83Cj-7 budget bog project

[Oldsmoletick]

Some water passages need to be plugged off, along with (depending on the year of the 258) sleeves to compensate for the 4.0's 1/2 head bolts compared to the 258's 7/16. The 4.0 head really doesn't do a whole lot of good unless you go with its or better cam. The 258's won't take full advantage of the heads breathing capabilities in other words. You'd have to run a 4.0 header, and make a little modification to the 258 intake to fit the new head properly. All simple stuff though.

 

[gmsforlife]

Some progress on the jeep has been done. I put the drive shaft in last week and drove it home but now the carb is having issues me and my friend believe its the idle screw just needs adjustment but if anyone has any ideas let me know. The symptom is it doesn't idle, it's runs but when u stop giving it gas it's stops running (I don't know much about carbs btw). And it is having problems getting charged I tried jumping it for a hour held my truck at 2000 rpms for 10 mins for maybe 6 seconds of cranking so I am in the process of cleaning al the connections (i believe high resistance is the cuase for that) and have the battery on a charger. Again if anyone has a idea on any of the problems let me know.

 

[Oldsmoletick]

Assuming you still have the carter bbd carb, the idle tubes are likely clogged, causing your no idle. Very common problem. Pick up a rebuild kit (cheap at napa), and go through the carb. You'll see the idle tubes when you get into it, can't miss em, lol. You can slightly enlarge the tips if you like, many people do, it helps to prevent this from happening again. At any rate, be sure to clean the hell out of them. These carbs are very simple, kinda like a tractor carb, hahaha, there's only a couple fine adjustments you have to deal with, but, the specs, and how to do it, are included with the napa kit.

 

[gmsforlife]

Assuming you still have the carter bbd carb, the idle tubes are likely clogged, causing your no idle. Very common problem. Pick up a rebuild kit (cheap at napa), and go through the carb. You'll see the idle tubes when you get into it, can't miss em, lol. You can slightly enlarge the tips if you like, many people do, it helps to prevent this from happening again. At any rate, be sure to clean the hell out of them. These carbs are very simple, kinda like a tractor carb, hahaha, there's only a couple fine adjustments you have to deal with, but, the specs, and how to do it, are included with the napa kit.

Thanks and yea me and dream on mc SS took apart the carb and cleaned it (suprisingly it wasnt that dirty tho minus the clogged jets) and it actually idles now and after some test drives and tuning we found out we had no clue how to tune it haha but its cool we found out how to do It and are going to some time this week. Next to do is figure out y it's misfiring and change spark plugs and wires. Ima post some pictures of the drive shaft soon its pretty beefy.

 

[Oldsmoletick]

I see you're still rockin the stock cap set up, you have a few options for improvement here. You can get a cap adaptor at any parts store to convert to the larger diameter cap, which will help prevent cross arcing inside. Have them give you a cap rotor and adaptor for an early 80's ford 300 I6.

that's a haggard pic of the adapter.

That's the larger cap. You will have to run different wires, they need the hei type terminal for the cap (those are my olds' take offs ).

You could wire up an HEI module to that ford distributor, works wonders, lol.
or
Go full GM HEI, grab a distributor from an I6 chevy, buy an 80 amc 360 gear, put them together and have a one wire set up, don't know how they would fair in the mud though :lol: .

 

[gmsforlife]

Thanks man I'll look into it and I'll get some pictures up (I keep forgetting to do it :| ). But I keep finding that there are pretty much zero vacuum lines on it. And there is exhaust coming out of the valve cover any ideas on this. And the PVC valve had one side blocked off with duct tape . Will post more problems as I find them thanks again.

 

[Oldsmoletick]

No prob... These 258's (amc I6's in general, lol) tend to have a bit of blow by which always makes the valve cover leak. I masked the problem by running two pcv valves, doesn't seem to hurt anything, and keeps the vc from leaking all over (did this on my jeep 4.0 and amc 258).

 

[gmsforlife]

Thanks man and do u know of any better carbs that I can use without a intake swap.

 

[Oldsmoletick]

Motorcraft 2100/2150, an adapter is needed to run one (easy to find on ebay), but these are the favorites among amc I6 owners. You'll want to find one with 1.08 venturies, easily identified by the 1.08 casted into the side of the carb, jet it down a bit, cause likely the carb was on a V8 (something around 40-41 range for sea level applications, is a place to start). Or you could get in contact with the guy on ebay (micheal erhmann?) that offers a complete bolt on swap for the mc2150, I want to say it around $375-400, but, he knows theses things like the back of his hand and will build one to suite your exact application, and needs.

Others have used webers, on these too, I don't know what's involved with using one though.

I know of one 258 running a Q-jet by using a 2 to 4bbl adapter, they say it run great, but I'd be skeptical about doing it like that....

Another good one is a Holley 2bbl, I believe can be sourced from older mopars.