Wrapped tight in my plastic jacket, I'm rotting from the inside

Putting the finishing touches on the enclosure for my HEI module required that I pull out the engine wiring harness to get an idea of what needs to be done to allow access for the connections to terminate.  As I picked at the harness, it dawned on me: I have no damn recollection of what terminates where.

I then set out to check my notes.  Given that it was a fairly hectic and somewhat emotionally taxing point in time for me when they were written, I wasn't at all surprised when I discovered that they took off for parts unknown.  "No big deal," I said to myself.  "I wired it up before, and I'll do it again."

I found that the quality of work I did when wiring the ignition circuits was a direct reflection of my state of mind.  That is to say, after I finished peeling away the multi-layer insulation armor I had made with silicon tape wrap, heat shrink, and asphalt sleeve, I was greeted by wiring that looked like pure, unmitigated crap.  From excessive heat shrink covering inexplicable butt-joints, to using marine wire not suitable for the conditions I intend to protect against, I was left dumbfounded, embarrassed, and finally relieved.  Relieved that no one else would see what kind of half-assed work I was apparently capable of.

Situations like this are good opportunities to learn, though.  When cutting out the diode that I decided should be in (instead of putting connectors on each end and securing it in a place where it could be serviced without hacking into the harness), I discovered what my lesson would be.

The improvised "butt-connector" was used to join the diode lead to the wire shown in the picture.  Despite my propensity for doing stupid things, I'm certain that the wire didn't look like a urinal penny when I smashed that joint together.  I'll skip over the details of my investigation into the cause -- which are too boring for even me to cover -- and let you know what the cause was: solder.  Specifically, the flux in the solder.

See, I prefer to double up on my wiring termination by crimping, then soldering my joints.  The reason for this is mainly to serve in preventing corrosion.  The crimp provides the mechanical joint (reminder: except for when it is, solder isn't a mechanical component!), while the solder ensures that the components in the joint maintain continuity and are sealed against moisture ingress to the stranded wire core.

When soldering these joints, you always use electrical solder.  Not acid-core plumbing solder, or whatever the hell else.  Trial and error led me to discover that the best solder to use for my wiring is actually low-temp soldering paste used to solder SMD components to circuit boards.  It comes in a syringe, you can squeeze out just as much as you need, where you need it, and you don't have to spend a hand on holding solder wire.  You can also get it to flow easily with a pocket torch, which makes it great for field repairs.  All in all, it's fantastic -- so long as you use it right.

Electrical solder uses rosin flux to strip away metal oxide layers, wet the components, and allow the fluid metal to flow.  While rosin isn't an acid flux in the way the term is used to describe flux, it is still acidic.  Because of this, best practice when building soldered circuits is to wash the board or whatever with a cleaner (alcohol or some mild solvent) to remove residual flux.  Even though I had cleaned this joint after soldering, this still happened.  What gives?!?

Well, it's pretty simple: this was a result of what was basically a cold joint, meaning I didn't cook it long enough.  The flux used in SMD paste is actually designed to neutralize once it has come up to soldering temp and stays there for a duration roughly equal to what it should take for you to do a properly-flowed solder joint.  Since I didn't let it cook long enough, the remaining flux wicked into the wire core (probably even aided by the solvent wash I gave the joint after the fact), made itself at home, and proceeded to eat everything in reach.

At this point, you may be thinking that it'll be a huge pain to fix any other joints like this, but that's not actually the case.  Like I had mentioned, the flux is supposed to strip corrosion away from the base metal when it's heated.  If you re-heat it and reflow your joint, not only does the flux remove the corrosion, but everything should be neutralized after the joint is properly done, meaning the fix is as simple as hitting it with a torch for a moment.

It's pretty refreshing to find a screw up that is actually simple to fix, for a change.  I'm going to get back to work so I can make others that are closer to my comfort zone.

Words words words, coolant, transmission, words

I went down a rabbit hole here recently that ended with having to redo the trans cooler lines again.  The biggest problem was fan blade clearance, since the fatty wagon came equipped with electric or hydraulic fans, as opposed to the belt-drive fan that's fixed to the shaft of my water pump.  Whoops.

