles I figured I could clean it up nice.... Here is how it went down.

This is where we started...



The belly of the beast....



Cleaned everything up, and used a little bit of high temp gasket maker as per Manuel...



You can tell the age of the shifter by the way the Hurst is written it wraps around the bend the new lever is different...



In place, if u remember I replaced the shift boots when I finished the floor, and already the boot is torn.. Cheap parts..



White knob want black but it will do for now...





This is where the entire world changed...

As you may or not remember, I picked up a few rear brake parts to convert to disc. You may also remember I picked up an Eastwood powder coating setup...
I figured that I would experiment with the powder today and see how it goes...

What u have here is the bracket to hold the rear caliper. It was painted with a black paint. I figured this would be a good test subject since it's flat and very basic.

The first step is prep... All paint and oil must be removed from the peice u want to coat... I used a flap disc to clean it up...



Paint removed..



I'm using a toaster oven for now...



After the peice is stripped of paint and rust you then wipe it down with a solvent to remove oil, I like mek cause its very powerful stuff. I am a big fan of chemicals the stronger the better....



After u wipe it down then it's time to preheat the peice to 400° leave it in there for 10 minutes. Take it out and wipe it down again with your mek... The heat will loosen and bring all impurities to the surface....



Now here is the equipment... A bought a few different blacks just to get me started...





That's an air dryer for the gun u replace them after about 60 or so uses...



Here is the peice ready to be coated..



The parts I didn't take pictures, you connect an alligator clip from the box which grounds the peice out.. Then u connect the gun to your compressor, set it to about 8-12 psi. Then let her blow lol. The dust gets charged and it sticks right to it... Very cool to see and intresting process.... Then carefully you put it oven for 450° till it looks wet or flows as its described. Then roll it back to 400° for 20 min.... Buzzer goes off take it out let it cool and your done.. Protected for posterity...

Here is the final result I love it. I plan on getting a bigger oven and media blaster very soon...

 

[wm69]

Aftermarket boots are and tear. The original AMC/ Mopar boots will hold up much better if you can find one.

 

[mdeluca]

Thoroughly enjoyed this thread... thanks for taking the time to put it all up.

Then it just ended... any updates?

Mike