Finally decided to get his old ass moving. Bought a new pump and strainer, thinking that even if they weren’t bad, it was still a good idea. I had swapped the original 1 hole injectors with 4 hole ones from later models, so I figured a pump with a bit more flow would help.

Roll under and inspect the situation. First, I noticed something that was completely unrelated, but completely related to another bad issue I was having. Massive driveline vibration. As I dragged my fat ass under the jeep, I grabbed the driveshalf. It moved. Laterally. That’s not a good sign. Turns out that all 4 of the u-joint bolts to the rear diff yolk were loose. Now whether I didn’t tighten them or a failing u-joint caused them to loosen, who knows. The joint seemed alright, so I regreased the caps and bolted it back up. This time with loctite.

As I had seen before, the pump is one of the easiest to get to since they actually designed it so that you didn’t have to drop the tank or cut a hole in the trunk to access. Brilliant! And since this isn’t the rust-belt, I was able to easily rotate the retainer ring and pop it off. As I pulled the whole pump and sensor assembly out, the fuel line running out to the filter basically disintegrated. The outer shell completely failed when bent at all. But otherwise, it came right out.

Swapping in the new pump went about as well as expected. The new bottom isolator mount was completely wrong so I had to use the old one. The supplied hose was either too long or too short, depending on which hose you were replacing. Both the pump and the strainer came with retainer washers, only 1 of which barely fit. At least the electrical connector fit, so I slapped it back together and threw it back in the tank.

Then I replaced the fuel hose that had fallen apart and the inline fuel filter, which they now just give you a generic one that fits the hose size. Your brackets be damned. Zip tie it all up, groan as I roll out and up, and hit the key.

Brrrrrr…click!

Sweet, that works. But the battery is tired, so I hook it up to the charger and try again. I get good cranks, but only hear the pump kick when I turn the key on from the off position. Again, it sounds like it had no fuel.

Previously, I had checked and swapped every fuse and relay in the fuel and ignition systems. I even check for spark with a timing light to make sure the distributor was firing at the right time. Assuming that hadn’t changed, I struggled to think what else it could be. It definitely seemed like an electrical problem.

One really weird thing I’d run into was that I occasionally would get injector misfires, but playing with the engine harness would cause it to work. Ok, so I start grabbing wires and wiggling them. This is my engineering education being fully utilized!

Well, shit. When I grabbed one end of the injector harness, I could hear a solenoid click and the fuel pump kick on briefly. So, that’s something. Wiggle, wiggle, trying to figure out where the fuck is the broken wire. I start cutting off electrical tape, but it’s so old and brittle it just crumbled, making it slow and swear inducing. After removing about 9 inches of plastic conduit and tape, working a section from both ends…it is right in the middle, of course. And it’s plain as day as soon as the tape is off.

There are 6 of what I assume are ground wires connected to a giant sphere of solder…with the one leg that goes to the main harness loose. When they touch, click and happy pump noises. The wires just broke over years of use. It really is the dumbest way to do that I can think of. Let’s hide a connection halfway through a harness leg. One that is susceptible to failure when flexed. And then wrap it up and put conduit on the outside. Brilliant! Dumb fucks.

So I strip the wire and add to the solder glob. Hit the key to make sure it kicks on the pump and then wrap it all up. One last check of the fuel system and then hit the key for real.

Vroom! Well, I have to hold the pedal down a bit, but it fires and runs. Suck it Chrysler dicks! Make sure I have a wallet and head off to gas station. But once I hit the main road and accelerate, Ike is still pissy. Slow to shift, and when the revs are high, the oil pressure spikes and I start to hear ticking. Damn it. Turn around and head back. Jump in the RX7, run down to gas it and a 5 gallon tank up, and get back. See how easy that was Ike?

I add some fuel cleaner and gas to the tank. Then dump some Marvel Mystery Oil into the crankcase and fire it back up. Ike fires and runs. Let it idle for 15 minutes and no issues.

I get brave and go for a test drive. Through our little town at 45mph, he behaves pretty well. If the revs go about 4k rpm, I can hear the tapping again. It sounds kinda like pre-ignition. Well, 4k isn’t where you should run this motor anyway. The more I drive, the more he seems to calm down, shifts easier. Confidence growing, I head up the hill on a scenic drive. When pushed hard, it will still spike the oil pressure and ping, but cruises ok.

Coming down, I try high and low revs to try to work things loose. I get down to the main road and wait for a hole in traffic. Man, it’s running smooth. So smooth it sounds like it’s off. Oh shit. Yup. Just died at the stop sign. No drama, just revs to 0.

Hit the key. Back to just cranking only. Now, we’ve been here before. When he is run a while and gets hot, he just needs a break. I know the feeling. Happened to Kim once at a gas station. So, I push him to the side of the road and wait. 5 minutes…nope. 10? Nope. Somewhere before 20, something kicks and fires. It was a good thing I brought a spare battery and jumper cables because the installed battery isn’t really holding a charge for long.

I get back home and park it, but let it run for an additional 15 minutes. Sounds great, idles smooth. Like a happy jeep.

I turn it off. Just for fun, I hit the key again.

Just cranks. No fire.

Fucking mopar.

And then he sends this Pic.

Well, if we aren’t driving our “new” cars, I better get one of my old jeeps running. Let’s see what state everything is in.

Homer, the 71, needs a battery and I oddly have one ready to go thanks to an Amazon screwup a week ago. But it also was having compression issues the last few times I drove it. I’m thinking sticky valve on the right bank. Not exactly fixable right now.

The Deuce starts and runs fine (maybe fine-ish is a more accurate term), but the rear tires rub on the exhaust leaving the driveway. Not the best for bouncing through rocks.

Ike has something that feels near catastrophicly wrong going on in the front end. It just feels like the motor mount is loose or some attachment on the front axle isn’t right, but all my quick inspections show nothing obviously loose or moving. While driving, it seems like it should be VERY obvious. Who knows.

Even the big, “new” jeep has been acting funny at the front, like I should check every bolt.

The Deuce seems the easiest fix. When I brought Homer home, I removed a set of very poorly installed wheel spacers. Knowing they were the same bolt pattern, I just needed to find and install them on the rear. Found them right where I left them! Miracles do happen.

Jack up the beast and remove the rear tires. Throw some locktite on the spacer nuts and torque them up. Throw the wheels back on and everything seems to clear. Do I flex out the suspension to test it out? Naw, I’ll do that on the trail today! What could go wrong?

I also throw some air in the right rear tire, as it was at about 4psi. Maybe 2. Check the others? Nope, I’m already running late, and the gas tank is bone dry.

Luckily, I have a can with most of a gallon in it laying around and dump it in. Throw some recovery gear, tools, and cooler into the back and fire it up.

It starts, thank the automotive spirits!

I hit the road and immediately try to get used to the random self steering that the Deuce is known for. The rest of the crew is already at the staging area, unloading their rigs when I pass on my way to get gas.

When I said the gas tank was bone dry? I put 11.8 gallons into a 12 gallon tank. Guess there is a little overhead inside.

Get to the staging area and meet the crew. My buddy Nathan with his 96 Landcruiser, Ben and his son in an 82 Suzuki Samauri, and Steve and Christine in their 51 CJ-3A (I think).

Looking over the classic vehicle collection, we don’t rate our chances of success very high, unlike our fun-factor.

The trail we are doing is Toquerville Falls. While there is an easier way to get there, we decide to take the fun trail that drops into the creek bed and winds in and out and through the water up to the falls.

As a great start, the Deuce is a little slow to fire back up, acting like it’s a little flooded. But it starts and off we go! The hard start persisted throughout the day.

I cruise in 2 wheel drive until our first obstacle. A fairly decent hill climb with a slight bend right at the rocky step at the top. Ben makes it up easy. Steve bounces wrong the first time, but then finds a better line the second time and pops up. The Deuce goes up, the rears spin a hole, and then shuts off. Oops.

So now I’m stuck most of the way up the hill and it won’t restart. The key just doesn’t do anything. Weird. Nathan climbs the hill as we discuss options. He just starting to push me out of my hole, when the engine fires, unlike the previous 6 attempts. Ok. Reverse, clutch, slide back down with the drum brakes fully engaged and doing very little. I hope the brakes bed in a bit more.

Once down, I realize that I haven’t locked my front hubs in yet. Doah! Lock em in.

As we descend into the canyon, I realize most of my braking is being done with gearing. Low gear is great for this. Nathan notices that front and rear axles seem to want to move at different speeds going down, with the rear sliding out to the side. Interesting, but I have no idea what that means.

We all make it down the big descent; me, swearing the whole way down. Steering is vague and often dictated more by the rocks than the steering wheel. Limited brakes, yet not wanting to heat up the drums make slowing down exciting. But I bounce down as best I can. Kind of like skiing moguls.

At the bottom, we stop to check the rigs over. Everyone seems fine, yet the Deuce is marking its territory…with gas. I know I had filled the tank really full and was not surprised to see some dripping from the rear. But what we saw was a stream. I had parked with the right rear being lowest, but it wasn’t coming out the cap. Looking underneath, we could see it was coming from the breather tube; a 1″ hose running up the filler neck.

It appears the hose was torn, and the tear went under the hose clamp. Since the hose clamp was already tight and the hose was pretty taught, I figured it was a self-correcting issue. I’ll just park on a level surface next time.

