Dave's 76 Cherokee

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243
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by 243 »

I know this build is not as consistent as the CJ, back in those days I was on the way home at 4:30 every day and didn't have to think about my job. The change in position description about six years ago and I no longer have that luxury and adding to that, now I travel and have a meetings like crazy. It won't change until I retire and that won't happen for another eight years.

It was a good day at the range and after lunch I got started about 2:30. Only one broken exhaust manifold bolt and one that required a little surgery with a cutoff wheel. I need two bolts to fully secure the engine stand to the block and I can get started tearing it apart. Break time for dinner and off to HD. I was very careful to capture all the coolant and transmission fluid but I didn't have the plugs I needed for the power steering pump so now I have to powerwash the driveway again.

I took two days of vacation that gives me nine straight days off with weekends for spring break and it's been a blast, sore as hell but getting stuff done. So far, I have built 80' of three rail fence (142' to go), hand dug the post holes and painted it, framed a 12'x12' deck to extend my storage shed, mowed the yard, been to the range twice and yanked the engine out of the Heep :D

There are no shops in town that can turn a crank but I found a place north of Houston that charge 85.00 to turn and polish. It will take a good 3 1/2 hours of driving and 30.00 bucks of gas X2 but it's not like I have a choice.

One of the exhaust manifolds is cracked, I am not sure what I will do about that, maybe there are cheap headers on Ebay.

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Last edited by 243 on Tue Sep 04, 2018 4:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
1978 Cherokee NT, 5.3/4L60/NP241 in Progress
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243
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by 243 »

Good news so far, it is really clean inside with no sludge and as I expected when I bought it back in 2012, the 360 had been rebuilt but I had no idea when or how many miles were on it. The bore is .060" over and the maximum taper is .005" according to the FSM. The bore measured 4.141"-4.145", the worse case was #3 at 4.145" top and 4.142" bottom for .003" taper, but this is exactly backwards from what I understand it should be although I measured several times. Feel free to comment, but my understanding is there is greater wear at the bottom of the cylinder with more force from the rod angle.

It doesn't matter, it's not getting new pistons!

A little trivia, I bought a cylinder hone when I was preparing to rebuild the 360 in my 1976 Cherokee sometime between 2001 and 2003, it's still in the package in the tool box so I will finally get to use it :D

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1978 Cherokee NT, 5.3/4L60/NP241 in Progress
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243
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by 243 »

Yesterday I hauled the crank to Houston and I head back to pick it up tomorrow, I was told .030" would clean it up. Today was all powerwashing, degreasing, honing and painting the block heads and intake. Nothing special, Rustoleum High Performance flat black because that is what was in the cabinet. I will need to order a bunch of parts to get moving again but I do want to make block off plates for the fuel pump, EGR and the choke.

I am not sure what I will do with the cracked exhaust manifold, new headers or manifolds are just a lot of extra money for the short term. I may pre-heat it and run a bead over it, I think I have a few nickle rods somewhere in the garage.

Like a dumbA$$, I flipped the block upside down before I pulled the lifters and they all fell out, the cheapest cam and lifter set I have founds so far is about 185.00.

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1978 Cherokee NT, 5.3/4L60/NP241 in Progress
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243
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by 243 »

I feel like I can finish or at least get to the point I can move the body to the new chassis where spending more time and money on the 360 is just wasted. I have a lot of good parts I can sell parting out the 360 and probably make more than selling it as a core but I just need to clean the parts and move them from under the chassis to the shelf for now.

Pulling the 360 opens up a lot for forward progress:

Strip the engine bay of all that is not needed which is almost everything.

Pull the dash that will be replaced with the early dash but mostly for access to mount the hydroboost from the Yukon.

Weld up the fresh air vents.

Pull the heater core and smooth the firewall.

Order a VA Mag IV test dummy and prep the firewall.

