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Jeff Balazs

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Everything posted by Jeff Balazs

  1. Paul; That plug wire thing will do it to you every time! Sound like you got it all set. That's really great. I would bet you are one happy guy now. Jeff
  2. Barry; Thank you that is great. 51 & 52 should be the same.....even better yours is a 3/4 ton too. Jeff
  3. Hi Dave; Yes ..... and my frame has a few bends in it that don't belong there as well. We are getting it though. It is a lot better than it was and we still need to do a couple more sessions on it. My truck took a really big hit on the drivers side just aft of the bellhousing / motor mount assembly. Right now we are concentrating on the area just behind the steering box as there is some twist and deflection that doesn't belong there. The motor mounts were bent and we have fixed them. I could reassemble it and take a measurement for the inside to inside frame dimension but I don't feel that I could be certain that it will be absolutely correct. I would really like to have a reference dimension at this location from someone who has a straight frame. The entire tail end which should be parallel and square is skewed to the drivers side. We will have to cut the welds on top of the rear cross members and torque the rear around to correct this. Once everything has been trued up and straightened Jon will reinforce it properly and then put the Grand Cherokee axle in. Jeff
  4. Scruffy; Yes that is what I thought. My Grand Cherokee replacement axle will be here tomorrow. Should be pretty straightforward. I called AAJ Brakes today and they are going to send me info on their front disc set up that supposedly will take 5-5" bolt pattern rotors. The owner told me he also does 8 bolt rotor kits for the larger trucks. This will be very cool if it all pans out. Jeff
  5. Hi Guy's We are working on repairing my bent 52 B-3-C frame and need a reference measurement that does not seem to appear on any drawings. What we are after is an outside of frame to outside of frame dimension at the centerline of the rear engine mounts. If anyone is in a position to check this dimension for us it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much. Jeff
  6. Merle I can see you had mixed emotions about inviting me...... I don't know about this honorary Tim stuff.....wouldn't you rather be the One and Only? Jeff
  7. Merle; Ah geez.....you are Tops in my book. I just wish you were 40 minutes away instead of 40 hours. Jeff
  8. Hi Paul; Could be it is running rich? That would explain the backfiring and "dirty" looking oil. Have you pulled the plugs and looked at them? They will tell you a quite a lot. You will want to look at all of them to get a good picture of how your engine is really running. Sooty black is too rich...Tan / med Brown is good...White with blisters or metal deposits is too lean.... and any time one plug is radically different than the rest you know you have a problem with that specific cylinder. Hope this helps, Jeff
  9. Update: We went ahead and bought a 2002 Grand Cherokee 3.55 Dana 35 rear axle with 5 x5' disc's. It should be here by the end of the week. I will let you know how all this goes. Getting excited now..... My buddy Jon has been looking at the front brake situation and thinks it should be fairly easy to fabricate brackets to mount 5 x 5" disc's up front. That would be very cool. Jeff
  10. Scruffy; I did look at those but it seemed like they were too wide. Maybe I am wrong? Also if I am not mistaken this would require the drive shaft to be modified...again I could be wrong? Jeff
  11. Hi Dave; Thanks that is what I thought. Btw......I am more than half way through taking it all down to bare metal. The good news is the cab is in very good shape. The rear fenders ....one of the fronts and one of the doors are not as nice as I originally thought. No holes....not much rust.... but a fair amount of bondo was lurking under the primer. I guess I am going to get a chance to develop my hammer and dolly skills. Oh Boy! Fortunately I don't really want it to look new so some of the dents may just stay as a nod to it's past life. Jeff
  12. Merle; Oh yes we have hills here and not too far off ... mountains. I doubt I will be pulling any big hills with a load in it. But there are some grades on our highways and freeways that need to be taken into consideration. The Sepulveda pass and the Camarillo grade on the 101 north out of the LA basin comes to mind as a couple that I would definitely be using from time to time. Of course good brakes are important on both of these. I would ask Hank if he has been on either of these with his truck....but I bet I already know the answer. If I end up going with a Grand Cherokee rear axle and do a front disc conversion then I was figuring on using a master cylinder out of one of these as well. Does that sound right? I want to get all of this taken care off while I have the cab off. It will be much easier to run all the lines then. I am not planning on any other significant mods to the truck but I really want to get these right. Thanks again, Jeff
