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Picked up a shitbox!

DFW Rusty

DFW Rusty

Well-known member
Joined
May 21, 2020
Member Number
898
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392
Picked this up yesterday- I feel it was an overall good deal.
1977, CJ7, 304 V8, T18 4 speed granny, Dana 20 T-case w/ twin stick. Brand new Holley 2 barrel carburetor. The guy I bought it from has the engine running at 100%, really did a good job maintaining the engine.

The guy wasn't 100% sure on the axles, he said the owner before him said it was scout axles. They are a 5 lug, which I dont know of any other vehicle that ran D44 w/ 5 lug and 5 on 5.5 pattern except scouts. Both axles are semi-trussed, they dont have a truss all the way accross, but over the diff for the 4-link. Previous owner installed 3 brand new calipers.
Front axle- Dretroit, 5.38 gears, stock shafts, someone put drive flanges on to delete the lock out hubs.
Rear axle- welded diff, 5.38 gears, Alloy usa chromoloy shafts, disc brake conversion.

triangulated 4 link suspension front and rear, 14" travel bilstein shocks, what appears to be 4"-6" lift TJ coils. Looks like 1/2 or 5/8" heims.

Currie antirock sway bar kit in the front. I need to build extra links, my last rock crawler pretzeled about 4 links.

Fully hydraulic steering- looks like a home made kit. Generic orbital valve, stock power steering pump, CNH ram (prolly TSC brand or just tractor ram). However, it works really good.

Trailworthy Fab H1 beadlocks. I like H1 rims, but now I am stuck with a very small selection on tires. The goodyears have to go!

On board air, using an old wagoneer a/c compressor on a toggle switch. The front and rear bumpers are the holding tanks. Builds up to 135 PSI pretty quick and then will shut off. It is on a toggle switch on the dash.

Old Pierce 12000lb winch.

Dual Optima red top batteries both are only a couple months old.

Brand new fuse box and wiring all throughout the jeep,

They guy I bought the jeep from put a set of brand new Pro-Car 1606 racing seats in it, which are very very comfortable.

The jeep has 3 built in tool boxes in the back, one is a lunchbox style, one is a chest & drawer, and the last is a flat single drawer.

The roll cage seems ok, it's smaller tube, but it's got a lot of gusseting and seems pretty well built, the front seats sit on the roll cage, and lots of places are tied to the frame.

He said the headlights are some name brand LED bulbs, pretty bright. It has Amazon ridgid knock off rock lights, has a 50" led light bar on top, 12" led light bar on the back, trailer amber for the turn signals below the head lights, and trailer brake lights for the back, All works pretty good.
 

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The first thing I have to do is replace the bell housing, it is broke. I'm actually going to start on this tonight. I have a spare that is currently on a T150 sitting out in the dirt. While I am doing that I am going to see what is leaking on the trans-tcase area, something is leaking pretty good up in there.

I ordered a set of 2" wide 4 point harnesses last night on Amazon, it currently has no seat belts.

Second is find out exactly what axles it has so I can order a set of chromolly axles for the front.

Third is get a differnt set of tires, probably going to get either 39x13.5 Irocs or 38x12.5 TSL. Prolly going with the TSL tires.

Later this spring I will order the Holley Sniper EFI.
 
SLOWPOKE693 said:
No love for PBR tires?
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lol.... no, I've ran them before and I didn't have any luck on wet rocks at all...

EDIT: I'm dumb... PBR (pitbull rockers).... I dont know what the hell I read in my head when I saw your "PBR"..lol.. I didn't even think about them... I'll take a look at those as well. They are a great tire!
 
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Don't even bother with tsl's in this century, maybe if they were cheap, but they aren't.

38x12.5 sx is a little better and will be around a true 36 maybe 37.

39 iroks are pushing those axles a lot, but Toyota guys get away with them sometimes because they are so light, like an inner tube with little tread. :laughing:

Pit bull makes good tires, they're kinda wierd with super high prices, but then have big sales? I'd probably just go to summit if I were to get some.

37x13.50 bias pit bulls are small, like maybe a 35, but are good tires. The 39s run small too like really small, but are about as wide as they are tall, horrible tires. If I were you, I'd go with the 37 radial. They're a true 37, probably taller than the 38 tsl, and just shy of the 39 irok. Good road manners, good traction on rocks and very tough sidewalls. I've ran the 41.5s and my buddy runs them on his big fat V8/1ton JK, they do well.
 
YotaAtieToo said:
Don't even bother with tsl's in this century, maybe if they were cheap, but they aren't.