We are now at the fun part of the trail that winds in and out of the creek. While straightforward, it involves a lot of steering input to correct the rock-induced steering. Lots of little boulders to try and pick your line from. The water isn’t deep and the bottom is mostly rock.

We all have points that we have to back up and try again, but at one point I slipped sideways into 2 holes, one for each back wheel. Trying the rocking technique helped to highlight the fact that I was only in 2wd. And yes, the hubs were looked this time.

I look at my transfer case shifter, and it’s back in 4 low, but my front tires don’t spin. Weird. I do know that on these transfer cases, it is usually 4H, 2H, N, 4L, but that you can mess with the interlock pin and access 2L. I try pulling the transfer case lever fully back until it hits the floorboard, but it keeps sliding back to where it was. I manage to get out of my holes, rocking back and forth and steering to a new position.

Once on level ground, I try again to access 4L and this time, it seems to stay back. Huh. And the next few boulderfields seem to prove that it is working, with the front tires throwing water up at times. Sweet.

As I bounce along, there is a very loud bang coming from the right front every time it drops. I keep waiting for the catastrophic snap where the axle separates or the body dismounts the frame. After a while, I accept the noise and whatever fate may await me.

We stop for lunch at a shady spot in the creek. We eat our lunch and let the little fish nibble our toes in the water. While crossing back to my jeep, I may have slid on the algea-covered rock and fell flat on my back. The good news is that getting soaked turned out to be great jeep air conditioning!

We bounce along to the falls without any serious drama, just a fun time splashing around and dodging the big rocks. My whole upper body is getting tired from the constant yanking of the steering wheel caused by the rocks. It didn’t help that the Deuce runs through power steering fluid faster than gas, so my power steering was intermittent.

It’s a nice quiet day at the falls with only 1 vehicle leaving as we arrived. We splashed around and cooled off in the pools, after posing our vehicles on top of the falls, of course.

After a nice relaxing rest stop, we loaded up and headed out. The trail out was fast an straightforward, but the road had a few areas that were all rock and all bounce. Who needs a spleen anyway?

As we got to pavement, we unlocked our hubs and went for food. Getting started again, I noticed that my clutch was starting to act weird. More specifically, the pressure plate. It was acting like the clutch pedal wasn’t fully depressed, but my foot was to the firewall. I eventually got it to go into gear, and it seemed OK after that. I was as if my clutch cable had stretched, but it does have a cable. Just a rod from pedal to throwout level. Meh, I’ll look at that later.

Overall, it was a successful day on the trail. Ben’s rig was well sorted and didn’t skip a beat. The old Willys just made it look easy (though both us old jeep drivers had tired arms from cranking the bus wheel all day). Nathan’s only issue was that his AC belt would squeal and so he had to drive with the windows down. Harsh life. The Deuce made it back to the garage. I’ll call that a win.

A couple days later, I decide it’s time to register it in Utah after a decade. I really liked the Ohio historic plate (and the fact that it didn’t need to be registered every year) but now it would qualify for the Utah vintage registration. Plus the “new” historic plate in Utah is all black with white letters and not the silly Model T design. And it was a bit over the “all vehicles must be registered within 60 days of moving your permanent residence to Utah”. Whatever.

I put it on stands and checked all the exhaust bolts after a few heat cycles. Mostly nice and tight with just a couple needing to be retorqued. Drop it back on the ground and time to head to the DMV.

But…while it idles good, any throttle causes a stumble. This isn’t totally unexpected as the fuel mixture screw got completely out of adjustment when rebuilding the carb and the manual instructions are basically “use an exhaust gas analyzer.” Thanks…dicks.

So, I scoure the internet for any hints of a car that is 40 years old, hoping for an answer on a forum that hasn’t seen a post in 10 years. It does not go well.

I finally find something buried deep on page 3 on an old thread on the 4th website. “IIRC, turn it all the way in, and then back it out 3 to 4 turns. I’d start at 3.5.” I should mention that my old Hayes manual shows a carb that is similar, but not totally accurate to the one on my car. It does mention that you should turn the mixture in until it hunts. Then back it off until it runs stable, and then add another 1/4 turn. This is a plan.

Turn mixture screw in, then back out 3 and a half turns. Fire up the car. Turn in until it hunts,  then back it off. And back it off. And back it off. Finally runs smooth-ish, but now the idle speed is high. Any throttle causes a pop in the exhaust. ?? Does that mean it’s too lean or too rich. Turn off car and back to the internet.

“Backfires indicate an incorrectly adjusted fuel mixture. This could be caused by the mixture being too rich or too lean. Use an exhaust gas analyzer to…”

Oh, for fuck’s sake!

After fiddling with it for an hour, I’ve got it idling fairly well and only popping slightly under certain throttle conditions. Fuck it. Off to the DMV.

The first stretch of 65mph road is going fairly well. A little stumble from the stop sign, but seems to run ok. Then I get into town at the first stop light….where it stumbles and dies. Shit. Hit the key as the light turns green and luckily it fires and I crawl through the intersection with the engine stumbling hard.  Pull over and pop the hood. Thinking it might be too rich, I lean out the mixture.

Down the road a half mile and it’s definitely worse. Pull over again and crank it back. The next bit of driving is through traffic and lights. I discover that if I keep the idle speed up around 3k, it doesn’t stumble off the line. Sweet. Make some noise.  At least it makes it across town to the DMV.

Go inside. “Do you have an appointment?” Shit, that’s right. They just started doing this bullshit. “No.” “OK, it’s currently an hour and a half wait, unless others with appointments show up, and then you’ll be bumped down the list.”

Grab a seat at look at the Now Serving board: 7 no appointments and 1 with. Of course, I’m last at 1.5 hours. After 30 minutes, I notice that I’m now listed as 2+ hours and there are 6 no appointments and 6 with. Oh fuck this shit. I get on my phone and make an appointment for the next morning. As I stand up, my time shows 2.5+ hours. Bye bitches.

The ride home was about the same as the rise there, except now the engine prefers being at 3.5k at idle to prevent stumbling away from a light. Cool, cool.

At home, I check the timing, as some rando who stopped by during one of my hood up moments suggested. It was dead on. I check the plugs and they are old and need cleaning. Seems like it is rich. I lean out the mixture, but that seems to create more back firing on throttle. Go back halfway and call it a night.

The next morning I get to the garage 30 mins before I should leave. Fire it up. It seems somewhat happy with the choke on, but any throttle causes more popping. Nothing I do makes a difference. Unhappily, I take off for the DMV, take 2.

It’s definitely worse than yesterday. Back-firing is very common and it just doesn’t feel balanced. It is almost as if the plugs get fouled and only high revs help. It makes it there.

DMV2, The Return, went much smoother. Check in, and as my ass hits the seat, they call me up. Takes 5 minutes and she walks me out to do a VIN inspection and let’s me go with my temp tag. One thing I noticed while sitting there the previous day is that they only staff for appointments. As soon as a clerk is done, they vanish until someone with an appointment shows up and then they magically appear at their desk and call them up. Lousy way to run an office.

Happy to have the paperwork out of the way, I fire up the angry engine and limp towards home. I actually try an adjustment in the DMV parking lot. It was so bad, I pulled over to the side of a 60mph road to put it back. I’m starting to think it might be a fuel filter. I know I had bad fuel that gunked up the carb, so I think it makes sense.

But it’s running so bad, rather than stop by the parts store, I take the long, quiet road home so I won’t be a traffic clog. And it’s a good thing, I check online back home and they didn’t have either the fuel filter or the spark plugs in stock. I’m sure they have a filter that would fit, but I need to figure out the hose size before grabbing the wrong one.

At least the car is now registered. Just not driveable.

A week later, I find some plugs and a filter that will work that are “in stock” at a parts place about 25 mins away. It’s in Hilldale…the known polygamist FLDS stronghold. To fit in, I drive Ike and wear my greasy garage clothes.

Now Ike, he fires right up, but joins the stumble club. However, this is not a new issue. I usually just jiggle with wires on the #5 cylinder and it smoothes out. I clear out the engine code and set off. I had to stop to drop off the glass at the recycle center, and upon restart, same stumble. Try the wire wiggling trick on #5, but no change. I check the engine code (bluetooth to my phone) and now it is showing misfire on #4 and #6. At least #5 is working! Wiggle more wires and rev it up and it seems ok. Ish.

Fuck it. Up the hill I go. Even running on 5 cylinders randomly, Ike pulls up the big hill easily. About halfway out to Hilldale, I get slowed to 55mph behind traffic. Stupid tourists who can’t read a speed target, er limit, sign. At 55mph, Ike starts to make a noise. It only sounds like the impending doom of a motor mount, but if I add some throttle, it down-shifts and the rattle is gone. Fixed!

Get to the parts store and sure enough, they don’t have the stock. They have 1 spark plug, not the 4 shown online. 1 plug does me no good. At least I picked up a fuel filter. But, there is a sliver lining to this trip. One of our favorite restaurants from Springdale lost their lease a year ago and relocated to this hick town. So I go over and notice that Ike’s knocking rattle is getting worse, even at idle now. I ignore it and go in for a chimichanga. The owner and servers chat with me so much that my food gets cold. I don’t care. It’s also technically my 2nd lunch anyway. Unfortunately, their liquor license is still pending, so no margaritas. Spend about 2 hours eating and visiting.

Driving home, Ike’s loud knocking is mysteriously missing. Maybe whatever it was fell off? Whatever. Not an issue anymore.