Test fit the Grand Wagoneer windshield wiper mechanism.
1978 Cherokee NT, 5.3/4L60/NP241 in Progress
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az chip
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by az chip »

When you get back on it, you GET BACK on it! LOL. Nice update. Things change direction don't they? I need to finish up some stuff on mine but I have been busy all summer. You weld up the fresh air vents on top and the lower inside? Not a bad idea.
'81 Cherokee Chief 81 WT Chief/MSD 6/Holley Sniper/ Rusty 4" Spring lift/ Bulltear oil adapter/K&P Engineering Oil Filter/ NP 208/ Serehill Light Harness/KC LED Headlights/ Evil Twin Fab Roof Rack and sliders/ Ross mirror mounts.
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jpswapmohn
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by jpswapmohn »

Make sure you have the VA Mag IV before you weld up the vents. The shop is telling me (and showed me on a couple of their other builds)that the VA lines are often set up so they need to run out the passenger side vent instead of through the hole in the firewall. I haven’t seen one going into an FSJ, so don’t know if that is true for our rigs as of yet. I. know lots of folks have installed them, so maybe someone with experience will tell us.
One day I will wake up and realize that my jeep is complete...one day, I just know it.
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az chip
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by az chip »

VA Mag IV???
'81 Cherokee Chief 81 WT Chief/MSD 6/Holley Sniper/ Rusty 4" Spring lift/ Bulltear oil adapter/K&P Engineering Oil Filter/ NP 208/ Serehill Light Harness/KC LED Headlights/ Evil Twin Fab Roof Rack and sliders/ Ross mirror mounts.
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by 243 »

The VA IV is the ac unit, Vintage Air Magnum IV.

I will check with Vintage Air before I get carried away making modifications.

Yesterday I stopped by Ace Bolt and picked up the bolts I needed for engine grounds and the few I needed for the exhaust manifold, I have buckets of SAE bolts but unfortunately, no metric so that has slowed me down a little. I found some 3/8" plate and made exhaust flanges, cut the exhaust pipe stubs down and welded those to flanges and installed them.

Then I found again, the spare 03 wiring harness is not plug and play even though both are truck/suv blue/green and in this case Yukon's, the 03 harness O2 sensor plugs are male, and so are the plugs on the 05 O2 sensors, I deleted the rear O2 plugs on the 05 harness and saved the female plugs but it's more re-wiring I was not expecting. I picked up a bunch of spade connectors at Ace so I will be able use the harness on other engines by swapping connectors.

I still think I am on track to test fire it this weekend.
1978 Cherokee NT, 5.3/4L60/NP241 in Progress
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tedlovesjeeps71
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by tedlovesjeeps71 »

243 wrote:
I still think I am on track to test fire it this weekend.

Excited for you!!! Need a birth video. ImageImage
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by 243 »

Got a lot done:

Wired the EV6 injector pigtails.
Mounted the coil packs.
Wired the starter.
Added grounds for the OBD2 port and E85 sensor.
De-pinnted the serial data wire and added a wire to run to the OBD2 port.
Ran hot wires for the start circuit and OBD2 port.
Cleaned the garage because I couldn't find the E85 wires I pulled out the other harness.
Cussed a bit when I found the wires on the coffee table in plain view after looking at them at least three time, three wires 6' long.
Connected the handheld remote starter and bumped it, worked fine.
Hooked up the ECM.
Hooked up HPT and scanned the ECM, no DTC codes.
Worked the throttle and it opened the TB and showed 0-100% actuation in HPT.

The ONLY thing stopping me from test firing it is ONE fitting, a metric threaded 1/2" barb fitting to prime the oil system. It's supposed to arrive on Friday so I am getting excited for sure.
1978 Cherokee NT, 5.3/4L60/NP241 in Progress
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by 243 »

The barb fitting I ordered off Ebay from a seller in CA showed to be in CA this morning, USPS tracking is known to be late but I decided to find another option. Oreilly's had a bag of brass fittings to mount a gauge sending unit that had one fitting that was M16x1.5, but after we opened the package we determined the sender was also metric.

I had asked for a nylon barb fitting to save cost and Oreilly's didn't have them. But I had an idea so I stopped at Lowes and picked up this fitting. I will chuck it in the drill press and turn the threads down to 16mm and force that baby into the block. I though about trying that with brass but brass is hard and I didn't want shavings in the oil system.

I may get to make some noise tonight!

I have owned a Canon G16 P/S camera for a few years and tested the video and it was good, audio not so good so maybe I will dub a little Quiet Riot.......Cum on Feel the Noize :D

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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by 243 »

I started about 5:15 and by 6:15 it was primed and ready to fire, turned over great but no start...bummer!

