This photo provides a good look at how frayed some of the wire was behind the speedometer. Worse, this wiring was sitting on the metal brace!! in the background is the volt-a-drop which provides stepped down voltage to the King Seeley speedometer).

Electrical Mess:

We’ve been working hard on Patterson the last couple of days. Most of our time has been consumed with checking wiring and rewiring stuff. Between frayed wires and mis-wired stuff, it’s filled our time. Apart from the types of frayed wire seen in the pic above, I discovered 1) the wires to the amp gauge and light were wired into the oil light (fortunately, all I had to do was pop out the light and plug it into the amp light), 2) the amp light was missing altogether (thankfully I could steal one off of Rusty’s speedometer), 3) the ignition jumper that screws to the back of the speedometer was laying on the metal brace (must have caused some shorting), 4) the oil light wire was wired to the fuel gauge (which explains in part why the fuel gauge didn’t work … well that and there was no wire connected to the fuel tank wire.

Dimmer Switch:

No more red paint on this dimmer switch.

The dimmer switch has been lubed, reassembled, de-painted, and installed.

The Horn Wire

Patterson came with a button attached to the side of the steering column that was used as a horn, but it didn’t work. Since we were already changing some of the wiring around, we decided to steal the column shift button wiring from Rusty’s steering column I wired last month and use it on Patterson.

To start, I knew we had to run some non-electric wire (similar to bailing wiring) through the length of the column in order to pull the horn button’s electric wire down the shaft. That sounded like a good idea, but several attempts at pushing the wire up the column  were a failure: the wire kept getting snagged as I pushed it up the column. I was getting frustrated.

But then, my genius wife had an idea. Why not blow some thread down the column using an air compressor nozzle. Once the thread came out the bottom, we could pull the bailing-like wire back through. I admit, at first I thought it sounded a little crazy. After all, near the bottom of the column shaft it narrows, so I thought for sure the thread would be stopped by it. But, then I took a breath and thought …. hmmm … what could it hurt to try?

Sure enough, she produced some thread, dropped a little down the column, then stuck the air nozzle into the hole. That thread blew threw the bottom of the column in a couple seconds. It was genius! Well, almost genius, as we had to upgrade our thread to thicker thread. Other than that, we had the column horn working in no time!

This is the thin thread we tried. It didn’t she enough tensile strength to pull up the wire. She just dropped some thread in and the air blew the rest of the thread down through that small hole at the bottom.

Once we shifted to the thicker, black thread it worked perfectly.

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Last week when we were in Renton, we tested Patterson’s headlights and discovered the foot-based dimmer switch wasn’t always working correctly. After a little research, I discovered the CJ-3A page had a useful thread on the topic, but naturally the switch demonstrated wasn’t exactly like the DJ-3A switch. The one shown on the CJ-3A page had a square end, while the DJ (and I’m assuming others of the same vintage?) have a rounded end. In fact, It isn’t clear to me which models use which dimmer switches?

Example dimmer switch from the CJ-3A page forum.

So, here’s a look at Patterson’s switch. The first obvious difference is that the housing doesn’t have tabs. Instead, it has crimps and, let me tell you, those crimps wouldn’t bend easily outward.

Using a small screwdriver, I eventually got the crimps straightened. As soon as I tugged at the top part to remove it, everything kind of tumbled onto the table (oops).

1. #1 is the bottom piece. When the actuator is depressed it catches on #1 on the bottom of the piece and spins it.
2. The metal tab that sticks up on #1 connects to #2 and spins it. #2 is actually made up of 3 pieces a) the disc, b) a shaft, and c) a spring.
3. #3 is a copper propeller that rotates in conjunction with #2 and #1 each time the actuator is depressed. As you can see, it is very dirty.
4. Part #3 connects with copper highpoints on #4, which shifts the electricity from the high beam to the low beam, then to the high beam, etc, in a circular pattern. The contacts on #4 were dirty, too, but hard to clean without scraping the copper points. I did not have a good cleaner handy, so I only gently cleaned them.
5. This is a gasket.

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On Tuesday afternoon, Patterson sprang to life with it’s new transplant!

We started Tuesday morning working through the wiring. I asked Ann to rewire the low-beam/high-beam floor switch, since much of the fabric had fallen away. That led to rewiring more of the harness than expected, which in turn delayed messing with the engine.

Once I could focus on the engine, the first thing I did was swap distributers, as Patterson’s engine had newer internals (and I knew for sure it worked). When installed, I tried starting the engine a few times, but didn’t have success. So, I rotated the distributor wires 90 degrees. When that didn’t work, I rotated them another 90. When that didn’t work, I rotated them another 90. That’s when I got the engine to fire, but not run. At that point I began rotating it a few degrees, then cranking the engine, then rotating again, so I could get a feel for which position seemed to fire the best. But, after trying this a few times, we still didn’t get it to run.

At that point, Ann suggested we try different spark plugs. I’d forgotten I hadn’t installed the ones that had been on Patterson (still attached to the head). So, we pulled them, checked the gaps, then installed them in the “new” engine. We got it to fire again, but then, mysteriously, it stopped firing no matter where the distributer was located. That was puzzling. About that time, ann noticed some heat at the generator. I suspect the regular got stuck, causing the battery to discharge into the generator, creating heat (at least that’s what I determined later of after doing some reading). So, I pulled the battery cable and let the system cool.

Once it was cool, I rotated the distrbutor back to teh position where it had fired the best, then climbed into Patterson to start the jeep, simultaneously working the choke and gas pedal. Sure enough, Patterson just needed some physical presence in the driver’s seat, because he started right up. At that point, I climbed out and played with the distributor to locate the sweetest sounding spot. (see the video on Facebook … I can’t seem to make it appear on eWillys … it lacks a muffler, so it’s a little noisy).

So, Patterson runs again. But, we discovered the temp gauge and oil gauges are not working, so those will need some attention. Unfortunately, we had to return to Pasco last night, because Ann has a doc appointment Wednesday. I accompanied her back to Pasco, as I have some updating to do to the website and need to organize the sale of some Alaska Or Rust t-shirts. More on that Thursday morning. We plan to be back in Renton early next week. My mother has knee surgery scheduled for the 5th, so we need to be around to help out.

Now, if only it sounded like a jeep. It seems the timing it off, so I’ll be working my way through that Tuesday morning. One fun fact I didn’t know … there’s no top center on an L-head. I wished I’d known that BEFORE I assembled everything. I didn’t check to see whether my flywheel has the flywheel marks.

Anyway, Patterson is all assembled. We only had one oil leak, but that was only because someone forgot to tighten the inlet line at the block. We also had a minor gas leak at the carb, but that was a trivial issue. Some plumbers tape solved that.

So, now I believe it’s down’ to timing. For those looking for a good resource on L-head timing strategies, this thread on the CJ-2A page is helpful: https://www.thecj2apage.com/forums/l134-ignition-timing_topic13819.html. The also may be helpful: http://www.cj-2a.com/techtips/timing/howto/l134-timing.pdf

Here are a few pics from the day:

This rewiring is Ann’s handiwork.

Ann also produced some seat covers that have pockets at the front for things like a phone or wallet.

The grille installed.

The radiator is installed. Just need the driver side fender installed.

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