Get home and throw on the fuel filter. Seeing as how easily the fuel falls out of the filter, all down my arm, past the elbow, I guess the filter isn’t the problem. I can blow through it without issue. Wait 10 minutes for the fumes to run and hide, then fire it up. Yup, fuel filter wasn’t it. It is still angry. Sometimes I hate being right. Just kidding.

Jump online and order plugs from Rockauto. What the hell, I order new coils as well. Maybe there isn’t enough spark. They show up a few days later. I get an email that they were delivered to my PO Box. Sweet.

I drive the 10 minutes down the hill, BECAUSE OUR GOVERNMENT IS TOO FUCKING CHEAP TO RENEW OUR TOWN POST OFFICE LEASE! Thanks for the fucking DeJoy, you asshole. Open the PO Box and there is a slip of paper. Oh fuck no. This means that instead of putting my “oversized” box into one of the overflow parcel boxes and leaving me a key, they make me show up the next day to get it from the teller. Well shit.

After driving back home in a fit of rage (there might have been 2 racer-style passes), I head out to the garage to install the new coils I got. While that goes easy, I notice that one of the two coils has been unboxed already. Sure enough, there is a dent on the bottom where someone dropped and returned it. I’ll use it for the trailing ignition because I can only imagine the nightmare of trying to sort that mess out.

While I’m waiting ever so patiently for my plugs, I decide to make an improvement. I should probably mention that besides replacing the exhaust, I also removed the “rats nest” from the engine. Basically, any silly thing meant for 80s emissions gets yoinked off the carb and the top of the engine. There is a lot. Most of it vacuum tubes and solenoids. But there are two places where you need to make blockoff plates.

I had used what I had, which was thin gage sheet steel. Something I could cut with snips. I used two layers for rigidity, but I wasn’t really happy with them. Since then, I had found a piece of 1/8″ aluminum and I have this welder/plasma cutter I’ve never used….

I mark out the outline on the new plate and prep the plasma cutter. How many tines have I done this? None. How hard could it be? Well, not as easy as it looks. A few test cuts just proves my notice status, but then I say fuck it and hack out the pieces.  Then get to work with the grinder. And the file. Drill some holes and I’m done. And they good? Good enough.

I clean them up, slather with Ultra Copper sealant and snug them up. An hour layer, I torque them down. Much more solid than the last pieces, and possibly the fix for the whole issue. On the larger of the two plates, there was one 1/8″ spot that looked oily (fuel residue?) under the permatex. If that was letting in air, that would cause the backfiring. Gotta wait 24 hours for the sealant to cure before it test it though.

Next morning, go down to post office, pick up the parts and manage not to hit the guy over the head with it. Install the new plugs (the old ones are VERY old and VERY used looking. Torque them up, install wires back and check the watch. It’s about 21 hours in. Surely the permatex is set enough. Right???

Fuck it. Reset the fuel mixture to 3.5 turns. Fire it up. Wait for choke to release and lower the idle speed. Well, it’s running. Turn mixture lean until it hunts, go back rich until smooth, then add 1/4 turn. It definitely sounds better at idle. Blip the throttle. No backfiring. No dogs barking at back fire. (My neighbors love me.) Jump in and drive around the block. Seems to be working! Cautiously optimistic.

So much so, I decide to drive it to work. Sure, I put a bunch of tools into the passenger floor….details. I’m totally (maybe half) confident.

Get ready for work and head off. It was an uneventful drive. Smooth and good sounding. About time.

I still don’t know if it was the coils, the plugs or the block off plates, but something there fixed it.

At least, until the drive home tonight…fingers crossed!

I enjoyed driving it, but from the first test drive, I had hated the sound of the exhaust. What’s hilarious is that when I bought it, I told the seller that I’d probably swap out the exhaust immediately. He froze, stared at me hard and said “Do NOT change the exhaust!” He did not elaborate, but I assume he spent way too much on it.

It wasn’t that the sound was too loud, but that at highway speeds, it would drone. Just a mind numbing hum that resonated your brain cells. It was the main reason I didn’t drive it much. Well, time to fix that.

What took so long? Money. It’s not that I didn’t have the funds for it, but I wanted the same one I had put on my first RX. I knew it would bolt up and sound good. Plus, there weren’t many other options that weren’t custom jobs, and I was not about to let a muffler shop with no experience with rotary engines slap something together.

How bad was the cost? Almost half of what I paid for the entire car. Yeah, $1300 for $2800 car. It wouldn’t have been so bad of I had bought before the pandemic, but at the time I thought $1000 was outrageous.

Fuck it. It’s what is preventing me from driving the thing. Fix it or sell it.

And I don’t sell my cars.

Due to supply issues, I got the header first. Which wasn’t useful as the current system was a single pipe and the new headers were dual. Finally, after almost a year and a half, I bought the rest. Why so long? When I had bought the header during a visit to their shop in California, they had put my order (unpaid) on a giant stack of orders. They assured me they would call when it became available. They lied.

I started noticing the two remaining sections were available on their website mid-summer, but it seemed every time I remember and grabbed my wallet, it would show out of stock again. Damn it! So the n3xt time I saw it available, I bought them.

Just after Thanksgiving, the parts arrive and am excited, but have a lot going on. When I finally get time prior to Christmas, I lay all the pipes out…and realize I’m missing the header to engine gasket. Shit. And it’s a weird one. Local part store shows it available “within 24 hours”, so I run down and order it. “Special order, shipping extra.” Shut up, whatever, here’s my money. 24 hours my ass. Stupid Christmas. It takes a week

Our last week of work for the season, and all I want is to get this thing running. In the hours before work, I put it up on jacks and unbolt the current system. From the cat back, it’s solid. Until I take a sawzall to it. Cut it in the middle of a straight section in case I want to reuse it. Sure.

Unbolt the thermal reactor. It’s what Mazda calls the exhaust header that is also heavy as hell to absorb a bunch of heat from the motor. It weighs a metric shit-tonne.

Since I’m still waiting on that damned header gasket, my mind begins to wonder. On top of the motor is a pile of solenoids and vacuum hoses, affectionately called the rats nest. It’s a bunch of emissions shit. Ironically, if the engine is tuned right, it doesn’t do much. It’s a common thing to remove the rats nest, as long as you don’t have to run the car through an emissions check. Not here!

I find a few write-ups on how to yank it all off. It is mostly straight forward and you end up using 12 vacuum caps of various sizes, but it looks MUCH cleaner when done.

And now the gasket shows up. Yes! I check the exhaust manufacturer’s website for install instructions. There are 2 files; one for the header and one for the rest. Whatever. Header instructions are easy, remove old, clean, install, torque in stages starting with bottom nuts first. Easy!

Start reading instructions for the second half. Item 1, install header with new gasket but do not torque yet. FUCK! Did I miss something on the first set that said wait? Nope. Bunch of dicks.

Whatever. I leave the header torqued and install the center section and muffler. It’s a good thing I bought the new hanger set as the previous own bastardized the stock ones. Ironically, there is very little rust for a car from Ohio.

It takes some grunting and a lot of swearing to get things lined up. A couple of heat shields need adjusting, as stated in the instructions. There was a missing bracket that the instructions say was supposed to be included, but it’s a simple straight piece with 2 holes, so I measure and fab it up.

Back under for final torque. More grunting and swearing. This getting older just makes the pain stick around longer. And god damn do I miss my lift! But it’s finally done. I look it over a third and fourth time to make sure all connections are made and no tools are laying around the engine. I leave it up on jacks so I can feel for exhaust leaks.

At this point, I realize I should have put the battery on a trickle charger. I had the battery disconnect thrown, but I don’t think the battery was well charged the last time I moved the car. I attach the charger and turn the key on. Fuel pump starts pumping away. Good sign. Hit the key, click, click, click. Voltage at 10v. Bad sign.

But I’m used to old, dead vehicles, so I grab my battery starter charge pack. One of those tiny, under seat package batteries. They work amazingly well. Hook it up and hit the key. It cranks a few times and stops. Knowing that a cold rotary engine will take several attempts to get going, I wait patiently for the charge pack to go green again and try again. And again. Then I decide to just give the motor a visual inspection while waiting for the green light a 4th time.

I immediately smell gas. This isn’t unexpected as I’ve been dumping fuel into the carb at every start attempt. But then I notice the back of the carb is wet. Finger swipe confirms fresh fuel. Shit.

Turn the key off and pull the air cleaner. Yup, fuel leaking out the top of the rear bowl. I clean up the carb, mop up the fuel and turn a fan on. I give the carb a few taps to hopefully unstick the float and it’s needle valve. Turn on the key and listen to the fuel pump tick away. This is the normal operation and it works as intended. Fuel into carb, bowls filled and excess fuel leaves via return line. Seems fine. Then I crank the throttle a few times. Some fuel goes into the carb, but then it starts leaking again. Shit, again.

As luck would have it, a few years ago the accelerator pump had started leaking but you could only buy the entire carb rebuild kit. So I had a kit minus the accelerator pump, not where it was leaking. As I remove the carb for a rebuild, I keep telling myself that this is good luck.

I strip the carb down while I can’t see anything wrong, I install new needle valves and seats. New gaskets all the way around and I check the float measurements. Maybe the new valves and seats are a different dimensions, but the floats are considerable off. Bend the floats to spec.