A bigger whoops was closely avoided when I started to take the alleged need to route through the integrated cooler in the radiator at face value.  I almost ended up plumbing things to run through it until I actually sat down and thought it through.  Here's the deal:

A lot of sources say that running the trans fluid through the integrated cooler is a necessary step to ensure the trans fluid is warmed by the coolant in the radiator.  Bypassing this cooler will have the effect of shortened life for the bands in the transmission, as a consequence of stress put on the steel through excess expansion and contraction.  Let's think this through a little bit. . .

As your engine is warming up and working to reach op-temp, your cooling system is closed. This is so you aren't constantly pulling heat away from the engine and delaying it from reaching the temperature range where it performs most efficiently.  This is why it's necessary to replace a thermostat that becomes stuck in the open position, as you'll be inviting a slew of problems if the engine runs cold for excessive periods of time (loss of power, guzzling fuel, overly-rich exhaust that can foul cats, and so on).

Once the coolant in the engine passages reach the temperature needed to allow the thermostat to open fully, coolant will pass through the thermostat opening and cycle through the cooling circuit (i.e., the radiator), allowing the engine to run while keeping it from overheating.  Generally speaking, an AMC 258 thermostat will be rated to be fully-open at 185°F, which means it will actually reach that point around 170-175°F.  Keep this in mind, as we'll be coming back to it.

While the thermostat doesn't go from fully-closed to fully-open like an electrical toggle switch, the duration of travel doesn't appear to take so long that the cooling circuit will be providing coolant of sufficient temp to warm the transmission oil during the earliest point of the engine's warmup period.  Really, until the thermostat is fully open and all coolant has cycled through to reach roughly the same temperature, the coolant in the radiator has the lowest temperature out of the entire cooling circuit.

Then there's the warmup procedure itself.

The way of warming up an engine that is least efficient and causes highest wear to an engine is to let it idle until op-temp is reached.  Best practice is to start the vehicle, let it idle for a couple minutes, then put the engine under light load until it's fully warmed.  During these first couple of minutes, the thermostat will be closed (or close enough to it to where any warm coolant that would be introduced to the radiator will have negligible effects on the radiator coolant temperature), which will be sucking away any heat in the trans fluid.  Since this will continue to be the case until the radiator coolant warms sufficiently, at what point does the overlap of the transmission oil being at a lower temp than the coolant occur?  If you have an answer for this, please post a comment to enlighten me, because I'm at a loss.

Up to this point, there's been a key detail that's gone without attention: the proper operating temperature of the transmission fluid itself.  This is where things get really confusing to me, as I'm of the understanding that the proper temperature for the oil in these torqueflites should be around 180°F, which is warmer than the temperature at which the thermostat can be expected to be fully open.  Now, an unmodified torqueflite will not be pumping fluid while in Park, so it's conceivable that you could be delivering warmed fluid to the system if you remained in Park until the point where the thermostat is fully-opened, the coolant temperature has reached equilibrium throughout the circuit, and it has transferred the heat to the transmission fluid in the integrated cooler, then put the transmission into gear.  Leaving the details of inconvenience and bad practices aside, isn't this kind of extreme heat fluctuation exactly what the cooler/"warmer" is supposed to be preventing in the first place?  If you've installed a shift kit that allows the fluid pump to be engaged while still in Park, the thermal shock in this scenario could be mitigated, though the fluid is still going to suffer from it's heat being wicked away by the coolant.

Following this reasoning, the ideal configuration seems to be one where the fluid is pumped while in Park, which will serve in getting it warm as it flows through an external cooler that has minimal airflow over it during those first couple minutes of warmup.  The best way to accomplish that would be either by having a thermostat-triggered fan mounted to the cooler, or a water pump fan with a clutch.  I have neither, so I'll be making due with being mindful in my cooler placement.

If you're still awake, you might be wondering why the hell any of this even matters in the first place.  Honestly, for most people it really doesn't.  In my case, I need to be reasonably sure that I'm not going to be causing damage to my transmission that will cause me trouble as I'm on the road, and I needed to weigh confidence levels.  See, I've already had one transmission die from the radiator cooler allowing coolant into the trans fluid circuit, so I'm already very distrustful of the design.

In doing research on the issue, I found that it transcends manufacturers, models, years, OE or aftermarket parts, and so on.  Coolant will, at some point, cause that barrier to corrode through.  That's a dead-in-the-water show stopper, right there.  Now, if you believe what some people say when they assert that the integral cooler is necessary, you'd suspect that bypassing the cooler in favor of an external unit will lead to equally calamitous results.  This may be true if you're towing tons of material through mountain passes or whatever, but in my case it doesn't seem that it's something to worry about.

