Jontow 72 J2000
From NNYOffroad
1972 Jeep J2000
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I've always been fascinated by FSJ's (Full-Size Jeeps), but never found one in my area that even came
close to a runner, much less a roller.. I found an ad in a local paper; someone was getting rid of a few junk vehicles to
pay for their wedding (good enough cause, I guess).. among these was the J truck.
They wanted $200 for it; and didn't have any valid paperwork. It has an original 304 V8, and a 3 speed. The rear axle is
all hosed up (carrier broke into many missing pieces). He included another carrier and gears (wrong ones), and said it ran.
He even offered to get a 5gal can and get his truck battery in it to crank it over so I could hear it run. I took one look
at the multiple giant burn marks in the wiring whip and declined.. it seemed to turn over by hand; that was all I wanted
to know until I got that whip out of it. It was missing the ignition keys; had plenty of rust and a bunch of crap in the
bed, but managed to roll with a bit of clunking from the busted up axle. We managed to eventually get the tires up enough
to get it halfway home when the driver's side front blew out in town. We towed it to my parent's place, anyway.
I got the tire replaced with a random scrap tire and finished getting it home; started cutting the floorboards out, and even
pulled the wiring whip out and pushed / hammered out some dents.
Since then, I bought a house and the J truck has a nice shady parking spot out back. We got bored on an overly hot/humid
Saturday and made a quick 3 wire ignition for it; tossed a battery in and made a water bottle into a gas tank.. it actually
did fire right up. It runs a bit like crap, and the donut gaskets in the exhaust are both gone, the carb needs a rebuild
and leaks like crazy out of the throttle region (too much crap on it to identify.. but the kit's on its way).
Notes
2008-06-18 -- Carburetor Rebuild
So after getting it running and finding out that the carb leaked; I bought a rebuild kit from Advance Auto Parts
for $22, and decided to stay up way too late and go for it. It turns out being a pretty easy carb to rebuild; more so than some of
the 1bbl jobs I've done in the past. Ford did a good job. It turned out being an Autolite/Ford type 2100, tagged 2DM2. Seems it
is a pretty old proven design; dating back into the late 1950s.
Word of caution: To those getting the rebuild kit, the choke pull-off assembly on these is likely to be broken/worthless/other
when you need to rebuild, and the kit does not contain the diaphragm or gasket. The shaft on these things is *nylon* and seemed to
melt over time in this application; then proceed to snap off when I touched it. It's available from Advance Auto Parts
for about $7, and I'm ordering one today.. I put mine back on for the moment; even though its screwed in multiple ways.
I also ended up having to drill out the hole where the Dashpot mounts; the screw was still there but the
hole was stripped out. I stepped up to a larger tap and found an allen-head stainless screw that fit the new threads.
I also was not able to get the jets out due to an improperly sized screwdriver, and didn't want to bust up the brass surface, so I did my
best to clean them up with carb cleaner and left them alone for now. If they turn out being a problem; I don't have any issues tearing
this thing down again.. it takes about 10mins.
Helpful links:
- Someone at automedia rebuilding an earlier model 2100 that looks almost identical to mine.
- A diagram at earlycj5.com of the carb torn down
2008-06-19 -- Tires & Ignition
Having always admired my father's 1950s (extremely) manual tire changing machine, consisting of a bar, clamp, and stand; I (on a
whim/suggestion) bought a "Portable Tire Changer", which ends up being the same thing as my dad's, but a bit weaker as far as build
quality, and without as much charm.
With that out of the way; Mark and I used it to break down the shitty old tires on the J truck and put my old trailmark 31x10.50's on the stock
rims. (pics of this to come later).
Given a few more minutes, a push-button starter switch and an LED toggle switch, I wired up a slightly more permanent ignition system
for the truck. With the addition of my $20 bar-switch battery cut-off that I bought a while back, it should be good to go.
Also put the carb back on with fancy new gaskets. Seems the throttle cable is seized/broken though; so I think I'll have to come up with a
replacement somewhere. Not sure on that yet, but some creativity may be in order. More to come; stay tuned.
2008-06-20 -- Tires & Throttle
On my lunch break today, I bought a universal choke cable and mounted it in the dash.. seems the floorboard where the gas pedal mounts
is all sorts of rotted out, so I'll have to put some floors in it before I mount that back in. I ordered a factory replacement cable
from BJ's Offroad, a company that specializes in replacement/upgrade parts for FSJ's. We'll see how it turns out when it gets here.
Update: throttle cable shipped.. should be here late next week.
After work; I pulled the diff cover and found the ring gear being eaten into by the pinion; it seems the carrier isn't compatible
with the ring gear I put on it.. Not sure what to do about this yet; still rolling around some ideas.
Instead of screwing with that; I went about changing the back two tires. Now the truck is rolling (poorly, see rear axle..) on my old
bald 31x10.5x15 trailmark mud tires.. improvement over the poly/fiberglass belted skins that I pulled off it.. the tire machine has now
paid for half of itself.. one more full vehicle to go and its paid off in my book. Done for the night; more tomorrow.. (exhaust, maybe?)
2008-06-21 -- Seat, Rear Axle, Front Hub, Exhaust
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Good productive weekend day; I got a boatload done on the truck.. it theoretically could drive right now.
- Put a CJ7 back seat in the driver's side sitting on a block of firewood.. surprisingly comfortable/functional.
- Fixed the passenger's side front locking hub: the threads were all rolled over and a needle file and some love took care of it.
- Pulled the axle shafts, carrier, and took the ring gear off; then reassembled and put the diff cover on. Will fill with fluid tomorrow.
- Pulled the exhaust, broke the passenger's side studs, installed donut gaskets. Used 3" C-clamps to hold side on.. lame.
- Installed choke pull-off assembly, put air cleaner back on, fixed a vacuum leak.
Left to do:
- Pull gas tank, clean it out, fix the filler neck and re-run a fuel line.
- Clean up rear brake lines; re-bend and re-attach.. fill and bleed; hopefully I'll end up with brakes out of the situation.
- Fill rear differential with gear oil. (DONE)
- General cap/rotor/points/condenser/plugs/wires/air filter/oil change style tune-up. (DONE)
- Maybe some floors are in order? Then I could mount the gas pedal again..
- Figure out a better attachment mechanism for the exhaust on the passenger's side at the manifold
- Could probably stand to pull apart the front axle and figure out how the joints are doing, change the fluid, etc.
- Make an instrument panel & install a few gauges (partly finished) (pic)
- Hook up some lights! Would be an excellent addition.. I'd drive it tonight if I had some. (DONE) (pic)
- Cut up and haul my damned wood.
2008-06-22 -- Rear Axle, Instrument Panel, Test Drive!
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Another good productive weekend day! Lots of small progress (and PICTURES!).
The J-truck made its maiden voyage today; consumed 2/3 of a 2L bottle of gas for a drive back in the woods.. maybe 5-10mins of
total runtime.. REALLY needs that tune-up, and probably should lean out the mixture at the carb, too.
- Filled the rear differential with 80w90
- Crimped rear brake lines off since the fittings didn't free up on the lines.. :( Got me semi-valid brakes though.
- Swapped to a 2L bottle for the 'fuel cell' due to serious capacity issues in the 24oz bottles
- Bent original 3-gauge bracket for the Sunpro Gauges flat and ground out the holes to fit the stock gauge location in the truck.. fits beautifully.
- Wired up voltage gauge.. left the others for later
- Installed fuse block with 12ga wire, put a 40A relay (all I had on hand) with another LED switch to cut power to it.
- Cleaned up and tied back the wiring a bit; still have to do this under the dash.
- Cleaned out the bed a little (got rid of the bigger crap) and took some pictures
- Modified seat 'bracket' (ha.. wood blocks and a brick) for better placement/comfort
Always more left to do..