Clean(ish) and reassembled, I throw the carb back on the motor. Hook up all the cables and hoses and double check. Fingers crossed, I hit the key. On try 2, it hits once. Promising. At least the charged battery seems to be working. On try 3, I crank it longer than usual as it is starting to hit. Tapping the throttle and encouraging it to run. It finally clears its throat and starts running with the choke on. Yes!

It take a bit more attention, but it finally runs on its own. I actually shut it off as I had left the air cleaner off. Good thing I checked, because I had left one vacuum line off. Oops. Better yet, no fuel on the outside of the carb!

Fire it up again, starts on 2nd rotation. Happiness! I let it run until it gets warm. This is fun because I know I had dumped a ton of raw fuel through the system when the float was stuck. Plus it’s a new exhaust, so all the light oil on the pipes is burning off. When it got to temp and the choke kicked open, it died, but I knew the idle screw had been moved and hadn’t set it yet. As expected, the exhaust is smoking…both from the inside and out. I let it sit for a while.

Whatever…it runs! As much as I’d love to tune it, I need to pack for a trip to see family. Stupid family commitments.

I roll it into the garage. As I’m closing the garage door, I notice a drip. And it’s not water from the exhaust. It’s slick. My hands are so dirty, I can’t tell what it is. So I start looking under the hood. Oil dipstick is in. Oil filter is on and not leaking. Engine looks fine. Check oil cooler and hose. Fine, but then I see it. Coolant on the front skid plate. Looking up I see where the drip came from.

The top of the radiator is pooling at top seem.

Son of a bitch!

I had already made some “minor” changes to the system. Originally, there was a 30 gallon hot water tank with no separate shut off valves. Whenever you turned on the water, if would fill the tank. And everytime you had to winterize the cabin, you had to drain the tank. 30 gallons draining through a 3/8″ hose took a LONG time. It made late fall through early spring visits rough as you had to winterize if the weather planned to get close to freezing while you were away.

Initially, I had put in a valve to shut off the water supply to the tank. This was not as straightforward as you might think as it was a mess of old iron pipe and dried pvc all surrounded by wall insulation and wrapped in duct tape. It was a joy. (Sarcasm).

During this time I realized another issue with the system. There was no shutoff valve for the hot water under the kitchen sink. Why was this an issue? The faucet had a standard one mixing handle valve. If you didn’t have the handle turned full cold (it spun 360 degrees), the mixing valve would allow the cold water supply to dump into the hot supply line and backfeed to the hot water tank. I discovered this when I heard it gurgling when Kim was at the sink. Great.

That issue was fixed two ways. First, I installed a two handle faucet for the sink. Second, I installed a shutoff valve for the hot water supply line. Just ignore the colors on the shutoff valves. The cold was pre-existing in red. The only valve at the store for the hot was blue. Why not? Let’s fuck with the next owners.

At some point, probably in a fit of rage, I disconnected and yanked out the hot water tank completely. Fuck it. It just made working in the water closet insanely difficult and was serving no purpose. It laid in the yard for 4 months. I may have kicked it a few times.

At this point, the hot water supply was completely disconnected. Which really wasn’t a big deal as I had never had hot water at the cabin before.

Some time later, I had run across a 2.5 gallon electric hot water tank that was wall mounted. This started the idea of revamping the entire water closet, which at this point was a single cold supply line with a valve that fed the bathroom. What I was planning was to completely redesign the inlet and distribution of the water.

How to describe the original system. At the top of the hill is a water tank that gravity feeds the cabin with water. There was a shutoff valve at the tank. When it arrived to the cabin, the main line feeds straight through the underside of the cabin to the kitchen sink, with a single T under the water closet up to the bathroom supply and former hot water heater. While there was a shutoff valve in the water closet, there was no way to shut off the kitchen and run just the bathroom. Why would that be nice? The kitchen is about 3 feet in the air due to the slope of the ground. In fact most of the main line to the kitchen was dangling under the joists. Since there is no skirt around the front and side of the cabin, this exposes the main line to the cold winds of winter. Doubly bad as half of the pipe insulation had fallen off. Don’t worry. I fixed that years ago, but the issue is still there.

Oh, and there is a valve at the far end, just past the kitchen T. This is the main way to drain the entire cold supply. This is all PVC.

On the hot side, there were two PB (the cheap precursor to PEX) lines starting in the water closet. One to the bathroom and the other to the kitchen. The bathroom supply lines, both hot and cold, disappeared into the wall behind the water closet into the bathroom ceiling. The hot kitchen supply line dropped through the floor of the water closet and at some point transitioned to PVC to run next to the cold kitchen supply.

I should talk about the water closet. It was outside. Yup. Why have your water system inside where you might have, I dunno, HEAT in the wintertime, when you can make it difficult. I assume it was because the original hot water tank ran off propane, but whatever. It was just beside the main entrance to the cabin and was well insulated on the sides. It had a fairly substantial subfloor that the hot water tank sat on, about 18″ off the ground. There was no way to access the piping under the water closet. So I guess they just hoped for the best.

Another issue I should mention is that on the rare occasion that I did run the shower (twice in 5 years), water would seep out into the hallway in front of the shower. There was a little rectangle of trim that attempted to conceal a removable piece of drywall. And that’s where the water would seep out from. I removed this piece, but could only see the underside of the tub.

Now, my grand solution is not the perfect resolution to all my problems. Ideally, I’d have figured out a way to make the closet part of the inside of the cabin. Nope. That ain’t gonna happen. The plan was to make things better. It wouldn’t be hard.

My goals: install a pump for added pressure, add hot water tank, isolation of kitchen and bath circuits, and fix the shower. Here’s what I did.

First, I had to tear out the floor of the water closet as all the inlet piping was underneath it. 1.5″ tongue and groove boards. Nice and stout for the old hot water tank to sit on. It was covered in mouse and chipmunk shit. Joy. Under the floor is almost comical. The “base” of the cabinet is a wooden frame sitting on an U of cinderblocks. Most of the cinderblocks were loose and I start removing them. I remove all but one. That’s right. The entire closet is supported by a single block on one corner. We’ll, and the outside of the cabin acting as the back wall.

There was also three pieces of wood under the floor. The front was solid and supported by the one block and mounted to the sides. The back had been cut, possibly to allow the bathroom/hot water line up through the old floor. It just dangled from one side. The third piece was my favorite. A 4×4 post, spanning from left to right, just sitting atop the loose blocks. There is a chance that the weight of the hot water heater was enough to sag the floor onto it, but it couldn’t have been very effective.

With all the loose crap out of the way, I used a shovel to remove the dirt around the inline pipe. It was only about half buried. Then I cut the insulation off. Again, this was homemade insulation using wall insulation and duct tape. It was wet inside the padding from a small seep further up the bathroom line. Just to give an example of the health of this line, imagine a 5.5′ PVC pipe with 4 straight joints on it.

I grabbed the sawzall and started cutting. Took out 18″ of the mainline and all of the bathroom line. This was my starting point. One water line in and 4 outlets: bathroom hot and cold, and kitchen hot and cold.

Technically, the kitchen cold supply was just the old mainline, but I replaced the 18″ section with a valve and 2 Tees. The first Tee would be the new main supply, heading up to a small pump. Think motor home pump, but 120v. After that Tee would be the valve. This would be normally shut to divert all the water to the pump, but could be opened to drain the system. Finally, the last Tee would be the input to the kitchen cold supply.

After the pump, the water goes into a manifold with separate valves for the 4 outputs: cold supply to kitchen, cold supply to bath, hot water tank and pressure tank. The idea behind the pressure tank was to help reduce the cycling of the pump. We’ll see if it works.

The hot water tank was easy enough to install. Just 2 screws to secure the mount to the wall and then hang the tank on the wall. My idea here was that for winter, I could just close off the supply and output lines to the tank, disconnect the two hoses and remove the unit from the wall for draining.

One of the major goals was to be able to control the power to both the pump and the hot water tank from inside the cabin. On this, I was extremely lucky. Inside the bathroom where the water closet is outside, was a single wall outlet behind a wooden cabinet door covering a cutout section of drywall. Ok, whatever. I guess they didn’t want to do drywall repair. But inside the wall cutout was something spectacular. Wiring.

There had been power inside the water closet. But it was a disaster. And open metal gangbox was suspended in the air by wiring, with a single outlet kind of attached to it and all the wiring exposed. 4 romex wires entered this box. Oh, and this open electrical box…just a few inches from the leaky bathroom supply PVC piping.

Of the 4 wires, 1 came from the top of the closet, 2 disappeared into the wall into the bathroom and the last went through the side wall, under the entry mini porch and off to supply power to the added-on couch room. This last line was hilariously doomed. Raw romex was run outside, then under the “porch” off to the far side of the cabin, just laying on the dirt. The foot or so length of wire before going under the floor had been chewed on in multiple spots. The one section you can see through the metal grate on the porch was sun bleached and cracked. Totally to code. I don’t usually use that room, so I just disconnected the wire a while ago. I also disconnected the outlet, with the box just acting like a junction box, just totally exposed.

The important part is the 2 wires disappearing into the bathroom wall. Inside the bathroom was 3 wires. 2 from below were the 2 from the closet. One of these went to an outlet, where the 3rd wire was also attached. The other wire from the closet was just dangling with wire nuts, but still live. I have no idea.

Ironically and fortunately, the power line from the ceiling in the closet was the power in. This made life simple. Ceiling power in to an outlet box with two GFCI outlets, one for pump, one for hot water heater. But instead of the hot going to the outlets, I used one of the 2 wall wires to take power into the bathroom and the other wire would bring back the two switched hot lines. All I had to do was replace the outlet inside the bathroom with a 2 toggle switch. And not get the hot and switched wires mixed up.

