Join Christian Hazel on this episode of 4x4 Garage as he begins restoring a last-generation Jeep Cherokee Chief. What engine will Christian use to update the powertrain?
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 It's got style, it's got coolness,
00:04 and it's got wow factor.
00:06 But what it doesn't have is reliability.
00:09 In this episode of 4x4 Garage,
00:11 we're gonna be yanking the antiquated drive train
00:13 out of my '78 Cherokee Jeep
00:16 and replacing it with some modern power.
00:18 (tires screeching)
00:22 I bought this Jeep in 2011.
00:29 It was a screaming deal on Craigslist.
00:31 I had to race up there as quick as I could
00:34 in the shadow of Dodger Stadium
00:35 with my trailer to be the first in line to buy it.
00:39 And I was.
00:40 I threw a battery in it,
00:41 a little juice down the carburetor,
00:43 and boom, she fired right to life.
00:46 And immediately, three seconds later,
00:48 there's a big puff of acrid smoke
00:50 coming from underneath the hood and the dash,
00:52 and yeah, the wiring, it all fried instantly.
00:56 Right there, it was a runner for about three seconds,
00:59 and that was the start of my love-hate relationship
01:02 with this thing.
01:04 It was a very dysfunctional, abusive relationship
01:06 where this Jeep is most definitely in charge,
01:09 and I'm just along for the ride,
01:11 feeding it breadcrumbs,
01:12 trying to get it to be nice to me.
01:15 The interesting thing about this vehicle,
01:18 although I love it, I love the styling,
01:21 I love the feel of it,
01:22 I love how people seem to get happy when they see it.
01:27 Every time I stop to put fuel in it,
01:29 which is frequently,
01:31 someone comes up and says,
01:32 "Oh, my uncle had one of those,"
01:34 or "My grandfather had one of those,"
01:35 and everyone seems to have an emotional attachment to this.
01:39 But all that aside,
01:41 and if I'm not being emotional about it,
01:43 this is the worst vehicle I've ever owned,
01:46 quality control-wise.
01:48 This Jeep has 109,000 miles on it.
01:51 I've had to replace every system in this vehicle.
01:54 I mean everything.
01:56 Fuel system, all new.
01:58 Electrical system, all new.
02:00 The engine, when I bought it,
02:02 I had receipts from the previous owners.
02:04 They had the bottom end of the engine
02:07 rebuilt with new bearings.
02:09 Then in a separate invoice from a year later,
02:11 they had to have the rings redone.
02:14 One cylinder head got a valve job.
02:16 Then a year later,
02:17 the other cylinder head got a head gasket.
02:19 I mean, this thing is just a litany
02:22 of one major repair after the other.
02:26 Despite what a horrible, horrible quality vehicle it is
02:30 in terms of construction, I love it.
02:33 My wife loves it, and my family loves it.
02:35 So the goal with this thing
02:37 is to really make it reliable enough
02:39 that we can all enjoy it.
02:41 And most importantly, that I can throw the keys to my wife,
02:44 and she can drive it whenever she wants,
02:46 and I don't have to worry about her breaking down
02:48 out in the middle of nowhere.
02:49 One of the nice things about being here in SoCal
02:54 is you've got no end of shops that know what they're doing.
02:57 I just happened to be friends
02:58 with this guy named Johnny Wood.
03:00 He was one of our invited readers
03:02 who came along on Ultimate Adventure.
03:04 He just so happens to know an awful lot about LS Swaps.
03:07 He's done a bunch of them.
03:08 He owns a shop in the town next to mine,
03:12 and he offered generously to clear a bank for us
03:15 so we could do the conversion at his shop, Woods Off-Road.
03:19 Johnny and I are just kind of poking along here,
03:24 getting all the stuff that's attached to the engine off,
03:26 and we're gonna proceed with the disassembly,
03:28 get this engine transmission out of here.
03:32 And while we're doing this,
03:33 found out there's a couple things on my 5.3
03:37 that I brought down here
03:38 that aren't gonna play nice with the Holley Terminator X
03:41 we're gonna use to power this system.
03:43 Corey Holmes from Holmes Fabrication over in Vista
03:47 agreed to come in and tear down our 5.3 liter
03:51 and get it ready to be reliable and a little more powerful.
03:55 So while we continue over here,
03:57 Corey's gonna come in and get to work on the engine
04:00 so we're not wasting time.
04:01 - Today, we are gonna take this
04:05 LC9 5.3 liter '07 and up truck motor.
04:09 We're going to delete the DOD and active fuel management,
04:12 as well as the variable valve timing.