38x12.5 sx is a little better and will be around a true 36 maybe 37.

39 iroks are pushing those axles a lot, but Toyota guys get away with them sometimes because they are so light, like an inner tube with little tread. :laughing:

Pit bull makes good tires, they're kinda wierd with super high prices, but then have big sales? I'd probably just go to summit if I were to get some.

37x13.50 bias pit bulls are small, like maybe a 35, but are good tires. The 39s run small too like really small, but are about as wide as they are tall, horrible tires. If I were you, I'd go with the 37 radial. They're a true 37, probably taller than the 38 tsl, and just shy of the 39 irok. Good road manners, good traction on rocks and very tough sidewalls. I've ran the 41.5s and my buddy runs them on his big fat V8/1ton JK, they do well.
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I ran the 37" PBR radials on my TJ and absolutely loved those tires for the wheeling I was doing. They worked so much better than the KM2's and blue label BFG Krawlers I ran before those. I wouldn't hesitate to buy another set of PBR radials.
 
SLOWPOKE693 said:
I ran the 37" PBR radials on my TJ and absolutely loved those tires for the wheeling I was doing. They worked so much better than the KM2's and blue label BFG Krawlers I ran before those. I wouldn't hesitate to buy another set of PBR radials.
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We agree on something? Guess it is Tuesday :flipoff2:

They are good tires, decently round even.

I can't fathom why they don't make them and the growler in a 40" it's kinda "the size" these days. The 41.5s are a big tire, mine were like 3" taller than used 42 iroks:laughing:

They should make 39x12.5 rocker radials and 40x13.5 growler radials.
 
YotaAtieToo said:
We agree on something? Guess it is Tuesday :flipoff2:

They are good tires, decently round even.

I can't fathom why they don't make them and the growler in a 40" it's kinda "the size" these days. The 41.5s are a big tire, mine were like 3" taller than used 42 iroks:laughing:

They should make 39x12.5 rocker radials and 40x13.5 growler radials.
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Their tire sizing drives me nuts!!!
 
SLOWPOKE693 said:
Their tire sizing drives me nuts!!!
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The 39 bias I such a pos, it's dumb. A few guys thought they would be a good snow tire for light rigs, nope. So wide and stupid it just flips and flaps around at low pressure. Then you jump up to the 42 bias and it's killer, true to size.

Sorry for hijacking op :flipoff2:
 
I think there are better tire/wheels to be had. I would honestly rather have non beadlock 17" wheels with a decent 37" tire, and 16.5 Swampers...

Looks like a good deal. Looks tall tho
 
pennsylvaniaboy said:
I think there are better tire/wheels to be had. I would honestly rather have non beadlock 17" wheels with a decent 37" tire, and 16.5 Swampers...

Looks like a good deal. Looks tall tho
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With modern radial tires, you almost don't need bead locks. I like the rim protection and not getting shit between the bead and wheel on a beadlock though.
 
pennsylvaniaboy said:
Looks tall tho
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It is tall. I'm going to end up lowering it. I want to move the rear axle back about 6" and lower the jeep about 4". The only problem will be the gas tank. I want to keep the tank where it is, but I was looking for slimmer tanks last night with no luck, so I'll probably end up having to put a fuel cell in the back.
 
I have to ask, why such hate for the super swampers? I've always had really good luck with TSL tires and at clayton, OK TSL seems to be the tire of choice of the rigs that frequent the place.
 
TSL’s just aren’t a popular tire anymore with the “cool” crowd unless you’re running a 43 TSL SX Sticky. They’re usually wildly short (unless you run like a 37” irok radial) and like others have said, there’s way better tires out there. Do you plan on driving it on road at all? What kind of wheeling do you do? Honestly I’d suggest getting rid of those 16.5” wheels/tires, somebody else will buy them quick and get some 17” beadlocks which will open you up to way more tire options. If you’re into hardcore rocks you should look at the 37” sticky tire options (Maxxis trepador, bfg red label, MT Baja boss Sticky, etc). Competition compounds will absolutely blow away any other tire without even trying (but you cannot drive them on roads, you’ll smoke the tires within a couple hundred miles. Congrats on the new jeep by the way!
 