  13. Keven; That is the one Merle mentioned. And it may certainly be the best choice. There is a 3.07 ratio model......then it looks like it jumps to 3.55. I do know the 3.55 would be an improvement over my 4.10 but is it optimum? What I am really uncertain of is if the 3.07 would be a better selection? or would it be too tall a ratio for the truck? Jeff
  14. Keven; Yes....sort of.....according to this it tells me that the Chrysler 8 1/4" axle was not offered with a 5 x 5 wheel pattern. Too bad as they appear to be fairly affordable. Jeff
  15. Thanks Keven for your input. I am just guessing here but I would think 3.23 is probably going to be as close to optimum as I could hope for. I would not mind rear drums....just want 5 x 5 pattern so I don't have to use wheel adapters. I am going to contact AAJ Brakes and see if they do a front disc conversion that takes 5 x 5 pattern rotors. It is worth a try. I have been trying to find a website with comprehensive axle spec's like hub to hub width, wheel patterns, ratios etc.....but so far I am just finding bit's and pieces of the picture. It is really hard to know what to look for when you don't have a clear idea of what is out there. And I suppose it doesn't help that I have never really done this before. Fortunately I have a great fabricator....I just need to find him the right component. Jeff
  16. Hi Guys; I am trying to determine what the optimum rear axle swap would be for my truck. I have a 52 3/4 ton with 5-5" wheels (which I want to retain) and a 230 fluid drive with a 4 speed synchromesh transmission. Merle has suggested that a 2000 Grand Cherokee rear axle might make a good candidate as it would have disc brakes with a 5-5" wheel pattern. It appears that these are commonly available with 3.55 or 3.73 ratios. My thinking is that perhaps a slightly higher ratio like 3.23 or even 3.07 could be a better solution for today's roads. I have been surfing the web for more info on axle swaps but I just have not found the right info to help me make this decision. Your feedback and input would be appreciated. Thanks, Jeff
  17. I am sure I saw some photos of a 230 engine somewhere with the same sort of oil pan as in the exploded view. Perhaps it had a similar arrangement? Jeff
  18. Tod; Thank you....that is really good to know. It did seem a bit fussy. Will make much smaller adjustments from here on. Don; That looks like a little bit later version of the one I had. As a teenager it was great fun. Especially when a cute gal in a miniskirt happened to be in the crosswalk. Jeff
  19. Merle; Yes that seems right. I just got a buzz out of it..fourth time apart:o..must of been grit somewhere? I will play around with the adjustments now that it buzzes. Years ago I had a Model A that had been street rodded in the late 50's. It had a JC Whitney Growling Tiger horn in it. This horn sort of reminds me of that one. If you played around with it you could get it sounding pretty amazing. At least that is what I thought at the time. Not sure the girls it growled at felt the same! Jeff
  20. I have gone through the post's regarding horn repair but still have a problem with mine. It has been cleaned including the points and I made new paper gaskets. I still can't get it to work. Are the points on these supposed to be in the closed position most of the time? The coil energizes but there is no buzzing of any sort. Thanks, Jeff
  21. Hi There; 4.10 by the sounds of it. Jeff
  22. Paul; Yes depending on the tool you are using that can happen. Back in the 80's I ran quite a lot of high pressure stainless tubing for oil field instrumentation. If you do enough of it you can develop an eye for what is going to be good and what is not going to fly. Like any manual skill practice makes perfect....if you don't do it all the time you have to expect the odd flub up. The bottom line is allowing for access issues...you should be able to start the thread by hand fairly easily. Jeff
  23. Paul; In addition to what has already been said here I would like to add one comment. Sometimes the flare can be "oversized" on the exit side and this can prevent the threads from engaging properly. Try making up some short test pieces to prove the connection works. Certain types of fittings are fussier than others when it comes to this. Jeff
  24. Merle; Thank you...again. I will take a look at those rear axles. I need to make a decision on this pretty soon. Jeff
  25. So no front disc conversion with a 5-5" wheel pattern? I was really hoping that this conversion would be straight up. I was planning on doing a Cherokee rear axle swap on my 3/4 ton as well. Now I need to rethink this too. I am really not keen on using wheel adapters front and rear assuming they would actually fit properly. What's a boy to do? Jeff
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