thanks a lot guys! It has been a long road with her, and the last hard hill is yet to come (front end rebuild save for the steering components), but it will be a few months out. I told myself the day she started up for the first time in a year and a half and ran that I had at that time reached the point of no return, and would from then on out refuse to even entertain the thought (other than to ponder how much someone would pay for an Eagle that does 0-60 in 8 secs at 5k feet) of selling. Every corner I cut always came back to bite me in the butt......
I have to get rid of the driveline vibration and get my car to pass emissions.. The Magnaflow cat I had on there fried within a few thousand miles, so I'll be getting a Caleefornya cat to replace it, at which point I'll move my other one up to right behind it. I thought up an excellent way to (re) modify my trans crossmember to accept a stock Jeep transmission mount. I'll be using some 1/4" thick plate steel welded to teh bottom of it, and holes drilled accordingly. I'll of course provide pictures and update the EFI swap writeup according... I go through so much effort in making good writeups because above all else this site should be a history archive and (SEMI) reference guide. I like to help keep y'all informed and show what I've done as I go along. I am one of those people that would MUCH rather spend a year building a (fast, for instance) car than spend a year saving up to buy one. I'm about ready for that hack mount and poly bushings to go. They belong on the suspension, not on drivetrain parts.
I'm just hoping the PPO (previous previous owner.... my car exchanged quite a few hands before landing in mine) didn't take any shortcuts in rebuilding the motor past the oil pan and rear main....
That wheel honestly looks nicer than it is. The metal is metal and the wood is plastic, thinly done over the black firm foam. The good part about it is it somehow still looks good, and because it's not real, solid wood, it doesn't cause my hands to get frozen to it during the winter. It IS a 14" wheel, quite a downsizing from stock, so that shifter would be a little uncomfortably close to a stock wheel. I first pondered about what to do with that shifter situation a few months ago, but never really took an active interest in it until I drove a manual Dakota pickup at the emissions station, and realized that shifter would come out at the perfect angle,just like the T5 shifter did.
Shane, that manifold will pretty much fit any 4.0 head made 1991 or later, though it specifically came from the 7120 (91-95) generation. You can find a Borla look-alike on rock auto for about 170 bucks... I was originally going to buy that, but I couldn't pass up 40 bucks and two hours worth of work to get it done that very day.
Just take it easy with Ginger, don't get in too much of a rush, and don't wholly obsess about making her perfect. She'll be close, but she'd have to be garage queen status to ever be truly perfect, and I don't think that's what your intentions for her are (hopefullY). Just get her running and driving nice, but not so nicely that you're choosy about parking spaces
I am very happy that you are going through so much effort to truly restore the heart of her. I honestly would have just put some cleaner in the oilpan, rebuilt the trans at the shop, figured out the vacuum and electrical and driven her daily for a few year or two, so it's nice to see that someone else has the time to really make 'er special
Topic: The 1300 dollar fixer upper surprise project (Read 106156 times)