icrashbikes

A Jeep buddy of mine came over today and we swapped the a/c compressor in. There was no refrigerant in the system and it was filled shortly before parking the Jeep about a year ago. Also, in the compressor and.. one of the lines, I forget which, there was a bunch of gunk that definitely didn't belong there. The current theory is that we must have gone out at some point after the hole was made in the condenser and sunk the front end underwater, allowing some sediment or debris to enter the system. The old compressor was in dreadful shape, likely due to cycling all this junk. I ordered the rest of the a/c lines and the evaporator to be safe. I'm in this deep, why not gut the interior while I'm at it? Also I don't think I could, in good conscience, run that new compressor with all that whatever-it-is in the system. So the compressor is in, but disconnected now with more work to be done. Also, I haven't looked yet, is the a/c evaporator close enough to the heater core to make that a worthwhile addition? I haven't had any problems but since I'm in there...

I also remembered today that the power steering pump was acting up on the trail. Never on the road, only on the trail. It was very strange but it would always be working perfectly by the time I'd get home so I never thought about it till we were out in the rocks again and it started whining. I ordered a pump.

We discussed the gas tank skid situation and how there was no clear superior option, that all required some modification. My friend blurts out "Welp, time to throw in a fuel cell!" and I think he might be right. There are a few nice application specific options out there at a reasonable price point. Reasonable when looking at an $800 skid option anyway. I'm more inclined to do a custom setup, I think a plain old box would fit in nicely, recess into the rear floor without hanging below the frame, and not take up too much cargo space while still leaving me about 15 gallons. We did some measurements and calculations and, on paper, it should be pretty simple. Even if I can't find a stock size cell to drop in, it looks like there are very affordable custom options. I'm not sure what the stock 2 door fuel capacity is, but it looks from my records that I very rarely put in more than 15 gallons, most often less. It would be very simple to put a plate skid at the end of the frame and I wouldn't lose anything significant in terms of clearance. That's one of the drawbacks to the JK specific cells, they all poke out a few inches below the frame rails to get that 20 gallon capacity. I ditched the rear muffler long ago so I don't see any reason to put something back in that spot. Plus a simple box cell will run me a lot less than the pretty bolt-in kits. Please tell me if you think I'm crazy. But looking at $500-700 for a skid plate, plus modifications, plus coatings is my benchmark now and a fuel cell isn't far off. I don't think. AND that frees up lots of space to do some fancypants suspension work later on. Or I could run the exhaust down the passenger side and let them suffer with the lava floor.

So instead of being closer, I am farther away. I'm going to see if I can take a week off work in November to get some of this work done. Dedicated time is always better than an hour or two a few nights a week.

resharp001

Considering this is 100% toy/hobby status these days, that isn't the craziest thought at all.

I'm not sure on the evap, but I believe on most vehicles in order to do that the entire dash is coming out. I think that for what you described, that ac is in for a 100% complete rehaul regardless of what it takes. You can't very well do 80-90% of it and leave the old evap. If there's any of that crud in the evap at all you're just gonna contaminate everything you just replaced. That's my opinion at least.

icrashbikes

Agreed. It's good to get a sane second opinion.

icrashbikes

Well holy moly. I just looked up the procedure to change that evap core. If there's a dead center to the Jeep, it's the evap core. And you have to peel all the layers away to get there. At least I can do the heater core in one piece while I'm there. Yikes.

icrashbikes

Oddly, picking right back up where I left off here, almost two years later. It's been.. busy I guess. I got most of the dash unbolted today, only thing left are the heater hoses. Hopefully tomorrow I can get those off and get the dash out.



Over the past few years though (while the Jeep has been on stands) I've been keeping up on scale off-road builds. I've actually learned quite a bit of geometry and suspension theory and I've done a few custom builds. The next one I'm planning is fully custom, I have a pair of axles and a cage that looks cool, all the links, shock specs, and all dimensions will be cooked up by me. I'm a little curious how the Jeep stacks up but I'm not going to put too much effort into it or I'll be redoing everything all over again and I just want to get it on the road.

A few of my -at least in spirit- 4x4 projects:





This one I spent a lot of time designing and 3D printing shock mounts to get probably too much travel while staying as LCOG as possible.



This one is a comp crawler I finished a few days ago. Basically a zero-compromise 4x4 platform.



But the focus is back to full scale now!

Sixty4x4

Hopefully it will get done this year and you get back on the trails.

resharp001

Gosh, it's been a minute...........

icrashbikes

Tell me about it! I got the heater hoses disconnected and the dash is ready but it's surprisingly heavy! I have a buddy coming Monday to give me a hand. Since it's all still intact, I really don't want to drop it onto the tcase lever and put a hole in something.

icrashbikes

We got the dash pulled. It was a challenge.

Firewall!



And the back of the dash



It's big and it's heavy. The plan was to leave it on the seats and just pull the HVAC section, we'll see if that lasts. I'm cleaning as I go because it was gnarly in there. We also had to pull the intake manifold for access to the AC connection (which I forgot to undo). Fun fact, I had a cabin filter! For ten years! In this Jeep! Might as well be a brick now for all the filth that's built up. Neat stuff..

icrashbikes

Mission accomplished! The new evap core is in. The assembly is waiting for the heater core swap to go back in the dash, but this is the first chunk-o'-Jeep that's been reassembled.



Btw that fan and housing was GROSS. After 12 years, those cabin filters were doing a great job at sealing in the mold.