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It was time for one of these at our favorite pizza place last night, 6 years or so after it was last on the road.



This was the weekends progress

Finished cleaning up the engine bay wiring after doing the relay install for the fuel pump.





Did a terminal block for a hot start/run feed in the engine bay. Relay for the fuel pump off the battery and the other is the HEI and choke.



J20 dual diaphragm booster locks up the tires no problem


Here's the first drive.






I'd been saving these to celebrate getting him back on the road


Great weekend!

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Wife and daughter got their first ride in Mater today.





Attacked the hood and fender, I had to know what this thing might end up looking like and I had a lot of aggression to get out after the basketball final

Hood and cowl look to be black stock paint with crap spraybomb or cheapie Maaco paint. Polishing compound takes off enough to let the awesome patina show through. Was thinking of replacing them with matching paint used pieces, but this likely changes that plan.

Fender on the corner where I polished the one wheel shows that the stock paint is just begging for attention.

Very very excited.






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Got the stuff for the rear window from Team Grand Wagoneer and got it in. Been working randomly on the paint and wheels on the right side when I get the chance. Now that I'm not choking on exhaust with no rear window, took Mater for a little longer drive.
Was hoping to find this in the mail today, but still waiting.
Here was my solution to mount the rear window in the track without buying the rubber strip I've heard horror stories about. Four spots with four strips of duct tape stacked up. Once I jammed the metal channel down on it I was able to lift the whole assembly just holding the channel. I sprayed some paint down inside the channel too for extra rust preventive.

Swapped the clips on the window arms out for 7/16" e-clips which was MUCH easier to deal with.

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Put Mater to use. New tapatalk has a cool meme feature.

Reworked the return to isolate the aux tank to use as the main tank, found a leak at the sending unit so I had to drop the aux tank, major PITA to reinstall. No leaks now though.

While tank was out, could access upper shock mounts so swapped in a set of air shocks the PO never installed. Have an old Rancho air shock setup I plan to hook to them.

Test drive by the lake. Now it's just a persistent exhaust leak to chase. Also scored an insane CL deal for a like new Kenwood stereo, Jensen amp and 12" BA sub box, so Maters now going to thump a little



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Updating with new pictures, been driving the ever-loving snot out of it.

Love your Jeep trailer. The Jeep is looking good.

jaber wrote:Love your Jeep trailer. The Jeep is looking good.

I love my Bantam. Best $500 I ever spent. Pulls great (backing up not so much) and is light enough to pull with pretty much anything. It's been behind every vehicle we own, but something about it just looks right behind Mater.

We are loving this Jeep.

Looking good! Glad that you are driving it and enjoying it. I love the look of your rig. And your daughter in the drivers seat with her bear (I think it's her bear, it might be yours?) put a smile on my face.

Thanks man. The bear was her friend's, I was picking her up at a neighbor's place and they hadn't seen the Jeep since I pushed it into the garage, so they came out to check it out and their daughter stuck the bear in the back.

Overall, we've just been enjoying the crap out of this thing. Until recently, I hadn't really done much more to it.

A couple weeks back, it started in with the cutting out issue again but only stumbled a little bit mostly, then it cut off completely on me. Coasted to a stop, tried it, and it fired up again. I got under the dash and tried to push the wiring connector back together again (that was my guess at what fixed it last time). That seemed to do it, but then I had to pull it out to pack another vehicle for a road trip.

When we were ready to go, wife and daughter and dog loaded and sitting in the car waiting to leave, I went to pull Mater in and it ALMOST started, but quit and then refused to do anything at all. I kept trying and got nothing. I had parked it on a decline in our yard, to get it out of the way and even though I'm not using the stock tank (using a more square aux tank where spare mounts), I thought the gas might have been low enough to uncover the pickup.

So I got my LJ, tow strap and two hitch pins and pulled it back onto the driveway. Still no start. Put in a 5 gal gas can, no start. I thought I might have flooded it out, so I pulled the fuel pump relay connector, still no start.

Remember, wife and daughter sitting in the driveway waiting to go to the inlaw's through all of this...

I checked the voltage to the HEI and it was showing ok, but I didn't trust it since I'd been having the other trouble that I was sure was electrical. So I grabbed some wire with a female spade on one end from my random leftover wire pile (everyone has one of those, right?) and hotwired the HEI to the battery so I knew it had juice. That time, it started, but it ran like absolute crap. I managed to get it into the garage, pulled the wire to the HEI to kill it, said some final choice words and left.

I thought about it most of the 10+ hour drive that day and realized that the voltage to the HEI should have been perfect when wired direct to the battery, but it was running horribly once it started. I also realized that I got it into the garage with the fuel pump relay pulled. Of all the attempts to start it, the only one where there was a longer period of time between starts was the last one, that made me think flooding and I resolved to get a fuel pressure regulator and gauge.

