Money Badger is DONE! No, not really. You know better.

[REDONE]

I have a build thread on the motherboard, but we all know what's happening there. Seems like twice a week "The server is not responding" for hours or even days. I'm gonna just do a quick recap of the important stuff over here, then post up the new stuff. Also the old thread contains pics of my 401 carnage and I don't like looking at it. So, I'll do the recap in timeline fashion:

September of 2011 I drug it home!




It's a 79 J-10 longbed, beat, abused, used as a painters work truck and bone stock but running. It had (I presumed) the classic 360/T18/D20 combo and drove for a few months before demanding any real attention. It was cold blooded obviously, being a beat up old work truck but I dealt with it by warming it up in the driveway before going anywhere. First issue was just a leaky accelerator pump in December of 2011, easy fix


Shortly there after I decided that the wiring and plumbing in the engine bay was unacceptable.


So I spent a lot of money with my buddy Clinton (nw_upstart on the motherboard) who worked at Pacific Power Batteries back then, as well as Pepboys, which beats the snot out of the other chain stores for in stock, well priced dress up crap. I elected to upgrade the ignition while I was in there. Went MSD Streetfire and TFI big cap&coil. It started to look like something I could live with.



Spring was just around the corner and that meant Ouray was coming, and I had to start thinking about actually getting this pile out, as my dad had picked up a 78 Wag and was going to go with me!

[REDONE]

I prioritized what was worst and worked off of that. The worst part of the truck was the waxed cardboard taht served as floor boards. Cutting and welding ensued.







Next I was inspired to create a 3" lift using some 4" lift shocks I had left over from a previous J-10 project, 3" blocks, some longer shackles and welding in spacers between the spring mounts and frame. There were a lot of "Jeep Nerd" jokes between my woman and her friends while I worked.




But I liked the end result!


It did present an issue though, the nasty rotten exhaust! The front driveshaft wouldn't clear it.


So I made my own using a BJs y-pipe as the base and then modifying...heavily.

[REDONE]

Then I got to thinking about driving, for 25 hours, EACH WAY to Ouray. I don't mind "roughing it" a little, but seriously, 50 hours in one week behind the wheel? Something had to be done about the interior! I don't need it to be Cadillac nice, but it at least had to have working gauges, lights and stereo, and be completely rat turd free. the CB and La Cucaracha horn were extras.

First I redid the seat. I peeled off the old covers down to the foam, then used closed cell camp pad foam and stacked it up to give the shape and cushion I wanted. Then I used a mil-spec polyester "seat protector" and installed about 70 grommets around the perimeter and through the butt seam and drew it down tight with 550 cord. I also put down a half gallon of Duplicolor Kevlar bed liner and siliconed a floor mat down on top of that. Then I added Spectre and Mr Gasket shift boots on the shifters.



Then came a tape deck, goofy horn and CB, as well as a bunch of LEDs to replace all the stock bulbs that were mostly burnt out with bad wiring.



Thankfully my dad sent me his old speakers from his Wag and they are loud enough to cover my new exhaust!

After that it was Ouray time and all I had left to do was bolt down everything I might need!


Then my gauge cluster went boobs up, with parts falling on my feet while driving and I scrambled to put that all back together a few days prior to departing for the CO.

[REDONE]

Then came Ouray and it was awesome! I lost a wheel in Oregon, screamed like a little girl, remembered I'm a man and put my big boy pants back on, ground my rotor in a hotel parking lot and drove the rest of the way! Hail on the bonneville salt flats be darned, I arrived to meet up with my dad and many others at the KOA!







Good times were had by all. Beers drank, bacon wrapped jalapino creamcheese poppers were ate, stories told, memories recalled and so on. then I drove home, largely without incident, except that the engine began to run comparatively bad. I'm sure lots of folks would stop to investigate. Dumb move. That's Murphy's Law, Section IV, para:12, item 43c. If you're 700 miles from home in the Utah desert and think you have a missing cylinder, you don't stop to look or you will find a piston half hanging out of the block. You just watch your temp, watch your oil pressure and drive until you can't drive anymore!My mileage dropped from it's usual 18~ish mpg (yah, I thought I had a 360, hang in there for the punch line if you haven't heard this one yet) down to 15, then 12, then under ten. BUT, I made it home!

After a few days rest I hit the Money Badger with both hands and discovered the culprit.
#5

#7


Easy fix! Any shade tree mechanic that would rather pee on an FJ Cruiser than make payments on one knows how to replace valve seals. That's when I made a very startling discovery.


Notice that this 79 J-10 is lacking rocker bridges...

[REDONE]

Now Flint (fulsizjeep) is one darned good guardian Jeep Angel to have, and I'm glad he's mine! Not only did he have a fresh rotor hub waiting for me in Ouray, but it took him all of about 1.26 seconds to decipher my casting numbers in my head to tell me that I have a 304! That explained the rediculously good gas milage for a J-10!

So I replaced the valve seals and dug through my boxes of random crap from my 401 build and found some Magnum rockers. So I bought some Chevy studs and slapped 'em on.


After all, if you got a 304 where a 360 should be and a 401 COULD be, you gotta squeeze the little piggy just a little bit, at least when it's convenient.

And THAT brings us into the present tense.

[Stuka]

Cool!

When you lost the wheel was it wheel studs or the bearing?

[REDONE]

First off Stuka, that "someone posted something while you slowly two-fingered your illiterate butt though you last installment of boring" feature is tops! I've traced it back to a bad wheel causing the lugs to loosen. The stud bores in that cast aluminum wheel are warbled out and I have to retighten them about every 500 miles. Thanks for asking! \m/

So, before I post some new stuff, who wants to play a real quick game of "Where's REDONE?" There's no prize, but I'll think better of you if you get it right.



Alright, now to the good stuff. I've noticed some slight drivability issues growing lately like; harder starting, rougher idle, worse acceleration, etc etc. Pretty much every symptom that can go back to a leaky half plugged carb, I had. We all know where that leads us, right to Ristows right up! Taht thing is a gem, honestly! However, you can only polish a turd so much. I'm not talking about the 2150 in general, I mean MY 2150.

I stripped it, dipped it, scrubbed it, blew it all out and even polished what I could and did it all again!


I followed Ristows instructions and finished with this. /:)


Clean and shiny! Unfortunately, I had no idea that having an airhorn with a 3/4" wow in it from front to back (hold the front down on the carb body and the rear lifts up 3/4")wasn't normal and pretty as it is, I had the feeling wasn't right. As I was tightening down the screws in a nice star pattern, tighening down a back screw caused a front screw to strip out. I grape ape'd it into submission, installed it and obviously, it didn't work as hoped. Idle was rough and any attempt to get off idle was slow and painful. I climbed up in the engine compartment so I could look down the throat while I wanged on the throttle so I could see what was going on ( you see where this is going?). I was pretty sweaty from working so hard and I credit that for my eyebrows not being gone. Anyways, that carb is ereconcilably broken, I'm just glad what was left of the carb studs came out so easy.

[REDONE]

So after accidentally damaging my 2150 (the horn was shot anyway's with that wow in it, but now all the ears are broken off the body. I barely touched it and they all snapped off, honest.) I was about to go to my old standby, the Ede' 1405. I don't care what anybody else says, Quadrjets are JUNK. Hillybilly fuel injection my left butt-cheek. They may run a little better at bad angles that most carbs, but nowhere NEAR comparable to TBI or EFI. And for that slight benefit in you pay for it with a max of 12mpg and have to choose between boggy acceleration or wimpy top end. I would have loved to go with a good 2150, but I'm both extremely impatient and I like to do business locally. At best a reman 2150 was three days away and cost more than all my aftermarket 4bbl options that I could take home that day (last Friday, Sept 21st). I was really leaning hard towards the Edelbrock. I know them, I've dinked with them and I trust them. Then I got a bug up my butt and decided to learn something new.


I stole the square bore to 2bbl adapter off of one my Impco 425s.

This is the base model 4160. I'm already getting a little buyers remorse. I looked at center hung bowls, which are required to run the spring loaded off road needle&seats. All in all I'm looking at $200 just for the bowls, floats, needle&seats, and fuel lines; then another $50 for a jet kit or $80 for Percy's adjust-a-jet metering plates. With the Ede' I'd shell out less than $100 for spring loaded needle&seats and complete metering rod and spring set. [-(

Now, I've outlined academically what I don't like about it, but seat of the pants, so far, I'm pretty happy with the start up, warm up, and snappy throttle response. It bought back the tiny bit of lower end I lost with my new exhaust and with just a few runs on the highway, it purchased a little more top end than the stock 2150 could hang on to, even though it's going through a 4x2 adapter.

[AwesomeJ10]

It's looking great!

Too bad you didn't spring for a junkyard TBI. I just did three of 'em. Cheap and will run great!

[REDONE]

Thanks Blake!