- Found out that the front driveshaft has a bad U-joint (it actually seems to have 3 joints in it..?) closest to the transfer case
- Install a 'master' fuse inline with the fuse block
- Separate switch for lights, install with another 40A relay.
- Verify charging system actually works (IT DOES NOT.)
2008-06-23 -- Tune-up
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Built some light brackets, because I plan to run fog lights instead of the factory headlights. I assume they'll consume less power
which is important when the truck might not run long enough to actually charge the battery. The brackets even got paint..
The tune-up went well; it runs quite a lot better with throttle response again.. The timing is certainly off though, because it runs
a bit more ragged than it should above idle; and lopes a lot at idle. A project for tomorrow, to be sure.
I was unable to get new plug wires; but they're on order from NAPA and should be here tomorrow morning.
Replaced spark plugs, distributor cap, rotor, points, condenser, and air filter.
The spark plugs were mostly dry but heavily carbon-covered; the driver's side rear 2 cylinders were wet all over the plugs.
Also 'adjusted' the passenger's side seat with a couple blocks of wood.
Confirmed: Charging system does not work.. seems to be unhooked ;) Will test and replace pieces as needed.
2008-06-24 -- Plug Wires & 'Headlights'
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Changed the plug wires with a set from NAPA.. they don't fit as well as the old ones do; but look alright. Didn't actually test run it.
Mounted and wired up the pair of 55w fog lights in place of headlights; tested them but my dimmer switch doesn't work, so that'll need to
be replaced. Will source one tomorrow or so. Bedtime. (pics 15-18)
2008-06-25 -- Timing & Carb Adjustment
On my lunch break today, I got out Andrew's timing light and hooked it up to the J-truck.. it was more than 15degrees BTDC with vacuum
advance disconnected; so I loosened the distributor tensioner and spun it to the factory recommended 5degrees BTDC and plugged vacuum
disconnect back in and tightened the distributor. Seems a lot better.
Also, I adjusted the mixture screws on the carb to 2 turns out, as recommended in the rebuild kit notes. Burns a lot less gas like that,
the screws were 3.5turns out on passenger's side, 1.5turns out on driver's side when I started. Idles a bit better and smokes less, now, too.
2008-07-20 -- Lack of Updates..
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So, lack of updating lately.. due to a lot of work related items and getting a lot of work done on the truck otherwise; I'll try to
summarize the best I can.
- Floorpan Replacement: Attempted to get some floor action going on under the driver's feet. It worked.
- Air Shear: Used the magical air shear to cut the pans, and my brother's Lincoln MIG to melt them in.
- Gas Pedal: Got my throttle cable from BJ's Offroad and welded in the gas pedal mount, works great but needs a stronger return spring.
- Radiator Support: Used some scrap strips to make the radiator support a little stronger where some jackass cut it to fit plow hoses.
- Did a little more wiring work, put some flexible plastic conduit in to contain it and keep it from shorting on everything and anything.
- Changed the fuel filter and got enough fuel line to get to a 5gal can in the bed until I clean out the gas tank and get it ready to roll.
- Bought an oil filter and some 5w30 but haven't done anything with it yet.
- Tore the alternator out, cleaned it up and cut the relevant bits out of what was left of the factory wiring whip.
- Re-terminated a few ends on the alternator whip and spent a lot of time with the wiring diagrams in the CJ Haynes manual (really good for the 1972/73 models).
- Found out that the truck has and needs a ballast resistor, but I hadn't wired it in.. did so, since I didn't want to fry my coil with 13+ VDC.
- TESTED! It seems to charge, per my mechanical gauge. I've yet to do any actual tests on it to see if the external regulator is doing its job, but we'll see.
- Did some bullshitting with Mark, and we measured the holes.. with a little help from the burr and air grinder, we think trailer LED lights will fit the factory taillight positions, and maybe even the reverse lights will work similarly.
Now, with all of that out of the way.. I'm going to bed and back to work in the morning.
