First run on M170

[rdsar2k]

During the resto I ran the engine in the chassis after overhaul but prior to putting the body on to make sure it was tight. Last night I ran the jeep with the body on and full system check of the gas lines charging sytem, cooling, electrical, lights , gages and wiring harness. Essentially it was the completed jeep tho I am not done with the body details.
Everything worked great after I spent an 11/2 hours trying to figure out why I was not getting gas to the carb. As I was standing there with a cold one scratching my head I saw the closed gas line valve and had to chuckle. My wife was behind the jeep on a treadmill when I decided to bump it with the starter. It immediatly fired up and went to full throttle (I had left the manual throttle cable pulled partially). Scared the pee water outa both of us. Then the horn started blaring because I had my elbow on it trying to flip the throttle lever off. Lights came on cuz I didn't check what they were set on and a box of bolts fell off the back cuz I didn't scoot them away from the edge of the tailgate. Jeeze Louweeze what a startup. Charging system worked, blackout lights great, heater great, taillights great.
The not so great, no temp gage reading tho the gage energizes (needle wiggles when turned on). It has a new sender, wires and gage.

No high beam lights or high beam indicator light (low beam works).

Fuel gage doesn't work. It has a new sender and wires but the old gage.

Brake lights at first worked in both blackout and service but suddenly stopped. I didn't fiddle with it as it was late by then. Actually, I didn't fiddle with anything just tried everything out to see.

The reel light worked great. Oil pressure stayed at 45 for a couple hours then slowly went down to a little over 40 (at idle). I didn't want to turn it off as I was luvin life at see this thing just purr charging the batteries after my extended no start cuz no fuel brain dead issue at the beginning.

[toojeeps]

That was a great story! Sounds like some of things I have done over the years. Any way I got my laugh for the day. Mind you I am laughing with you not at you.

[rdsar2k]

Well all is good. My nos temp gage was bad but I had an old take off that worked. My gas gage was also bad but I had another take off. The brake light issue was that my light switch was bad and I had another ready to go so also not a big deal. I took the light switch apart and two of the pins were busted off internally. It looked like they had been busted for years. I am kinda pissed as the NOS temp gage I bought (douglass) had infinate resistance (open) so I was sold a bunk gage. This thing runs great and all the stuff on it is working so now to the tailgate and windshield and prep for the shows.

[wesk]

Great news. Nice work.

[rdsar2k]

I forgot to say the hi beam lights were 1 bad crimp for one wire and a bad dash bulb for the indicator light.
I have 42 psi cold now and 32 hot oil pressure.
The temp gage holds at 200 degrees
Volt gage is slightly over the line for red(far right) close to green but I think it is charging heavy from all the trouble shooting.
Does all this sound OK?

[wesk]

The voltage is usually fairly constant. If it's in the red at 30-40 MPH (2500 RPM) you need to adjust it down.

[rdsar2k]

Well I swapped the reg out for a solid state reg I have and the voltage dropped to 28. The conventional reg was 31. So how do you adjust an Autolite reg in laymans terms? The manual is based on bench testing and using a light. There must be a easier way.
I also did a high rev run in test and a wierd thing happened with the oil pressure. It slowly dropped over time (I wasn't looking so I freaked and shut it down). Thinking about it in my past when an engine was starving for oil there were noises that indicated low oil pressure like valve train and engine knocking that this enging had none of so I re started it and the wierd thing was oil pressure slowly came back to 35. I suspect the sender is acting up. I reved it up againg and sure enough the oil pressure slowly dropped again so I returned to idle and it rose again. Note that I checked the oil level on the first round to see if it had dropped for some reason and it was normal. I had thought that the oil was building up in a filter or the valve cover area and had to drain back to the pan but the level was good. I'm thinking either a sticking pressure relief valve or a faulty sender. Thoughts?

[wesk]

If the gage reads low or none and the engine runs quietly the gage is suspect.

I prefer to make the first run-up on a fresh engine using good quality and known to be accurate mechanical gages for both oil pressure and water temp. It is also handy to have those two mechanical gages in your tool box for troubleshooting issues later on. At $20 or so each it is a good investment when you are trying to preserve an engine in which you have probably invested as much as $2000 in.

Also when running in a fresh engine there is a greater propensity for small chucks of gasket, metal and trash to be moving around in the oil system. These will occasionally get hammered in and stick on the relief valve poppet face or seat and cause a low pressure reading that may then suddenly clear up.

[Claudio]

Hi rdsar2k,
Cool and absolutely funny story of your first run of your M170!
Please let me see pics of your resto, my e-mail is claudio.simoes@leme.com.br. Otherwise send me your mail.
Claudio
Florianopolis, Brazil
42MB, 52M38, 51D&K M100, 42WC57, 62M170, 67M170(bet is the last produced), 69M606A3, 53Willys truck, 98 Military Toyota Land Cruiser

[rdsar2k]

I have a gallery here at willysmjeeps. Page 5 under Rdsar2k

http://www.willysmjeeps.com/v2/modules. ... _album.php

[Oldsalt]

Any chance a piece of trash could be clogging the oil intake, causing the pump to cavitate and starve for oil at higher rpm?

[rdsar2k]

could be. Until I figure it out it could be alot of things like that. I was reading somewhere that having higher oil pressure at idle is kinda odd. I rev. mine up and keep it at high idle and the pressure slowly but surely goes down. When I let it return to idle it slowly but surely starts to rise. The next startup I am going to plum a mechanical gage in to verify. I'm thinking the sender is doing something odd.
As far as something in oil intake I don't think so because I cleaned the crap outta everything. Gets me thinking though. It has an aftermarket Mullins oil pump with supposed higher volume. Maybe that is playing a part somehow. The pump came with the engine. When I took the engine apart the oil pan was full of gelled up old oil . Nasty. I think over the years people tried to get it running and had no oil pressure due to the jello and one attempt they put the mullins pump on there thinking the original pump was shot.The only fly in the ointment theory of too much oil flow is the oil relief valve is built in the pump itself and it should be able to handle the full flow dump. The slow fall and slow rise in pressure readings make me question the oil sender and gage in accuracy.

[Oldsalt]

If a mechanical gauge shows the same thing, and nothing is clogging the intake, then I'd suspect the pump itself. Something may be happening to it at higher rpm to make it pump less efficiently.

[Oldsalt]

When you say the pressure falls slowly and rises slowly, what kind of time frame are you talking about. A minute? Less? Several minutes? And does it rise as slowly as it falls? A very slow fall and rise might indicate something with heat or the viscosity of the oil. I'm assuming you just finished a total rebuild. I recently read something about rubber rear main seals overheating the rear bearing because the seal was too tight. Did you use a rubber seal?

[rdsar2k]

Yes I used a rubber seal. The rise time and fall time is the roughly the same. Around 10 minutes each, could be longer. If it stayed down I would think I wiped a bearing but coming back up just makes me go back to the sensor.
After I bolted the crank in with the pistons I checked for rotational binding/resistance. It turned very freely. Thrust was dead on (front to back). I had the engine assembled and running in the chassis before I heard about the rubber seal issues. Stepped in the stew without without a clue. I just love hearing about issue like this after the fact.