There was a little delay in process over the weekend as I had a wedding and rehearsal to attend Friday/Saturday. However, I spent all day yesterday working on the Jeep. On Friday I picked up all 5 u-joints so that I’m all good there and shouldn’t have to worry about them for a long time. This will hopefully be the last parts I buy for this particular project.
While my dad was occupied with the u-joints, my buddy and I started to tackle the t-case linkage. This was relatively straight forward, although, the bolts holding in the linkage bracket were a pain in the ass. We started by pulling out the center console and chair. We were blown away when everything on Google told us to just pull hard on the automatic shifter knob to get it off but, sure enough, that’s all you have to do:
Never mind the dirty carpet – I vacuumed it when the day was done
Once we got the carpet pulled, we encountered this fun tar stuff. This must be what they put in to protect the interior from getting any leakage as this is where the bolts for the linkage bracket bolted in.
It was a pain to get out but when it was out the holes were all there and it lined up with linkage bracket perfectly. After a while we were able to get the linkage in there, get the bracket in there and everything lined up perfectly as we had hoped.
And I already had the shifter interior cover piece, so I got it all finished up inside. Again, pay no attention to the dirty center console – it will be cleaned
We got all the linkages pulled off the front and I have the boot for the rear drive shaft ordered and it should be here on Wednesday or Thursday. Hopefully it’ll have the front diff in today after work and I can take it for its first drive. It sure does purr nicely with the new engine, especially after fixing the little exhaust leak we had after putting everything together (the manifold right above the little resonators was loose and we had to cut a bolt and replace it to get it back in there correctly). So very excited to drive this Jeep!!