In the 1970s American car companies were putting out junk (everything from AMC, the Ford Pinto, the GM Chevette, the Plymouth K-Car) and their reputations went down the tubes. The quality did improve but the reputations never fully recovered..
A lot of the 70s performance problems were due to the EPA enforcing pollution controls when the technology did not really exist yet. They also required stupid safety stuff like the 5 mph bumpers. I remember that especially 73 and 74 cars were bad. My parents had one that used to just die for no apparent reason when it was brand new. The catalytic converter came out in 1975 and relieved some of the issues. The rest of the world waited until we developed the emission control technologies in the 1980s before they applied it to their cars at home. I had a 1984 BMW 323i and a 1986 BMW 535i that both ran on premium leaded gas in Germany, which you could not even buy at most stations in the USA anymore at that time. My first unleaded gas German car was a 1989 BMW. Our gubmint made US car companies pay for developing the technology for the rest fo the world with the resulting crappy running cars during the process. I blame the US gubmint at least as much as I blame US car companies for bad products in the 1970s.
I get reminders about 70s build quality tackling different problems of the long languishing 79 Blazer.
Yesterday I finally got to replacing the rusted and damaged steel auto trans cooler lines with flex steel lines.
GM did an exceptional job of making sure that it was a miserable experience to take them off. The flared fittings appeared to be stripped. They would spin but never break loose.
Snip, snip with some bolt cutters. The main fittings backed right off. Good thing the floor pan is pretty well rusted. I had to make an access with a sawzall in the floorboard. K5 will need a fair amount of sheet metal work anyway.
Those harbor freight thick mechanic’s gloves worked really well.
Now I need a radiator and front support section.
I guess I’ll strip the AC portion. It didn’t work anyway when I got it. AC eats up so much room and cuts access. The top can come off and windows go down.
https://cjneil82.smugmug.com/Project-K5/
Out of ignorance I bought some 16 inch Cragar 5 lug wheels for one of the jeep projects several years ago. Steel and gray.
I guess with some low profile AT radials they will fit on my CJ7. Yesterday I read up on the subject of rattle canning them. I might. If I stay gray, my color choices for painting that CJ7 seem kind of limited.