Now for the new stuff

Here are all the new goodies I have so far for my rebuild. I have a beautiful GM 350 crate motor, 260hp. This bad boy has never had a fire of any kind burning in it since the iron was poured into a mold at the factory.

New mouse for my old jeep, I can't wait to fire this baby up.

I figured since I was in there I would replace the tranny with a really strong off road capable one. The factory jeep tranny was weak at best so it probably wouldn't have lasted very long anyway. This big greasy Munci SM465 is not only strong but it has a 6:1 ultra low 1st gear.

The thing was filthy so I started by cleaning it up. Now for the hard part of getting it all to fit and work right.
Wish me luck.

Noisy Little Mouse

Well as I stated before my motor started making all kinds of noises. On top of that once it was warmed up it wouldn't hold oil pressure above 5-10psi. This could have happened because of the fan blade I blew off putting the motor out of balance, or more likely it's been powering some vehicle since 1976 and it just got tired. I was born that year and sometime even I get tired.

Here she is with all the goods attached. The only thing in this picture I'm keeping is the transfer case at the very end of that chain.

In the process I made quite a pile of parts on my workbench. Not much if any will be used for my new motor, but we shall see how deep my pocketbook can go.

In the process of pulling my drive shafts I found my front u joint was bad, rusty needle bearings everywhere, good thing to find now and not later.

Roof over my Head

More current photos of the Jeep. These are from when it was still running, yep thats right it's not running right now. The motor spun the crank bearings and started making all kinds of noise. Oh well you will see all of this in the upcoming posts as I learn about building motors and adapting transmissions to transfer cases.

New to Me

The first day of ownership and what a drive it was. 300 miles of beautiful and scary highway from Ithica, NY to Cleveland, OH. It was really scary when I hit a downpour about 20 miles away from home, my wipers were not working and I had no doors or windows so i ended up very wet and very blind, but I made it thanks to Ken and all his help.


On the road from Ithica, hanging on for dear life. That big motor and worn out steering column made for a scary first drive.


Heading into the rain, I ended up not being able to see because of the water on the inside of the window.


Back at home getting ready for the first project I'm sure.


I sold off that hardtop on ebay and picked up a Bestop Supertop at Summit Racing. Of course it's black.



Some details of what makes a Jeep a Jeep