The extra HP talk reminded me of an article in CarCraft where Vic Hickey grafted in a supercharger from a GMC diesel and was making 90HP. I wonder......................................
http://www.ewillys.com/2013/09/21/vic-hickeys-supercharged-flathead-from-car-craft-magazine/
A few updates:
Engine: I have growing suspicions around the seller of the engine I purchased. I won't go into details quite yet, but I've caught some fibs. I hate fibs... I'm probably too nice.
Title: Below are the two letters I sent to the executor of the prior owner's estate. The first letter is the certified letter that the state requires in order to partition the court to place an order, naming me as the owner. The second letter is an attempt to cut through some red tape. I have my fingers crossed..
Wow. That's a lot of red tape!
Good Luck, I hope they decide to work with you.
I received confirmation that the engine is on the way. I purchased it from a dude in Minnesota. He is known in the Willys community as being the guy for authentic parts. I've met him a couple times, shook his hand. In my head he was in group "good dude".
He said that the engine was dropped off to Fastenal 12 days ago. I called Fastenal as I would have expected the engine any day, only to find that only the paperwork had been filed, no engine was dropped off. I had a hunch that this may be the case because of the lack of communication from him after monies were exchanged. I'm probably too trusting. Anyway, we had a bit of a heated conversation yesterday. I don't like getting mad, but hate being lied to worse.
Long story short, the engine is now in the back of his truck wrapped like a dead hooker and should be dropped off today. We will see...
While I have been waiting for the engine, I've been working on the brakes. The Jeepster has a simple brake system. One single reservoir master cylinder and 4 wheel drum brakes. In an earlier post I showed the gross that was in the wheel cylinders. Check out the gross in the master cylinder!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/n3YqF53WndE?rel=0
What in the world causes that? I have never seen anything like that!
When I saw the master cylinder I decided that I should replace all the brake lines and ordered a hard line kit along with new rubber hoses. The hard line kit comes pre bent. With a couple of the longer lines, they bend them to fit inside a box for shipping but then attach paper tabs showing you where to straighten them back out. Simple, and effective. The lines are not perfect as shown below, but after some tweaking fit like a glove. The GRM solution would have been to make my own lines, but i had a credit with this company that was burning a hole in my pocket.
After some tweaking:
The front lines are done and in. I'm just waiting for the rubber lines to show up so I can finish the brakes and get them bled. I should probably clean and repack all the wheel bearings while I'm in the drums...
Behold 75 HP! It's....dirty.
Overall impressions of Fastenal as a shipping company were great. It cook 5 days from when the engine was actually dropped off to reach my local Fastenal. Total bill was 160 bucks for 600 pounds of pallet.
This week shall be full of degreaser and bristle brushes and power washings.
I would love to know what makes those wax flakes drop out of brake fluid. Ferdinand's whole system was the same way. That motor looks like a powerhouse.
All the photo's have vanished. Is there at least a link to your hosting site so I can go back and have a look at some of them please?
They are still there for me.. I use PhotoBerkit. Must be the site was down for a few minutes?
Nothing, even if I try and quote so I could see the link there is nothing there. I'll post in the new software thread.
Thx.
That engine weighs ~550 lbs fully dressed minus a starter and generator? That's an impressive amount of iron for a 2.2liter 4 cylinder, getting into iron head SBC territory.
Huge News!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/nuw5A_UAFDo
The executor of Bruce's estate called last night. Sweet! That will save me a bunch of time and money. I tryed calling him back but wasn't able to leave a voice mail....apparently he hasn't set his voicemail up.
In other news:
Willis: Do you have plans tonight?
WifeWillis: Not tonight, no.
Willis: I need to make some noise before BabyWillis goes to bed
WifeWillis: Noise?
Willis: I need to power wash the engine and degrease it
WifeWillis: Oh. Can we watch?
My neighborhood has to think we are weirdo's.
Engine is clean though!
Pro Tip: When you have a 500# chunk of iron being supported by a couple caster wheels, don't wheel them into the soft grass.
After a week of phone tag, I finally was able to speak to the Executor of the estate. He is willing to help me out in getting the title transferred. However, he has moved twice since Bruce's death and no longer has a copy of the death certificate. More phone calls are in my future.
In the interim, I have spent all my time helping a buddy move. He had a lot of ....uh....stuff. So no work on the Jeepster. That said, If i can confirm that I can legalize the Jeepster by this weekend, I plan to blitz through the remaining "get it running" items and meet up with a group of Willys enthusiats who are touring the battlefields in Gettysburg this weekend.
We shall see...
It feels like a lot has happened since my last post. Which is true, just not with the project. I'm back at it though. I've torn things apart. Cleaned things. Stared at things. Cleaned more things. Broke stuff. Bought stuff. Pretty standard ... uh....stuff I suppose.
This is the engine after power washing it. Looking at it, it could easily have been someones before picture judging by how much grime is still on it.
The forward exhaust manifold bolt broke when I took the manifold off. I will deal with this later
Continuing with the teardown, I took off the side valve cover. Water must have got in when I was power washing.
This is what makes the Fhead, an Fhead. The intake valves are now part of the head. This allows the valves to be larger and the combustion chamber to be smaller which raises compression from 6.5:1 to 7.5:1.
I took the head off and found that at some point someone used a bunch of stop leak in it. This pasty stuff is everywhere in the cooling system.
Also discovered was a broken piston in the #1 cylinder. This is actually pretty common in these engines and nothing to worry about. I could just pull the chip out and reuse the piston, but I have another standard piston I can use.