I know what you're saying about TBI. After hearing all the FI rigs in Ouray, I don't like the sound of fuel injection...literally. It takes away that magical AMC sound! Also, Ristow made a very good point a while back. It takes a lot for a carb to leave you completely stranded. 9 times out of 10 there's a way to jerry rig your way around a carb problem enough to get home. FI, not so much. If you're lucky you'll get to limp home in default (closed loop?) mode, but if the ECM goes, call a tow truck! I'm still collecting parts for a TBI though! Just to mess around with.

[Stuka]

Most EFI systems will last 200k without any issues. I have only seen a single ECM die, that was on a friends 4.0 TJ. And it ran, just not right.

But a carb is easy to fix with very few parts. I drove my J10 5 hours with a messed up carb that had a huge vacuum leak (It sounded like a turbo there was so much whistle). Thanfully I had a manual, no way it would have been drivable with an auto.

I really wish there was an easy junk yard EFI that would work on my J10, but there isn't without swapping in a whole 4.0.

Oh, and if I knew you were posting more I would have waited

[AwesomeJ10]

I think he is talking about the sound of the fuel pump. Some, like mine, are very loud. I'm running an e2000 on the J10/J20 and don't plan to ever get another one. There are cheaper and much quieter FP's out there....

[Stuka]

I think he is talking about the sound of the fuel pump. Some, like mine, are very loud. I'm running an e2000 on the J10/J20 and don't plan to ever get another one. There are cheaper and much quieter FP's out there....

Yeah fuel pumps can be loud. And more so injector tick. My JK has very loud injectors compared to a lot of other cars. Fuel pump is nearly silent though. Although I was going to make a half joke at his comment about not liking the sound of an AMC running on all 8

[AwesomeJ10]

LOL!

And the IAC can be loud too.

But here in a couple of months when the temp starts dropping to the single digits or lower, those carb guys will be cursing their carbs while us TBI guys will be loving it

[REDONE]

I'm sorry if I was misleading, I am definitely NOT a Fuel Injection hater. It's the best darned thing ever for the internal combustion gas engine, and I love the TBI on my 'burb!


Regarding my comment on the "sound" of fuel injected FSJs stuka pretty much nailed it with his joke.

While not necessarily missing cylinders, FI has a very definite, precise rhythm to it that just kinda sucks the magic out of a healthy V-8 power plant. It's like 33 LPs vs. MP3, Dave Navarro vs. Doktor Avalanche, or Rockabilly vs. Dubstep. I enjoy mp3s, drum machines and dubstep, but I really get animate over vinyl, FooFighters and some good ol' down home motorbilly greaser jams. Know what I'm saying?
http://www.live365.com/stations/motorbilly?play=2

I also felt I could figure out a Holley way quicker than I could figure out how to hook up FI to my laptop, what programs I'd need, etc etc. I didn't remember to mention in this thread like I did on the motherboard but I try to keep my Jeep a running driver. Nothing is allowed to keep it down for more than two weeks, and that's REPAIRS, mods are expected to be done over a weekend!

And speaking of mods, the most recent (monday the 24th) is a newfangled clutch rod! :ymapplause:


I was excited to get it all in, but I may yank it back out and get some better pics since I want to wrap the allthread where it goes through the rubber boot anyways.

[Stuka]

I have been using the same clutch rod setup for a long time, works well. I have about 10 years of use on the one in the J10 and the heims are still in great shape

[REDONE]

I have been using the same clutch rod setup for a long time, works well. I have about 10 years of use on the one in the J10 and the heims are still in great shape

Awesome. I know a few people that are using this setup and everyone seems to be happy with it. My main reason is that the spherical rod ends should last forever, but also, the factory ball&socket ends are only $3.99(Napa) and three days away. The heims are $4.99(Summit or Jegs) and five to seven days away OR they are $14.99(Napa) and I can have them right now! Well, I already said I'm impatient.

Darned woman is taking a nap before night school, I was really wanting to start smackin' the metal straight on the bed right now!

[lindel]

I did that with my WT years ago, after having gone thru a few of the stock clutch linkage systems. Never looked back and was good as gold when she finally died.

[REDONE]

Woohoo! Woman is up and out the door to school! It's not too late to get started without ticking of the neighbors so I'm going to go see what I can get done. For visual reference, this is where I'm starting:
The bad side


The Worse side!

[YEPA401]

You know there was a time when you could have posted a "destroy thread". Destroyed a Honda. Destroyed a Buick. Destroyed a GMC. Destroyed a Dodge (or two). Probably a few others I don't know about. Proud to see what you done with that JTruck. Keep it going.