I still wonder why they installed an outlet 3 feet off the floor, behind a cabinet door. And didn’t finish the drywall. Whatever, weirdos.

So now I had switches inside the bathroom to turn pump and hot water on! Brilliant!

On the first day, I got most of the main plumbing done, with only a couple of missing pieces that I somehow forgot. But I had another task. The shower.

The shower was mainly an issue because it had no pressure, the valve would just spin 360 degrees with no idea where it was and it weeped somewhere inside the wall. So time to investigate.

Looking at the wall, I could see where someone had cut open the wall and repaired it at some point. Starting there, I cut a small hole to figure out where things were. Before cutting into the wall, I had thought that maybe I could install a medicine style cabinet with no back, thinking of having a mirror, but open it to access the shower plumbing. This was not going to work. Medicine cabinets sit inside a wall, between two studs. The shower control valve sat 1″ from a stud. I needed a better look, so I cut a 30″x36″ piece of drywall out. This way I could secure the edges of the drywall patch to the existing studs and give me access to all the shower plumbing.

The first major wtf moment was the shower head piping. Usually, it is a solid piece of copper tubing connecting the control valve to the shower head elbow. Imagine that, but with a piece of cheap garden hose replacing about 6″ in the middle. Oh, and the upper part of the hose had slid down so that the ends just sort of touched. I’m honestly surprised that any water at all came out the shower head.

The second big issue was just removing the old valve. Usually, the control valve would be mounted on a board that spanned two studs. I had my sawzall ready. But no, that’s not how it was mounted. Instead, one side of the valve, the cold water supply, went through a small hole in the stud. That was it. At least it explained why the shower knob flopped around while turning it.

This complicated the removal because even with the valve completely gutted and the PB lines cut, I couldn’t remove the valve from the wall or the stud. There was only 1 way…sawzall. i mean, i had it ready. Cut the cold supply nipple off and pulled the two pieces out.

This also complicated the install, because the stud was right where the new three handled valve would sit. I wanted a 3 handle valve so that you could open a single valve without worrying about the mixer backfeeding the hot with cold water. Something I learned from the kitchen sink. This stud issue was also solved with the sawzall. I cut about a foot of length out of the stud. I doubt it’s load bearing. (Don’t worry, I’ll fix it later.)

This would have made the control valve really easy to install…if it weren’t for this random PVC pipe that was routed right through the project. To be honest, I have no idea what the PVC pipe is for. It comes in from behind the shower (along with the supply lines for the toilet and sink), heads into the top of the wall and then another pipe returns 6 inches to the right and goes through the wall above the shower head. I have zero ideas.

I was able to bench install all but one brass PEX fittings to the rough valve before sticking it through the wall, prying the PVC pipe as far as it would go. Then just secure last brass fitting and start crimping PEX lines on. Why didn’t I just plumb straight from the brass fittings to the PB hoses? Because I couldn’t find any PB copper clamps, except those that came in the PEX to PB joint kits. Just doubling the amount of crimped connectors. What could possibly go wrong?

I installed the handles which helped to hold the valve in place. I modified the piece of stud I had removed to allow space for the new valve and reinstalled it with metal plates. Necessary? Probably not, but I don’t really want to chance it.

The final piece to connect was the shower head line. I pulled out the copper to PEX fitting, grabbed the solder and flux, mounted the fireproof cloth so I wouldn’t set the stud on fire, and prepped the propane torch. And then I opened the flux to see crusty chucks. Totally dried out. What? It was only over 10 years old. Probably more like 20.

It said it was water soluable, so I added a tiny bit of water and tried to bring it back to life. Yeah, that wasn’t happening. I gave it a try though. It was probably mostly water, but 0% of the solder got into the joint. Well fuck. Add it to the list of shit needed.

Since it was late on the second day, I decided I wanted to pressure test the system instead of going to town. As long as I made sure to keep the shower knobs turned off, I should be fine. I walked up the hill and opened the valve leaving the tank.

Initially, I left all the valves closed. I listened for water trickling through the pipes. Nothing. I decided to open the main line drain valve which also would feed the kitchen and turned the sink on. At least now I could hear air blowing through the pipe. Eventually, a thin drizzle came out. I impatiently did not wait, shut off the sink and returned to the water closet where I closed the drain valve. I could hear gurgling, so I opened the valve that would eventually go to a pressure tank, but was now just open.

Water bubbled and then spat out. Closed the valve and opened the kitchen circuit and back to the kitchen sink. While sounding like your guts after gas station sushi, eventually water burped out and ran. Albeit slowly.

Next was to turn on the bathroom circuit. This is when I noticed a few leaks in the system already. The inlet to the pump. The inlet to the manifold. One manifold outlet. And one valve inlet. Well, nothing a little extra pressure with the PEX crimp tool can’t fix.

Initially, I used the PEX crimp tool I had used in Ohio on the big garage bathroom. It was a two piece 6″ chunk of metal that loosely fit around the collar. You had to use a wrench of some sort to compress the tool. It took a lot of effort. Honestly, I just gave the wrench as much force as I could and hoped for the best.

But then during day 2’s excursion to Home Depot, I eyed up a new tool. Was it more than I wanted to pay for a cheap Chinese tool? Yes. Was it worth the cost to not worry about the shower plumbing crimps dripping into the wall? Yes.

But even the fancy long handled tool took some finesse. The first test piece was over crimped. Check the adjustment and it looks to be halfway between 0 and 1. Adjust it one notch and it goes to minus 0.5. Whatever. Test 2 at full cam is also over crimped. For test 3, I stop just before the handles cam together. Turns out perfect. Sure. Why not?

So, I use the new tool to recrimp the leaking joints. What’s funny (to me, at least) is that when you recrimp, it probably isn’t the same direction as the first crimp. So it takes the ring and reshapes it…causing water to spray everywhere during the reshaping. But it works. Free shower!

Now I can turn on the bathroom circuit. Oh, and the hot water tank too. Basically, the whole system. Since recrimping sprayed water everywhere, I decide to grab a towel and dry it all up, so I can see the new leaks. The next couple of hours is finding, crimping and drying leaks. Almost every crimp I made with the old tool. Shut up.

I had noticed water at the very bottom at the main line PVC to water closed Tee. I was hoping it was just all the other leaks draining down. But no. It was weeping. Unfortunately, not the PEX crimp, but the brass adaptor to PVC. I cautiously put my big wrench on it and turned while holding the mainline from moving. On the second attempt, it stopped leaking. I was afraid of snapping the old brittle mainline pieces I had not replaced.

With all the leaks hopefully fixed, I flipped the switch on the pump. It ran for a short while and then stopped when it reached pressure. I turned on a faucet and it turned on again. It all worked. I’m as amazed as you are.

I turned the pump switch off and left the system to pressure test for the night.

In the morning, I noticed only 1 small leak that needed additional crimping. Then it was off to home and the store for new flux, copper solder, and all the stuff needed for drywall. Drywall. My favorite. But luck had shined on me with 2 pieces of random drywall scraps in the shed being slightly larger than I needed. At least I didn’t have to buy an entire new sheet.

I returned and sweated on the copper to PEX fitting for the shower head. Amazing what good flux and solder will do. While waiting for it to cool, I inspected all the water lines. No drips! I also made measurements for the drywall patches and cleaned up all the debris I had been creating.

Once the fitting was cool enough to touch, I crimped on the final piece of PEX, said a small prayer to the plumbing gods, and turned on the shower valves. Water came out the shower head tube and not inside the wall! Then I attached a temporary valve to where the shower head would go and pressurized the system with the pump. It survived 2 hours with leaking, so I called it good and installed the final showerhead.

Now one thing I didn’t install was the tub faucet. Why do you ask? I couldn’t. For some reason, they built the wall with a horizontal 2×4, a false footer, at the same height as where the tub faucet piping should go. Yep. Just in the perfectly wrong spot. Fuck it. Who needs a tub? Not enough water at the cabin for a soak anyway.

Time to make some dust. Cut the drywall to fit and take it in. They fit…with a little adjustment. The holes weren’t exactly square.

Then tape and mud. Fun stuff.

So, that’s about it. Plumbing. Done. Drywall…started. I would do more, but I have this work thing to go back to.

At idle, I could hear a short chirp…chirp…chirp as the engine rotated. Sticking my head under the hood, I focused on the distributor. The timing of the noise made sense. A quick internet search yielding a common issue of a possible bent shaft on the distro.

Seems simple enough. Go searching for parts and discover that most are rebuilt units. Sure, why not. Click, buy, wait.

Once I get a visit from Brown Santa, I crack open the manual to see what all is involved. Not too difficult. The system doesn’t have any timing adjustments on the distributor, just set the engine to #1 TDC and replace. THAT’S EEEAZEY! (Monte Python reference)

Set the engine to #1 TDC. Or I’m mostly sure it is right. Locating the timing mark on the pully is fun through the tiny gap of serpentine belt and pulleys. I could have removed one of the fans to make it easier, but naw. If not at exactly TDC, it is within 0.5 degrees.

Pull the old and insert the rebuilt. It goes in almost smooth. There is a bit of twisting and the tightening bolt hole doesn’t line up perfectly, but adjusting the driving slot allows it to go together. I pull the plastic pin that holds it in time for install and it lines up a little better.

