It all started one day in November, a friend asked me to go along with him to look at a Datsun 240Z parts car in Grass Valley, CA, not far from my house. What ended up happening was me dragging home a bright pumpkin orange Cherokee Chief wide track. I absolutely did not need another project (I've got too many vehicles as it is), but the condition of the Jeep was just too good to let it get crushed. After the deal was made, and the Jeep pulled from its resting spot where it had dug in over the years, it was trailered back to my shop to be brought back to life. Along the drive home I made a deal with myself that I would get it running and driving and then park it outside so I could focus on paying work. That was a month and a half ago...
Bringing a vehicle back to life is supremely rewarding, and if you stick to a plan of attack, it can get done on a shoestring budget. Luckily for me, Jeep parts are a lot less expensive and more easily obtained than other makes of vehicles, or so I thought. Having already done a couple Jeep restorations, I knew that most mechanical parts are easy enough to source. It's when you start getting into the body and trim that parts become hard to find, and the quality or reproduction parts tends to be on the lower end of the scale. I won't get into name bashing, but let's just say that when I see two specific brands show up in the search results, I try my hardest to ignore them. But back to the story.
My usual plan of attack for a resurrection is to do the bare minimum to get it running and driving and then make an assessment of the larger picture work that lay ahead. This particular Jeep had been sitting for so long that nearly everything I touched turned to dist in my hands. The radiator literally fell apart when I removed it. Every hose was hard as rock. The brakes were stuck and the transmission pan, pickup and filter were nowhere to be found. My local radiator shop supplied me with a new brass radiator and cleaned and sealed the fuel tank, Summit Racing provided me with a cheap chrome trans pan, filter and pickup tube, which turned out to be wrong, but we'll get to that later. The carburetor throttle would not move. which meant an immediate rebuild before any attempts at firing it off. Then, when I put a socket on the crank pulley bolt to try and turn the engine, it would not budge. Pulling the spark plugs revealed rust in the number seven cylinder, which anyone knows is not a great sign. Side note - why do people remove air cleaner lids and leave the hood open for years on end?
Also, the distributor cap and rotor were missing, so a new pair were installed. More on that later as well.
After soaking the cylinders overnight, the crank finally was able to rotate, which gave me hope, but I was still worried that the motor was junk. So with the rebuilt carb installed. All new vacuum hoses correctly connected to the various switches, valves and ports, a battery was dropped in and cranking ensued. Did it fire right up? Well, no, not at first, but fire it did and that's when I knew I was in trouble...
Let's start with a few pics of day one.