A cheap radiator causing the inside of my transmission to be filled with strawberries and cream?  That's something I'll be making damn sure I eliminate as a potential reality.

This Page Intentionally Left Blanket-y Blank

[Feel free to fill this space with your choice of expletives, a 500-word minimum applies.]

Finishing Details Starting to Emerge

As hard as it may be to believe for anyone who may have been keeping up with this seemingly unending joke, a milestone is soon to be reached: that of the first startup and initial run of the Gremlin.  Here's what needs to be done before that comes to pass:

I decided to start from the front of the car and work my way back. The idea is that doing this will save me from bouncing around all over the place while I haphazardly take care of things as they come to mind.  I think it it looks like a lot more than it really is, but thinking like that is what got me here in the first damn place.

Though I'm taking this approach to provide some structure in my workflow, I'm still allowing myself to jump around in the order of things a little.

As a frinstance: I'm waiting for a second player to arrive before doing the brakes.  Next task is trans cooler, but I've got some undefined details on mounting it to hammer out before I can do that.  Moving ahead with doing things instead of reading shit, I installed the fan.  Boom.  See?  I'm already nearly done with all this.

Happy Birthdays

Today has been a celebration of new life.  The still silence of a concealed, cottony vessel was broken as a stream of fresh beings came scrambling forth to embrace the opportunities, risks, and adventures that fate has deemed them worthy to receive. 

As they spread over their small patch of newfound territory, some decided to throw their lives to the winds of circumstance and catch a ride with whatever they found that happened to be moving in any direction away from their native land.

Since arriving at the shop this morning, I've been picking tiny spiders off of myself.  All.  Damn. Day.  They all tried to go up my sleeves once they were discovered, so after a while I stopped bothering to try not to kill them.  I mean, I didn't go out of my way to kill them, but I had to prioritize finishing up with rebuilding my distributor. 

Despite my blood offerings, the distributor still isn't done. It would be, but the e-clip that secures the pickup plate to the baseplate evaporated.  I have a million count e-clip assortment.  Somewhere.  I'll be damned if I know where, though.  Still, the rest of it is all ready to go, then I can check my rotor and armature phasing and set my base timing.

The steering pump was mounted up and checking pulley alignment was a breeze.  Because the pulley as it sits will be a little more than half an inch too far inboard, of course.  Not too worried, though -- looks like the front, stamped bracket can be modified to correct the issue fairly easily.  That's right; I'll be attempting ps pump bracket modification again. 

Not immediately, though, as tasks are queued according to what's necessary to achieve and maintain first start.  After the distributor, it's tying up some loose ends with various systems and determining what belt is needed on the alternator side of things, since I don't have an AC compressor to allow me to use the original belt routing.

That's been the biggest reason for the space between updates, actually; I've been swarmed by lots of little things that aren't too remarkable on their own. 

Final Treatise on the Pumps of Big Burrito, Part the First

Having spent weeks combing through fields files with the bodies of wrecked land ships,  questing in search of tomes that exist mainly in whispers, legends, and rumors, and solving the mystic riddles and enchantments of protection lain on dark grimiores, I have returned from the land of pain and darkness to rejoin the land of the living and share what lies behind the veil of death.

Today I will be talking about power steering pumps.  A lot.  Grab a dose of your stimulant of choice and tuck in -- this will require some attention.

To recap: the AMC 258 was configured with a v-belt drive for a significant portion of its run, and the 242 was serpentine (unless there's an oddball configuration I'm unaware of that was v-belt).  Using the head from a 242 on a serp 258 requires either fabricating accessory mounting brackets, changing your belt drive type (including using a reverse-rotation water pump), or using a power steering pump compatible with the 242 mounting design and changing its pulley.  I'm covering the latter.