Rehook all the connections, reinstall the spark plug, hit the key. Crank, crank, crank. No joy. Huh. Recheck all connections. Yep, all good. No burnt fuses. I hand spin the crank twice to return to 1TDC, but same issue.

I double check that I’m on TDC and not the exhaust stroke. Fairly confident on that. Pull off the dizzy cap and the rotor is pointed towards the #1 spark plug wire on the cap. Weird.

I even double check that I’m getting fire out of the coil. Sure am, but it still isn’t helping.

While researching possible idiotic screw ups, I ran into a fix for the squeaking. It involves polishing the main shaft of the distro to help remove small ridges that can develop over time. Ok, sounds easy enough. Just remove the helical gear and clean up the shaft. So, I grab the old dizzy, tap out the old retaining pin and pull the helical gear. I get to polishing the shaft.

Reinstalling the helical gear, goes much smoother than removing it, so I feel that I actually did clean it up as opposed to just playing with my shaft for fun. Slides on effortlessly and install new pin.

Since the new distributor wasn’t working, let’s try throwing the old one back on. Put the alignment pin in and reinstall the one I just rebuilt. Reattached everything. Crank, crank, crank. No spark, only misery.

At this point, I take some time off. I was going in circles trying to figure out how I jacked it all up. No bad fuses or relays. All wires connected and in their proper places. And crank and no boom makes Dave go nuts. I flip off the engine and turn out the lights.

About 2 weeks later, the pain has lessened a bit and I’ve got enough courage to fight some more. At this point, I try assessing where I left it. I have the old bad (newly polished!), with the new cap and rotor on the top. I rip it all out. I take the Frankenstein moster apart and put all the new components back together.

This time, I remove the electric fan so I can actually see the timing marks line up. I also install a new, deep cell battery as the old one was so nearly dead that I had to have it continually on a charger in order to crank it over 4 times. And then it would be dead again.

The new battery was also fun to install. It was a common sized, deep cell replacement. But was 0.5″ too long. Yup, Chrysler and their weird sizes. Also doesn’t help that the plastic battery tray has a sensor on the bottom. Unbolt the battery tray, use the grinder to remove one offending edge and reinstall. Looks totally professional.

Reinstall the new distributor, but this time, without the alignment timing pin. I notice that the holes do not line up between the rotor base and the body of the distributor. Huh. That should be at least close. Naw, it’s noticeably off.

Now what? There is not timing adjustments, but the timing is off. On one of my trials, I cranked the engine over until the rotor lined up to the #1 post of the cap. Checking the timing marks on the crank pulley…not close. Aaarrrggg!

Getting close to my breaking point, again, when I grab the old distro. I’m stumped that it isn’t working. I mean, all I did was pull of the helical drive gear, clean and re-install. It’s not like I could have fucked that up. It can only fit on one way…right? RIGHT??

I flip it over. I flip it back. Over. Back. Wait. Wait a fucking minute. On one side, the pin lines up with a gear tooth, and the other side…flip…lines up with a valley.

You. Have. Got. To. Be. Shitting. Me.

I mark the pin, gear and shaft and then tap the pin back out. Looking over the gear, there are no markings. Not indications. Just an odd number of teeth. I flip basically spin the gear 1i0 degrees on the shaft and reinstall the pin. Looks almost identical to before. Almost.

I pull the new one back out, after removing all the little shit that’s in the way. Mark the gear, tap out pin, spin gear 180 and pop the pin back in. I don’t even have to remove the gear from the shaft. 3 minutes tops.

After more than 3 minutes, I have the new and improved dizzy back in. All wires connected. Again. Spark plug in and torqued, again. A extraneous cables put back into routing clips. Again. At this point, I could do it blindfolded. I don’t even need the torque wrench. Get the fan reinstalled. Put back in all the fuses and relays that I was messing with.

Grab the key. Inhale. Pray. Exhail and turn the key. Fucker fired up on the second hit of the starter.

What transpired after that was a long, swear-filled tirade that covered topics of why there is no mention of this in any manual or online forum, the cheapness that is Chrysler and their dumbass engineers, and the general unfairness of the 50-50 bad luck coin toss I lost. Ike, didn’t seem to care and idled happily along.

At least I know my spare is ready to go.

Why had I stopped driving it? Three reasons: alternator over-charging, convertible top was torn, and sometimes the clutch pedal would go to the floor.

For the alternator, the problem was that it was charging at almost 16v constantly. This makes the little gel cell battery very unhappy and it kills the battery is short order. I went through several dead batteries before I decided to check the voltage while charging.

Looking at the internet for answers was very underwhelming. Several other people ran into the issue, but no definitive issue was defined. The issue is further complicated because some engineer decided to be cute and put the voltage regulator in the ECU instead of the alternator. So, it could be a bad alternator, a bad ECU, a bad connection, …or another random bad electrical connection somewhere in the system that is small enough not to pop a fuse, but enough to suck down some volts such that the voltage at the ECU reads low. Which, of course, the ECU tells the alternator to crank it up.

Such a shitty design.

I replace the alternator. Not with a cheap aftermarket or a junkyard special. No, I spend the big bucks and buy the best OEM alternator there is. I also find a used ECU out of a wreck. Oh, and I ditch the weenie gel cell battery for an Odyssey deep cell.

With all the new parts assembled and the wallet lighter, I tackle the project. Alternator isn’t hard, just annoying and a reminder that my back is old and doesn’t appreciate bending over that far, that long. ECU is under the dash between the clutch and brake pedals, mounted vertically. Ok, another weird design choice, but it isn’t hard to remove and replace. The battery is nowhere near the stock size. It does fit in the battery hole in the right corner in the trunk, but it is much shorter and wider. Being an former engineer, I know that my solution of using the cardboard packaging that the battery came in to hold the battery up high enough to sit level isn’t the best, but it is what was handy. Good enough. The battery hold down clamp fits and holds it well. I’m sure it’ll be fine longterm. I also make sure every connection I took apart goes back together with dielectric grease.

Fire it up and it reads 15.1v. Well….shit. I’m going to call that good enough for now. That is less than 3% over spec. Perfect.

Onto the top. It started with a little tear just behind the driver’s head. No biggie. Then I noticed the top of the rear glass window was flexing more when the door was shut. About 8 inches of fabric had separated from the glass. Oops. Order a top. Which sounds simple. But there are multiple options, multiple materials, multiple colors, multiple manufacturers. Someone just take my money!

Preparing for the replacement, I watch several videos. They are all different, but eventually you can make out some best practice themes. A tip to future Youtubers making repair videos: if you make a mistake, mention it at the start of the mistake, not 15mins later. But otherwise the process seems a fun mix of knives, rivet guns and weatherstripping glue (no included).

I start removing the old top. Like most videos, I decide to remove the top frame from the body. In general, it comes apart without drama, just snapping a couple old plastic christmas tree clips. Once off the vehicle, the old plastic top comes off the frame in undramatic fashion.

Reading the instructions, I realize that the printed paperwork from the manufacturer is utter shit. Imagine an old black and white photocopy of a photocopy. But worse is that they seem to skip a step in the reassembly. I realize that between the half-assed videos and the poor instructions, not one was 100% correct. Oh well, al least it mostly goes back the way it came apart.

There is an order to reassembly, but it is all straightforward. Tuck this corner before screwing the flap down. Glue this before that. It goes together but I did have to run out for replacement christmas tree clips as the old ones died. Finally all back together, I threw it back onto the car.

The next part is the only tough part of the job. How bad was it? One father and son team on YouTube broke the project into 3 videos: removal from vehicle, removing top from frame, mounting new top to frame. Yup, they didn’t even show the final installation.

What’s so bad about it? Around the back of the cockpit, there are 13 studs that the top mounts to. The top is very thick in this area. And there is a plastic rain rail on both sides of the doubled up canvas. So it is thick and the whole parameter seems about 2 inches too long, since you are approaching it from the inside of the curve. Basically, it is a pain in the ass to get the top lined up and over the studs. Did I mention that the holes for the studs don’t exactly line up through the 5 layers? Or that there are two sealing washers on either side of the top per stud? Or that you have to make sure the back edge of the rain rail needs to tuck under a rubber lip of the body seal? All whole crouching between the seats and below the mostly raised top?

After much pushing and swearing, I get the two side rail nuts started. I get the rear portion of the top over the studs, but the metal rail doesnt want to line up well. So I throw nuts over the studs to keep the top from falling off the studs. Then take a long lunch break, because my arms are tired and I’m hungry.

After lunch, I tackle the center rail and immediately regret it. My full stomach does not appreciate being bent in half and pushing hard. There is a lot of burping. At least this time I find the issue. There are 3 metal rails with a U-shaped cross-section that curve around the back over the studs. I had put the two sides on, but the center wouldn’t fit between the ends of the sides since they all have curved ends. So, I take off 2 of 3 of the nuts on one side and rotate the side bracket out of the way. Now the back will fit on the studs. Catching a thread on each nut takes an incredible amount of force to compress all that material onto the studs. But eventually, I get them all on. And the side brackets lines up again too. It took a little persuasion, but it ended up fitting.

Now, with all the nuts started, but before torquing them, you are supposed to latch the top. Sounds easy, right? Pull forward and close the latches. But new tops are notorious tight, so I expect some effort. I had already turned up the garage heater to help.

