My son will be driving amin a few years. He is at an age where he needs some wrenching and problem-solving skills (and maybe some new cuss words). I proposed to him us working on a car that would eventually become his driver, and he was all ears. I came across this basket case a couple of weeks ago and cut a deal for it. The frame and drivetrain are solid. I need to mount the motor so I can crank it and run a compression check. The body is a little rough on the outside, but the main parts of the tub look to be in fair shape. Body work can wait. Got it home today.

Wish me luck. We have our work cut out for us.

Good luck.

Perseverance is an important trait to learn at his age so try not to lose momentum. That is a challenging project.

My father and I built my Mustang when I turned 14 and I learned many valuable skills and life lessons but the memories with my dad are priceless.

Charismatic Megafauna said:

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Oh my, was a vagrant sleeping in it? Or just used it as a toilet and moved on?

Great project, but why was it in the state it was in? Has it been cannibalized?

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Bought from a high school friend who now lives at Geronimo. His cows were about to move in.

Previous owner began working on it as a resto, and other priorities for in the way. The big stuff is there with the exception of the radiator and front fenders. Plus there are a couple of boxes of other parts still in storage coming.

Going to enjoy watching it change over time.

Good luck.

Best of luck! Although in my opinion the deal you worked should have been as simple as "I'll haul it off for free."

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The rare transverse mount engine option

BenTheGoodAg said:

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What is that, like 15 harbor freight straps?!

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Only four, and one of them is somewhere between Marion and Seguin.

texags08 said:

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Don't worry about the motor, just get a junkyard Coyote and call it a day….

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15 replies and no LS swap. Automotive board disappoints.

Please post progress, should be very interesting!

Update. Transverse motor got put on a stand so I could check it out. One of the cylinders was weak, and there were a couple of busted thermostat bolts stuck in the head so I sent it to the machine shop to have it freshened up and the broken bolts extracted.

While that was being done I checked out the bottom end. What was left of the oil was pretty sludgy. There were signs this thing had been burning oil. I found some scratches on one of the main bearings I didn't like so I sent the block and crank in too. The block will be bored 0.030 over, and crank will be polished. The bearing on the far right was the really bad one, but thankfully not discolored.





If you ever have one of these, run, don't walk, to the nearest trash can and throw it away. This is a Prestolite distributor that AMC used for a few years in the 1970s. They were junk then, and parts are almost impossible to find. JEGS had their HEI distributor on sale so it will be replacing this thing.


The flywheel ring gear was pretty worn for about 1/3 of the circumference, so I replaced it with a new ring gear. The guys on the internet say put them in the oven to heat them up, and they will slip right onto the flywheel. I love my wife too much to put car parts in her oven so I improvised an "oven" on my Coleman stove to heat up the new ring gear. I can't believe this actually worked.

Great updates! I love Jeep projects. Jeeps are like the AR15s of the automotive world.

A few years ago I bought a toaster oven for the shop as we have to install tight tolerance bearings and gears on shafts. It's not uncommon to find parts in the freezer at work

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Transfer case had a slight amount of water in it, but it rolls freely. The linkage is a little sticky, but I can free them at up. Otherwise I will probably just clean up the car and put a set of seals in it.

A little rattle can painting for when the engine comes back

About frigging time. Transverse 6-cylinder was converted to a vertical 6 at the machine shop. They also bored it .030 over, put new cam bearings and freeze plugs in it, and polished the crank. Sub-project for me and the boy this summer.

BTW, for you gearheads in San Antonio who take your stuff to Miller's, they have semi-retired and moved everything out to LaCoste. I dropped this off in early February and just got it back today. They don't work too fast.

This box arrived today

p_bubel said:

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I'm not on this board much these days so just now seeing this, but if you're looking for a working T18 manual trans I have one out of my '79 J10 I could give y'all.

I swapped in an AX15

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Thanks is for the offer. I am swimming in transmissions at the moment.

The Jeep came with a T150 3-speed. I made a decision early on that I would like to get a 4-speed in it if possible because I'm like 4-speeds with a granny gear. On top of that, this thing sat out in the weather for a couple of years with no shifter cane on the transmission so I am pretty sure there is water in it.

So i did a little internet research and decided I was looking for a NP435 or T18, preferably NP435 due to short length. In the CJ5 I am trying not to have too short of a rear driveshaft. Went down to Pick n Pull and found some NP435s but would have had to work harder to get them than the one T18 that was already halfway out of a truck. I picked up the T18 and brought it home with full intention of putting it in the Jeep.

Then about a week later an NP435 came up on FB Marketplace for a steal of a price. Guy was taking it out of a first gen restomod Bronco and swapping in a 5-speed. It came with some wonky shift linkage for the Bronco that I don't need and an adapter to bolt it to Dana 20 transfer case. Cool. I have a Dana 20. Turns out the Bronco and Jeep both used Dana 20 but had different bolt patterns. Wah wah.
Adapter won't fit my Dana 20, but I plan to sell that adapter and the linkage to cover some of the cost. Probably sell the T18 too down the road once I get farther along.

So yeah, I have three transmissions sitting on the floor of my garage at the moment.

Finally getting a little progress done. This summer got busy with kids and a few home improvement projects, so it is going slow. Got a new section of driveway so I can work on toys. Thanks to Esteban and his trabajadors.



Got the crank and pistons put in July and the cam, chain, and oil pump this weekend.











A couple of wrist pins felt a little tight. I can move them by hand, but there is enough friction that the rods will stand up straight. The machine shop said as long as I can move them by hand that is free enough. I heated up a pan of oil on Coleman stove and put the stuff pistons in. As soon as the oil got hot they moved very freely but with no noticeable slop.





Cam, chain, and oil pump went in this weekend







I know these have been around for a while, but this was a new thing for me. I bought a new Cloyes timing gear and chain set from Summit. Of course, it didn't come with instructions, but thankfully Cloyes has a YouTube video to explain it. You can set set the the valvetrain time with 0 advance or +/- 4 degree advance/ret_ard. Set the keyway on the setting you want and then line the timing mark up that corresponds to the keyway you selected. I picked the 0 setting.



I would have put the oil pan and timing cover on, but forgot how bad it was. Best I can tell there is one gasket and as many as three layers of RTV on this thing. No wonder it was covered in grime.

After the short block was done there was still a lot of little nagging stuff to get done like rebuilding the carburetor, tracking down accessories and brackets, and figure out why the water pump pulley didn't line up correctly.



It took a hammer to get the accelerator pump out.










We finally got it in the frame a few weeks ago.



I built a little freestanding dashboard because I have no idea if the gauges in the Jeep actually work at this point.


Today was kind of a big day. After fighting the fuel pump and carburetor over a couple of weekends, we finally had it running good enough for a break in.



Yes, that is an HEI distributor. You can get those for damn near any engine these days.