Yes - contrary to what the activity on this blog would have you thinking, I’m still here. 2008 has been a crazy year work-wise, with writing a book, launching a new site/business to sell the book, and starting a new part-time job with EllisLab - a software company out of Bend, Oregon.
All within like - 6 weeks.
Needless to say - it’s been many hours at the screens and not out in the garage - but I did jump back into things this week.
The water tank project is at a point where I need to paint - and Michigan refuses to release it’s grip on winter. So while I’m waiting for the weather to turn a bit I decided to start on the brakes. The last few times we were driving SSDutch, the brakes kept slowly locking up—like they were releasing pressure back to the master cylinder once you let your foot off the pedal. Since it’s happening on all four wheels and I still have the original single-circuit system I’m figuring it’s the master cylinder.
But this potentially opens a whole new can of worms since on my previous CJ5 I had power brake setup from an 80’s era Jeep and I have that whole setup sitting here on the shelf yet. However I’m still not sure that setup will graft into SSDutch nicely as the Saginaw steering conversion means the steering shaft exits the firewall right about where the new master cylinder would need to mount. And - I’m not sold on needing the power brakes. The original master cylinder and 11” drums do a great job of stopping the Jeep. I might ditch the power in the name of simplicity. But I’m in a hurry to actually drive this thing again so am just going to replace the original master cylinder to get us back on the road.
However I did allow for a bit of scope creep. Old Jeeps with the through-the-floor pedal setups often have pedals with lots of side to side slop in them. The pedals run off a shaft that runs through a pivot tube mounted to the bottom of the frame right under your feet on the drivers side. Over the years this tube wears out and the whole setup gets play.
The trouble is that tube is riveted in place - and I’m not even sure it’s a replaceable part. Military Jeeps, on the other hand, have a pivot tube that’s both beefier and a bolt-on piece - so the solution on the civilian Jeeps is to cut off the original pivot tube and replace it with the military version.
So I’ve started down that path - I’ve got the master cylinder and all the pedals removed and have cut off the original pivot tube. A fellow Jeeper provided the military version of the pivot tube (thanks Steve!) so this shouldn’t be a huge deal.
Of course all those pedals and linkages need to be blasted and painted…so once again I’ll bump into the need to paint….
Comments are closed, but you can read the comments other people left.
jared on April 03, 2008
Andy on April 05, 2008