As promised in an earlier article, albeit a little late, here’s some updated pictures on my progress. The car is for the most part done. There are a few minor tweaks I need to do like fixing the gas gauge and calibrating the speedometer, but I have been driving it. It’s a blast to drive, however with the steep Ford gears, she’s wound up pretty tight at highway speeds. It sure does get there fast though! I’m already thinking upgrades. A Tremec 6 speed would really be cool…..

As soon as I got the interior finished, I took it to the History Cruze that occurs on Friday evenings in the summer in North Saint Paul. After leaving the event and coming home on Highway 36, while accelerating I heard a nasty noise. It was a loud metal on metal noise. Unfortunately it was raining, so I slowed down to assess the situation. I still had oil pressure, it wasn’t overheating and it was still charging so I knew the belt was on. I decided I must have run over something. However, when I returned home I found the culprit. The alternator fan self destructed and bent my hood from the inside out! I was super bummed. The estimate to repair it is $1500. Oh, well.

Alternator fan failure!

Busted Fan

Overall, I’m really happy with the way it turned out. I’m not sure if I would do another one from the ground up like that again. It’s a lot of work.

I have a 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee with 284,000 miles that has probably been the most dependable vehicle I’ve ever owned. I bought the truck with 160k on it ten years ago and it’s been my daily driver ever since. Minnesota winters are beginning to take their toll on the body, but it still looks OK. About a year ago, as I was driving along and as I came to a stop sign, the engine quit. I thought, “that’s strange”, hit the key and it started right up. It stalled three or four more times in the next couple of minutes and I had visions of riding in a tow truck back to my shop. It didn’t do it again and for several months ran perfectly. It started to do it again with a little more frequency, but always restarted. I knew I should do something about it, but since it always restarted, I blew it off. I was pretty sure it was probably some sort of input, most likely the crankshaft sensor, but there was not the telltale code that usually accompanies a failing crank sensor.

Since I’m really cheap, I decided to order a crank sensor for $21.95 with free shipping (a 1/3 of what the parts store wanted) on Ebay as well as some new sway bar links that I knew were failing (1/3 of what the parts stored charged as well). I’m happy to report no more stalling. Also no more clunking with the installation of the new links.

On my way to 300k!

If you’re following this blog, I’m sure you’ve wondered.

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Well, that is a loaded question.

There is a somewhat simple answer and it may help you understand the basics of most automobiles made since the late 1980’s.

As most of us know, an internal combustion engine needs three things to run. Air, fuel and spark. Prior to the days of computers, fuel was provided via a mechanical (or sometimes electric) fuel pump to a carburetor. The natural vacuum (technical term is manifold pressure) would draw the fuel into the engine via Bernoulli’s principle. The air fuel mixture would be compressed in the cylinder and ignited by the spark plug. You probably know the rest of the story. If not look here.

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