With the prospects of a new Jeep JK Wrangler on the way, I’ve recently had to make one of the hardest decision of my life… which one of my Jeeps will have to go. Believe me, if I could, I would easily keep them all as I truly love each and every one of them but, with me living in the small town home that I do and the cost of upkeep and insurance for four Jeeps, I had to start thinking about things more realistically. And so, with much sadness, I had to say goodbye to my beloved 1981 CJ7.

Of all the Jeeps that I’ve owned, my CJ7 was the one that really got me started down the road to working on them myself, doing write-ups and ultimately creating www.4×4xplor.com. Certainly, I bought this Jeep knowing it needed a lot of TLC from the get go and over the years, I have worked very hard to bring it back to life and make it a daily driver again. And, I guess that’s one of the reasons why I’m so glad that it’s now in the hands of Jim. As a recent survivor of cancer, Jim decided that he was going to enjoy life more and buying a vehicle that he’s always wanted… a good ‘ol CJ7. And, it is my sincerest hope that with this wonderful Jeep that I’ve enjoyed working so hard to bring back to life, he will be able to have many years of life to enjoy as well.

Eddie

And with a sniff of the ass, I passed!! That’s right, my lil CJ7 passed the California Smog Nazi test yet again (and with flying colors I might add) and I’m good to drive her around for the next two years hassle free - yeah baby!! For those of you out there still trying to rebuild your factory emissions controls, fruitlessly looking far and near for impossible to find smog parts and coming up empty handed, do yourself a favor and install a Howell TBI instead. Trust me, it’s worth every penny and you’ll be kicking yourself wondering why you didn’t do it sooner.

Well, I went in for my smog re-test today at 7am. Worried about being late, i left early in the morning and i unfortunatly showed up about 10 min too early. Worse still, the nazis ended up being 10 mins late. It was in the upper 40’s this morning and my engine got a whole 20 mins to cool off anyway, the chief nazi remembers my CJ, pisses and moans about badly my exhaust smelled at an idle the last time around and that it was a surprise how well my engine cleaned up under load. Anyway, he has his new student fire up the engine and then goes for a walk to who knows where. No joke, about 10 mins later he comes back talking on the phone to God know who and for what reason but in the mean time, my engine is chugging along. 15 mins now have gone by and unconvinced that my TBI is really doing it’s job, he decided to plug his DLP reader up to the ECM and do some checking. Low and behold, my engine all of a sudden throws a check engine light… imagine that?! Well, right there and then, the jackoff cuts the engine and tells me that i failed my inspection. When I asked him what the error code was, he tells me that my engine is running too rich. So the student fires her back up, pulls it out of the garage and goes to park it when I noticed that the check engine light is now off. Seeing this, I ask if I could be tested again now that the light is off and he tells me that it’s no good and that the computer already has me down with a check engine light and the best he could do is void my test allowing me another chance.By this time, I’m really pissed off but don’t have a clue as to what to do…..

Anyway, so I head back home which is over an hour away in bumper to bumper traffic when it hits me…. try to get my Jeep smogged at a regular check station. Show the paper work from the time before and say that you missed your re-test appointment and can I just get it done here. Need I say, that’s exactly what I did and after a little persuading….. I passed smog with flying colors…. again!

Well, today was my smog test and to no surprise, my CJ passed the snif test with flying colors…. however, the smog nazis still FAILED me!! Why you might ask? Well, after about an hour of close scrutiny and interogating, this is what i was told (and i’m not making any of this up):

1. my check engine light was not properly labled “check engine” (just so you know, i reused my old factory “check carb” lamp on the dash).

2. there was a vacuum plug on the last port of the CTO that was supposed to be open to atmosphere. (i simply forgot to remove it)

3. the hose connecting my PCV breather to the air intake was a radiator hose and not a fuel line hose.

4. my charcoal canister had a crack on one of the ports that i fixed with a little JB weld to which they said “gluing a port is not an acceptable repair even if it works.”

5. my idle was running at about 950-1000 RPM and needed to be at 750 RPM.

Anyway, thanks to the help of John Strenk, all these things have now been fixed and I will go in for another appointment on 02/15/05. Wish me luck.

From the day I bought my CJ, the one upgrade I have been been just dying to install is a Howell Throttle Body Fuel Injection System. For one, I really needed it so that I could pass a visual smog inspection here in the Peoples Republic of California, but the other reason was so that I could rip out and toss the POS Carter BBD carburetor that I had under the hood! No more crappy idle, no more stalling at the most inopportune moments and no more miles and miles of vacuum lines under the hood to deal with, hooray!!

Anyway, I finally saved up enough money and bought one of these kits on eBay. I also picked up a K&N knock off air intake system to complete the setup. To see my complete write-up, click on the link below:

Howell TBI Installation Write-Up