It wasn’t enough. On the first attempt, there was a 4″ gap. Uh, what? After much studying, I notice the rear top frame hoop isn’t far enough back. It was caught on a fabric seam. While pushing the top as far forward as I could, I pulled the frame hoop back and it made a satisfying move into its new home.

Now it’s only 2″ away. Well, 1.5″ if I give it all I’ve got. Time for more heat. I try a heat gun, but it is cooling as fast as I heat up another area. I pull out my Little Buddy propane heater and put it between the seats. In order to keep the heat in, I put some coats across the gap at the front.

After 30 minutes, it warm enough so that I can get the top header to touch the windshield header, but still need about 3/4″. So I start cleaning up the shop and putting away unneeded tools. Finally, the top is hot to the touch. I sit backwards in the passenger seat, pull the header forward and grab the top frame for additional force. Oh fuck! That metal is hot! I had to grab some gloves just to grab the top frame. Yes, it was hot. After 10 minutes of swearing lubricated pulling, I got it close enough to catch the latch. I should mention that I had adjusted the top latches as far out as they would go. And it barely caught.

The driver side was much easier, but still required swear-laced effort to make contact. Stepping back and looking, the top definitely isn’t where it needs to be, with an inch gap at the top back corner of the windows. But it is latched. I’ll let it stretch overnight.

The next day, I tackle the clutch. I had gone to the part store to order rebuild kits for both the master and slave cylinders, but they no longer sell those. You can only buy pre-assembled units. Well, for $24 each, I’m not really complaining. Less work for me.

The clutch system is a very basic hydraulic system. The biggest pain is accessing the slave cylinder, but it is relatively easy through the passenger front wheel well. One flare nut and two nuts/bolts and they are off and the new ones on. Bleeding the system isn’t hard…with two people. By myself, it is a lot of up and down and around the car. I loose track of the number of bleeding cycles, but it is a lot. I am now sweating.

At first I was worried about the pedal feeling really weak, until I realizes that u was comparing it to Jeep clutches. And yes, compared to those, they are very lightweight. I tighten it all up and drop the jack and fire up the engine. At this point, I realize that it’s been well over 3 years since the last oil change. I check and it’s black.

As I back the car out of the garage, I am reminded about the clutch squeak that I had totally forgot about. With the engine running, when letting the clutch out, just when it starts to grab the disk, there is a loud squeaking with the rotation of the clutch. I assume the worst, throwout bearing. Not a bad swap…once you pull the transmission back. Fuck.

The next day, I surf the interwebs. All the throwout bearing failures are what you expect; a bad bearing rattle. Not a squeak. Huh. Search squeaky clutch. It’s dumb nuts simple. The metal end of the slave cylinder presses against the end of the metal throwout bearing fork. No lube,, metal to metal contact and clutch vibrations on the fork create a squeak. Throw some lithium grease at the junction, cycle it a few times and magically the squeaking disappears!

Do a quick oil and filter change and throw on the new registration sticker. Get the insurance reinstated and drive it to work.

First pull to 6k, is met with a slight hesitation around 5k. After that, no issues. There is some slight shimmy from 3 year stationary tires. I am completely caught off guard by the steering. It is tight and very precise. Totally on rails. I guess when you are used to drive Jeep made boats around, especially old CJ5, modern steering seems like magic. And with the big Jeep converted to hydraulic steering and its vague steering at the center, the instant turning just off center is phenomenal.

The only negative is that corners are a lot less exciting to drive with the Miata. Too easy. Turn, go, magic. None of these steer-by-ouija board, turn and pray, turn some more or less, of the jeeps. But all in all, I call this repair a success!

Cliclk the image below to load. Then, use your mouse to move the picture around. This is a test.

My mother had let the Popster sit for a couple of years after my dad’s passing. My dad used to leave it pulled in all the time to keep the lithium batteries topped off. My mother had not. Thinking she wanted to get out again, she tried plugging it into shore power and charging the batteries. While they would charge, they also seemed to discharge quicker than she remembered. She assumed the batteries were old and worn out.

The “fun” part is that the batteries sit in the truck bed, just ahead of the wheel wells and under the camper. You can access the batteries through tiny openings inside the camper, but you can’t take them out.

There are 12 lithium batteries total for 12v, 6 per side; 4 groups in series of 3 cells in parallel. My mom had my dad’s notes on when he set up the system where he had 3 diagrams. The first had a big X through it. The second had some arrows indicating that he swapped some things around. The third has all the monitoring wires added for checking the voltage at each bank. There was a 4th page with colors to indicate the positive and negative poles of each cell, but there were no lines to represent how they were tied together. Obviously incomplete.

Mom had found a repairman that sounded ideal. He was a retired Seimens Field Engineer who did on-site RV repairs. My dad had been a GE Field Engineer, so she assumed that meant good problem solving skills. He came out, unbolted the camper from the truck bed and jacked the camper up to expose the batteries. After testing the batteries, he deemed them ok. In doing so, he disconnected the cells and tested them individually. Mom had given his diagram #3, as it was the most recent, complete diagram, to reassemble it.

Put back together, the system didn’t seem to function. The repairman claimed it wasn’t hooked up correctly, but rather than fix it, he waited for my mom to run an errand and then dropped the camper back down and threw some random bolts to hold it onto the bed of the truck and ran off. Never to return.

In hindsight, it’s a good thing he never sent her a bill.

So, my mom drives the Popster out to my house. Along the way, she drove up the Moki Dugway and then the Burr Trail, taking the scenic way around. Although both roads are rated challenging, she didn’t think they were hard at all. As someone not super comfortable with heights, she found it much easier to be behind the wheel as opposed to being a passenger.

My turn to figure this mess out. I break out the voltmeter and look it over.

⁣Uh, sure. This looks fun. First thing, I measure at the blue connector that separates the battery bank from the 12v system of the camper: 0.47v. So, not great. Then I measure each 3 cell bank of batteries. These measure 3v across each group of 3 cells. Ok. And then 6v across each bank of 2 groups. Um…what?

So, remembering college … who am I kidding, I googled this shit….voltage adds in series. So 4 groups of 3 cells (each 3 cell groups is 3v) should equal 12 v. But I have zero, or almost zero.

Time to measure from ground. First group, 3v. Second group 6v. Third group 3v. Wait…not 9v? Then I notice the polarity. Yup…it’s wrong.

I pull out my dad’s notes and it is wired just like the drawing #3. Which makes no sense electrically. So, I look over all his notes. Drawing #1 is crossed out and also doesn’t make sense electrically. Drawing #2 makes sense, but is a little messy on the order, with wires all over the place. Then I notice that on the passenger bank he has a double ended arrow indicating that he swapped the front and rear banks. Now THAT makes sense electrically.

Looking at staying #3, I realize that its main purpose is to document his cell group measurement wiring, which was designed to check the voltage of each group. Looking at drawing #4, it matches the swapped drawing #2 and how I think the batteries should be wired ONCE I realized that green is ground and red is positive. As a mechanical engineer, I assumed red was negative and green positive. But to electrical engineers, green is ground.

One other clue that things weren’t wired correctly was that the big wire from the trucks alternator (through an isolator) was attached to the battery bank on the rail that would have produced 9v. Again, it made no sense to connect it there.

That Seimens Field Engineer was an idiot.

So, now I had a plan. I moved wires and jumpers around. I didn’t worry about the measuring leads as they weren’t currently hooked up to anything. Once it was all bolted together (and not once did I fry myself!), I put the voltmeter on the blue connector.

Drum roll, please……..

13.3v!

BOOM! I am stoked! The fact that the battery cells held over 3v each for a long time while hooked up half backwards amazed me. I mean, shouldn’t there have been sparks? A drain of potential? Sometimes, electrical wiring is just voodoo.

I happily bolt the rest of the system back up, thinking I’m almost done. With everything together, I plug the blue connector together, mating lithium battery bank to the RV systems. Lights come on. The refrigerator starts to hum. Kickass!

I leave it hooked up that way overnight. The battery bank drains down quite a bit, but I did have all the lights on, the fridge trying to cool down from ambient temp and I charged my laptop to stress the system.

Looking over some internet info, it looks like the batteries should charge to 14+v, so starting at 13.3v wasn’t a good test of the system. I go around and plug the camper into shore power and check the voltage. No change. Huh. The converter doesn’t even appear to hum, which is a mechanical engineers clue that something electrical is working.

Disconnecting the converter, I verify that it has 120vac coming into it but 0vdc coming out the other end. Not very good. Time to do some research for troubleshooting. To the internet.

The first thing I notice is that there should be 2 blade fuses next to the 12vdc connections. I glance over and don’t see any. It’s on the far right and difficult to see up against the side of the camper. But nope. Definitely no fuses.

It takes 35amp blade fuses. The best I can tell, they have 30 or 40a fuses, but no 35a. I figure 30a are fine. They will just pop sooner. I find a couole laying around and try to install them.

And they fall right out. Using a flashlight and a mirror, I can see that the fuse holding sockets are opened up. I try to tighten them, but can’t get a good angle, so I figure screw it and completely take the converter out. It’s not hard, yet not easy either.

Having the converter out, it’s obvious that a normal bladed fuse won’t work in its current state. But it’s easy enough to curl the two sides down until they hold the blade tightly. I insert two fuses and reinstall it all again.

Well shit. Same problem of no voltage out the DC side. Playing with the fuses, particularly the top one, I can get the converter fan to come on temporarily and a voltage spike to 14v even more temporarily. Figuring it is a fuse holder issue, I remove it again.