I did those yesterday and found that my electric pump was putting out a bunch more than the 5.5-6 psi that the Edelbrock wants. Reconnected everything and it fired right up. Went for a drive to get gas and no issues. Here's to hoping that this has it set for a while. Got to find somewhere to drive it today

Yep.

Always had an issue with the wipers where all the power to the dash died if I tried to turn them on. Also didn't have accessory power. Finally got to replace the ignition switch and both are now working.

Not sure if its possible, but the engine seems to run better than ever. I'd also had some intermittent cutting out issues that process of elimination made me think was the HEI power feed, so maybe the voltage through the switch was dropping too low and hurting power even before it caused the cutting out?

Whatever he case, it's running better than ever.

This morning.

Drove Mater down to my office in Cincinnati a couple weeks ago. Made it down great but cut off on me again on the way to dinner with some Scrambler folks. Then when I headed back home with a full tank of gas on the highway in 80 degree weather it started spewing gas out the filler pretty badly.

Something in the vent must be messed up. Pulled over to let it chill out and watched it dump gas for the next 15 minutes or so. Tried a couple things to fix it but I think the only reason it finally quit was after the level got low enough. For now I'm keeping less than half a tank or so in it until I can fix it proper.

Otherwise it made the trip fine and cruises the highway great. No, I did not try to figure out mpg.

It's leaking oil from the front of the engine worse, but nothing too horrible. From what I can see, I figure the front main seal probably dried out while sitting so long unused.

Today I finished an oil change I started last week before realizing I had no filter for it. and there was just enough light left to take Rusty and try to find some good fall colors/light.

Bigwalton

Is it me or do your lights look weird. The front side marker lights are on with your headlights, which means the rear side marker lights should be on also. Are they burned out? Or do you have an electrical issue? Also where do you live in Michigan? I noticed your jeep at Inverness and I love that place. I'd love to cruise with my 74 Cherokee s with you.




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Nice!!! I have never even tried on the lights , they may be burned out or there's an electrical issue or both. I rarely drive it at night.

I'm in Dexter. I'd love to check yours out in person sometime before the snow flies and it goes away. Inverness is fantastic. Are there last night.

Been a long time since I checked this thread. Wow. Not much new to report on the Jeep which is a good thing. Fixed all the door latches and handles finally. Tried to reattach the door skin covers to the cardboard and made up new door liners out of some plastic sheet. Replaced the front door speakers. Replaced the rotting rear window trim and cleaned up some rust on the body back there in the process. Replaced a leaky freeze plug. Need to reseal the steering box and tranny pan. Need new springs but I love the low stance in the rear so I'd throw in lowering blocks if I did put new springs in. Still hate the spare gas tank setup even with the two tanks separated (running off the rear one only). Paint needs a proper buffing, I just don't have the patience or time.

I basically just drive the snot out of it whenever I can find an excuse.

I'd love to meet up and show off the jeeps. What motor do you have in it anyway?? I have the 401. Found mine from a guy in St George Utah and got a steal on it -$1500. Also have aux tank which needs to be dropped and cleaned out. Smells like varnish real bad from the second filler neck tube. I also need to fix the tailgate window because the motor is burned out and doesn't work from either the switch or key so i can't drive it much without smelling like gas or killing myself on fumes. Hopefully in the next few weeks I can buy a new motor for it but the tailgate windows on these rigs are a pain in the ass. But I love your jeep and would love to see it sometime. Mine is also patina with the sweet mag wheels. I also want to lift mine eventually but priority #1 is fixing my tailgate window first so my girlfriend can finally take a drive in it.


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And I bet your side marker bulbs are just burned out. When I got mine shipped from Utah to dexter my headlights didn't work either so I just replaced the bulbs and I've had no issues since. As of right now I'm living in Ypsilanti and have owned my FSJ since the summer of 2010


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Did you check that the rear window isn't as simple as the safety switch in the tailgate? Had that issue on a woody we owned and fixed it with a simple bypass. I have a theory that a lot of this era FSJs with electric rear windows ended up in the junkyard because of that safety switch going out and people getting pissed that they couldn't access the rear — all for less than an hour or so of work and some soldering. I've been in the tailgate of a couple different FSJs and neither had bad motors in the end.

Mine's a plain old 360, found it in Chelsea after an aborted DIY engine overhaul after a shop that didn't know AMC motors rebuilt it but it was eating cam/dizzy gears and overheating. Chucked that motor and put in a properly rebuilt 360 —another aborted project steal.

Now I really want to see yours, you have two fillers? Mine is a deal where the stock filler is put into the aux tank and then overflows into the main tank when it's slam full. I hate the setup, it was a horrible idea and not sure why anyone would think otherwise.

Where would the safety switch be located? I've taken my tailgate plate off and it sucks because my window is down and it's hard to access anything with the piece of glass in my way!!!


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And if I needed help with my tailgate if love your help if you ever had time.


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