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!

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.

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!