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.

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.