You know, I didn't even think of it, but the grease was more of a light coat than anything. Since it's painted black, it was actually hard to tell if it was coming off or not.

I'd like to add that it appears I've developed a reputation. The other day, I stopped at the township building to pay my water bill. Late payments come with a $30 fee and I forgot to mail it.
I hand the lady a check, she hands me a receipt. As I'm about to walk out the door, she says "hey, aren't you the guy who's always painting the Jeep?" I say yes. She says "looks pretty good, if I tried to do that with spray paint, it would be running everywhere."

I honestly don't think I've ever seen her before - at least not that I remember, so all she had to go on was the address from my check. The account is actually held by a different street address.

Before I forget. I'd like to thank everybody who commented in this thread and the previous one (linked on first post). Whether you encouraged or discouraged the project, you provided motivation. Nothing get's me more determined than someone saying "you can't do that", so those who provided warnings, even if they were accurate, helped move things along.

Several members of another forum also contributed some great information and a few parts.

I'd like to say "no thank you" to Nelly Bell 2 and definitely Nelly Bell 3, my Miata and my gf's respectively who demanded continuous attention with various little annoying problems and some severe issues like a suddenly dysfunctional brake master cylinder. Although I should say that my car was rather patient as she tolerated the not fully disengaging clutch for quite some time. I finally fixed that. I wore out the clutch pedal (yes, I'm serious).

I'd like to offer a huge "get bent" to the weather man, you and your magic 8 ball set this project back at least a month, if not more. You're still not satisfied because you keep predicting rain. Don't make me hurt you.

And finally, a huge debt of gratitude to David the Goldsmith. You are a master craftsman and she loves the earrings.

Wow, that's a good looking Wagoneer!
Don't drive yourself crazy looking for AMC blue rattle can engine paint, it apparently doesn't exsist. Pontiac blue is close enough, I'll post an old pic of my 360 build motor later. Its Pontiac blue.
Also, keep a real good eye on the right side axle hub. AMC 20s are notorious for ripping the keyway out and tearing the splines off the hub. Some guys have a second keyway cut into the hub and axle and run dual keys, I've seen some bore holes in the hub and axle and pin it in place, but its still a weak point. At the budget mindedness of the build, scoring a late 70s/ early 80s F150/250 9 inch with 6 bolt hubs would be the ideal fix.
When you pull the slushbox out, I'd lay money on the torque converter hub being cracked. I've got 5 piled up waiting to be scrapped, along with an Eagle transfer case. I'll post some pics of my old AMCs and one of my current one being beat on during a Friday night street legal later as well in my DR thread

Thanks. I actually haven't done anything beyond putting the new motor on the stand. I'll keep your suggestions in mind.

Here's a quick update for stuff I've done recently that's not real exciting, but is definitely part of the plan.
Same prep as the rest of the floor before coating it in roll-on bed liner:

BTW, removing some of those screws were a real pain in the butt, most of them did come out with a chisel, one or two needed to be drilled out.

Bed linered:


Installed a few tie-down points. These are simple U-bolts intended for cinching down cables with a single chain-link that's large enough for all my tie-down strap hooks to pass through.
The backing plate is 1/8" steel dipped in bed liner (allowed to dry for a week) and held on by two nuts with a jamb-nut to keep them from backing off. The U-bolt is not tensioned as the chain-link will need some movement. It's a little looser than finger tight.


Put the strips back in so they don't get lost using stainless steel oval-head screws like came from the factory, except stainless.


Soon to be completed is plywood floor for the bed and carpet. But the bed liner will keep this from rusting from the inside out again.

Pontiac or AMC blue? Only a purist can tell :D

That's damn close. If I hadn't recently seen my motor, you'd have me convinced it was AMC.
I'm just hoping I can pull off the engine rebuild and install on a time table close to what I did with the rust-o-ration. (which to me was still really slow, others seem to think I did better than OK.)

Your garage looks like my work shop. That's another thing I need to take care of before winter.

Took the Jeep on her first out-of-state trip ever as long as I've owned it.
At 115,019 miles it crossed the state line. There and back the most eventful thing was a squirrel who must have taken a triple-dog dare from his buddies, cause he ran out in front of a pick-up and me moving in opposite directions and surprisingly made it.

I also need to hook up the heater core, cause at 30-something degrees for an hour it gets a little nipply. Esp. when you have the opera windows open to keep the fog out.
Also, I had to wait till the sun hit the windshield to defrost the inside. Although she was taking her good sweet time getting her engine warm, so it didn't matter too much.

