1983 Jeep Cherokee street fighter project

[ghinmi]

Took a cruise and went to the Woodward Dream Cruise for the first time. Lots more shenanigans.






Stopped by the Greenmead AMC show on the way home. Nice event.

[ghinmi]

Getting close to Drag Week, my clutch pedal got out of adjustment and I wasn't getting full clutch disengagement. Fixed that issue but 3rd gear syncro still didn't feel right. Was able to weasel my way into an all Chevy track rental to test. Sure enough, 3rd gear was a no-go. Still managed to run some high 10s with a nearly 1 second shift delay.


A couple hours later it's a street car again and sitting in traffic during Metro Cruise.


Yep, there's definitely a problem there.


Transmission back out again, on it's way to Capizzi. He got it fixed up in a few days like a champion. I slammed it back in and then started getting ready for Drag Week.

[WSSix]

Looked like a fun time.

[ghinmi]

Prepping for Drag Week. Keeping in mind that the Jeep hasn't made a solid, clean A to B pass in nearly 3 months. Transmission is fixed and back in but no time to test. Just gotta have faith. Finishing up wiring for the horn and giving it the final once-over in this picture.



Fully packed. It doesn't look like much but there's a LOT of stuff in there.

4 wheels/tires
Air tank
Jack + jack stands
Welder
Cutoff wheel
Cordless tools (impact, drill, flashlights, etc)
Spare clutch/flywheel
Spare pistons/rods
Spare gaskets
Spare alternator/belt
Spare silicone couplers, t-bolt clamps, and v-bands for every connection
Spare change of ALL fluids
Spare master cylinders,
Spare shifter (but sadly not shifter handle)
Spare brake lines
2 tackle boxes of wiring and electrical
Ammo can with hundreds of AN fittings
Bucket of assorted lines/hoses
3 spare fuel pumps + filters
All tools needed to work on any part of the vehicle

Basically we packed the kitchen sink preparing for the worst but hoping for the best.



Final test drive on 87 octane the night before leaving.

[ghinmi]

Friday September 7

My goals for the week are ambitious:
1. Finish the week (so I can enter the stick shift shootout)
2. Make the quick 32 Street Machine Eliminator field
3. Run 10s at every track
4. One pass and hit the road every day
5. Beat the previous Jeep single pass record of 10.68
6. Beat the previous Jeep record average of 10.96
7. Maintain a sealed hood for the whole week

Fresh wash job, fully packed and ready to go. My trusty copilot Mike took a half day and we hit the road at about 2:00 in the afternoon. Only have to go 818 miles to the first track.


First roadside fix. The heater duct hose came off up under the dash. Kind of important with the rain we were driving through. Thankfully we had some duct tape (and swingout door bars). Mike got it fixed up while I was fueling up.


Stopped at another gas station down the road to meet up with some Drag Weekers and drew in a bunch of other car enthusiasts.


There's the guys we were looking for, Tracy and Todd. Tracy has the sweet '70 Olds 442 that's in some pictures later on. We decided to follow them to Atlanta and play the drive by ear. This drive shall be known from this point on as the Drag Week Death March.


Cool trailer of cars we passed.


Next roadside fix. Found the source of the wet carpet, the fresh air vents were leaking water. So, another opportunity for a duct tape fix. Glad we found this before we had to seal the hood for the week.


We continued driving through the night. Got about an hour's sleep at a truck stop in ??? at maybe 1 or 2 am? Then stopped again for a couple hours at an old school gas station at around 6am. This was one of the cool old vehicles we checked out when we woke up.


First food stop for breakfast.


And we made it to Atlanta Dragway sometime (maybe noon-ish?) on Saturday. Tracy wanted to make a couple test passes and check-in wasn't until 3pm at our hotel so we stayed for a while.


Only injury of Drag Week. Left the track with the intentions of going straight to the hotel and sleeping for about 12 hours. Well, the tailgate window was stuck in the down position. Can't access the motor or any of the wiring with the window down, huge pain in the butt job. In the process of removing the motor, the spring loaded lift arm got me. Finally got the issue troubleshooted and made it to a store for some bandaids.


Finally at the hotel. Took a shower, got some food, and checked out the other racers. Lots of wrenching still going on with registration less than 12 hours away. The tons of wiring stuff we packed came in really handy, there were a lot of people in need that night.

[ghinmi]

Sunday Sept 9: Registration day

We didn't get to the track super early. Consequently, this is the staging area just to get into the track area.


Once we got into the track, we were pleasantly surprised that they had separate lanes for Unilmited and SME so we were moving quick.



Made it through tech no problems and had time to kill so headed back to the hotel for a while.



Had lunch at the Outback in town. The waitress was a huge Drag Week fan.


Went back to the track after the rains to watch people test. Lots of neat stuff happening.

[ghinmi]

Day 1: Monday Sept 10

Got an early start, wanted to get into race mode before the driver's meeting so that it wouldn't be so hot out. Good thing we got an early start because one of our competitors had a dead battery. Between our spare battery and another guy's jump box we got it running. Super cool truck.



On our way in.


The crummy 87 octane turned one of my wheels gold because it was near the exhaust. Yuck.


Unpacking is easy with the big plastic totes.


Ready to go.


After hours upon hours of delays, we finally got into the staging lanes and waited for hours again only to get rained out when were a couple pairs from making a pass. No racing for us on day 1. Luckily we had that tarp covering our gear in the pits. I rushed back and changed back over to street mode and re-packed as quickly as possible in the rain. Just after we finished, it downpoured like crazy. Very lucky.

