Progress at BMF on Greg's Jeep

[Fredo]

Night 1 of working on it has come to a close. Got the holley crap off there and out of the jeep and started pruning the GM harness of unnecessary wires. Ended the night with a test setting of the TPI on top of the motor. Even Flem came out to help for a couple hours tonight. Was a good motivator to have another person there. I probably would have quit around midnight to get some sleep for work tomorrow, but for some reason we both wanted to see that projection gone, so we kept working.

[Fredo]

harness

[Fredo]

much much better

[Fredo]

holley what?

[stinger7401]

oooooooo, looks sweet, next time i get my hands on that thing i think i might have to take a buffer wheel and some compound to that intake, make it all nice and chiney, i spent a couple of weeks once at a job doin that very thing, i guess you could call me an expert buffer:flipoff2:

[redcagepatrol]

Originally posted by stinger7401
oooooooo, looks sweet, next time i get my hands on that thing i think i might have to take a buffer wheel and some compound to that intake, make it all nice and chiney, i spent a couple of weeks once at a job doin that very thing, i guess you could call me an expert buffer:flipoff2:

Lance gave you the fun jobs ehh??

[Fredo]

Originally posted by stinger7401
oooooooo, looks sweet, next time i get my hands on that thing i think i might have to take a buffer wheel and some compound to that intake, make it all nice and chiney, i spent a couple of weeks once at a job doin that very thing, i guess you could call me an expert buffer:flipoff2:

As nasty dirty as that thing was before I started, buffing it seems like a serious waste of time. :D

[stinger7401]

Originally posted by Fredo
As nasty dirty as that thing was before I started, buffing it seems like a serious waste of time. :D

I think that was becuase of the mix of hyrdrolic fluid, carbon from flames, clay dust and oh yeh fire extinguisher powder, ohhhh boy good times, good times:D

[Fredo]

yeah, between the carbon and the fire extinguisher residue, it's pretty damn nasty.

[Fredo]

NIGHT 2

Troy came out to help and we started by disassembling the TPI intake to clean it up and replace all the gaskets. While he started doing this, I redid the rear of the fuel system, changed over to the higher pressure pump, and replaced the low pressure rubber lines with lines rated for high pressure. We discovered we were short a couple of bolts for the runners and the fuel rails, and we also needed the injector o-rings. So, a trip to Orielly's and Lowes for Allen bolts got us back on track. After we returned, we continued to clean and clean the old gaskets off the intake. Flem once again returned around 11pm and sat down and helped prune more of the harness. Did a little cleaning on the motor and changed the spark plugs. Nothing huge got done, but still progress none the less.

[Fredo]

some parts cleaned up, some not

[Fredo]

Flem holding up the harness, which still needs a lot of trimming and fitting which I will hopefully get to tomorrow night.

[Fredo]

here's the still growing pile of wiring that we have already trimmed from the harness

[mark]

Flem's looking sexy as ever!

-Mark

[BMFScout]

so i click on this thread because i saw that mark had posted, and I wanted to see what he had to say about the fi swap, because "Surely it will be intelligent and have some merit to this thread..."

In Flem's defense the hat and shirt were free...

I can't wait to drink some beer with shipman tomorrow night, OLD SKOOL REPRESENT!!

Looks good Fredo, I'll be in Friday night to tell you what you did wrong and/or drink beer:flipoff2: (mostly or)

[Fredo]

NIGHT 3

Well, night three didn't turn out to be the badass night of progress I was hoping for due to the one man crew tonight, but I did get some stuff done. I got the rest of the parts for the intake clean, including the injectors which were not fun to get carbon off of. I got all the o-rings replaced, and reassembled the lower intake. I sat the intake back on the motor and that's when I remembered there's a slight hitch to putting TPI on an older style head. The center two bolts on each side of the intake are on a slightly different angle than those of the heads, so I spent a little while with the die grinder fixing that. It sounds bad, but it's the way all the camaro guys fix it when they put a big pair of heads from an older chevy on them. After that, I decided to call it a night. These nights of working until after 2am and going to bed around 3 are starting to take their toll on me at work. Tomorrow will be a thermos full of coffee morning for me. Anyway, here are a few pics of the stuff clean.

