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Project "Free Jeep" a.k.a Project "FJ" - part #14 |
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(12/16/06) I received some packages throughout the week and I was happy to see
that the body lift kit and the 1-piece rear axles came in that I ordered. I wasn't happy however to see that
the shackles and cargo rack hadn't come in. I know it is Christmas and there is a lot going on, but I ordered
these very far in advance so I hoped that they would be in.
Anyways, after those came in, I took some pictures and headed out to the garage to see what was going on. The
knuckles had all week to dry, so they were in good shape, except that they spent the week on the floor on top
of the carpeting, so there were some fibers that had adhered to the backside, thus the burnt red spots you can
see on the backside of the knuckles. Not a big deal, but if this were a show rig, you probably should find a
shelf to put them on that doesn't have rug fibers.
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So, in a previous installment, I said I was going to try a trick I had read about
on one of the forums to get the ball joints into the knuckle holes. The trick consists of freezing the ball
joints in the freezer over night and at the same time, heating up the knuckles so the ball joints essentially
will slide right in.
Believe it or not, the actually works... sort of. Let me explain. I did the freezing/heating of the 2 items and
tried to just slide it in. It didn't fit, but with a socket over the ball joint stud and touching the base, a
few taps with the hammer and it was almost in all the way. This is how the bottom one went. When I got to the
top one, I had left the ball joint out of the freezer for like 20 minutes, so it was a little more thawed and
took a little more effort to get it in the hole, but with a little persuasion, it was in. I was surprised and
impressed at the same time. I will get to the other side once those ball joints freeze. I put the nuts back on
and installed the grease fittings and I was on my way back into the house.
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The fun part of owning a house is that there are a lot of things you want to get
done. Combine that with Christmas a week away and a job on top of that and there isn't a lot of time left to
do the things you want to do. Also, I needed to work on the tractor, as it needed some stuff before the snow
starts to fall. So, off inside I went.
(12/18/06) With all the tractor stuff done and the garage moved around for the electrician to come out, I went
down to watch the Jets play, it was a good time, can't complain, they won. So, this morning as I said the
electrician got here right at 7AM and proceeded to put in some new outlets and re-wire the lights for me so when
I turn on one switch they all come on. It was great, he was here for 4 hours, put in 7 outlets and re-wired
the lights up to in the rafters of the garage, exactly what I wanted him to do.
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I know looking at pictures of the garage isn't exciting, but I wanted to make a
note that when you don't have things wired up correctly, you have extension cords all over the place and it
really makes for a danger zone, both tripping over it manually and tripping over it electrically. Hmmm, that was
almost a bad joke.
So, with the garage wired up, we will next move onto getting some insulation in there, some sheet rock up, some
cabinets to hold all the crap in them and finally maybe we can start getting back to building some Jeeps...
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I am still waiting on a few parts that I ordered and will get back to working on
the Jeep after XMAS. With all our responsibilities both here and there, there won't be any time to work on it.
One last thing to note, the image of the knuckle with the frozen condensation on it shows that it was pretty cold
when it was installed. I was able to keep in the freezer overnight, but the knuckle was out in the garage and
wasn't warmed up properly. It made it a little more difficult to bang it in, but it did end up going in, so the
hot/cold trick gets the thumbs up!
cb (12/18/06)
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