What I thought would take an overnight soak ended up taking ~3 days of pumping/recirculating to finally get all the grit out of the heater core. I would pump the Evapo-Rust for ~3-4 hours, let it sit for ~3-4 hours, then mechanically flush with the Lisle flush nozzle. Each and every time I would get a good number of black deposits into the flush bucket...
I would drain the water and feel the particulates. It was certainly rust, in a very fine powder form that was aggregated together into small bunches. Every rinse had essentially the same amount. I ended up, on the 3rd night, letting it pump continuously for almost 15 hours. Finally, at that point, the flushes had a really small amount of particulates but they were barely visible, only able to be spotted floating on the edge of the water-bucket line. I figured the majority of the particulates were gone at this point since there wasn't enough for them to flocculate together.
I drained and flushed the core once more, then pumped a dilute 10:1 solution of hot water and Simple Clean (degreaser), roughly for about an hour. I figured any organics remaining in the core would be taken care of, plus the surfactants in the degreaser would help get any remaining particulates up and out of the core. At that point, I did 4 "rounds" of mechanical flushing (1 round = filling a 5 gallon bucket and observing for particulates). I alternated the flush direction, just to make sure nothing was getting missed, and viola! - clean rinse water.
With the heater core finally done, I had a perfectly timed delivery - my TCM came back from JSS, allowing me to fully reassemble the 8HP70...
Before I can drop the engine into her final resting place, there were a few things left that needed to be tackled. First was getting the rest of the (grinder) grit and grime off of the firewall and frame rails. Although I power washed the heck out of this thing before starting the swap, there are always spots you miss with things in the way. Throw in the grinding work to get the Hemi motor mounts in place, place clearance the control arm brackets to fit the headers, and I'm really glad I was able to get this scrubbed up. In a near miraculous instance of timing, Mother Nature gave me almost two full days of mid 40° temps. My son and I pushed the JKU out of the garage and got to spraying, scrubbing, and rinsing:
With the firewall and front end cleaned up, I was able to install the new firewall insulation, which then finally let me install the new steering shafts. I had ordered these from PSC during December and they've been sitting in a box every since. I don't know if it's because the lower shaft has been sitting still for so long, but it was even stiffer than it was when I first pulled it out. The upper joint is so hard to move that it actually pinched by finger trying to unjam it. I'm hoping this translates into even smoother steering and better feel.
Firewall insulator on and steering shafts in place, I reassembled the rest of the driver-side inner fender. I had previously run into some tight quarters with the ABS wiring alongside the new J8 booster and master cylinder. After bolting everything down snug, I was able to route the ABS harness in such a way that kept the wires clear. It necessitated drilling a 1/4" hole and using a stud-style zip-tie . You can see it below here:
I added another stud-style zip tie on the other side of the master, as the original one was no where near where it needed to be. On the bench, the J8 doesn't appear much bigger than the OEM JKU booster and master. However, you can see below just how much further forward the J8 master cylinder ports are compared to the OEM one...
Everything in place and I'll be able to hook up the brake lines today and then drop the engine and trans in this weekend...
Those of you with ADHD will understand the joys of a good "side quest". I was itching for something to do, but didn't want to jump into hoisting the engine/trans just yet. Instead, I crossed off a "future to do" - the door hinges. Opening and closing the doors has always required significant and conscious effort. The hinges often squeaked and it was generally a pain in the a$$ (except when parking on a hill when the door stayed open for you lol).
I bought these liners when I first got the Jeep but have been unable to get the doors off the hinges, no matter what I did or how much I tried. And boy did I try - I used heat, spray lubes, worked the door back and forth a thousand times, used jacks, air chisels, and more. Nothing could get more than a millimeter of separation at the hinges, in particular the front passenger door (the hardest one to open and close). Then it dawned on me - why not just remove the hinge from the door and see if that would help?
Sure as can be, that did the trick! I was able to use my 1/2" drive Torx impacts on my "Mid Size" Ridgid impact gun and every single Torx bolt came free without stripping a single one! On the passenger side, both sets of OEM liners came out with little issue. On the drivers side, both doors, I actually had to use a small flat-head screwdriver to chisel out the liners and separate it from the barrel of the hinge. I was then able to use the pin punch to get it the rest of the way out.
You can see in this one, there appears to be a plastic liner inside the factory liner. I don't know if this is factory, but clearly it didn't work as well as intended...
From all the jacking and pounding since originally trying to get these out, I will need to do some door adjustments in the summer. I moved a couple hinges in the meantime to get things to open and close smoothly, but I think I can get all the door gaps to be perfect with just a few minutes of tweaking. For now, the doors open and close with ease, and they all come off the hinges with ease. There's a lot of bubbling and corrosion under the paint, so I'm likely to replace these with some new ones at some point. Admittedly, finally getting the full doors off has finally inspired me to start looking for some OEM half-doors as well for summer driving...
