I may have left y'all hanging on the matters related to the rear suspension because of my updates being posted to my thread on the AMC forum not making their way here. I don't like to half-ass things or repeat myself, so I wasn't okay with the idea of just copy and pasting things. In the interest of making sure I share this info as widely as possible, I figure that I may need to make a slight concession and do a little copy/paste.
To sum it up, my rear suspension was all out of whack because I was of the understanding that my leafs were direct replacements, but they were actually the HD packs. The information that allowed me to crack the case can be found in a post towards the bottom of page two of this thread:
http://theamcforum.com/forum/topic94351.html
See, the vendor I purchased the springs from didn't explicitly describe the leafs as heavy duty, though they did list the SRI number that corresponds with the HD specs (67-521). I can't say that information would've been a whole lot of help, though, since I can't justify the cost of SRI membership to verify spring details (also, I was totally ignorant to the organization's existence until the post in the thread I linked).
In the end, it turns out that the 8-3/4" arch that I've been understanding as the stock arch depth is what was used for HD springs, but the stock arch is actually 1/2" less, so 8-1/4". This is fine by me, since I actually get a little bit of lift in the rear to compensate for the weight that will be loaded in the rear while I do the Planet Caravan bit.
Aside from getting this nightmare sorted out, I got the brake lines replaced in the rear, followed by the wheel cylinders on both sides. The driver's side cylinder refused to let me crack its bleeder. I mean, seriously. Check it out:
That's a shot of it after I pulled it from the wheel, but the damage to the bleeder was all done under the vehicle by yours truly. It was obscene.
Since I have a bad habit of avoiding asymmetrical parts changes, I was compelled to change the passenger cylinder as well. Looks like I made the right choice.
I mean, it probably could've been cleaned and put back in service, but one of the pistons was sticking because of wear and scoring, and I didn't want to have to go back in and replace it after the fact.
Unfortunately, I will have to go back in at some point, since the cylinder links are corroded to dick.
It looks a lot better in the picture than it does in real life. It cut me. Seriously. It rent flesh.
Since cylinder links are a part that the parts haus deems unnecessary to stock (or sell for a reasonable price), the plan was to hit the yard and grab some links from a Cherokee / Grande with 10" drum brakes. This turned out to be a tall order, since most of the fattys were disc (which I expected) and the XJs all had 9" drums (which I didn't), barring one. I pulled the links from it, though they weren't much better than the ones in the Gremlin and got tossed. Replacement of these is listed as a pending work item.
Fuel lines are sorted out, but still need some retaining clamps to be secured to the frame/body. While I was prepping the tank for installation, I found that the sender pickup tube screen was cracking apart while I was handling it. I attempted to pull the sock off of the pickup tube, which resulted in this:
"All that I touch seems to break in my hands. . ."
I'm not too proud to admit I was kinda bummed about this for a minute. After spending a little bit of time trying to source a stand-in or a hacked-together replacement, I decided to say to hell with it and leave the pickup wide open.
Normally, I wouldn't advise doing something like this; it can be an invitation for clogs, chewed up pump diaphragms, and so on. Thing is, my other options present the same risk if they don't work out, and I don't feel like dropping that damn tank and trying to do a field repair on that kind of mess. Since I had already decided to include a pre-pump filter in the fuel circuit, I decided that any risk posed will be minimal if I prepare by keeping an extra pre-filter or two on hand.
All things considered, we're moving forward at a good clip. Now, I need to listen to Defenders of the Faith to get this damn song out that the leaf springs have stuck in my head.
No comments:
Post a Comment