'78 CJ7 with 304 and 3-speed manual. Stock tires, wheels, axles, xfer case. 7-month-old paint job. Recently rebuilt tranny including new clutch and associated parts. Hard top, no soft top. "Everything works." It's 15 minutes away from me. Going to meet the guy tomorrow.... *crossing fingers*
-- Travis
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meek shall inherit the earth. After I'm finished with it.:wq!
Even if they add in real course steel wool or strands or even small pieces of metal into the bondo a cheap fridge magnet won't stick to it, those magnet's can hardly hold to pieces of paper to a fridge let alone sticking to a sliver of metal in a bondo job.
On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 02:07:50 GMT, "Nathan Collier" shared the following:
I made him an offer! I went out to check it out. '78 CJ-7 with 304 and 3-speed. It looked pretty good. Not perfect but I wasn't expecting it to be. Just little things like broken glass on the speedo, a missing knob, some rust on the tailgate that was mostly covered by the spare but the rest of the body was solid except for a tiny crack on the driver's side at the bottom where the door opening is. The floorboards had been patched. Other than that just minor surface rust in a couple of spots and a few tiny dings here and there. The oil looked good, not brand new but not black. It started right up. Two pumps of the gas pedal, turn the key and VROOM! Headers and glasspacks right now. Sounds pretty wicked. Minor header gasket leak on driver's side that's minor enough that I didn't even notice it until I opened the hood. No visible cracks in the frame. I crawled around underneath it and it looked good. No leaks that I could see. Looks like some kind of aftermarket helper-coil-springs are in the back to cure sag or give it a inch or so of lift? He let me test drive it... The one thing that makes me a little nervous is the clutch. He tells me a guy just put in a new clutch (and that the tranny was also just rebuilt by another dude) but that he thinks the clutch is not adjusted right. That's what it felt like to me, too. If you push the clutch about 75% of the way to the floor then the tranny shifts just fine, no grinding, no sticking. Just shifts perfect. If you try to fully depress the clutch pedal then it feels like the clutch cable is too short and that it just runs out of travel and then you start to hear a faint grinding-like sound. I had a VERY similar problem with my old VW where the clutch cable just wasn't adjusted correctly and after adjusting it everything was ok. Does that sound to you guys like what the deal is here probably? Are these clutches easy to adjust? I wonder if there's supposed to be a "clutch stop" behind the clutch pedal and it's missing? Hmm... Anyway, he wants $3,800 for it and I offered $3,200. It's his friend's Jeep so he's gonna call his friend tonight at 6pm and let him know my offer and then call me back to let me know what he says. What do y'all think? I mean about the clutch? It felt nice and smooth like I said as long as I didn't fully depress it, and when I released the clutch it engaged just fine. No slipping or anything like that. Oh yeah, I also tested the 4WD and 4WD low by burning out (with the guy's permission) in his back yard to be sure I could see chunks of lawn fly off of all 4 wheels. Seemed to work great. A little "clunky" like a vague feeling shifting between 4WD high/low and 2WD but I suspect that's probably kinda normal. So what's up? I'm psyched!!! Should I not answer my phone tonight and run away from this one or does it sound like it might be worth the $$$ to y'all? Thanks for your input!
-- Travis
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meek shall inherit the earth. After I'm finished with it.:wq!
of course its impossible to tell you to buy it or not without looking at it, but if you checked it out and its worth that money to you, jeep on brother!
On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 18:53:34 GMT, "Nathan Collier" shared the following:
Hopefully I'll know by 6:30 tonight...
Ha! I'll try to adjust it first if he accepts my offer and if I can't I'll um...try other things. But as a last result I'll fabricate some kind of stop for the clutch pedal until I can get someone who knows more than I do to take a look at it. :-)
-- Travis
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meek shall inherit the earth. After I'm finished with it.:wq!
Is the pedal vibrating? When I split the gearbox from the engine on my
81 CJ, I had problems putting it back together. Things were apparently OK, but I somehow got something misaligned around the clutch thrust bearing. The pedal acted like you're describing, but it was also vibrating slightly. When I took it apart again, it turned out that something had made severe grinding marks on the bearing. I ended up replacing it. Just a thought..
-Kris
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travis wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
The linkage is all rods and levers and springs, there is no cable.
I had a VERY
No clutch stopper behind my clutch pedal. I have an '81, which should be identical to the '78 that you found.
Anyway, he
Real Jeeps do not "burn out". You really need to get that out of your system. Your CJ is a top heavy, narrow and short vehicle. This means it is very unstable. It will not tolerate being driven like a Porsche or a Mustang.
The adjustment method is pretty straight forward, but it really just adjusts where the pedal is when the plates begin to engage. If they engage very close to the top or the bottom, then the adjustment can get it back to the middle. The place where the clutch should begin to engage is about 2 or 3 inches from the floor/firewall.
The pedal on a CJ should have 1/2 to 3/4" inch of free play at the top.
It should be able to be set anywhere from the floor to just up top though. I have mine set a bit higher than I like so my wife who is short can drive it easier so I only have a flicker of free play at the top.
If the pedal travel is stopping/binding before the floor, the linkage is physically running out of movement. This could maybe make bad things happen to a throw out bearing.
I had a throw out bearing that was sticking on the tranny nose cone and had to keep adjusting it until my pedal ran out of travel above the floor. The shift point soon reached this point and that was it, I was done. All the fingers had worn of the centerforce clutch pressureplate from the throw out bearing riding on them.
Adjusted the way you describe would keep the throw out bearing on the pressure plate and it will need a new clutch very soon.
It is only a five minute adjustment. You go where the linkage goes into the bell housing and you will see a 3" or so long hex rod with a lock nut on a threaded rod. Crack loose the lock nut and spin the longer hex rod.
On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 16:41:51 -0400, Mike Romain shared the following:
This sounds very much like the way I had to adjust my VW clutch. I think what I'll do is adjust it waaaay out so that the even when I press the pedal all of the way to the floor I feel basically no resistance and then slowly tighten it back up until I feel resistance at the right points and am able to shift between gears with the pedal fully depressed. There is currently no free play at all at the top. Like as soon as I touch the pedal there is resistance. I really think the adjustment is out-of-whack. I'm glad to hear it's as easy to adjust this as what I'm used to. Thanks for all of the responses!!! :-)
-- Travis
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meek shall inherit the earth. After I'm finished with it.:wq!
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