1985 AMC Eagle wagon build

[The Dark Side of Will]

Jeep 4.0 block and interchange info:
http://www.enginebuildermag.com/Article ... riend.aspx
http://www.pera.org/articles/eb40319.htm

[The Dark Side of Will]

Had the flywheel/clutch for a couple of weeks.

A friend rebuilt the 4.0 in his '91 Cherokee a few months ago.
Unfortunately for him, he rolled it this week.
He's ok, only bruised pride.

But I can snag the engine for $500 from the yard that has the truck now.
It will need the 258 oil pan and pickup tube, which I have. Once I get flywheel, pressure plate, bellhousing & trans-to-T-case bolts, I'll be ready to bolt the powertrain together.

I *should* even be able to run it with the stock Jeep EFI while I put together the GM system I'd actually *like* to run.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Blasted and painted the Eagle pan last night.
Picked up the 4.0 today, but haven't taken any pics yet.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Still haven't taken any pics of the 4.0, but got the front diff bead blasted and painted this weekend, along with the engine/diff mount brackets. The pinion snout bracket will need to be cut & welded to clear a rib on the side of the 4.0 block that isn't present on the 258 block.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Engine:



Front diff, pre-bead blasting


Bead blasted


Diff and brackets painted


Comparison of Eagle and Jeep engine mount brackets.
Obviously, the Jeep brackets only mount the engine and don't have also to carry the front diff.


Comparison of Jeep and Eagle oil pickup tubes:


Frustrating... The Eagle oil pump pickup is fully seated in the Jeep oil pump, but the hole in the securing strap does not line up.
Do I need an Eagle oil pump in addition to the pickup?

[Series8217]

Why can't you just slot it, or put a kink in the tab to pull the hole back a bit?

[The Dark Side of Will]

The pickup screen isn't quite in the right place... the pan won't seat fully.

[The Dark Side of Will]

It doesn't *LOOK* bent, and my dad says he was careful when removing it from the 258 pump...

BUT, the strap doesn't fit and it hits the pan when I try to drop the pan over it. The bottom of the pickup is 8 1/2" from the pan rail on the block and the pan itself is 8 3/8" deep.

I guess the only conclusion to draw--especially since no one else has had this problem--is that it got bent somehow... I guess I'll just bend it back until it works, but I won't be able to work on it again until this weekend.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Per a recommendation on www.jeepstrokers.com I bought a Melling 81AS2 with the right part number for the application... I don't know what's going on, but it seems to fit. I haven't installed it yet, though.

Here are the new and previous next to each other:



You can see that with the ends of the tubes lined up, the attaching strap on the new one is shorter.



It's hard to see in the photo, but the previous strap has the same stiffening dimple pressed into it the same distance from the tube as the new one. The strap is welded to the tube at the same height. The previous just has about 1/4" more distance between the dimple and the hole. I have no idea why it's that way... but I have a way to move forward.

I have drill this weekend, but should be able to put it all together the weekend of the 2nd.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Finally got the pickup installed:





Comparison of Jeep and Eagle pans. You can see that the Eagle sump is shorter front to back than the Jeep sump.


In this one, the light makes it easier to see the channel or trough in the Eagle pan that makes clearance for the passenger side axle tube from the D30 IFS diff.


In trying to actually INSTALL the pan, I hit yet another snag. The pan wouldn't sit flat on the block unless I pushed it out of position a bit fore or aft. I removed the drain plug to try to see what the pickup was hitting, and the pan dropped right into place... The protrusion of the drain plug into the pan was hitting the pickup. <sigh>

[The Dark Side of Will]

I've been slowly oozing along with this, despite the fact that it should be a very simple build... just have other things going on.

Oil pan fully torqued


Left engine mount bolt holes. The three unpainted ones are used by the Jeep bracket while the rear/painted hole is not. The Eagle bracket uses the two lower-in-photo holes (the engine is upside down, so those are actually the upper holes) as well as the painted hole, but does not use the upper-in photo hole.
The three unpainted holes are 3/8-16, while the painted hole is a loose 7/16-20, that was apparently drilled with a larger than standard tap drill. Neither 1/2-20 nor 12x1.25mm will thread in. I'll drill it out, tap it for 1/2-20 and install some 1/2-20 to 3/8-16 bushings that McMaster car has.


