Thanks for all the prayers - I got the CUCV home safe and sound.
Thursday after I dropped my fiancé off at the airport I went up to the garage to button some things up - reconnected the batteries, filled the transfercase and checked the trans, PS pump, brake fluid, coolant, and oil levels. Everything checked out. Cranked her two times and laid into the throttle some and she roared to life. Made sure I was in 2H and reversed the old girl out of the garage for the first time in basically 2 years on her own power. Set her in park and she sat there smoking and angry as I went to shut the garage down.
I knew I had two options:
1) Wait for a friend or go pick someone up that could follow behind me in my other truck in case something goes wrong
2) Go home with the CUCV
That's about when my friend texted me "Hey man, if you're too scared to drive it I can drive it for you, or I can just get a trailer this weekend and take it to your house for you." I texted him back when I was at the house with the CUCV.
The brakes worked at the end of the gravel driveway, good enough to stop. It felt like it was shifting going 300 yards down the road to the main road, I never drove the old girl before, so I didn't really know how the TH400 liked to shift. Saw the street wide open so I peeled out onto the road, billowing smoke behind me as I cruised. I had two more options now:
1) Turn onto the 70 MPH speed limit highway that has a shoulder but I'd have to deal with a lot of traffic on my side of town
2) Stay on the slower road and potentially break down with no shoulder or anywhere to pull off
I went down the highway. The smoking was gone by about 90% by the time my tires hit the freeway. Thank God, because there were two county sheriffs waiting at a speed trap that I passed, and with the dead tags and smoking old truck I knew I'd be in some kind of trouble if they took an interest to me going 50mph and smoking like a chimney down the highway. Nothing happened. I went maybe 3-5 miles down the highway and it felt pretty smooth, way better than what I expected. Every now and then she wanted to get the shudders and I'd ease off the throttle a little and it'd smooth right back out.
The tricky part was going to be getting off the highway onto a main road by my house where there's a line of traffic lights and everyone rushes off the highway up to the lights. I had to merge across 4 lanes of traffic and hopefully stop if I caught a light, praying that people would let me over (the people in my area don't drive with any form of southern hospitality...). One lady cut me off and wouldn't let me get over but the person behind her waved me on and I was grateful. Dodged the first red light by turning off left onto the backroad that went the rest of the way to my house with almost 0 traffic or lights.
Backed her into a spot in my neighborhood and jumped out, letting her just sit there and idle for a minute. Neighbors came out to ask me about it, a lot of my friends came by to celebrate with me and check out the old girl. Two long years and she is finally home. Going to take Laney for a cruise and let her drive it some tonight, I missed many dinners and nights at home with her to put this CUCV back together for her. I have full confidence she can make it 30 minutes up the road to our wedding in October.
Will upload some more pictures tonight. Cheers.
Sidenote: She doesn't really like to take off from a dead stop sometimes. It will rev up almost like I'm sitting in neutral then bite down and the tires squeak. Not sure if that's normal or if my TH400 is just slippy? Cruising and slowing down she's fine but dead stopped to starting, about 1/3 of the time to 1/2 the time it will rev up to like 1500-1800 RPM and then bite down and go. Might just need to get the RPM up some before easing the brakes off to get her started without chirping my back tires...