Another quick update.
In order to afford this build in a timely manner (along with all the other stuff that I like to play with), I put used tires on my daily driver last year. They're fine for dry conditions, a little left to be desired in rain and absolute crap in frozen precipitation of any kind.
Saturday morning, it snowed. I was to be at work by 3:55 a.m. but I never make it there before 4:05 most days because of my schedule (work knows I work two jobs and get minimal sleep). I crawl out of bed and fire up the old beast. It took a bit of cranking, but fired. Purr-umph, purr-umph, purr-umph. I figure once it warms up a bit and the carb starts atomizing better, it'll run better. Then I walk back towards the house to get a broom to move the snow off the windshield. It stalled, before I even get in the house. Go back, fire it up again and make sure the choke is just right, it's still missing from time to time.
After cleaning off the snow, I run inside and get dressed.
The girlfriend needs to be at work by 5:00 and there's a problem with one of her new tires where it leaks fast (at the mechanic to be fixed today), so we both go to the only gas station in town to fill her tire. While I'm there, I throw five gallons of gas in the Jeep because it's reading 7/8 full which the gauge is still backwards - it's almost empty.
I forgot to turn the choke off.
I drive slowly to work about 25 mph cause I haven't driven this in snow in a long, long, long time. It's cold. I didn't hook up the heater core, so I've got no heat... I'm wearing a knit hat, my knit work gloves with rubber palms and I've got the zipper the whole way up on my jacket. I have the window cracked and the opera window open so I don't fog up the windshield.
About two miles from work is an uphill climb with multiple switch backs. As I'm climbing this, I notice the tires are loosing traction, since it's an automatic, I have only one pedal to control this (and I don't like that!), and I let off the gas hoping the tires gain some traction, but it seems like the power dies off fast, all or nothing - because I forgot to turn off the choke.
Soon enough, it's not moving anywhere. Cursing, I put it in park, set the parking brake and gently let off the brake pedal. It doesn't slide. I try to turn on the hazards, but I can't find the button. I get out because I didn't think I'd need 4WD and thus I didn't lock the hubs. After both hubs are locked, I walk back to the door and almost fall on my butt - it's slick.
I reach down, grab the "flag" and put it in 4WD. Then I put it in drive, release the parking brake and give it some gas. And we're off! I wanted to test it in a more controlled setting, but 4WD Hi works! It whines a bit, gonna have to meet a FSJ-er to see if it's a normal noise or a bad noise. When ever I find a decent transmission if it's bad, I may as well replace it then.
I got to work a half hour late - I wasn't the last one to arrive in my area, one guy didn't show, one guy works the shift before mine and one guy came a few minutes later. I clock out again after 55 minutes.
I probably wouldn't have gotten stuck if I had turned the choke off.
I think it might have cost me as much in gas to get there and back as I made, doesn't matter, had success!

4Chan or 9gag?
Leno or Letterman?
Sock, shoe; sock, shoe or sock, sock; shoe, shoe?

This morning I dropped most of the scrap steel I've been hoarding off for coffee money (got $2, which was about what I was thinking). With a small bit of extra crap in it I don't normally carry (maybe 40lbs?), and the tools and on-board spares I do keep, and 2/3rds tank of gas the old beast weighs in at 4180lbs on a certified scale without me in it.

The reason I've been hoarding the scrap for so long is it's simply not worth my while to drive there, but I was going by it anyway with the Jeep this morning.

Not bad, my full interior 360 auto weighed in at 4780 with a full tank and 33s on 15s. What tires are you running?

They probably work out to 29s, 235/70?-15 It's just a little more rubber than the stock ones. Actual fuel content is also debatable. I filled it up at 115,257 miles. It was weighed in at 115, 354 +/- miles. Reading almost empty which the backwards fuel gauge I haven't fixed yet is almost full. But 100 miles should be 2/3rds to 1/2 full. I don't think drafting semis made my gas mileage go to 40 MPG all of a sudden. Gas weighs about 6lbs per gallon, so even if it was a full 20 gallons, that's only 120lbs.

P series or LT series tires? I had 8 ply 33s on heavy 16 inch steel wagon wheels, and man were they ever heavy! On my mad mad quest for better economy for my 99 F150 (SB 4.2 5 spd with 3:55 LSD), I swapped out my LT245/75R16 for P series tires in the same size, which picked up that extra 2 mpg I was looking for.
Your tires work out to 28s, which are a pretty good size for a hauler rig.

P series tires. I couldn't find LTs in my price range last year (used tire rack). One of the five tires I bought had the thinnest sidewalls I've ever seen - I put that on the spare. Because of our now deleted from TT adventure where we had multiple mechanical problems, the final one being 1/2 an hour up a mountain and a good 1.5 hours from civilization with a flat tire and no spare on a borrowed truck, I'm going to install a tire carrier and keep two spares. I'll probably never need both of them, but it'll make me feel a lot better. We did eventually get down thanks to a very generous campground owner at the base of the mountain. I make it a habit to stop in each time we go and patronize their store. The prices, except for cigarettes are actually quite reasonable.
I digress, the wheels are the factory alloy, so they're about as light as I can find. I'm a bit paranoid, the weight limits on the tire are not much higher than the weight of the Jeep, so I'm running them at 35PSI.