tribal4krawler said:
TSL’s just aren’t a popular tire anymore with the “cool” crowd unless you’re running a 43 TSL SX Sticky. They’re usually wildly short (unless you run like a 37” irok radial) and like others have said, there’s way better tires out there. Do you plan on driving it on road at all? What kind of wheeling do you do? Honestly I’d suggest getting rid of those 16.5” wheels/tires, somebody else will buy them quick and get some 17” beadlocks which will open you up to way more tire options. If you’re into hardcore rocks you should look at the 37” sticky tire options (Maxxis trepador, bfg red label, MT Baja boss Sticky, etc). Competition compounds will absolutely blow away any other tire without even trying (but you cannot drive them on roads, you’ll smoke the tires within a couple hundred miles. Congrats on the new jeep by the way!
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Good point. I must be honest, I'm probably not going to spend a tremendous amount on any tires right now. Probably going to see if I can score a nice set of ?? tires off of market place. My goal is to end up with 1 tons with bigger tires, but it will be a year or so down the road. Right now I am just wanting to get the jeep to an enjoyable level. So either way on the tires I wont be buying new, but if a good set of used ones fall into my lap I'll run them.
 
Ordered a set of Alloy USA chromolly shafts last night. Supposedly they were in stock and estimated delivery was 1/10/22. Kind of excited about that. I was able to confirm that the axles were in fact scout axles, I got on a scout forum and had a couple guys throw up some measurements of their axles and mine was the exact same.

I am doing the home work on the Holley Sniper EFI right now. If anyone is familiar with them chime in. I want to get the 2 barrel kit for my jeep since it has the 2 barrel intake already, but on the holley website it shows the 304 has to use the 4 barrel kit. If I get the 2 barrel and the adapter plate will it not work?

Decided to drag my feet on tires. Unless the best deal just falls into my lap I'm not going to worry about it. I'm going to focus on getting the jeep in tip top running shape before I even worry about tires. The front has a spool currently and I am very tempted to replace it with either a detroit or some kind of locker that slips when in coast, driving with a spool in the front sucks!
 
So I ran into my first issue with the jeep last night.... I was driving the jeep around last night and it seemed just fine when cruising at 20 mph in 3rd gear, but when we got back to the house and I put it in 2nd and was putting through the woods it started stalling. It was acting like it was hot almost, but temp gauge said 180-195. We would be putting along and all of a sudden the RPM would drop as well as oil pressure would drop from 45-50 to about 35 and about 3 seconds later it would die. It would kind of act like it was flooded not busting right off, but after about 2 tries of starting it the jeep would start again. It would run just long enough to start driving and we would make it about 100 feet and it would die again. Here is where it gets really weird though, if I would let it sit for about 1 minute it would bust right off and run good for about 1-2 minutes before doing it again.

It definitely strikes me as vapor lock, but I'm not sure what would cause it.
 
I think we dialed the problem last night. I'm not really a motor expert, more gears and suspension guy.. However I had an old shade tree mechanic buddy stop by and help me figure it out.

A- the supply fuel line was too close to the exhaust. We re-routed the line off the inner fender and ran it on top of the frame rail. We also cut some marine grade fuel line and slid it over the fuel line where it is at it's closest point to the exhaust to help insulate it. That helped a bunch.

B- After the fuel line was fixed I still had a miss and it was running way to rich and would "load up" the carb after letting off the throttle kinda hard. So we leaned out the mixture on the carb 2 clicks and it smoothed out really good.

While checking the vacuum stuff for leaks we found something that is leaking, we were spraying WD40 on the vacuum lines to see if any where leaking and when we sprayed this plate with 2 solid tubes coming out of it. you could hear the idle bog just a little. Does anyone know what the hell this is called so I can get a new gasket for it?

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tribal4krawler said:
I would just take it off clean it up and use some gasket sealer (I prefer “The Right Stuff”
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I like the way y'all think... I almost did it last night, but my buddy is all about proper gaskets... I'll pickup some sealer on my way home.
 
So I did a thing Thursday- I ordered the Holley Sniper EFI 2300 kit from Summit Racing. It came in yesterday. Really excited about putting it on, I was really nervous about running the carb rock crawling! I've been watching tons of videos of how to install, looks really simple!

I also, got a message from Summit saying that USA Alloy cancelled my order on my axles for they were now discontinued. I went a head and ordered a set of G2 axles, they were $100 more, but by all research they are a better set of axles.

I found a set of tires that I am going to look at tonight. They aren't the most popular tire on IBB, but I've had good luck with them and if the price is right I may not be able to pass it up. Especially as I have been looking and I found that almost any tire that fits my jeep is on back order! So my only options are either buy a used set or get new rims... We will see!

Isn't it just the sexiest thing-

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don’t tell me you got thornturds lol. Hope the Holley kit goes on easy and works well for you.
 
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