OK - so the annual Goodfellow Air Force Base car show is coming up next weekend. Last year, my '71 won Best In Class, even though it wasn't technically 'on the road,' yet (no wipers, working signal lights, seat belts, leaky brake booster, steering jacked up, etc.). My wife told me that I would not be allowed to trailer Frank to this year's show. So this weekend so far, I've been attempting to get the final things done to get it registered and on the road.
Yesterday began with mating up the speedometer cable to the AOD's speed sensor - check. Then I couldn't find the stupid speedometer gear clip from my old speedometer cable. Spent at least two hours looking for it. No joy. While I had the car on jack stands, I adjusted the toe - it was around 2.5 turns on the passenger side, and 2 turns on the driver side of too much toe-in. Now, the car doesn't make any 'squeaky' noises going into the garage or cycle the suspension, depending on which direction the car is moving. This should be good enough to get inspected and down the road to the car show, and over to the alignment shop after.
Since I still can't find the gear, and none of the local parts houses carry the speedo gear clips, I'll head over to the Ford house on Monday to see if they have any. If not, then I'll just stuff the speed sensor in without the gear, order one from Summit or wherever to keep the ATF from bleeding out of the tranny when I'm driving.
Today started with replacing the brake booster. The original one's bellows are dried out and not holding vacuum. So, I had ordered a replacement (universal) unit from NPD - yeah, don't ever do that. It's $250-ish for something that straight-up will not work. It's WAY too thick... the master cylinder will be jammed up against the shock tower. The old one was a major PITA to get out. First, the fasterners are hard to get to, and the top/passenger side nut is up against the brake pedal bracket, and must use the open-end wrench 1/4 turn, flip, 1/4 turn, flip, 1/4 turn, flip, etc. technique. Then the master cylinder had nowhere to go, so it was tough wiggling the OE unit out.
I scored a GPS Automotive 9-inch power brake booster - two words: It Rawks! After I made sure the rods were the same length as the OE booster, it slipped right in. Being just a tiny bit smaller than the OE unit helped immensely. I'll get some pics tomorrow. It came with new MC nuts, but I had to scavenge my stash for the proper stud nuts to mount it up to the firewall/brake pedal bracket. Fits like a champ and now I have the familiar "whoosh" sound of a properly working brake booster again. ::thumb::
http://gpsbrakes.com/i-21155650-9-inch-power-brake-booster-black.html
After that, I tackled the signal light switch. I'd bought a '70-'72 w/tilt switch from NPD, and while it did the trick, I'm disappointed that there's no wiring diagram included - none of the wires are OEM color, so it was a guessing game as to which wires go where. The "instructions" on the website were pretty much no help as they are even labeled as '68-70' directions, with there being a possibility of the 1-6 pin positions being reversed for 1970 cars. That's pretty damn vague if you ask me. I'll be sending them an e-mail.
After much frustration, I decided to just go for it and hope for the best. Being red-green color blind didn't help, since the green and gray wires look identical to me. I must've gotten lucky because everything works and the only issue I have is the right rear tail light won't flash with the signal (but works fine with the Hazards) - so I need to troubleshoot the turn signal circuit on the right tail light (no biggie - I can do that).
Tomorrow is all about swapping out the power steering pump, installing the windshield wipers (motor, mechanism, wiper arms, blades, and wiring up the switch) and running to the Ford house to hopefully score a speedometer gear clip so I can get the speedometer working as well. Then get the hood back on, talk to my insurance guy about coverage, get it inspected, then file the Application for Title paperwork and registration. Then I should be able to drive it to the car show [next Saturday] this year. Time permitting (I have Thursday and Friday off, as well), I'll get the Jeep running again (clean the plugs and put in some new gas) inspected and tagged and I'll have some side-by-side shots of both my babies next weekend! ::thumb::
Sorry for the novel - it's just been so long since I've done anything to my '71 and I didn't get pictures, so I had to use a lot of words.
