My 1976 Wagoneer Build II

[jegmachine]

it is the same subject; however, different author than the original "My 1976 Wagoneer Build". Bbuenger71 did a great job documenting his work so I am going to attempt my own. This is our newest member of the family and his name is Woodrow. He has a brother (1965 Ford F100) that I own and have improved, but Woodrow comes with his own issues in which I am looking to solve.

Current Status:
Just about every light cover is cracked, dings in the windshield, carpet is in bad shape, the headliner is sagging, few nicks and bumps in the body, lots of and surface rust areas. This has the original 360 and it seems to be in pretty good shape except, definitely leaking quite a bit of oil. Also seems to be loosing a bit of power steering fluid as well. There is a hesitation that comes every once in a while that will need to get figured out. Also, the heater core is bypassed because it is broke.

The good news is that I decided to take the family on a trip to Yakama (from Seattle) and it made the trip with no real mechanical issues. The tires only have a few hundred miles on them and the brakes seem to be . The transmission shifts smoothly and appears to not leak. A few things that came to light on the trip is, man, this thing is loud... tons of road noise. The speaker system and stereo that were installed are broke so we bought the Bose Bluetooth and still couldn't hear it very well. Will be fixing that pretty quickly. Also, no AC unit.. not fun when it is 95 degrees.

To Do List:
1) Need to install BlueTooth Stereo so that wife and I can safely drive this thing and talk on the phone (own my own companies so need to keep in touch).
2) Road Noise - All seals are pretty shot and need to install sound proofing throughout.
3) Find Oil Leak and repair.
4) Find Steering Leak
5) Replace Heater Core.
6) Only Door lock key is broken in rear hatch window. Need to rekey doors and figure out the back window so I can actually lock the car.
Replace all broken/cracked light covers.
7) Replace carpets and many different interior pieces.
8 ) Replace Spark Plug Wires / Spark Plugs/ Coil.
9) Replace Consumables (Oil change, Wiper Blades, and the such)
10) Maybe New Distributor
11) Rebuild Carb
12) Clean up Engine Bay
13) Clean up Dash Wiring
14) Go back to stock wheels
15) Need to figure out this no AC Thing. (Maybe an old school window swamp cooler paingted?!)
16) Pretty much bring this thing back to stock+. To me that is to get this thing looking stock from afar; however, improvements to small things to make this thing fun to drive and keep its original feel.
17) I am sure a lot more. Suggestions?

To me, this is never going to be a stock show car... this is going to be a project that returns this thing to glory while tweaking it to my liking.

Now for the pictures:

[REDONE]

Nice!

Yakima, the Palm Springs of Washington, haha! Spent many a summer at the Artillery Range there. There's a couple aftermarket AC units out there that some members have used, Mojave and Classic AC, I think.

There's several schools of thought on sound deadening too. Personally, from my research Lizardskin is the way I'd go if I were to address that problem, but there's solid evidence for other options I'm sure others will point out.

Oil leaks are a bane of our engines. They can be stopped and many succeed (I've gotten my 401 to button up), but some consider it the price to play. Power steering it's easiest and cheapest to just throw money at it until it stops. Hoses and the pump/reservoir aren't that expensive, but I recommend having the box rebuilt rather than a parts store replacement. They give you the box for an S-10 pickup because it fits, but it doesn't steer the same at all.

Love that color and look forward to more!