Ah, but you see it's called Arizona Pin-striping. There's not a tree on earth that can do the scratching of a good old ironwood bush, even good old mesquite can be an issue (although I have some mesquite for the interior rebuild when I get around to shaping it, then it will be a true desert car!). None of those compare to our wonderful sandstone, shale or granite box canyons when it comes to adding a little character to your paint. My combat for that is some hard drying, heavy wax and lots of it. We don't get much rust out here, but in the rare rain storm it can happen fast so I like to keep the paint as clean and fresh as possible. Maybe I should do an off-roader's waxing writeup? <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thank you though. My next step (or steps) will be the rear end. I need to get it off the ground more, so some chopping and some custom bumper work will be done. I am thinking an angled plate steel rear end that wraps around under the chopped quarter panels acting as landing skids.... We shall see though. Suggestions are certainly appreciated. Then when I have more money (I hope), I am leaning towards a hydraulic winch to fill in the gap in the bumper. I know all about the ps pumps on the truck being fairly low volume making hydraulics slow, so I think I have a solution around that. We shall see...

Great pics, really dig the storage bins...definitely in Mitsu fashion! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

Someday when the money's right I really hope to make it out there to wheel the slick rock and the canyons!
But again, thats a nice truck bro. Im lucky mines so darn old looking anyway, I just hit it with some more spray paint

Thanks again guys! Played around with some maintenance items today. Nothing too exciting, just replaced a slowly leaking oil cooler line. The harder issue though is I have an EGR supply tube leaking too. I found some header patch "liquid steel" which slowed the leak, but it's still there and I am wondering if that might be what's affecting my cold start, cold idle issues. Yes I have played with the idle adjustment, I have tried 3 ISC motors (all of which checked out), and the ERG itself works fine. This leaking pipe is about the only thing left I can think of. Anyone know a better way to patch it? I know I should ideally replace the tube, but since I still can't find one to pull anything off of at a local JY, I have to make due with what I got. Any ideas? Hopefully I can get some time to sketch up some ideas for the rear bumper too...

Here's how you fix it. Get some .050ish stainless. Take off the egr pipe. Trace and drill/form two stainless gaskets for the egr pipe WITHOUT the gas passage hole. get two sets of egr gaskets. Sandwich the stainless between two gaskets, and install the gasket sandwiches and the egr pipe, which is now cosmetic so in don't matta if it leaks.

fasteddy, I have thought about blocking it off, but I know in some engines the gas mileage and/or the emissions may suffer. I searched but can't find anyone else talking about how much it might affect the 3.5L. If the mileage change is very small, I guess that would be OK. I get about 15mpg right now, and I would like that to go up, not down, but if it were like 14.9 that really won't affect my bottom line. The emissions are a bigger issue though. I will be due for another test at the end of this year, so I have some time to play around with it I guess. If anyone else has any thoughts or first hand experience with how important the EGR is on the 3.5, I would love to hear it.

I get a very consistent 15mpg in town 17 hiway with 35's and all the heavy plate work with my '99, and johnny gets better than that with the '95 and 35's and i think my '94 does better too. Are you heavy footed? Maybe your EGR is to blame.

If you disable it you will probably need to re-enable it in order to pass emissions.

My 1 year average (since getting the 33x12.5's) is 15.25 MPG. I do get up to 17 on flat highway stretches. You all probably get slightly better because you have the manual hubs while I am still spinning the full front end and often carrying plenty of cargo. However, there is also a rich smell when it's cold I have noticed. It's not strong, just a faint whiff, but I am guessing that's the computer dumping more gas since the EGR isn't able to recirculate as much exhaust as it expects to...

These are just my guesses anyway. And I am interested/planning to put on manual hubs... just as soon as I can find some and spare cash to get them. Toasty, do you know if the new ones you tested have become generally available yet? Eventually of course, I want to go diesel but that's a long term plan....