[TonkaToy]

Well, it has been a long time coming!

For those of you that know my best friend/room mate Smitty, his Jeep TJ has been a yard decoration for the past two years. He bought a 93 Chevy Diesel for a DD a couple of years ago and since then the Heep has been neglected due to it's need for tires, a windshield, and state inspection to start with. The reason he stopped driving it was it is running on 3 of 4 cylenders.

So last weekend Smitty drove up to Pittsburg for the NRA national convension and noticed on the drive up that the Chevy wasn't shifting right. Saturday it stopped shifting into 3rd gear and he dropped it off at a tranny shop. Long story short the truck was sold for scrap today. :roll:

So tomorrow the thrashing begins!! Smitty is cleaning it out (it has become a storage unit), and getting a windshield put in. Friday new tires are going on and having it inspected... It is going to fail but, we want to see what we HAVE to fix first before we just start fixing everything. :lol:

All this to say that hopefully Smitty will be wheeling with us again soon! I told him I was going to find him a first gen Trooper so that he had something reliable to drive. :lol:

 

[RamAirZ]

Damn that sucks about the Chevy, I would have bought the damn thing. Cool to see his Heep getting put back together though

 

[squatch]

Damn that sucks about the Chevy, I would have bought the damn thing. Cool to see his Heep getting put back together though

Dang straight! Put a NVG4500 behind that 6.5. Get the engine module off the engine away from the heat and wheel that bad boy.

Glad to hear the mythical Heep is in the works. But it's still a unicorn till we actually see it at GWNF!

 

[RamAirZ]

Damn that sucks about the Chevy, I would have bought the damn thing. Cool to see his Heep getting put back together though

Dang straight! Put a NVG4500 behind that 6.5. Get the engine module off the engine away from the heat and wheel that bad boy.

Exactly! Or at least I would have swapped that motor in something lol.

 

[TonkaToy]

The truck wasn't all that boys. To start with it was a 2wd. Secondly it had the 6.2 non-turbo motor, not the 6.5 turbo. If it had I would have picked it up myself.

He does plan to join us at GWNF so there will be witnesses to the reserection.

 

[TonkaToy]

Well, on day one progress was slow.

Smitty left under the heeps own power for the first time in what seems like ages to go have a windshield put in it. Five minutes later he returned complaining that something was burning. I suspected a brake was dragging, stuck from sitting so long. He set to jacking up the truck and removing the wheels and proceeded to snap off a stud from every corner. :shock: I wasn't home yet to help but, by phone talked him through checking different things. We deducted that the drivers side front brake was dragging once he finailly got the calliper off, found that one of the pads (which had plenty of life left in them) had cracked in half. Now he had to wait for me to get home.

I got home about two hrs later and we went for new pads and rotors. I had asked him if the caliper released and he said that it fought him at first but did let go so we were good there or so I thought. Grabbed some dinner and cold beverages then went home. Let the night time thrashing begin!! Maybe it was the beer but, I rather enjoyed myself out in the dirt working by portable work lights. It reminded me of high school... Anyway, we cleaned up everything and greased all the fittings while it was easy to get to. Put the passenger side together with no trouble. Then to the driver side where when I told Smitty to compress the calliper to put the new pads in he anounced that it wouldn't budge. :roll: Sure enough, it was seized. :x When I asked him about it he said at first he couldn't get it off when disassembling it, but then it let go so he figured it was fine. Wrong!! Since it was 10pm and all the local parts stores had JUST closed we cleaned up and sat around looking at it and drinking for a while.

Slow progress but, we are on our way!

 

[TonkaToy]

Update:

This morning we changed the caliper and bleed the brakes. Seems like we have the brake problem fixed. Just to be thorough Smitty is going to pick up a new caliper for the passenger side also.

Tuesday he is getting a windshield put in and the inspection done. Should be good to go after that we hope.

 

[TonkaToy]

Well, it took a week longer than we had thought it would but, it is done and on the road!!

We ended up replacing all the front brake pads, rotors, and calipers.
Did a tune-up, and oil change.
Had a windshield put in.
Replaced the trashed stereo with a new Kenwood unit, and replaced the speakers.
Got the used Mud tires I found on Craigslist mounted and balenced.
Replaced all the lights and wipers.
Replaced the mirrors with new ones that actually stay in place when you shut the door!
Replaced the missing swaybar bolt and greased everyjoint front to back.
Lastly, we got it inspected and it passed just fine.

Smitty is now legal to drive it around town and is ready to hit the trails too.

Not to shabby... For a Heep. :lol: