1992 Rebuild

[Squamch]

Hah heck yeah. I don't think the head gasket went out. I think I burnt a valve

Buy a functioning motor and swap it in a day, then spend a bunch polishing the spare turd.
Swap that in.
Lie to yourself for awhile, cause you spend a bunch of money on turd polish.
Swap a 3.4.
Lie to yourself for awhile, cause you did the thing you're supposed to do and it's actually not all that great and the mileage is bad.
At this point, either go for the 4.3 you're already familiar with, or just meet the final boss and LS it.

 

[Bodj Built]

Buy a functioning motor and swap it in a day, then spend a bunch polishing the spare turd.
Swap that in.
Lie to yourself for awhile, cause you spend a bunch of money on turd polish.
Swap a 3.4.
Lie to yourself for awhile, cause you did the thing you're supposed to do and it's actually not all that great and the mileage is bad.
At this point, either go for the 4.3 you're already familiar with, or just meet the final boss and LS it.

Hahaha. Too many irons in the fire to do a motor swap. However, an LS would be the route I went. Screw the 4.3L. I hate those motors. For sure easier to work on than this 3.0, but people give the 4.3 way too much credit.

 

[Bodj Built]

Downey are 3 into 1 and slip joint . NWOR are tri-Y and ball joint. And I think NWOR were stainless.

Looks like they're Downey

 

[Bodj Built]

New heads came in today. Hopefully I can get them on this weekend.

 

[Bodj Built]

Productive day yesterday. My dad came over and fixed a hun on my wife’s Jetta while I got started on tearing down the top end. Everything went smoothly, except the new heads didn’t come with studs. We were able to rob almost all of the old studs, but a few were stuck so I have to pick a couple up for the exhaust and almost all for the intake. ARP hardware is 👌🏻 and the felpro gasket kit has had everything I need so far (surprisingly). Got the new head torqued on before calling it a day.

Found why I had zero compression. Looks like a plastic cup from the old injectors maybe? I could see daylight through it.

Also, the driver cylinder head had a crack between these valves.

Not going to be able to use the Downey headers, unfortunately. The upper link shares the same space, so I’m going to just run the oem stuff.

 

[Squamch]

Can you modify the header? It's kinda key to preventing further HG failures...not that it looks like you actually had one, but still.

 

[Bodj Built]

Can you modify the header? It's kinda key to preventing further HG failures...not that it looks like you actually had one, but still.

I mean I guess I can run the oem manifold on the drivers side and the header on the passenger side… I’m not sure how that would affect motor performance being unbalanced, if at all

 

[rockota]

I mean I guess I can run the oem manifold on the drivers side and the header on the passenger side… I’m not sure how that would affect motor performance being unbalanced, if at all

Can you run OEM but build a different crossover that goes below the bellhousing - or at least provides more room for cooling around the rear cylinders?

 

[Bodj Built]

Can you run OEM but build a different crossover that goes below the bellhousing - or at least provides more room for cooling around the rear cylinders?

I can probably do that. I was also thinking of just wrapping the crossover pipe with fiberglass exhaust wrap since I have a roll.

 

[Bodj Built]

Starting to look like an engine again. Few more small things to button up and it should be good to go for a first start.

 

[thezentree]

I am so jealous of y'all who live in a place where you can swap cylinder heads in your driveway and just leave it like that. I had to swap spark plug wires on my 4Runner yesterday afternoon. It was about 10 degrees and snowing on and off.

Anyway, cool truck. Glad you're saving it.

 

[Bodj Built]

I am so jealous of y'all who live in a place where you can swap cylinder heads in your driveway and just leave it like that. I had to swap spark plug wires on my 4Runner yesterday afternoon. It was about 10 degrees and snowing on and off.

Anyway, cool truck. Glad you're saving it.

That's miserable. It's been incredibly windy here, which is my least favorite weather. Thankfully the house and retaining wall block much of the wind so working in the driveway is fine, but it creates an area that gathers leaves since they don't get blown away. For as crappy as CA is in a lot of aspects, it's pretty solid in other aspects. Thousands of acres of public land for offroading is a benefit.

 

[Bodj Built]

I was able to spend saturday morning messing with it. Started right up, but runs rough. I think it's vacuum related, since everything else is new (plugs, wires, cap, rotor, fuel pump, filter, injectors, heads+gaskets), and timing is right at 10*. It Idles right around 750-800rpm, just not smoothly. Going to pick up new lengths of vacuum hose after work today and remake them all, and then look at the vacuum diagram again to make sure I got them all plugged in correctly.

 

[Bodj Built]

Went through the vacuum lines last night and replaced just about all of them on the passenger side and it's still behaving the same. When I pulled the distributor cap, I noticed the #1 plug point is tucked pretty deep in the plastic housing, especially compared to the other 5 which sit proud of the plastic. I'm going to pick up another cap today and see if that fixes anything.

 

[Bodj Built]

Put on the new distributor cap and it idles very nicely! It has a bog if you whack the throttle open, which I'm guessing may be due to a vacuum leak I still haven't found or a coolant temp sensor wigging out from it not having any coolant in it. I plan to make shock mounts for it this weekend and hopefully get it moving again soon.

 

[Bodj Built]

Got started on the shock towers. I need to trim a little bit to fine tune the shock angle inwards a bit. Then bolt on cross brace

 

[Bodj Built]

Had to angle the shocks forward to clear the master cylinder. Lame, but I’m not in the mood to make a MC cantilever. For a rock donkey I’m sure it’ll be fine. Go fast? Not a chance lol. Ran out of mig wire so I’ll get the rest finished up this week. Also found a nice rip in the bottom of a rubber intake tube, which explains the hanging idle I’ve been having. It’ll get fixed anyways, since I need to figure out how to squeeze the intake by the tower…

 

[Bodj Built]

Trying to do one or two things a day since the weather is beautiful after work.

Engine cross brace and hood are on. Slightest bit of room between the brace and intake plenum. Brace and hood are making out, but fenders line up so I’m not worried. Sleeved the crossbrace since the tube was from my scrap pile and already had bends it was just too long. If I ever need to take the plenum off I’ll add flanges or couplers at that point.

 

[Bodj Built]

Anyone have a lead on these headlight bracket/bucket chingaderas for 89-95 trucks? I only find them discontinued online, so I may have to make this set for a previous gen work...

 

[Bodj Built]

Started mounting the fenders today. Dimple dies for the hoes.

 

[Bodj Built]

Got the fenders and core support located and bolted together. Fit is pretty decent until I try getting the corner lights in. I've got some industrial strength hot glue I'll try using to keep it pulled tighter to the grill. I know they're eventually going to fall out, but stuff like that bothers me.

I farted around for 45 minutes trying to figure out how I wanted to mount the fuse box but couldn't come up with a solution I liked, so I plated over the big hole on the front crossmember. No pictures of that since I forgot.

 

[2 86s]

Might as well cut off the leaf mounts while you're there. Unless you carry a leaf for a trail repair.

 

[Bodj Built]

Might as well cut off the leaf mounts while you're there. Unless you carry a leaf for a trail repair.

Previous owner did leaf’s before linking it. I may leave them for flat towing

 

[Bodj Built]

Core support mount and mounted fuse block

 

[Bodj Built]

1. Mount fuse block
2. Clean up under hood wiring
3. Figure out intake tube
4. Make upper core support mounts off shock towers
5. Modify headlamp buckets to work
6. Mount ARB compressor for lockers
7. Build bumper with winch mount
8. Restore/install lights and wire them in
9. New ARB air line to front locker
10. New shifter bushings (already have them)
11. New clutch master and slave cylinders (already have them)
12. New d44 diff gasket (already have) and new fluid

Pulled fenders off for paint. Flexed it out and I need to trim them anyways. Tomorrow I should be able to reassemble it all and maybe get started on the winch mount and bumper.

 

[Steve300xcw]

Anyone have a lead on these headlight bracket/bucket chingaderas for 89-95 trucks? I only find them discontinued online, so I may have to make this set for a previous gen work...

Ebay?

 

[Bodj Built]

Ebay?

Freebay. I'm pretty dumb and didn't realize this generation doesnt use the whole bracket, just the actual bucket the headlight sits in. That sits in the opening of the header panel and pivots around.

 

[Bodj Built]

Thrashed on the truck Saturday to get it all back together and drive it around. New clutch master and slave cylinders as well. Drove around the block and did well off idle, but has a miss at idle. Once warm, the truck ran much worse. I was able to drive it around the neighborhood a few times, which felt good. At this point, I need to revisit the vacuum lines (I think one may have come undone from moving them around), replace the brake booster and master cylinder (pedal goes to the floor once truck is turned on), and take the intake manifold back apart as the passenger valve cover and driver rear cam cap seal is leaking. To top it all off, the new waterpump is leaking, too? Fun stuff, but pretty burnt out on this engine.

Turned my attention to the bumper/winch mount. Got that cut out, welded on, and drew up the bumper main horns, and cut off the old front leaf spring hangers

Ride height is pretty tall, so might see what springs I have to swap out.

 

[Bodj Built]

My pops came over yesterday to help get the truck squared away. New booster took care of the vacuum leak, master cylinder means working brakes. Swapped throttle bodies out for a spare that came with the truck, made a new paper gasket, and tightened the spring preload collar for the IAC, so it can now actually seal. Also hooked up the coolant bypass tube on the throttle body I had forgotten about, which was the source of my coolant leak haha. Set timing to spec, fiddled with the idle screw and the idle set screw for the throttle so it’s now idling perfectly at 800RPM with timing at 10*, just like specified. Should be able to get it smogged and registered this week! It’s seriously running so smoothly now. Both transfer cases are shifting nicely, and it goes through the gears without issues. Spare tire was the only thing I had to climb.

Alternator isn’t charging, so I have to order a new one.

 

[Bodj Built]

Frame horns tacked in place and main tube bent up. I tucked it as tight as I could without letting the winch protrude, and giving enough room for the lights. Still need to trim and cap the ends of the main tube and add a few diagonal tubes. Not sure if I'm going to do a skidplate yet. I'll see how it is with more tubes and the winch placed