PUMP UP THE JAMS

For this subject, there's three types of steering pump to be aware of:

1. The Saginaw P Series pump. Ubiquitous for around 40 years, looks like a canned ham, and is what the Gremlin and probably any other power steering-equipped AMC came with.  Generally 3/4" input shaft.
2. The Saginaw TC style pump.  One of two base designs that are broadly referred to as "Type II", about the size of a baseball, found in XJs, ZJs, Ray Jays, and a ton of different year models of various foreign and domestic makes from the 80's and counting.  When doing a 4.0 head swap, this would be the style most-easily used.  Might as well get it with the head you pull from the yard and save time and a trip, because new units are priced well above what I think would be worth paying.  Generally 0.663" input shaft.
3. The CB style pump (or red herring).  Very similar to the TC, also referred to as a "Type II", can be used for some internal parts if needed, though largely useless for this use-case.  About as common as the TC pump, though variants of this design seem to be more wisely-used than the TC by foreign makes.  Usually ~0.705" input shaft, though this style seems to have the greatest variation in potential shaft diameter configurations.

Keep in mind that these are three very broad styles.  There's an incredible number of variants and derivates out there.  In the case of TC/CB pumps, the deeper you go, the more the lines can blur between assumed defining traits.  That's one big reason to stick with one from a Jeep, since it will save you a lot of headaches with fitment.  Don't worry, though; there's still plenty of hassle to deal with in getting the pump to actually operate appropriately with your original 800 series steering gear box, which I'll cover later.

PULLIN AROUND

I'll get this out the way: there are no OE pulleys on any make/model that will provide a v groove, and correct offset and bore diameter, at least none I've found over literal hours and hours of research.  Do yourself a favor and don't bother trying to find one.

The lack of junkyard or parts store options that meet the criteria I mentioned makes sourcing a nearby replacement nearly impossible.  This was a serious problem to me, but if you have more money than sense and don't care about getting parts shipped to you whenever you need them, good news: I've covered everything you need to know, so feel free to leave early or work on other assignments while the rest of us continue.

As explained, a Grand Cherokee is equipped with a TC pump, which has a shaft size of 0.663" and a serpentine belt pulley.  Pulleys of any drive type and that fit this pump have a bore of 0.662", making for one tough interference fit.  While some WJs provide a higher operating pressure than the other Jeep year models, the external features just described should be the same for XJs that are equipped with a type II (read, non-canned ham, Saginaw P series) pump.  All the same, I'm not a Jeep expert, so make sure you're up to speed on the differences between a TC and a CB pump if you start combing through XJs, just in case. 

Even though there are no press-on v-belt pulleys to be found at the yard or O'Partsy's that will fit our pumps, there may still be hope in the form of pumps that are fit with press-on hubs and bolt-on pulleys!

THEREIN LIES THE HUB

 I've found that there are a ton of Volkswagen year models from the past few decades that use a pressed hub which will provide mounting options for a myriad of v-belt pulleys of various diameters, almost all of which are about 15 bucks or less new.  If you want to stay with a domestic-themed brand, Ford Rangeplorers used a similar design, starting in the mid-to-late '90s.

Be aware that things get a little tricky with the VW pumps: I found that several of the Type II pumps used by VW (mostly CB) have a shaft size of 0.667", or just large enough to be useless on a Jeep steering pump.  If you're heading into German territory, as always, bring your calipers to the yard!

That brings me to the perils of Fording this river.  The Ford hubs *appear* to match the desired bore to mount to the 0.663" shaft, and also seem to match the bolt spacing used with the VW hubs.  Unfortunately,  I didn't discover this until after my last yard run, so didn't get a chance to measure.  Based on pictures comparing the Ford and Grand Cherokee pumps, these features should match.  Leaving a comment with details that settle these questions will be worth 10 extra credit points. 

Since there's no shortage of those Fords in the yards, and how much more easily accessible the pumps are in the Ford bays vs. the VWs, I suggest making them your first pick if you're doing the yard crawl.

CONCLUSION

I'm far from proud to admit that I had to grab an aftermarket pulley, though not because I preferred it over using a hub.  I'm so far out of time that I couldn't afford to keep chasing the yard option, while Eagle isn't up to making the drive for the distances going to the yard demands, and I've decided that I'm not giving my money to a company that treats their customers like Pick N Pull has repeatedly treated me and my friends.  If a replacement pulley is needed in the future, I'm definitely pursuing the hub option over trying to get another aftermarket part.

If you find that you end up having to go the aftermarket route, the cheapest option I found for a proper v-belt pulley is made by Sweet Manufacturing, P/N 301-30020.  At present, they can be found for roughly $35+shipping, which is a bit easier to swallow than what people charge for other parts that don't even have a collar to fit a puller onto.

