So, the first money has been spent on the Jeep.
I'm really going to try to keep a real world record of how much I spend on this project. The goal is to keep it under $1,000 total.
Six cans of dollar store oven cleaner for a total of $6.
Roll of dollar store paper towels $1
A pack of dollar store sponge paint brusheses $1
A head gasket set for the l134, Felpro #HS 7285 B $27 (O Reilly)
Copper spray a gasket from Permatex $8
A bottle of something called Osph (more on that later) for $13(Hurst Ace)
Three cans of paint (I couldn't find all three colors I wanted in the same brand)
high heat engine primer $8 (@ Lowes)
high heat low gloss black $5 (@ Lowes)
high heat Hemi orange $7 (@ O Reilly)
Also, a big thanks to O Reilly Auto Parts for having an awesome loner program for tools. You go in, you buy the tool you need, and you have two days to return it. If you don't return it within the two days, you own it. Seems fair and reasonable to me.
So, up to this point, O Reilly's has let me use (for free),
Big gear puller (for pulling the steering wheel..................I got creative, and it worked great.)
Pitman arm puller (removing pitman arm from steering box)
1/2" drive torque wrench (for the head)
Thread restorer/tap and die set (for the head bolts, and cleaning other misc. bolts/holes.)
Okay, so that's a grand total of $76, as of February 13th, 2013.
Oh yeah, the fucking frame is bent. :( and it's bent pretty badly. I called the body shop in town. (Okay, it's weird that in this tiny, tiny town I live in, there is a full on body shop two blocks down from me, in a totally residential area with no other businesses around. The owner built a mansion of a home right behind the body shop. Oh yeah, and two of my closest neighbors work for body shops (one at the place down the street, and the other at the Buick dealership in town), and another neighbor literally runs a bit of a auto paint shop out of his garage doing custom stuff, I think.) So..............like I was saying about calling the body shop down the street, they said they've got a frame machine and that for an initial $100 to rig it up to the machine, and for and additional $40 per hour labor they can straighten it out. He said that if I brought it in, ten hours labor would probably be a worst case scenario, but it could be more. (damn, how I don't trust estimates from people..................) Okay, that would put it at $500 for a frame that's not really all that great, but is usable. That's a tough call to make. Considering the jeep didn't cost me anything, that's cheap. Considering I have a BFH, a come-along, a high-lift jack, some chain, and another Jeep with a winch....................and the fact that it's a 63 year old frame that's only going to see very light duty service for the rest of her days..... I should also mention that my awesome neighbor (the guy who works at the Buick dealership) said he knows a frame guy, and that he would hook me up, or something. I'm waiting to hear on this still. No rush, I'd rather not think about it anyway.
Pictures of the tweaked frame. All I can say is that there aren't any "bends" in a factory frame. It should be perfectly straight from front to back.
So onto the Engine I went.
Yeah, the engine won't spin around two times. Apparently that means that a valve is probably sticking. Great.
Another reason to love the internets, atf and acetone. Why have I been using anything other that atf and acetone for breaking old bolts loose? Best stuff I have ever used, and it was so obvious how well it worked compared to pb blaster. I did a bunch of side by side tests using pb blaster, and this atf/acetone mix, and almost always the atf mix was easier to break, and to unscrew through it's entirety. I highly recommend it for penetrating oil. It's 50% acetone and 50% automatic transmission fluid. You have to shake it before every use because the two don't mix well. I used a paint brush to put it on everything on the engine/frame/body. It was really wasteful to do it this way, but I wasn't being conservative on this part. It was worth it. I didn't have any major problems with bolts on this whole thing. Of course there were many that broke while I was taking things apart, but the ones that were important all came out okay, so far anyway.
Here's the problem.
So the sticking valve gets a treatment of atf/acetone. Let's call it facetone, it's got a pinkish hue? Thanks to the board at the CJ3A forums (particularly Bill) for getting me to pull the head. I didn't want to, but I'm glad I did. It needed to come off. Here are some pictures of what it looked like. It was a bit dirty in there.
Here's the video of how not to free a stuck valve that I made.
and here is the test I did to see if they're sealing up or not. (I was later told that I should have been blowing, rather than sucking, and using soapy water on top of the valves to look for air bubbles.)
So, as far as I'm concerned, the engine is tip top. hahahaha. I've already cleaned the outside of it, and plan on putting the head back on today, or tomorrow morning by the latest. (I've got to return the torque wrench by tomorrow morning.)
Also, in between fooling with the frame and the engine, I had a chance to test the strength of my newest purchase from craigslist, and maybe my all time favorite buy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A steal of a deal at the amazing price of $25 for this all steel table. Awesome. I did not even haggle on the price. The guy wanted $25, and I was more than happy to pay it. It is so heavy, and it's even got an all steel back piece for hanging stuff off of, but I had to cut it off when I brought it home because it wouldn't fit in the 4Runner. It works great as a stand to work on a transmission and transfer case, but I bought it because I thought it would make an awesome welding table.
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