Friday
Tired of messing around with a faulty fuel system, we decided to replace everything. We brought the old pump to a different parts store and found out that the J-truck's 304 is of '72-'75 vintage. We bought a new pump, filters and a new polished Holley 1850 carb to replace our problematic one. We probably could have spent a couple hours trying to figure out what was wrong with the old carb, but it seemed like it had more problems than it was worth. With our new fuel system parts in place, the J-truck ran quite a bit better but not perfectly. We blamed the points ignition and timing. Without a timing light, we had to wing it and set it as best we could.
From there, the truck took us straight home and got about 12 miles per gallon, but it spit out about 1 quart of oil from the rear main seal every 250 miles or so. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. The J-truck sped along at about 70 mph and we finally made it back late Friday night.
This was our attempt at a homemade regulator for our electric fuel pump. It worked, but it was way too spooky. If the locking pliers fell off, we would have caught on fire for sure. A steak and brew were calling, so we left the truck until the next morning. | 
With the new manual fuel pump, Holley 1850 carb and some new fuel filters in place, the J-truck was running better than ever. It still sputtered a little, but we attributed that to the ignition. | 
Oregon thanks us? For what, removing junk Jeeps from the state? Once we reached the California border, we made a clean, nearly non-stop run the rest of the way home to Los Angeles. Keep your eyes peeled for what we do to our J-truck in future issues. |