So there you go! The info in this post should be all you need to mount a late-model power steering pump to a 4.0L head and tie a rubber band around it's wheel.  The upcoming second part of this. . . article(?) will cover how to make it feed the pressure your steering gear was designed to receive.  I think.

The Hydronaut's Descent Into Confusion

Seeing as it's now fall, it's only appropriate that the lights upstairs don't stay lit for as long or shine as brightly as they are during the parts of the year up here that aren't crushingly miserable.  Today I'll be going into detail about an idea that was birthed in late spring, and had a spastic fit of stupidity during the last two days.

If you've read this log for a while, you might remember the bit about trying to get the Saginaw ps pump to fit with the late model 4.0L intake and exhaust, my giving up on that, deciding to go with a Type II pump, then finding a problem with finding a v-belt pulley to fit a Type II.  If not, I hope that was all the exposition you need to be caught up.

Earlier this year, I discovered factory configurations that used a v-belt pulley, though only discovered the pump had a different shaft diameter, and thus pulley bore, after going to the yard, getting said pulley, and failing to fit it to my Grand Latte pump.  I'll spare you a lot of absurd back-and-forth and just get to the details in a sec.  Just let it be known that the info I'm covering was hard won through 4 different trips to the yard, at least 15hrs of online research spent picking out any real information about these pumps I could piece together, and at least 3 parts searches for what would ultimately turn out as false-positives for pulleys that would fit the Jeep pump.


The Type II pump comes in two flavors.  One is what you encounter all the time when you're pinching parts from newer Jeeps.  It usually (but not always) has a composite reservoir that's integrated to form an assembly with the pump body, and can be kind of a pain in the ass to check and fill if you're not used to the classic ham can saggy pump.  The shaft of this group of T2 pump measures out at 0.662", though like it's sibling type, is speced in some weird-ass base-10 system of measurement used by people who think they're smart until they have to eyeball the thread pitch of a small fastener.

The flavor many crave, particularly for racing applications, is normally hunted for in the carcasses of expired Corvettes, but can also be found in Neons made between '98 and '00.  I'm not certain that they're 1:1, but they are the same general variant of Type II pump.  More often than not, these pumps have an external reservoir, which will aide in keeping your steering sauce cooler, while also providing several more points of potential flame hazard leaks.  The snout on this pig measures at 0.709", at least by my micrometer reading of the one I've got.  You can ask the internet about it's metric measurement.

Like some of the internal components of these types, the pulleys are not interchangable.  Not all is lost, though!  Luckily, the fatty wagon's ps pump shaft is a smaller diameter than what comes in the Neon.  That gives us the obvious option of turning out a sleeve to adapt the larger bore pulley, though there also seems to be another, more labor-intensive option that I'll cover in a sec.

Sleeving the Neon pulley is what I've determined to be the best option for giving a fatty wagon pump the v.  The reasons for this are:

• Cost.  You can find aftermarket v pulleys for the GC pump online.  I just want to make that clear.  These exist, and carry at least one of the words "performance", "team", "track", "speed", and/or a synonym of any of these in the company and/or product name.  Don't be surprised that they're priced accordingly.  I may be dumb, but I ain't dumb enough to pay $80-$200+ for a goddamn pulley.
• Availability.  The aftermarket parts are guaranteed to be in stock -- for the website you're buying it from.  You may be able to see the website on your phone, but trust me when I say that the part is actually physically located very far away from wherever you are when you need a ps pulley.
• Serviceability.  The sleeve can be reused.  Even if it gets damaged during extraction, it can be turned by hand with a file and a power drill, then pressed in with a bottle jack no matter where you are.  Time, metal scrap, and red loctite are all you need.  The pulley is the easiest part, since there's no apparent shortage of dead Neons.

I may post an update showing pictures of the sleeve process in the future, but you can probably figure out if you need to.

The pain in the ass option I mentioned before is more of a mental exercise than a practical course of action.  It definitely falls waaaay short of the level of serviceability the sleeve option provides, but check this out:

Left: grande pulley - Right: Neon pulley

So the left pulley is a composite, with a space plastic body and a boring, Earth metal center.  The right is 100% Earth metal, but is still two parts: the center and the rest.  From the looks of things, it would be possible to turn out the center portion of the left pulley on a lathe, cut the weld out and press the center from the right pulley (or turn it out), swap the left center to the right body, then weld it up.

To hell with that.