[Fredo]

oohh

[Fredo]

aahhh

[Fredo]

ooooooo

[BMFScout]

did any of those parts become acquainted with the 5 gallon bucket o' berryman's?

[Graystroke]

You missed a spot!:flipoff2:

[Fredo]

Gee, thanks Grayson. :flipoff2: My arse is dragging today at work. It's going to be a long day.

[Graystroke]

Get up run a lap around the outside of building and splash cold water in your face.

[uglyota]

Cold water's for poosies.
Try crank!
You'll be alert all day, and when 5 o'clock rolls around, you'll have enough left to finish the TPI, rebuild the motor and run a marathon!
:D

[Doug Krebs]

Originally posted by uglyota
Cold water's for poosies.
Try crank!
You'll be alert all day, and when 5 o'clock rolls around, you'll have enough left to finish the TPI, rebuild the motor and run a marathon!
:D

From when we were walking to bourbon street last year during marti gras "I got some motha ****ing crank in my sock"

I think one of the other guys was asking for a blunt and the guy responded with that.

Jerry or mike can correct me.

And yes it was funnier if you were there:flipoff2:

[Fredo]

NIGHT 4

Once again, Troy got to the house before I even got home from work. We went and got some dinner then got started for the night. I spent some time finishing up the lower intake mod I thought I had finished the night before. We got the motor cleaned up and got the Lower intake bolted down. About this time, Flem arrived to help. He sat down with the harness again and let Troy and I get to finishing up some odds and ends with the lower intake, runners, and EGR valve so we could get to laying out the harness for length adjustments. As we worked on that, we discussed things such as the air duct work for the filter and MAF and talked about what other parts we needed to finish the setup. Part of the discussion was how we would get around such things as the poorly ran power steering line that we are going to redo (thanks Avalanche). It's the little stuff that seems to be killing the majority of our time. It seems like this stuff wouldn't be too bad to take care of until you think we are trying to get this stuff as fast as possible from local sources. We will see how tomorrow and saturday progress. Here's a couple pics from tonight.

[Fredo]

and some wiring....we chopped a little over 5 feet out of the wiring for the injectors and it looks like we're going to get to shorten it some more. That camaro harness is frickin' long.

[Fredo]

NIGHT 5

Got home from work and got some food, then went to get to work on the Jeep. Flem showed up a little later and Jimmy arrived from College Station shortly there after. My buddy Sam, who has been hanging out all week once again showed up to watch tv, shoot the breeze and play Sega Genesis while we worked. Tonight consisted of harness work mainly. We got a lot done and it's looking like tomorrow after I get home from work we will hopefully be able to put power to the system and pull codes. We finished the night with the organization of items we still need for the project. Here are a few pics from tonight.

Here's my Buddy Sam playing Sega while we worked.

[Fredo]

Once again, we used our manuals for reference....one camaro manual and one flem made "frool injection" manual.

[Fredo]

Here's Flem laying out the main power wires for the system, fuel, and fan relays.

[Fredo]

Jimmy just couldn't figure out why he couldn't pull codes from it with an LS1 programmer. This was funny to me, but I'm not sure if it was actually funny, or the fact that I haven't gotten much sleep this week made it funny. Either way, here it is.

[Fredo]

This was the stopping point for the night. It doesn't look like we did much, but there's a lot of work in that harness. It may look like a rats nest now, but it will look good when done.

[robertf03]

There was a lot accomplished tonight, but Fred's laptop took a dump so no pictures. Harness is all but loomed, air filter setup is almost done, and the ECM is giving us feedback.

[Fredo]

The laptop died, but some miracle I got my normal PC working again so I can post the writeup from tonight.