I worked at it until about 9:00 and was about to give up. I had fuel but no spark to the plugs. I had constant 12v to the coil packs but no signal from the computer during cranking. I checked connections, checked the grounds, add a few grounds to sure but nothing. I went back out and could not get power between the hot wire at the coil and the ground at the coil and could not figure out why, both of the big ground connectors were attached to the back of the block.

Went back in to search for the coil ground cables and noticed a small ground in a standalone factory harness near the starter connection. Back out to the garage and there was not wire there so I followed it around the front of the block and sure enough I found a wire that I thought was a sensor but it was actually the remnants of a ring terminal. I peeled back the insulation and the wire was black and it did not have power so I grounded it.

I went back to the coil pack on the drivers side to see if I had power during cranking, well hell, that son of buck roared to life and made me piss all over the garage :D

One wire, one little 12 gauge ground wire :D

It runs a little rough and died at the end of the video, I am almost certain the number 3 spark plug wire boot terminal is missing.

I don't know how to embed a video so here is the VIDEO LINK

https://flic.kr/p/NGS8iN



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1978 Cherokee NT, 5.3/4L60/NP241 in Progress
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tedlovesjeeps71
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by tedlovesjeeps71 »

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Congrats!!!!! ImageImage
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az chip
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by az chip »

YES!!
'81 Cherokee Chief 81 WT Chief/MSD 6/Holley Sniper/ Rusty 4" Spring lift/ Bulltear oil adapter/K&P Engineering Oil Filter/ NP 208/ Serehill Light Harness/KC LED Headlights/ Evil Twin Fab Roof Rack and sliders/ Ross mirror mounts.
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66stepside
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by 66stepside »

That’s one of the best parts about working on older rigs- congrats!


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jaber
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by jaber »

Right on, congrats...
Jeff

'46 cj3a
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by 243 »

Thanks guys, and I got an update and get to celebrate tonight. I worked the entire weekend and all this week trying to chase down maxed out rich long term fuel trims and logged misfires on the passenger side and a horrible engine shaking miss, swapped coils around, wires, pulled the coil harness out of my other harness and wired that up and replaced the plugs. Today all the parts arrived so I put a temporary exhaust on it. Apparently the 8" exhaust stubs with the O2's needed more than 2" of pipe past the sensors for them to function correctly, live and learn. I have 2.5" down pipes merged into a 3" single and a 3" Flowmaster, Super 44 if I remember correctly...I can't WAIT to DRIVE it!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry about the beginning, the remote starter started acting up after I started the video so I kept hitting it until it fired.

Idles nice, and the long term fuel trims are a little lean but better than maxed out rich like they were.

LINK

https://flic.kr/p/NX4evw



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1978 Cherokee NT, 5.3/4L60/NP241 in Progress

sonoraed
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by sonoraed »

243 wrote:The VA IV is the ac unit, Vintage Air Magnum IV.

I will check with Vintage Air before I get carried away making modifications.

Yesterday I stopped by Ace Bolt and picked up the bolts I needed for engine grounds and the few I needed for the exhaust manifold, I have buckets of SAE bolts but unfortunately, no metric so that has slowed me down a little. I found some 3/8" plate and made exhaust flanges, cut the exhaust pipe stubs down and welded those to flanges and installed them.

Then I found again, the spare 03 wiring harness is not plug and play even though both are truck/suv blue/green and in this case Yukon's, the 03 harness O2 sensor plugs are male, and so are the plugs on the 05 O2 sensors, I deleted the rear O2 plugs on the 05 harness and saved the female plugs but it's more re-wiring I was not expecting. I picked up a bunch of spade connectors at Ace so I will be able use the harness on other engines by swapping connectors.

I still think I am on track to test fire it this weekend.
The Vintage Air Gen IV fits like it was made for FSJ's look at my build "FastEddies restomod" I also have many pic's that are not posted if interested
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243
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by 243 »

Thank you much, I have followed your build as it' one of a few that document the VA Mag IV install. I also really like how the condenser, dryer and cooler are plumbed, First Class!
1978 Cherokee NT, 5.3/4L60/NP241 in Progress
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Re: Dave's 76 Cherokee

Post by 243 »

A long but productive day..........


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1978 Cherokee NT, 5.3/4L60/NP241 in Progress
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