The brakes are done, plus some other stuff for the engine

At last, I have brakes. But I wasn't able to complete the job myself due to the leak where the main hard line met the extended brake hose that drops down from the body frame to the left side of the rear axle. I was able to bleed the right rear drum with the help of my wife, but once I did so, any pressure on the brake pedal caused a leak at the hard line/brake hose connection. I flanged the hard line above the axle four times, but the leak would not go away. So I called Triple A, had the Jeep towed to Brake Masters in Redlands, and paid a chunk of money for the shop to get them to work. In the end, I didn't want to doubt their efficacy with the kids in the car. Money well spent.

Turns out, the extended brake hose that came with my BJ's 4" lift kit was no good. (I don't blame BJ's in any way--their products are consistently excellent, as are their prices--but I'll send them a heads up email in case I'm not the only one who's had a problem with the hose.) Besides, that leak wasn't the only problem with the Jeep's brake system. I had damaged the front right hard line when I installed the extended brake hose. Though I was able to flange that line, my fix didn't fix it. So it goes. Brake Masters also threw on a new master cylinder (no charge, happily) because the seals were damaged by the massive leak from the rear brake hose. In addition, the emergency brake hardware and the brake cylinders in the rear drums were broken and had to be replaced. The cylinders were probably damaged quite some time ago because, in spite of the ridiculously worn out front brake pads (1/16" left) which I replaced, the rear brake shoes still have 80% left.

With an effective e-brake at last, the new calipers and pads up front, and the new cylinders on largely unused shoes in the rear, I'm happy with what I have. After picking up the Jeep from the brake shop, I tooled around Redlands industrial parks for a while, bedding in the front brake pads. This involves getting up to about 60mph and applying the brakes firmly until the Jeep slows to about 10mph, at which point I drive it back up to 60 or so and repeat the process. By heating up the brake pads and the rotors, in effect I'm forcing the pads to transfer some of their material to the rotors. The trick, so I've read, is not to stop completely during the process (if at all possible) so that the pad material is transfered evenly. This allows for two methods of braking in the front, friction/pressure (the pads pushing against the rotors) and chemical (the pads bonding temporarily with the transfered pad material). I think I did it correctly--it does stop, which (for a 20 year old car) is nice. I'll do a second bedding in process later this week or over the weekend.

Here's a pic of it after I got home from the brake shop. This shows the 4" lift, especially in comparison to the picture at the bottom of the blog (in the first entry from August). It looks a bit silly like this, to be honest, but the new tires are on the Jeep and these old ones will be on Craig's List soon enough.
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In addition to getting the brakes taken care of, I've added in a new starter to get this thing operating correctly. The old one was shot. I got a used one from Scotty's for fifty bucks, but they gave me the wrong one (I think it's for an '87 GW, not an '88). They swore to me it was the right one, but alas. I waited too long to take it back, so I ended up buying a remanufactured one from Kragen for less than a hundred. It works quite well and was easy to hook up. I also discovered, in this process, that the previous start was only held on with one bolt instead of two. Either the previous owner or a bad mechanic is responsible for this nifty little revelation. I've rectified the problem, all for about five minutes of time and a few bucks for a grade 8 bolt of the right size. I returned the old starter to Kragen to get my thirty dollar core charge back.

I also added an air intake hose from the air filter/cleaner housing above the carbuerator to a extruded flange behind the front grill. Rather than sucking in 200* air from the engine compartment, I now get the much denser and colder air from in front of the Jeep. Considering this thing is as aerodynamic as a shoe box, I might as well take advantage of all that air pressing against the grill. The difference in idle, running temperature, and horsepower is noticeable. I can say this with confidence because the intake hose kept falling off the filter housing, and I knew it had done so because the engine ran much more roughly. To solve this problem, I used some thin wire to afix the hose to the housing securely.

In addition to the air intake hose, I threw in an Optima yellow-top battery to give this thing enough power. Eventually, I'm going to have KC lights and a pre-runner bumper, plus a portable air compressor in the back, so I want to have enough juice to run those things without necessarily having to put a heavier load on the engine. Some day I may even have a winch, which would make the Optima all but mandatory.

Track bar extension brackets

The rear track bar was a pain, requiring much more 'persuasion' with a hammer and a blowtorch than I expected. You can see in the picture on the right that the top part of the bracket is slightly charred. That's from heating it to soften it so that I could pry it open and create enough space to fit the track bar end. The problem is that the bracket extension is designed to fit (just barely) in the original bracket on the axle. When I installed it on the axle, it was squeezed somewhat closed because of the snugness of the fit, leaving little room for the track bar end. The other issue that made the installation difficult was camber. The rear axle, as a result of the lift kit, is tilted slightly farther back, which causes a 10-15 degree misalignment between the end of the track bar and the extension bracket. As a result, once the bracket extension is installed, the track bar doesn't want to go in there anymore. Initially, I gave up, having read in multiple places that the track bar was a Chrysler add-on after the acquisition in late '87 or early '88. FSJ's for decades have gone without them. But being a safety nut and a guy with two wonderful little kids who deserve to grow up in to nightmarish teenageres, I really wanted to get it back on. So, a hammer, a blowtorch, and a few choice blue words later, it fits. Please note: the gas tank is above the left side of the rear axle. Ergo, no, I didn't blow torch this thing while it was on the car. I did it over a patch of crabgrass on my front lawn with a fire extinguisher nearby. As I said, safety nut.

The front was significantly easier, but I still got to use the blowtorch. This time, it wasn't the bracket itself that was the problem. What was troublesome with the front track bar was the axle end link bushing. Whether it was installed incorrectly at the factory (which is my bet) or by a previous owner, it was offset by over a quarter of an inch. As you can see in the picture at right, the crush sleeve (the steel tube in the center of the track bar end which the bolt slides through) is correctly mounted, but the bushing is "sunk" in (and bulging out the other side significantly), leaving one of the track bar's steel edges to rub against the original bracket on the axle. As a result, it was heavily scored (the lower left portion of the track bar end is shiny because it has been rubbed raw, for lack of a better phrase). The bushing is vulcanized during insertion and fitted with an outer metal sleeve, both of which make it harder to press out the bushing (go here for more specific instructions). By burning it, I was able to melt the vulcanization and push out the crush sleeve and bushing. The new polyurethane bushing is in, and the track bar is on:

New front brake rotors and calipers are on

As you can see in the picture at right, the rotor is shaved, the new caliper is on, and the bleeding is about to begin. I wanted a second pair of Speed Bleeders for the back drum brakes (they're different than the ones in front--5/16" for the back, 3/8" for the front), but I ordered the wrong size. But that's the least of my problems for the brakes, as I'll discuss in a later post.

In the process of installing the extended brake hoses for the front calipers, I made another mistake, damaging the end of the hard brake line that meets the hose at the frame rail. I used the "borrow-a-tool" option from AutoZone, installed a new nut, and flanged the end. It was a worthwhile mistake, actually, because I was able to learn a bit more about working with brake lines. Not fun, but educational. [Editor's Note: I flanged it correctly, but I twisted the hard brake line so much that it had to be replaced. Ultimately, I was not able to get the lines right.]