04:19 You see all the oil porting here,
04:21 and this is what controls shutting down the four cylinders.
04:25 You have your solenoids down here.
04:27 When these receive pressure,
04:30 what happens is it shuts down four cylinders.
04:34 As you can see, four cylinders worth of shutdown.
04:37 - What we're gonna do here is we're gonna measure a baseline
04:44 from the output of the transfer case, the yoke to yoke.
04:48 What Christian's trying to do
04:49 is he's trying to reuse the drive shafts.
04:52 Well, if we remove everything before we measure it,
04:54 we won't know where to put it back at.
04:56 Christian's told me that the 400 and the 4L65E
05:01 is relatively the same in length.
05:03 So what we're gonna try to do
05:05 is reuse the transmission mount
05:07 and place the motor that way.
05:08 But if it doesn't work out, we can always make something.
05:11 (upbeat music)
05:17 - Now in here, we'll see the cam phaser,
05:20 which is what controls camshaft timing.
05:24 And it'll retard camshaft timing
05:26 to make more power at the top end
05:29 and advance it to make more power at the bottom end.
05:32 There we go.
05:35 In here is your cam phaser.
05:37 This is your reluctor wheel
05:39 that tells the computer where the camshaft is at.
05:42 And it will change this gear in relation to the camshaft
05:46 as it's going when you're running this.
05:49 But we aren't gonna run this.
05:50 We're gonna take this out of here for simplification.
05:52 - There's like $8 billion in fuel in this tank.
05:57 Feels a little full back here,
05:59 so let's try to keep it level.
06:01 - Here is the displacement on-demand lifter
06:03 we're talking about.
06:04 It ports oil and it allows it to collapse this lifter
06:07 where this spring is,
06:09 as opposed to your standard lifter,
06:14 which is sitting right next to it.
06:16 And that allows this follower to follow the camshaft lobe.
06:21 And as it goes up and down, it's not actuated,
06:23 which then in turn shuts down cylinders one, seven,
06:28 four, and six as you're driving down the road,
06:32 which is better for fuel economy.
06:34 But in the long run and performance,
06:36 this won't cut it for what we're doing.
06:38 We're gonna move over to an LS7 style lifter,
06:41 which we have new in a box over here.
06:44 - Straight back, one turn.
06:46 Came eventually.
06:49 - There we go.
06:54 And now we've removed the camshaft
06:56 and we will put in our six liter camshaft.
06:59 - Keep moving.
07:07 I can get under there and bench press the 400
07:10 off the cross member if I have to.
07:12 - Oh, real quick, let's drain the transmission.
07:15 - Transmission, yes.
07:17 Your shop floor will thank you for it.
07:19 - Okay, it's on the tail shaft.
07:30 Did you cut that with a grinder?
07:32 - Me?
07:32 - Yeah.
07:33 - I can't remember what I did or didn't do.
07:35 All right, a little more.
07:39 That's it?
07:41 - I gotta come up.
07:42 - Can we go down on the lift?
07:44 - What we can do is go canny.
07:46 - Right on.
07:47 - Coming out.
07:48 - It's like when Steve Austin--
07:50 - Use your muscles.
07:51 - Did the $6 million man with Lindsey Wagner.
07:54 - On the back of this specific LS motor,
08:00 the intake manifold has a plug in the back.
08:02 While we're gonna be using a vacuum booster,
08:04 in order for that to work, we have to make an adapter
08:07 or you can buy one.
08:08 We just happen to have a lathe here,
08:09 so I'm just gonna make this
08:10 and have a little fitting out here
08:12 so we can attach the hose to the vacuum booster.
08:14 - We're gonna install this piece
08:20 that Johnny made over there on the lathe.
08:23 And we're gonna put it in.
08:24 And this allows us to go to the brake booster
08:27 as a 3/8 hose.
08:28 We'll tighten it up once we get in the car.
08:30 - There are little nubs on the back here on an FSJ
08:36 that you just have to cut off.
08:38 I just use a straight razor.
08:40 And now the Dakota Digital Gauge Pack.
08:44 I'm gonna remove the protective plastic.
08:46 Careful not to scratch it.
08:49 And I'm just gonna stick it right in here.
08:51 These kinda tweak and warp over time.
08:54 They did not use the best materials
08:56 to create these gauge bezels.
08:59 So I'm being really careful not to stretch it too much.
09:02 But plunk, here we go.
09:08 - I went ahead and designed a mount
09:10 that's gonna fit inside the glove box for the Holley ECU.
09:13 The Dakota Digital Controller.
09:15 And then also we're gonna Velcro
09:17 the handheld display for the Holley.