Mods to Eagle engine mount bracket necessary to bolt it to the 4.0 block. Only the through-thickness cutout is necessary. The partial depth gouge is not necessary.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Go the aftermarket shock brackets for the D44 welded up last night.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Drilled and tapped the oddball hole and installed the 3/8-16 x 1/2-20 bushing last night. I left it torqued overnight so the red loctite could cure.

Now I've run into my first *REAL* parts incompatibility problem.

The passenger side mounting point for the disconnect ("disco") front diff assembly is approximately 1" further from the axle centerline than the same point on the non-disco axle.

My 3.54 front diff is a disco axle, while my bracket is from a non-disco axle. With my diff bolted up to the driver's side bracket, which is bolted to the block, and my passenger side bracket bolted to the diff, the holes in the bracket and the holes in the block are off by about an inch.

So I need either to find a 6 cylinder disco bracket or to section my current bracket to work with the disco axle.

Anybody have one?

[The Dark Side of Will]

[The Dark Side of Will]

I don't have any pics yet, but I have modified the strap-like bracket that braces the diff snout to the side of the block to fit the 4.0 block. Just like the main diff bracket, it needs a clearance cut for the ribs ChryCo added to the block when the turned the 258 into the 4.0. The problem in the case of the strap bracket is that it needs to be cut completely through... so I had to have gussets welded to it first in order to be able to cut it deep enough to clear the ribs.

With that bracket ready, I cleaned out the 7/16 holes in the block and diff and got all the bolts installed to the main bracket and the strap. When they are all just barely cracked loose, there's very little movement available between the diff and the block. I tightened everything up, making sure that the tube was visually parallel to the front wall of the oil sump. This gives me confidence that the diff is close enough to the "right" place that I can modify the passenger side bracket to work.

AMC used disco axles first, and then switched to non-disco axles as sales fell and they needed to cut costs on the cars in order to maintain their operating income. The non-disco bracket obviously came later than the disco bracket. The non-disco bracket appears to just have the mounting feature at the axle end of the bracket "stretched" in order to reach the non-disco axle. This means that I *should* just be able to cut the axle end of the bracket down until it fits the axle and bolts to the block, then drill the hole that bolts it to the disco housing on the axle.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I got the non-disco bracket cut down and the pilot holes for the axle attaching bolt drilled last weekend.

Unfortunately, I cut it a smidge too short to drill a 15/32 hole at the pilot hole locations without breaking through the edge of the bracket. I'm having a couple of heavy beads welded on the edges in question, and then I'll get it drilled next weekend (should be 6/15).

[The Dark Side of Will]

I had the left side diff bracket welded up over the weekend. Need to smooth it a bit and drill the holes out, then it should be ready to paint and install.

Also had the section I cut out of the snout bracket fully welded. I'll get pics of all next weekend.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Worked the left diff bracket last Wednesday when I was down at my dad's place to take him to chemo.

Left the right bracket at the fab shop to have the groove filled and the notch patched to eliminate a potential stress riser.

Once that's done, I think that's all the welding I'll have to have done for this project.

However, the diff snout strap will interfere with the exhaust pipe coming off the current manifold. I need either to find a different 4.0 manifold or rebuild the strap backet.

The front axle is pretty stiff turning it... Once I get all the brackets reinstalled, I'll turn the engine & diff right side up and take the covers off the pumpkin and disco box to see what's going on. Once that's all straightened out, I should be able to bolt on flywheel, clutch and transmission. At that point, the engine will be off the stand and I'll be able to bring Bad Idea's engine around and start messing with it.

Actually doing the swap will likely wait until I get an extra Eagle crossmember prepped. I'm thinking of trying dip stripping and e-coating on sets of both Eagle and '88 Fiero front crossmember and lower control arms.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Finally got a coat of paint on the main brackets after the last round of mods. Since those were done, I bolted up the diff and turned the engine upright to get a better look at what the diff snout bracket will have to do to avoid the exhaust manifold..

Right bracket:


Left brackets and exhaust manifold:


Another view:


Looking up the manifold outlet at the interference with the diff snout bracket:


And I finally popped the cover off the diff... looks like it had some water in it. I'm not sure how that happened, as it's been sealed the entire time I've had it.


I guess I'll learn how to rebuild a Dana 30.

[Emc209i]

Everything looks good but the diff.