Flipping the engine over, I took off the pan and found sludge.
Of which I cleaned
Speaking of cleaning - a buddy has a parts washer. I've never used one before and I'm now considering getting one. I've spent at least the amount it would cost for a Harbor Freight one in Brake cleaner 3 times over! He uses kerosene in it and it did a great job at cleaning off the grime.
With the bulk of the parts cleaned I painted the engine. I used a Filament brush to scrub in brake cleaner and it really worked well. I didn't get a picture of the clean block before I painted, but it looked very raw. The paint is just red duplicolor engine enamel.
Which brings this thread back up to current!
This weekend I dealt with the broken exhaust manifold stud, cleaning head bolt holes, and paint.
9 times out of 10, the rear most exhaust manifold stud is the one to break because access to it is limited. That stud came out fine. Sweet. The front stud was a bit more stubborn. I tried using the double nut method to extract the stud and the stud actually snapped when i was torquing down the 2nd nut. Booo.
I started by drilling a hole through the stud and screwed that up because, though i thought my punch was centered, it was not.
I still tried an easy out with heat and pb blaster. Didn't work. Because my hole was off center, I was limited in how big of an easy out I could use before getting into the threads. It was going to be close, but I decided to go ahead and step up to the next size, and snapped the drill bit.
I got lucky though and was able to turn the bit back out with needle nose pliers. This left me in a pickle because I was out of 1/4" drill bits and I definitely couldn't jump up to the next size bit without screwing up the threads. Enter the Google machine. I found a thread on garage journal that mentioned using a pneumatic reciprocating saw to make relief cuts and then chiseling out a section of the stud. Lucky for me, my father in law got me one for my birthday. Wow. This might be my go to method for broken stud extractions! I made two cuts and chiseled a out section and the stud spun right out with an easy out. Victory!
I turned my attention to the bolt holes in the block for the head. Every hole in the block, except for 3, are in the water jacket. This means that every hole, except for 3, are full of sealant. I like to clean these out to make sure that the head torques down evenly. I started the process and broke my tap wrench.
A couple of hose clamps later and I was back in business though.
I spent the rest of the weekend cleaning parts and painting. I am finally ready to assemble this lump.
Looking Good. That red engine is going to pop against the mellow yellow Jeepster!
Any progress on the paperwork issue?
A little.
I've not met the executor of the estate, but I've talked to him a couple times now over the phone. He seems a bit scrambled but is overall very very nice. He is certain that he has the death certificate but it's in a box in his garage from when he moved into his new house a couple years ago. My mental picture of the guy and his garage is as a hoarder. I'm certain the certificate is next to his long lost cat Mittens' carcass. I've offered to help look for it, but he has resisted. My next phone call will come with a recommendation to request a duplicate.
In other news, I swapped out the broken piston with a good one from my parts stash. My goal is to have this buttoned back up this week and running by next. I've not honed the cylinders. Am I dumb for not buying a dingle ball hone to hone the cylinders?
Why not? They're cheap and it's pretty much apart.
No, you aren't dumb. I wouldn't do the hone unless you are prepared to tear down to the bare block and have everything cleaned. Any of the swarf from the hone gets into the bearings and you are doing another teardown and possibly looking for a new/reman crankshaft. BTDT..
Willis said:A little.
I've not met the executor of the estate, but I've talked to him a couple times now over the phone. He seems a bit scrambled but is overall very very nice. He is certain that he has the death certificate but it's in a box in his garage from when he moved into his new house a couple years ago. My mental picture of the guy and his garage is as a hoarder. I'm certain the certificate is next to his long lost cat Mittens' carcass. I've offered to help look for it, but he has resisted. My next phone call will come with a recommendation to request a duplicate.
Don't know about PA but in MD, if you know the county where the person died you can get a copy of the death certificate your self .
My wife had to do this when she was settling her aunt's estate. She needed death certificates for a couple distant relatives who had been named in the will. They had died ~20 years ago. She went to the county health department (issuing agency in MD) and they were able to get her copies. Cost about $10 a piece.
In reply to Hal :
Thanks. So I googled it and found Only certain people can request a certified death certificate in PA. In PA you must be:
Now, that's for a certified death certificate. I know the county he passed at, so I'm going to call the DMV to see if the copy needs to be certified (with a raised seal). Thanks for the tip!
Last night was frustrating. You know how everyone says that the one thing you should not do is skimp on bearings? Well...I didn't listen to them. Sort of... Ya, I didn't. I ordered a set of rod bearings off Ebay. They were NOS bearings. I figured these were going to be as good or better than going aftermarket. I cracked them open last night and found:
Oi vey.
Those may have been NOS bearings, but now they appear to be POS bearings.
New clevite bearings will be here Thursday. I also ordered a coil of 1/4" fuel line and fittings along with a flex line for going from the frame to fuel pump. I'm hoping that'll be here by Tuesday.
While I'm waiting for parts, i dropped the tank. Externally, it looked fantastic. Newish even. Internally.... Ya, not so much. I didn't take any pictures, but if you've ever seen footage of when they found the Titanic and the corrosive state it was in, you now have a mental picture of what the tank look like internally. I have it filled with vinegar and I'm investing tank coating products.
In reply to Willis :
I’ve had exceptional results using dollar-store powdered oxy-clean to restore gas tanks. It’s particularly effective on varnish deposits. One scoop per gallon of hot water, and let the fun commence.
I sincerely hope the lack of updates is due to you cruising around with the family in your fantastically cool, titled, Jeepster. That was a seriously awesome find!
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