How often does that happen? In my book, never, so I'm celebrating.<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

Moving to Arizona I expected to have a year or two of downtime, no 4x4 action, no big builds, lots of time building back a good guy network since all my car friends got left back in the midwest. Im sure you guys know what I'm talking about since most/all (i havent met you all) of you in this section of the board are part of a really solid group of local people.

First Toasty put me into the mix with a great deal on RunningBird's old raider through Monte3, a little work and the truck went from left for dead to daily driven, then adam again found a deal down in tucson, a buy-one get-one gen-1 mighty max deal. Scored a 2wd Diesel and a 4x4 with great patina.

I had plans for the Raider (v6, locker, 35's) and was going to give Adam the Patina, but he scored a great truck so the raider will get a good buff and some detail restoration work, then live it's life as a light trail duty vehicle and daily driver with air conditioning for the girlfriend.

Before:


After:




The patina on the other hand now gets the name "The Hyena" a rough looking little monster feeding off the scraps of the desert.



1984 Power Ram



Looks a bit like a rust bucket, but it's only the top and sides of the body, the underbody is clean as can be.

So far I've accumulated the following parts for the build;

6G74 SOHC engine in need of some valves
V6 AW2 Trans
NP231 T-case
8 Inch front diff with welded spiders

I'm still going to need the following:
-3.5 SOHC ECU and Harness
-Montero Sport locking rear axle (leaf sprung) or SR axle and I'll make it work
-15 inch 35's
-driveshafts

I'm sure there's other stuff I'm missing. Mostly the little [censored], brakes, shocks, radiator etc.

By the way, for any of you with a 2.6 powered truck rocking a body lift, you can get a 3 row aluminum radiator for a 280z on ebay for $133 shipped.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/14147804364...49&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I put one in my diesel, since there's no body lift i had to clearance the front frame cross member, but any montero/raider/d50 with a 1.5-2" body lift will accept this radiator for massive cooling capability!

Hopefully adam will post a build thread for his new toy "Rainbow Brite" <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/notooth.gif" alt="" />

Waddabout the dismal?

I like the patina.

Not much to say except waiting on lug nuts so i can start driving it more. nuts should be here today.



turbine wheels will go onto the patina once i source some decent 17x10's for the dizzle

That intercooler looks really badass until you find out it's attached to a diesel. My first thought on seeing that truck is "4G63T conversion".

Yeah, I can do those too. How is it a problem on a diesel? 4D55 is a bad ass engine in my book, and I've built a handleful of boosted variants of the 4GXX engines.

Not only does Alpha have some cool cars, he's also one lucky dude. Not many people find their lost items in the middle of McDowell Rd an hour after losing them.

HoseB is going to apply detailing magic to one of the cool collection today. Should be transformational.

John B.

The Diesel in a pickup is a haul ass setup... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

That wagon is sweet!

Wait until you see the Colt.

John B.

I gotta text HoseB to get a price on getting the Van detailed. I want my things to be nice like your cars.

He'll be glad to get past the Colt and work on your van, I'd bet. I think he's got around 11 or 12 hours on that car so far and he's still not done. It was pretty far gone and he didn't start with an aggressive enough cut on his polishing compound, so he's had to really work at getting a shine out of it. The nice part about that for Alpha is that HoseB was driving both of my Monteros when they broke, so he's feeling obligated to get it done 'under budget' as well.

John B.

Can you still get me a "deal" on a detailing for those axles or whatever it was you needed?

My Van is pretty nice as far as survivors go.

Your van is starting off leaps and bounds ahead of Kim's colt. So it should be easy for him.

Maybe I'll Jorge's lifters done by the time Jose is done with the sedan. Got a new debit card issued, trying to salvage the other cards since I mostly use them for online purchases. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

Toasty, I can't seem to recall what it is that you are referring to as to the axles. Remind me again.

AlphaMale, why do you have another screen name?

John B.

I gave Kevin some axles you needed or something one time a long time ago but not so long, you were gonna con the neighbor kid into detailing my car or something. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

had to ditch that lame user name and go with the same name i have everywhere else. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

A major improvement as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah now you don't sound like such a wang.

He never sounded like a 'wang' to me.

No progress on the Colt today. It's Hose's birthday.

I still say to take out the CEL bulb on Jorge's 89. That thing doesn't really do anything anyway. Hahaha. Good job on slapping in the new lifters. Bet it sounds much improved.

John B.

The 76 all polished up. Jose, er, HoseB, did a great job on it.

I should note, the paint on this car was pretty much gone prior to him working on it. looked matte almost.

Well, this is what I get for thinking I was ahead of the curve. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/angry.gif" alt="" />


Point of failure;
Drove the truck to get coffee in the morning, 15 minute drive on surface streets, 45mph max, casual drive. Sat in drive through for 5 minutes, began to drive home, made it 7 minutes down the road, stopped at a stoplight, began to lightly accelerate to 45mph, first gear shifted, second gear held on longer than normal, i let off the throttle due to this surprise, trans seemed to shift, rolled back into the throttle to find a neutral state, no drive gear, no bad noises, just free revving. Checked the gear select to make sure it didnt pop out somehow, still in gear. Coasted to the side and phoned up Toasty for the rescue.