Hot Rod decided that our class (Street Machine Eliminator) would waive Monday times since not everyone had a chance to run and base our final time off of a 4 day average instead of 5. All other classes would count since they had a chance to run. Kind of a bummer for a lot of class cars that either didn't make a run or made a poor first run and had no chance to improve it.

View leaving the track in the rain.


Stopped at the restaurant just up the road to eat and watch cars while we waited out the monsoon.


These poor guys were having problems with the car stalling out and not running right. They thought they had it fixed but had to drop out of competition not too much further from where this picture was taken. They continued the rest of the week towing the car, Drag Week is more about the experience than the racing.


First check point.



Second check point.


Very uneventful drive (for us) because we had rain tires. It rained. A lot. Made it to the hotel at a reasonable time.

[ghinmi]

Day 2: Tuesday Sept 11

Bit of a drive to the track from our hotel and we couldn't find any place to eat along the way. Luckily Darlington Dragway bailed us out with by far the best track food I've ever had. Rock on guys!


A lot of the guys were still drying out from all the previous day's rain. We pitted next to Tracy, swapped tires, and got right in line. Also, met up with our buddy JP that came down from Michigan to spectate from Tuesday-on.


Wristband still looking pretty crisp.


Finally made it out on the track! Pictures I found online.






Because I had zero passes with the different sized clutch master cylinder, I launched pretty soft. Went 10.84 @ 128 which I figured would be more than enough to get us deep in the 32 car field. Later that night we found that not only were we not deep in the field, we were #35 and had our work cut out for us. Should'a made another pass.


They cancelled our drive route and check points because of the hurricane and it would be a short drive to the next track so we stayed around to spectate and hang out with friends.



All packed up and ready to hit the road.


At the hotel.


Cool stuff going on in our parking lot when we got back from dinner. Managed to get back inside at a reasonable hour and catch plenty of sleep. Which turned out to be HUGE for what we were going to go through the next day.

[ghinmi]

Day 3: Wednesday Sept 12

Zmax Dragway - twice the lanes, 4 times the facility. Man, that place is huge. I've never been to a place where you could drive around the facility so long and never even know there was a 4 lane drag strip there. They were parking RVs there because of the hurricane, unbelievable amount of parking space there. Just wow.


Unfortunately NHRA owns the rights to 4 wide so they were only running 2 lanes.



Boom! Not a personal best but the 10.62 @ 130 got us the Jeep ET record for Drag Week! Not a bad day at all, one and done again. We found out later that night that the 10.62 put us on the bump spot for the 32 car field.


Street tires back on but waiting for some cloud cover to re-pack.



We spectated at the track until racing was done because they cancelled the official route again - the only requirement was to stop at Pat Musi's shop on the way out. No big deal we though, going to be a short drive and an early night. WRONG. Right as we were leaving we got word that the event leader Tom Bailey needed help getting parts.


We were able to find the piston rings he needed in Mooresville at Prock Performance. Jeff Prock (yep, that Jeff Prock) was kind enough to open the shop for us and even gave us some shirts. Of course we had to get a picture of him with the Jeep. You can also see the tape on the hood - we decided on Sunday to run sealed hood for the week. It's a street car so why not.


We got the rings back to Bailey and heard more bad news, they had hurt some bearings too. Not to worry, they had already sourced parts from a place in.... Mooresville. So back to Mooresville we go again. The shop turns out to be HED that builds a lot of the max effort heads-up engines and Lyle Barnett was the guy we were dealing with. Was already in a hurry and completely forgot to get a picture of him with the Jeep. But did get a picture of a car in the shop.


Get back to Zmax again with the parts and a case of water. Oh yeah, forgot to mention water was like gold there. Every place was sold out because of the hurricane. Anyhow, they had found a damaged piston and were having it driven down from Michigan. We said our goodbyes and hit the road. Oh yeah, we need to get the picture in front of Musi's shop. Where's that? Mooresville again!!!


Driving through the night on twisty mountain roads was not well advised for a lot of competitors. This poor guy wadded up a really nice car but luckily both driver and passenger were fine.


Got to the hotel a little after 2am completely exhausted. Posted this picture on facebook just before I fell asleep which turned out to be a huge clue to some tricky friends.

[ghinmi]

Day 4: Thursday Sept 13

Wake up, get showered, just about to head out to Thunder Valley and there's a knock on the hotel room door. 7:45 is kind of early for housekeeping. Turns out it's Mitch and his brother Tyler. Mitch is the owner of the shop that did the paint and body on my Jeep. They hopped in his Cobra Wednesday after work and drove through the night to Tennessee to surprise us. The picture I posted from the hotel room window gave them a clue about the type of hotel we were staying at but they had no idea what town we were even in. So they drove around all morning looking for the hotel with a blue Cherokee in the parking lot. Well, they found us. What a huge surprise, great friends!


Arrived at Thunder Valley. It should be noted that it was hot and I was exhausted before the day even started. Just let this be a one and done day, please?


This picture is especially cool because it's the same color as my buddy's old Dart that we used to raise hell with years back. The shifter handle from that car is in my Jeep now.


Went out and made an outstanding pass for the crummy conditions. Grabbed the time slip and what?! It definitely did not run a 12.3 @ 127 on that pass.


Assumed timing system error so went and got back in line again frustrated and still tired. Many other competitors were having the same issue.


Wristband was starting to look how I was feeling.


Another pass, another unexplained slow et with a bunch of mph.



At this point we realized that the starting line wasn't level and the Jeep was rolling backward out of the lights and starting the clock early. Solution: let's go in deeper, clutch in, step off the brake, floor it, and dump the clutch as quickly as possible. What could possibly go wrong?