Project Parts From Afar And Off The Floor

This salad has languished in the garage for years. There's a covert Ecj5 project malaise support group I belong to. Looking at this with no enthusiasm the group counseled me to get with it or get rid of it. I compromised and agreed to turn it into a runner. If the malaise was still there in the spring I'd sell it off as a titled running project.
You guys have seen teasers of this. Its a salad of 30 years of collecting.
Tale of the tape :
Blasted/ painted straightened late flatty frame.
Rebuilt 30 over evenfire, balanced with Lunati valvetrain
Th350, Dana 300
Early repop m38ish tub. 9 slot grille, 3A windshield.
Centered flanged 44 rear, 27 front

Engine, trans, transfer assembled and sitting in the rails pending final location.

First thing remove the flatty crossmember which doesn't lend itself to good cooling options. Tacked up a rectangle tube temporarily to hold everything after leveling up the chassis. Surgery went well, new crossmember up under grille fitted up. I'll get it welded up and frame horns boxed up. Friday should find me at the pick and pull sourcing the cooling system, overflow tank and a fuse box.

 

Crossmember in the last pic is nearly identical to the way I did mine in prep for the pwr Saginaw. Looks good.

 

Nice weather we are having and some daylight at hand. Sure enough the yard had plenty of Focus to choose from. Radiator, 2 speed dual fans and trans cooler. Not shown coolant overflow, fuse box and relay box. Out the door in an hour for $117.
Cut the shrouding and bits off the 9 slot. Radiator / fan/cooler assembly tucks up nice and tight. I can pull the engine forward almost 2". Driveshaft should be around 16"
Summit sells spring clip to AN adapters to solve the juice tranny cooler line issue.
I'll make some simple L brackets for the bottom radiator mounts.

 

I really want to go to E fans on mine but the noise would drive me crazy I think. My plan was to run dual fans on dual thermostats so one fan might come on at 190 and the other at 200. This would help with the noise when crawling along, and help with the instant load on the electrical system and hopefully lessen the risk of fan failure and over heating.
I may pull my offy intake this winter and have a couple bungs tig welded into it.

 

I really dont notice mine on low speed. I have the low speed running on auto, they kick in 10° above thermostat and shuts off on 7-8° drop. I have a switch on the dash I can turn them off or manually kick up to high speed. On high they have a little whine but not distracting.
As long as you dont absentmindedly turn the switch off, it rarely goes above 180. High speed brings it right down. Other than the switch somehow getting turned off coming up the back of Tin Cup I did all of CO in auto / low.

 

Curious what this is about as I have an Offy intake also.

 

Heres the fans. Low and high at idle.

 

My duel 12" electric fans are quiet. I have it wired with a thermal switch that comes on at 210 degrees and shuts off at 195. They are wired independently. Each fan used its own relay, just in case one fails. The fans work great. On the street the fans never come on. Offroad it gets warm. I have a switch that I can turn them on and run them continuously for extra cooling, but I know it will never over heat. I've had this set up for 18 years now with out any problems. It's kind of funny. I paid $5.00 for both fans at a garage sale.

 

The fenders and hood need some love. I got everything to bolt up to the repop tub though. Fender brackets even bolted into the frame holes. Satisfied enough I'll finalize the engine placement and burn in the mounts.

 

Don't make anything easy on yourself.
The AA mounts I have put too much slope on the driveline. I can't raise the trans/ transfercase without getting into the tunnel. The Novak adjustable mounts are over $200 forget that, budget for this project hovers at zero. I had some Dauntless mounts here I cut up, welded to some angle ( was rect. tube) This dropped the engine enough to be level on the intake at carb mount surface front to back. This gives me about 3° of slope.
There's no oil pan issues and will still have almost 2" clearance at the oil filter from differential on full compression.

 

No turning back now

 

I think that whole front clip was transported in the back of my Honda Accord. From as far as Syracuse NY.

 

The postal 44 came to me without spring perches. I laid some out on a piece of scrap 2" rect. The holesaw gave up after 1 and 1/4 holes. Ill have to pick some up this week to finish.
I punted and pulled the 10" stuff off the 27. Wheelie and I are horse trading, he got me a 2 hole knuckle and is having a pair studded ( thanks buddy!) I have a 25 I rebuilt 30 years ago and never used. It has new kingpin bearings and knuckle seals, going to rob all that stuff.

Btw the AVM hubs on this thing look identical to Warns. Going to clean them up and run them.

 

Copious lube will help the holesaw last a lot longer.

 

It had a couple holes on it already. I think the welded seam in that rect. tube wiped the teeth out.

 

Yeah, the welds are much harder than the base metal.

 

Finished up the perches. Cut the inboard shock mounts off the postal 44. I'll fit the perches up and do a light tack for installation. Finish the welding and pinion angle after I talk to Tom Woods driveshaft. Theres a possibility it will get a cv joint.

 

Advertised as off a CJ5. Tape clearly made it M38 Arctic top. Looks like hell, doors are pretty trashed. Top itself is very straight, just 37 coats of paint, plexiglass windows. One bad spot in the roof. Should clean up well. Seller was a guy I knew from jobs 20-30 years ago. 3 Natural Lites and alot of bs later $50