NIGHT 6

Got home from work this afternoon about the time Jimmy and Troy returned from a Junkyard trip for some wiring stuff and fuel line fittings we needed. They said I didn't look that good, so they advised me I should to go take a nap. So I did, and later in the night Flem showed up and we got to work. We got the harness ready to run the diagnostics test on, but the laptop wouldn't cooperate, so we had to settle for testing it tomorrow hopefully. Got started on the air intake and I think that's going to turn out pretty good thanks to some Parts scrounging on Troy's part at a Diesel Truck shop. If all goes well tomorrow, the fuel lines and some cleanup work and looming will be about the finishing touches on the setup. Anyway, I'm beat down, time for sleepy.

More harness:

[Fredo]

Flem and I discussing MAF sensor location

[Fredo]

the beginings of the Air intake...

[Fredo]

NIGHT 7

Didn't really do much tonight because it was Easter and I slept from 4am last night, got up for church, then went back to sleep until about 6pm. Flem came out and brought a laptop that worked with him. We plugged into the harness and it seems to check out fine. Got most of the air intake finished as well. The rubber elbow is a 3.5" opening, and the MAF for a TPI motor is 3", so I had to build a reducer into the mandrel bent piece of 3.5". I think it tunred out pretty good. Here are a few pics.

[Fredo]

another

[Fredo]

mocked up ready to start building the mounts for it.

[Fredo]

NIGHT 8

As I expected, Troy beat me to the house before I could get home from work once again. He showed up with our Fuel lines we had made a local shop. Mr. Johnny on the spot with parts as usual. Between the fuel lines and the K&N he found for the air cleaner, we were starting to look pretty good on parts. Tonight was a night of finishing a lot of little loose ends. We got the rest of the intake manifold bolted and torqued down for good, got the fuel system finished and pressure checked, o2 sensor bung welded in the downpipe, cooling system knocked out, and we got the harness taped and loomed for the most part. About 3am, Flem and I were discussing making a push for a test fire, but logic prevailed and we decided to call it a night and go for ignition tomorrow afternoon. Here's a few pics.

Troy welding the bung in and Flem making sure the harness length looked right.

[Fredo]

top end buttoned up and air cleaner done except for support mount.

[Fredo]

fuel lines complete minus standoffs for running over the valve cover, and cooling system complete....

[redcagepatrol]

Still left to get done before friday (I am guessing):
steering,
correct spring rates,
take out extra battery (changed hood, why not lose another 50lbs),
get spare axleshafts,
test drive,
make sure Troy figures out the automatic...
get spotter strap together,
fire estinguisher, first aide etc...

Did I miss anything?

[spool]

You left out the brakes.:flipoff2:

[Fredo]

I guess that's as close as Scott gets to a compliment. :rolleyes:

[redcagepatrol]

Originally posted by Fredo
I guess that's as close as Scott gets to a compliment. :rolleyes:

Actually, that thing looks sweet! I had no idea how much work was involved to do the swap, ya'll are working your azz's off. Cool intake creation, nice and neat wiring, nice relay location etc... It all looks really good.

I did the same thing with the Patrol. It took a week to wire that thing - cutting out all the light wires, cruise control wires, brake switch wires, heater, AC, etc... It's a huge pain to get it looking nice. We taped all of the wire groups with up-side down electrical tape, then back over the right way to keep sticky stuff off the wires, tucked them all neatly out of the way with zip ties and stuff... Hell, we even soldered and shrink wrapped all the connections, even shrink wrapped bullet connectors to keep the water out:D

[Fredo]

Hey man, thanks for the compliment. Sorry about being a dick, but my temper is getting extremely short getting up at 8 and working until 3am and getting to bed at almost 4am. Can't wait to finish this mother f*cker. Zzzzzzzz

[Doug Krebs]

I think it is definately sweet. I love the look of the runner's on those. How much can you pick those up for?

