It has definitely been a hot minute since I’ve updated the site here. Life has been busy, surprise, surprise, and I haven’t had a lot of time to sit down and write, apparently. Despite that, I have continued work on my rigs. Since I last wrote, we purchased and moved into a new house, which has actually been a huge help for being able to work on things, as I’m actually allowed to here (it was against the lease terms at the last place) and I have a level parking spot in a carport that I can work in.
Admittedly, I haven’t done a lot with Lemon-Lime. I’ve tried working on it multiple times, but keep hitting the roadblock of rusted bolts and nuts, which delays progress. At the moment, I’m working on taking the front and rear bumpers off, as I have replacements for both waiting for it. I have a front winch bumper, and a rear tire carrier bumper to put on sitting in my shop. The front bumper was crudely welded on, which made me move to the rear in hopes of being able to get that off with no issues.
I had no such luck. Most of the bolts were rusted on, and in weird locations that made it difficult to get the impact wrench on effectively, and inexperienced use of said tool also stripped several bolt heads. Ultimately, for me to make any further progress, I’m going to need an angle grinder. So, the bumpers remain on it for now.
The Rolling Turd has seen the most work done to it so far. I’ve made 2 attempts at putting the lift on since we moved, with the first one resulting in some very disheartening news. The Rolling Turd has some decent frame rot issues. That discovery prompted me to take a break from working on it for a while, and I focused for a bit on Lemon-Lime as a result. After some research and thought, we decided that we would keep working on it, and ultimately do some kind of frame off restoration.
For now, though, the goal is to get it to daily drive-ability. The frame has rust issues that would be concerning for long-term off-road usage, won’t cause any issues for on road use. And since I can only afford to have one vehicle out of commission at once, RT needs to be in good enough condition for daily use. To that end, I’m currently working on getting the lift on it. It’s a slow project for me, as I just went back to work for the first time in 4 months. After the lift is on, there are really only 2 main concerns for driving it: the cooling system and the clutch.
The whole time that I’ve owned it, after about 15 minutes of driving the temperature gauge starts to read very hot. While not technically overheating, the gauge would read just below the redline. Admittedly, the engine never seemed to be actually as hot as the gauge is reading, but I don’t have anything else to go off of. So, the first attempt at a repair will be getting an auxiliary temperature gauge that reads out actual numbers, rather than a scale of cold to hot like the current gauge, so I can verify whether it’s actually running hot or not. Assuming that the stock gauge is accurate, and it is actually running hot, the next steps will be to replace the thermostat, water pump, and radiator, in that order. With any luck something along that line will fix the problem.
The next issue that prevents its use as a daily driver is the clutch. The clutch needs replaced really badly, as it slips like crazy any time you apply heavy throttle. That’s a fairly simple and straightforward repair, or so I’ve been told, so it should go relatively quickly.
When all that’s been completed, the real work on Lemon-Lime will begin. I have a lot of plans for that little Jeep, which will be revealed in the near future, as they’re solidified and ratified by my wife. So keep an eye out in the ear future for that.
Hallout 