09:21 We're gonna Velcro all that inside on this mount.
09:23 Lines up with the holes.
09:30 So there's existing holes right here
09:33 that we'll be able to run self-tappers in.
09:36 ECM's gonna mount on top of this.
09:38 Dakota Digital box, handheld.
09:41 - What we're doing here is we've identified
09:44 everything from the factory plug to the dash.
09:47 And we're gonna take everything we need
09:49 for the Dakota Digital brake light,
09:51 high beam light, turn signals and such.
09:53 And we're gonna create, these are Deutsch connectors.
09:56 You can use Weather Pack
09:57 or anything you're comfortable with
09:59 or butt connect them, extend them.
10:01 I like this so we can disconnect the Dakota Digital
10:04 without undoing all of the little screws in the board.
10:07 They take a tiny little pin like this
10:10 and it goes into a tool and then you put the wire in it
10:13 and it creates a four pin pinch.
10:17 Once I'm done with all six of these,
10:19 I will take the actual lock mechanism
10:22 and I will push it in there.
10:24 - Normally this 4L65E would have around six bolt pattern
10:27 to go to like an MP231, 242, new venture transfer case.
10:32 I wanna keep the Quadra-Trac in this
10:34 just for personal reasons.
10:35 And so I had Advanced Adapters send the adapter to Gearstar.
10:39 So when Gearstar built the transmission,
10:41 they were able to incorporate the adapter right on it.
10:45 And so that's the factory adapter
10:47 on the Advanced Adapter adapter on the Gearstar 4L65.
10:51 When we get this in the vehicle,
10:52 we'll put the spud shaft in, put the bearing on
10:55 and then we can put the Quadra-Trac T case behind it.
11:01 - Now that we've got our mating connectors
11:04 inside the vehicle, I'm gonna take
11:06 and I'm gonna wire these connectors to this box.
11:09 When you're building a Dakota Digital,
11:11 it's better in my opinion to tin the end
11:15 of your wires with solder.
11:18 So when you crimp down these little screws,
11:20 they get a better grab on it.
11:22 So we can plug this in and out
11:23 for everything that is attached to the original dash.
11:27 It's easier to build it here than it is on your back,
11:30 on the ground, underneath the dash.
11:31 - We have the engine and transmission
11:37 ready to get mocked in here.
11:39 Got Flop Shop engine mounts for an FSJ2LS conversion
11:44 that utilize the factory frame brackets here.
11:50 So we're gonna put these in here
11:52 and see where we can position it.
11:54 Hopefully everything clears and we've got room
11:57 between the power booster and the valve cover
11:59 and all that stuff.
12:00 I've never used these before.
12:02 I'm real excited if they work, it'll be awesome.
12:04 Make life a lot easier than cutting these out
12:06 and fabricating new mounts on the frame.
12:09 This is a factory replacement rubber transmission mount
12:20 that I put on this car, I don't know how many years ago
12:24 to replace one that had fallen apart.
12:27 And this one's already in the process of disintegrating.
12:30 They don't like being oil soaked
12:32 and this vehicle used to drip transmission
12:34 and engine oil all over it.
12:37 Got a new aftermarket transmission mount.
12:40 It's not identical, but the bolt holes are all the same.
12:44 So we're gonna use this one in place of this
12:48 because this is urethane,
12:49 we shouldn't have that same disintegration issue.
12:51 - Finally, we're gonna put our clip in this connector
12:57 to retain all those release pins
13:00 so we don't lose anything.
13:02 And now we've completed our harness.
13:04 We'll get it mounted to our bracket
13:06 and install it in the car.
13:07 - Okay. - Coming forward.
13:12 - Okay, no drama.
13:17 - Yeah, you can come back and down.
13:19 Okay.
13:22 That's in there.
13:25 That is all kinds of...
13:27 Oh, Johnny did it.
13:28 Johnny did it.
13:30 - Johnny, the man.
13:31 - In.
13:35 Yes.
13:36 Okay.
13:38 Man, okay.
13:47 Well, that pretty much wraps it up for this episode.
13:51 We've got the Vortec engine bolted in
13:54 with the Flop Shop brackets.
13:57 It took a little wiggling and jiggling,
13:58 but the fit is phenomenally good.
14:01 The placement inside the engine bay is perfect
14:03 with plenty of clearance around the power brake booster
14:06 and the HVAC system here.
14:08 Next time we're gonna come back,
14:09 we're gonna get it up in the air,
14:11 finish bolting in the transfer case side of things,
14:13 plummet the fuel,
14:15 finish the electrical and hopefully fire it up.
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