neohic

Pickled Peppers I put these things on just about anything. Sandwich? Yup. Eggs? Why not. They’re mildly time consuming as I don’t have any sort of chopping device or food processor… it’s an activity. They’re also a “choose your own adventure” in terms of spice or sweetness. All depends on your choice of peppers. Here’s my list from this time but I usually make it up when I can get fresh produce from my local farmer’s market… 1/2 pound jalapeños Few fresnos One habanero One pasilla … sweeter recipes can use a red pepper or poblano instead of the pasilla. Using a habanero is totally up to you also. Just be careful when handling the peppers. Don’t tough your eyes and wash your hands immediately afterwards! You’ll definitely find all those little cuts on your fingers that you forgot about. Anyhow, cut up the peppers however you want. I try to make my cuts no thicker than 1/8” and I remove all seeds. Cram it all into a mason jar and add about two cloves worth of fresh garlic. Brine time. Use a small sauce pan and put this stuff in it… 1 cup of water 1/2 cup white distilled vinegar 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar 1 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons honey Don’t get a rolling boil, but warm it all up to dissolve the salt and honey. Let it go until it just barely starts boiling. Slowly add it to the jar of peppers. It’ll just about fill it completely. Put a lid on it. Give it a good shake to get everything all raving together. Let it cool on your counter then put it in the fridge. Forget about it for at least a week. Enjoy on tons of stuff.

Pictures are dead, but Rob used a 5/16” drill bit.

Ha! I was just looking at the Craigslist ad for this truck.

Indeed it is! We’ll done.

Trace and cut. I’d really like to demo one of these! https://arcdroidcnc.com/

I’m getting that predictable?

You know you don’t need that kind of cash, right?

Nobody won. What are your plans for $2+ billion?

Wow. For the longest time I had a standard for a "unicorn truck" that keeps dropping a little more every year. Low mileage, factory paint, and straight lines is about where I'm at these days and I'd be very happy owning this truck. That said, it wasn't that long ago that the SCCA truck sold for $15k on BAT. Sure hope the seller doesn't have the "mines just like it" mentality.

Time to get washed and put away. Had a nice time with the truck a couple days ago. Used it to put the trailer down the hill then over to the car wash. This hill always feels steeper than it is when backing a trailer down. Did some running around town with it too. Parked it down the hill and?… … here I thought we were having a nice time. That axle seal is totally wasted. Regardless, it got put away and covered up and out away until next year. Got the shop ready for winter. Sleep well, buddy.

If it is the same CJ, I'm sure the emphasis was on the drivetrain. An EV crate engine has got to be on all the big manufacturer's to-do list by now.

Anybody else tracking interesting concepts? https://www.thedrive.com/news/the-jeep-cj-surge-concept-may-be-the-off-road-ev-crate-motor-weve-been-waiting-for Interesting thoughts behind an EV crate engine but the whole works looks to me like a warmed over CJ66 from 2016. Resemblance is uncanny. Suppose it’s better than letting it rot in a warehouse if it is the same rig though. Overall, well done I think. Been done before, but still well done.

The harness is new(ish) but the execution wasn’t done up to par. That’s another ‘72-‘75 intermediate CJ anomaly that they used later switches but an earlier style harness which opens the door up wide for butchery. I think 1975 was the first year that used the square bulkhead fitting on the firewall that we all know. Early harnesses are available as are late model harnesses. 1972-‘75 are like the ‘86 MJs of the CJ world.

As for another project that took way too long… … three years. It took me three years to wire in the tach.

Looks like we both won the guessing game! I pulled the dimmer switch to find that the action felt terrible. When it did click was when the lights would come on. New switch and the removal of about two feet of wiring later, and things were working again. … right up until I started backing out of the shop and they went out again. This time it was with a noticeable popping sound from behind the dash. See, the wiring harness was “installed” by a complete idiot and then “fixed” later on by another. I tracked down the wires from the fuse panel to the switch to find?… … a big problem at the switch that was hidden by a giant wad of tape. Some wires were tied together and some weren’t that needed to be. One such set was a big red wire that lost power when I pulled the headlight circuit fuse and an orange one that had a constant 12 volts. With the switch wiring mocked up, the red wire and the switch itself got noticeably warm but didn’t pop the 40 amp fuse (which seems big to me, but I left it for now). I pulled the orange wire and left just the dedicated red wire from the headlight circuit, took another couple feet of useless wire out of the picture, and all is well without getting warm. Somewhere along the journey I lost function of the high beam indicator in the cluster. Can’t win them all… guess I’ll be tracking that one down when I decide to tackle pulling the cage to get behind the dash.

I was on a side road so I clicked on the high beams… that’s when the problems started. Then I wiggled the wired at the switch in the floor and sometimes they’d come back. Haven’t looked into it thoroughly yet though. The wiring (although not done by me) is fairly new but the switches in the dash are old. I cringe when I think about doing anything in that dash. It’s all functional, but far from pretty.

Not quite top priority right now. When the time comes, I’m sure travel will be a part of the adventure.

Does anyone know when you find out when you've got a problem with your headlights? That's right... when it's pitch dark outside. Dumb, old Jeep really surprised me last night with the headlights going on and off. I suspect it's the dimmer switch that went bad.

Heck yeah! That’s exactly what I need. In other news, I opened my front door to find that the drill press fairy stopped by very discreetly. Over the past couple months I’ve ran up to MN for one reason or another three times. One was for fun, another to volunteer to help my dad build his new shop, and the last was to help out after my father-in-law passed. My wife flew up before me and I waited a few days before driving up. I arrived and my father-in-law held on for several days… it’s a complicated story so I’ll just say that he had health problems. I had plenty of waiting to do so I spent more time on my dad’s new shop. I managed to get the main power run and we flipped the lights on shortly before I drove back home. My dad surprised me with sending me the drill press I had my eye on. Thanks, Dad! Good bit of shop infrastructure.

Another vote for adding the 4x4. Good looking truck regardless.

Mmm… count me in for more.

The main reason that I wouldn’t do another stroker is the cost investment. I did mine 15+ years ago and I think I had around $3500 in it. Mine is on the milder side so I wouldn’t have any issues running it on a stock RENIX computer. Granted, the truck has been mostly sitting for the past six years, but the seat of the pants feel of my truck when it was my daily driver was awesome! Plenty of power and gobs of torque. I’m still very happy with my engine. At the time, it was a good option. Since then I’ve done a bunch of drivetrain swaps in a bunch of different vehicles. Smaller V8s fit fine in our trucks and companies like Novak make swaps way easier than they were in the past. A bone stock GM 4.8/5.3 has way more potential than our 4.0s in terms of tuning and “easy/cheap” horsepower. If I were to start from scratch, I’d do a GM 4.8 in front of an AX-15 with a Novak adapter but I’d build my own engine mounts. If an automatic was a priority, I’d consider an old school AMC 360 with a modern carb replacement fuel injection in front of an AW4… but that’s not what we’re talking about.

I'm on the bandwagon of "strokers are cool... but..." as I'd never build another. Yup, they're nice that everything bolts right back in where it was but it's still based on an engine that had its basic architecture engineered a long time ago. Modern engines are far more efficient in how they make power. If I were to do it all over again, I'd pick an engine that matches my wants/needs and go from there.

I’ll look into it. Might be one of the guys on an early CJ group I’m also on.