[Graystroke]

Take better pics! I'm tired of turning my laptop on it's side to get the gist of things!:flipoff2:

Looks good! What's the shop rate at BMF?
Is Flem ASE Certified? I heard he likes peanut galleries.:D

[BMFScout]

Originally posted by Graystroke


Looks good! What's the shop rate at BMF?


If you have to ask...:flipoff2:

You probably can't afford that much beer...

[davido]

Oo Oo, I'm next. :D



Great jobs guys. That's really sweet looking.

[Fredo]

NIGHT whatever the hell we are at now:

Troy and a guy that lives down the street from him, Jeff, started working on the cutting brakes and hydroboost tonight while Flem and I worked on the motor.

We got the distributor stabbed, plug wires installed and loomed, air intake finished and ready for paint, smog pump removed and alternator relocated, lokar throttle and downshift detent cables trimmed to length and installed, got the jeep's main harness cleaned up a bit, and got the engine harness set in place. Went for a test fire and had fuel pressure and spark, but the injectors wouldn't squirt. After a little wire chasing and finding a bum relay connector, we tried again with no luck. It was 3am, so we decided to knock off for the night. We have a couple of things to check tomorrow, and hopefully it will be something simple we were overlooking tonight due to sleep deprevation. I didn't get any pictures from tonight, but I'll get some for tomorrow or later today, whatever way you decide to look at it.

[BMFScout]

just talked to fred, the jeep is running, they are looming the harness and tying up loose ends. Schubring is in the house, I guess they leave tomorrow. Nothing like cutting it close, good work fred, you can sleep next week right? :D I am sure Fredo will update the thread later this morning, I am betting he is ready for the jeep to be out of the shop...

[stinger7401]

man thats badass, props to the whole brune klan, troy and flem for gettin the shiznit done, wish i could have been there to lend a hand, good luck boys

[Fredo]

NIGHT 12

It lives, it drives, it sounds pretty good considering Troy welded in the o2 sensor bung:flipoff2: I'd do a writeup but it's 5am, we loaded the jeep on the trailer about 15 minutes ago and I have to get up for work at 8.

Here's when the night changed for the better and it fired up and ran good, so flem started yanking the harness for final loom.

[Fredo]

There were a few things we decided to shorten up a bit more in the harness, so here's that going on. Even Scott got in on the soldering action.

[Fredo]

Believe it or not, the motor was actually running in this shot even though the fan doesn't look like it's moving. The extra black pile of wires is the timing light.

[Fredo]

here it is getting loaded on the trailer. Good luck Troy and Scott and I hope you don't have to call me saturday b*tching about something going wrong :crossfingers:

[spool]

I would like to give a big thanks to Fred and Flem for the work they have done in such a short time. Fred you can get some sleep tonight now and not worry. Thanks again

[Chadnutz]

good job fred and flem

[Fredo]

Man, I'm f'n dying at work today. Something about going to bed near 5am. I made a thermos of coffee this morning and I wish I had more already.

[BMFScout]

This reminds me of the RJ wrenchfest before spring break that one year. The test drive onto the trailer. I hope your actual run works out better than RJ's spring break did.:flipoff2: Give em hell this weekend guys, Find out if that hoe will run upside down, My money is on yes...

[AgDieseler]

You guys did some great work. Good luck in Disney. :cheers:

[Fredo]

UPDATE FROM DISNEY

I got off work and got to Disney friday night with Ryan and my Buddy Casey from work. We towed his TJ with 60s front and rear up here. Met up with Troy and Scott this morning and watched them compete. They ended up breaking the front driveshaft on a bonus gate and bashing the dust cover for the torque converter and flywheel, but a quick fix with a welder from a 'Mog guy at the comp got them back to compete. They ended up second in their class for the day. Motor is running good and we are sitting in a bar right now in Langley drinking the **** out of some beer. We'll see how tomorrow treats us. The gap between first and second in their class is pretty big, but we'll see how tomorrow goes. I'll update you guys tomorrow night.