Tinkering before the failure;
The night prior I finally hooked the AC back up, when i got the truck it was taken apart so i have been piecing everything back together, one thing I had noticed with around town driving was that the truck seemed to hold gears longer than it should and adam drove it once and said 'it feels like it's constantly towing something' I attempted to adjust the kick down cable and give it a little more slack so maybe it would shift a little earlier. Aside from that change and the addition of the AC working (wasnt using it at point of failure) no changes had been made.

Background;
Truck was sitting for 5/6 years after the flywheel bolts had wobbled loose and/or broke off, i extracted the bolts, put on a new/correct flywheel, put on what I think was a new torque converter, but i have no real knowledge, it just looked new and came with the truck. Didn't change fluid or anything (because im dumbbbb)

So the trans is the original, but when i was putting the engine in, the TC slid out and got misaligned, cracked the front pump, i pulled the engine back out and swapped in the pump from Kevin's "swamp trans" that pump worked, until now. I think anyhow. All gears lead to nowhere, no reverse, no drive, no noises, no problems, dropped the pan and found nothing crazy, changed the fluid and the filter, still no action from the old AW03-72L

At this point I think the pump is shot, for a couple of reasons:
-It came from questionable transmission (hey, it was a last ditch chance to get the truck wheeling)
-A clogged cooler/line generally causes a pump starvation sound (whine like a power steering pump low on fluid); mine is silent
-Engine doesn't bog down when put into gear, RPM doesn't lower at all. which leads me to believe I likely have zero line pressure.

Anyone know how to check line pressure on these? I would like to check as much as I can without removing the trans, so at least I know where to start once it's out.

I'd just slap a new trans in it and go driving again, it's not like you don't have a bunch laying around.

The flexplate coming off mashed the pump in the trans .. The pumps died ...

I guess you overlooked the part where I said I had already replaced the pump. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

Regardless, there's definite ticking coming from the front pump, and no pressure in the system, it's busted. New trans is being prepped for install this week.

That's just gorgeous!

Thanks Ryan.

So now we have a 99 with winter package as well. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

Lose the running boards or you're out of the club.

John B.

fine.<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/patriot.gif" alt="" />

They're all back up and running. The raider has a V6 trans and TC in it now. I'll be daily driving it through the summer, then my uncle is taking it when he comes back this winter, so we'll add another gen 1 owner to the group <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Jorge is pushing to get his carving (side job) done so we can get over there to get started on your projects. Glad to hear your vehicles are all up and running, and it sounds like a good idea to have the heavy duty auto from a V-6 in your Raider. What did you have to do to get that to swap in?

I'm just about complete with all my parts to do the timing belt and top end work on my '95. Just need to get some minor local parts like small diameter cooling hose and fluids/chemicals, then it can come visit you. I even sprung for a new battery for it, since I got a whopping $11.42 in pro-rated credit on the remainder of the 5 year warranty. I was so thrilled.

John B.

that thing is going to be like a brand new truck in a month.

To swap in the V6 trans and torque converter, you just need the bell housing from the 4 cylinder transmission. it bolts onto the V6 trans and the TC bolts up just like the 4cyl one did.

The only reason i used the V6 TC is due to a lower stall and because the v6 trans had a longer snout on it, the 4 cyl TC didn't fit completely onto the input shaft of the v6 trans. I've noticed a few variations, so if you are doing a swap like this, find out the year of the trans and get that TC. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

Wow!!

Speaking of Wow!!, are you the guy with my engine hoist and stand...still?

John B.

No, Ernest has it. I'll tell that MoFo to hurry up.

if it can be worked out easily I can pick the hoist up from Ernest on my way over to get your truck John. He's just up the road from me.

Just keep an eye on it. I don't "need" it back yet.

I am going to "need" to get my SR over to the IncorporatedX facility soon, however. The parts are all aligned on my dining room table. And that's not doing me anything.

John B.

Soon. I dont think you'd like a tree falling on it and unfortunately that's the only space I have available at the moment.

took four of my fleet over to my uncles to hide them away during the garage fiasco.

Ordered new 12v glow plugs for my 4D55, aside from that all projects are currently in limbo until I have a work space.

Ten-Four. Especially relevant on a windy day like today.

John B.

we are selling the Colt if anyone is interested, 2.6 narrow block, automatic, rear wheel drive. Toasty can attest to how fun it is to drive, he recently borrowed it for a week. it's a little cream puff cruiser and could be made to run a lot stronger than it does, but it's a good car. She daily drives it around town and treats it well.

Updates from the East. Should change my thread title to 'behind schedule and over budget' <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

The colt ended up being traded to a great guy on the coast and somehow the raider got worked into the deal and we ended up with a 91 2wd mighty max who's drivetrain to put in Kim's 75 wagon, we'll be removing the 2.4 and 4 speed auto and stuffing it into her 75 colt for modern luxuries of EFI and AC. For the raider I was given a 4D56. So now all my plans have been tossed around. Long story short, white truck gets 4x4 and 4D56 with 4 speed auto and 35's etc.

But first, Johnny B's gen 2 is in my garage for a top end and timing overhaul. once that's done I've got to flush the trans that's currently in the raider, came out of clays truck working but once in my truck it doesnt want to shift in a timely manner. Holds every gear for too long.