Getting Cabin fever.....Must...tinker.....with....Jeep!!!!

I am sick of the cold and snow so I decided to do some minor projects all while thinking warm thoughts... My Garage is freezing and I have no desire to go out and wait for the woodstove to heat the place up, so I am sticking to small jobs that I can do in my basement.....or the garage for a short time. I cleaned up some old steelies and painted them with some International harvester white.... I'm happy with the look. I also am really tired of the lousy lighting my jeep has so I am going to try adding relays to both the high and low beam to try to cut down on the current drop that I am getting through the switch and old wiring and bad connections.... I'm not sure if it will help, but it will cost me about $10 and an hour of my time... I will post some more photos once I get the wheels mounted and the relays hooked up.... I will do a before and after nighttime test of my headlights. MY vehicle is a 79 :AMC: cj5 by the way.





Relay Stuff:

 

Howard,

Yes they are cool. I have thought about making one of them... Maybe someday Thanks for sharing the link! -MF

 

I've tinkered all I can on my heap.. Unless I want to spend copious amounts of cash on things I don't really need.. Maybe I'll go out and polish the ashtray rails..
Bein retired I have way more time to tinker than ever.. Guess I'll have to take it out and break something..

 

My barn is not heated... and I repaired a small 'scooter'
http://www.vastro.fr/scooter-50-et-125/scooter50/gamme-vastro-scoots-50cc

A rely for the lights was not working; it is quite new... so I cut all the wires and made a direct connexion to battery!!!
Took me 3 days checking all wires, this is not very pleasant in the freeze.

The Tonka heating system is interesting, mostly for firemen..:tea:

I made long ago a sytem to heat the water in swimming pool using wood.
This was a round oven, with a copper pipe fixed around it, and water pushed from the swimming pool by a pump.
Lot of wood was needed, but it worked until the day were my son took the pipe of entering water out of the swimming-pool, so it made vapor, the pump went dead but by chance my boy had no problem, it made just bubbles of hot vapor at the exit in the water.

 

I cant wait to retire... Im going to go broke and drive my wife nuts with all my projects... or maybe just get lazy and fat. I haven't decided yet.

 

Well....I got the tires mounted on the wheels today. I used my buddies wore out old firestone tire machine. It was around 15 degrees in his garage.....lets just say im cold. His machine has seen better days so I am also sore. haha but the price to have the tires mounted was right. I will post pictures soon.

 

Access to a tire machine would be good. I bet frozen bias ply tires would be very pleasant to mount.

 

Yes I am very grateful he let me use it but I would be even more grateful if he rebuilt it... I got rid of the bias ply's. I was sick of the flat spots every morning. I had a set of Kenda Clevers, so I went with them. I love these tires I run them on everything. Here is a sneak peek. I will take better pictures out of the garage.

 

It was snowing lightly here all day today so I took the jeep out for some better pictures of the new wheel/tire combo.....They are Kenda Klever 32.11.50x15 on 15x7 wheels with 3.75" backspacing. At full lock they are close to hitting the springs but do not rub. They are also close to the frame in the back. I will have to take it out and flex it to see if I need to adjust my bump stops. Stock springs with about an inch shackle lift.

It was just starting to get dark so please forgive the lighting in the pictures.

 

The wheels and tires look really, really good. Nice job and nice Jeep as well! Doug

 

Thanks for the complements guys! I am pretty excited with the way they turned out. Its amazing what a $4.99 can of paint and some better tires can do. I cant wait to get out and see how they work. Thanks for looking!!

 

yup, looks great. my first jeep was a 77 cj5 w a 304.

 

What wheels are those?

 

cragar series 69

 

Great looking jeep. I have a 79 CJ-5 as well. I put the Hella conversion headlights that use H4 bulbs in mine and they work great. In addition to the relay/wiring work I really recommend these lights.

 

Thanks Mike! I was hoping to be able to do a headlight upgrade similar to yours with the relays also..... I rarely ever drive the jeep at night anymore but whenever I do, I cant believe how poor the lighting is. Do you know roughly how much you paid for the hella conversion? Thanks!

 

I guess I should mention...that i have a new alternator and battery and I have checked all the connections and ground.....I have had this jeep for a long time it the headlights have always sucked. Although I love the foot operated hi/low switch! why don't new cars have these???? Never have to take your hands of the wheel.

 

When I wired my jeep I put in one of those high low foot operated things. I also never drive at night, mostly because its only been legal since december.

One of the things that bugs me is the 3 prong female that you can buy to hook up your headlights in wired in 16 gauge wire or so. I bet I lose juice right there. Are these headlights true LED? Do they have that pseudo angel eye look to them?