Jeep engine bay fire
Rebuilding Mr. Green Jeep
A few weeks ago I got a call that my friend’s Jeep had burned. We think it might have been caused by a power steering hose leak but no one is sure since there was so much damage under the hood.
Her insurance company declared it a total loss and gave her a check for the blue book value minus the scarp value. However she wants her Jeep back.
I have a parts Jeep similar vintage so I have been working to swap parts. However a lot of things have to be bought new.
The whole engine bay wiring harness is being replaced with the one from the donor Jeep. The big difference between the two is that Mr. Green Jeep had ABS and the donor does not. This makes the part of the harness that goes through the firewall on the driver’s side quite a bit different.
We elected to pull the whole harness and intake manifold as a unit rather than trying to disconnect all six injectors. This allowed us to swap the throttle body and all the other burned sensors in one unit.
The owner elected to buy a new brake booster and master cylinder. She also got a new radiator, and power steering pump.
The sticking point right now is the brake lines. The donor Jeep did not have front brake lines. The lines from Mr. Green Jeep are not the right shape for non ABS and they are also damaged from the heat of the fire. I have decided to bend all new brake lines to make sure there will not be trouble with the braking system.
The brake lines are holding up the restoration at this point as the intake such are in the way of getting to the brake lines so they need to be completed before I can move on.
When I went to remove the old brake lines, one of the front wheel lines was seized in the rubber brake hose. I hope I can get it out with heat but I may have to replace the rubber line as well. At the rear, the metal line was seized into the rubber fitting. I had to heat the fitting to get it out. The heat required caused the rubber line to break so that will have to be replaced as well.
I was able to recover the pulley off her melted power steering pump to install on the new pump. I was surprised that the new pump also did not come with a new cap for the reservoir. Luckily, Jennifer’s brother had sent her one from his parts Jeep.