Take it to the bench and drill out 14 rivets including the ones right next to the “No serviceable parts inside. Do NOT open the case!” warning label. With the cover off and my multimeter measuring continuity, I can show connection some times and not others (mostly) by wiggling the fuse. I heat up the soldering iron and heat the fuse terminals to apply more solder. After cooling, the soldering seems to have made better continuity between the two fuse sides. So, I reinstall it.

Same damned problem. Now, I can get any power out of the thing. I’m starting to thing that the converter was starting to go bad when my mom first tried using it. Now, it definitely is. Not output power at all.

Doing more research, they make one that looks identical, but is made more lithium batteries. Time to order new parts. Unfortunately, mom needs to be back home before the part would arrive, so she will have to have it installed there.

On a good note, however, is that the truck will charge the batteries while it is being driven. There is also the issue of one of the three solar panels not being connected on the roof, or so my mom tells me. More projects for the future!

Oh, and on the camper to truck bed mounting bolts… Of the four corners: one was tight; two were loose but not about to fall out; and the fourth…well, it was twice as long as it should have been and could never have been tightened. None had lock washers. Two were missing the fender washers. Thanks Seimens Field Engineer, you dick.

Growing up, my dad always had a collection of Cherokees and Comanches, so I have always had a soft spot for them. I started keeping an eye out for one in decent shape, as one does.

After looking at several, I found one that was in good shape. Was it perfect? No. I mean, it had 224k miles on it. It needed springs and shocks. The front seats were torn, but still looked good. The power windows worked, even if the passenger side windows were a bit slow. The annoying exhaust leak at the header and what sounded like a catalytic converter with the insides loose. The passenger front door outside moulding had come loose and someone had screwed it into the sheetmetal. Honestly, that was the worst thing.

I did a more detailed inspection at home. All the front end joints should probably be refreshed as they looked to have 224k miles on them. The thermostat gasket was leaking, which dripped down and caused a lot of dirt and grease buildup on the front of the motor. There might be some oil seepage, but it’s hard to tell. The coolant is the only wet leak.

The tires were new, but they were snow tires on Grand Cherokee wheels. And undersized.

After driving it a few times, i noticed it would get hot, very hot, when the outside temp was over 105F. Thinking the catalytic converter might be restricted with the loose element, I dropped it down. Sure enough, the last hunk of material was free floating. As a quick fix, I just removed the loose elements and made the cat a little more free flowing. It sounded like there might be a small piece in the muffler also, but I never could get it to come out either end. Oh well. Back together it goes.

The rear springs were so shot, the left leaf spring was almost flat. Feeling that the whole suspension was worn out, I figured I might as well find a small lift kit for the beast.

Hmmm, this beast needs a name. It will be the wife’s beater, so let’s call it…Ike.

Searching around the internet, I found a few options for lift kits, but most were in the 3 to 4″ range. Ideally, I’d be about half that. I ran across an Australian company Ironman 4×4 that offered a 2″ lift. Perfect. Then I found a 20% off code on some random forum. Even more perfecter. Ordered!

I needed some new wheels and tires to go with the lift, and I always loved the turbine wheels my dad had. I thought they were on his 86 Cherokee, but supposedly they were stock on Comanches. So much for my memory. Luckily, I found a set for sale locally with some old, hard tires on them.

Just to see how they looked, I threw them on Ike. Sweet. The one tire had a leak, with the hole in the tread circled. I just happen to have an old hole plug, probably as old as the tire. 10 minutes later the hole is plugged and the tire holds air. Utterly shocked that it worked at all.

But driving on these tires…holy hell. They are as stiff as 30 year old tires. Can’t wait for some new ones, but need the lift completed first. I also learn that the soft snow tires were fairly important to the overall suspension tuning. Headed to work one day, we hit a tiny bump mid corner. Death wobble! The monkey brain immediately assumed I forgot to torque the wheels, but as I start to pull over, I remember specifically torquing them and suddenly remembered about the death wobble. Around 20mph, the wobble ceased and I drove the rest of the way to work without issue. My pants weren’t that brown.

At work, I ordered new ball joints and steering linkages. I also ordered new front brake pad and rotors, as the right rotor was grooved badly and the left outer pad had 3 stops left on it and the rotor was badly heat checked. While I was spending money, I ordered a new fan clutch as that could help with the cooling, a new water pump as suggested while doing the fan, and a new serpentine belt. Doing research, I also found out about the injector upgrade. It replaces the stock 1 hole injectors with a 4 hole style injector. So I found a “flow matched set” on ebay. We will see.

Then a week of waiting for parts and time to work on it. Boooooring.

Ike is up on jack stands just waiting for parts. First to arrive are the brakes. Easy enough, right? Well, almost. Left front is basically easy, but the rear part of the knuckle where the pads slide against is heavily gouged. I grab the dremel and smooth it out. At least the pad shouldn’t hang up. The right is a different story. Same issue with the pad groove, but when torquing the back caliper bolt, I feel the dreaded torque loss right as it should be seated.

I pull the caliper back off, tap the hole and run a die over the treads, but it is futile as the bolt will not torque up. Back to rockauto.com to get a new knuckle and set of caliper pins.

While I’m stuck at work, my mind wanders back to one of my dad’s Cherokees. It was an 86 and had those manual vent windows on the front doors that were awesome for letting in air. I’ve missed those on every vehicle since then. A quick internet search showed that they were not an option for my 96 Cherokee…but that they would fit! Oh hell yeah! Another quick internet search found a set up in an Oregon salvage yard and they were soon on the way.

The lift is scheduled to show up soon, so I take the old suspension off. This goes surprisingly well as all the bolts come loose with only the left front leaf spring bolt galling on the way out. Two of the shocks, one front, one rear, do not extend when compressed.

When it shows up, I get the front back together and done, except the torquing. Again, all surprisingly easy. Unfortunately, I have to wait a day or two until the tap and die show up to clean up the leaf spring bolts. But on the good news, the vent windows came in! It took at bit of trial and error, but they went together. The old weatherstripping isn’t the best, but it’ll keep the bugs out. Super cool.

The next day I tackle the rear. Almost easy. I take advantage of the springs being out of the way to clean up some surface rust and repaint a few areas. I have to wait another day for the tap and die. When they show up, I clean up the captured nut (not bad at all) and the bolt (rather galled). I forgot how much fun getting leaf springs all lined up can be.

I end up having to grind a little on the rear shackles to just get it loosely installed. But the biggest issue is that the new U-bolts that came with the lift kit are for a Dana 35, whereas mine has the Chrysler 8.25, both options for my year. And, of course, the old u-bolts are too short for the new leaf pack. A quick run into town and luckily they have something the right size and length. Back up the hill and throw it all together.

Drop Ike back on his tires and torque everything up. A quick measurement shows that the front is up 3″ and the rear is up 4+”. Now, it’s a bit higher than I’d like, but all 4 corners are even. Before Ike had a droopy rear, so I’m happy that he’s level now. But the tires look kinda small. Tire to order up the tires!

At this point, the front end parts start arriving and I jack Ike back up and take the wheels off. Since I have the ball joints to do, I pull the brakes. Next are the hubs. Loosen the 3 bolts and it doesn’t want to budge. Heat. Blaster. More heat. Use the brake disk as a slide hammer. Nothing.

To the internet! First video, after scrolling through all the preamble BS, undo the 3 bolts (duh), and just pull. Oh, fuck off! You can tell his was already loose. Dick. Finally find a real video and they show how you place a socket extension behind it and turn the wheel, pressing it out. Works like a charm.

Time to remove the knuckle. Pound, pound, pop. Oh shit…that’s not suppose to happen. The upper ball joint separates in two, with the tapered end stuck in the knuckle. It’s a good thing I’m replacing both the ball joint and the knuckle! Grab the ball joint kit and press the rest of the upper and lower joints out.

It goes back together easy enough. And the other side, is exactly the same. Including the upper ball joint separating. The only difference is a stubborn cotter pin that decides to stay stuck in the ball joint. I eventually snap all 4 end pieces off at the stud and torque the nut off. The rest of the install is easy peasy.

Throw on the wheels and do a quick toe set and align the steering wheel. I’m not a fan of the new steering setup clamps, but they work. Back out of the garage… and what’s that noise? Roll under the jeep. Shit. The new heavy duty steering end hits the stock wheel when the wheel is about halfway to the left stop.

When reviewing the install instructions, I do see a short blurb about how certain small stock wheels may not work. Damn it! But with a quick jack up and backing the lug nuts off, I realize that a small wheel spacer will solve the issue. Luckily, there is a local company that is known for making good quality ones. I get those on order and then throw the 16″ wheels with snow tires on. No rubbing. I’m getting the new tires installed tomorrow, but when just throw the 15″ tires into the back. Guess I’ll wait to put the new tires on until the spacers show up. Sigh.

Eventually (because time slows when you are waiting on parts to arrive), the spacers show up and I end up using two, basically maxing out the spacing without having to go to longer wheel studs. But it works. Not a lot of room, but it doesn’t rub anymore.

Driving it around with the new lift and tires and it is definitely a different vehicle. The new ball joints list that they take a while to wear in and they do feel a bit “sticky”.

I still have a list of other items to fix, but that will wait until round 2. It’s minor issues like: the rear diff has a noisy bearing on throttle lift; the front diff had a noisy bearing at high speeds; it can overheat if driven over 70mph on days over 100F. Details. Other than that, the mother fucker’s tip top!