The Progress!

I paid $340 for it and it had a blown head gasket, leaking intake manifold, bad tires, no grille, 4x4 was broken, front brake pads were GONE to the point where it ruined the calipers! It shifted horrible, tailgate latch was broken, tailgate cables broken, no radio. It has the original owners guide, if that accounts for anything! All in all, it was in really bad shape! I do all of the work myself, so this will be my continuing project. The brakes were definately the first thing to be fixed, I HAD to replaced both front calipers and brake pads all around. The brakepads were completely gone! The piston came out of the caliper and it tore the seal, and it was actually functioning as the brake pad on the passenger side! The brake pad was so thin, it slid out of place between the rotor and caliper.

Like my back woods ramp? lol Just to let you know, I did not go underneath the truck. I'm brave, not stupid!

I was not advised that the truck had a blown head gasket when I bought it. (I found out that he knew about it, after the fact!)I would not have cared, I wanted the truck! I rebuilt the top end of the motor from the "replaced and port matched" intake manifold up. (Which was thought to be the problem.) There was water leaking into the oil because the seal surface of the lower intake manifold was pitted. I now know that one or both heads are cracked, I believe it is due to the fact that it might have overheated from the water leaking out under the old intake manifold. (I am not sure how long previous owner drove it that way.) But once you overheat a 2.9 they tend to crack the heads.

I replaced the stock 196 degree thermostat with a 180 degree thermostat, because a common rule of thumb is that decreasing the air intake temperature by 7 degrees F will increase horsepower and torque by 1%. Not much, but every little bit helps! Eventually I will get a throttle body spacer and intake plenum spacers as well.

I found that the 4x4 was not working due to a bad manual locking hub. I did not want to invest $200 on new hubs if I did not know if the rest of the 4x4 was good. Sooo.... "Junkyard Run!" Out of 5 places, only one had a manual locking hub. The soft pile of dirt was my test subject ..... "Works now!" I put an aftermarket B&M tranny cooler in line with the stock tranny coolers... you can see it on the radiator. Like I said before, the truck came with no grille, that made installation easier. LOL Foglights are a must where I live. And I just got brand new tires all the way around. They are regular stock size, but perfectly fine for now.

I have installed some aftermarket oil pressure, coolant temperature, voltometer guages. They are a lot more informative than dummy lights! I will soon hook the dummy lights up as well, I will just use a few plumbing pieces to hook them up together.

I replaced the stock radio with a 50Wx4 Panasonic CD player/ reciever. I had to run wire for the entire audio system with 16 guage speaker wire. I added tweeters, and rear speakers. I could not stand the fact that from the factory it only has two dash speakers.....Period! Headphones have sounded better! I have added a circuit to keep the radio on after the key has been removed, until the doors are opened. I also added a delay relay to my domelight circuit, so now it stays on for approximately 20 secs after the doors shut.

I now have an electric fan, that should free up to fifteen horsepower and twenty-seven ft. lbs. of torque. I need to get an adjustable thermostat to control the fan, as of right now I have it come on when the ignition is on. I now have an oil relocation kit. I also bought body mounts to replace the old worn out ones. As you can see in the picture to the left, I really needed them! I went to the salvage yard and bought a grille, the truck did not look to well without it.

I installed a steering stabilizer, this should reduce bump steering and following of ruts on the highway (road wander) and allow greater reduction of wheel deflection from rocks, ruts, potholes and obstacles while offroading. It also reduces steering vibration, steering component wear and driver fatigue. It will improve vehicle stability, safety, and control as well.

I have ported and polished the Intake manifold, the Intake plenum and the Throttle body. What I did was take the gaskets and put them up to the surfaces that needed to be matched and I traced the inside of the gasket onto the metal with a blue permanent marker. Now all that blue had to be ported out. After it was ported out, I then made it as smooth as I could with my rotary tool. The better the engine can breathe, the better it will run. If you decide to do this, DO NOT port around the butterfly. That will cause the vehicle to idle high. Be sure to start 1/4 to 1/8 from the butterfly and taper out.

Page 1: Description, Future Plans, and costs
Page 2: The Progress!
Page 3: Assorted Parts Pics

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