good luck on motor # 3 lol

 

Gasket ship showed up yesterday afternoon not bad for ordering the day before. I have a big block to do a compression test on then I'm going to put the new engine together for the race truck.

 

So as a followup I did the compression test on the customers truck and put the engine together for the race truck. Gigantic failure on my part. My best guess is the block was decked a LOT on that rebuilt short block and the large cam on the 20r head is putting the pistons and valves together. Damned thing sounds like blender with ball bearings in it while running. I have only ran it momentarily but I picked up a FAIL of a project truck that started me on this whole escapade of stupidity that has a good running stock 20r in it that will get my side draft and LCE header so I can at least drive the damned thing while I diagnose the other engine.


The '76 that started this whole thing...

Picked it up for $50 and drove it home on a flat tire from across the street. Neighbor kids said it had a bad clutch, turned out to be out of adjustment.

Best pic I have of it as a useable 2x. We unceremoniously used it as a receptacle for beer cans/bottles one night when we had a little party.



The kid that owned it years prior moved back from Ohio and wanted it back so I sold it for $280 and kept the factory Jeep alloys that are on the race truck now in the deal. He beat on the truck for a while and tore it apart to make it a 4x. After it sat for 6 or so months he posted it for sale on a local board for $1000 then dropped the price to $800 I told him I'd give him his $280 back beings he ruined the truck and he took the deal. I ended up with a BUNCH of 4x parts out of the deal as well as what was left of the truck. I already made a big profit on the truck and I still have 90% of the parts to boot. It did have a hacktacular fj80 axle in the bed. Damned thing was welded crooked on two planes.



The truck




The pimp hanger.




No washer no nothing but the wrong sized nut is welded to the bolt so it doesn't back out.




Nothing wrong with that shackle is there?




Nah, everything is perfect!




And the piece de resistance the fj 80 axle




Yes it's welded crooked on not one but two planes!

 

Wow!!! Thats crazy! You got a nice truck out the deal!

 

So I took the time last weekend to work on the truck. I had the spare stock 20r sitting there waiting to go in but decided to at least pull the head off the one that was in it to see if I was right. Yup, I sure was...




As you can see the exhaust valves were friendly with the pistons. I figured what the hell and taped off the block and took a grinder to the pistons to make valve reliefs. . I then cleaned them up with a die grinder mounted sanding disc to make them smooth and get rid of any potential hot spots. Slapped it back together with the same head and intake gaskets..

Found that my dumb ass had hooked the return and vent hoses on the pump backwards which probably saved the valves from real damage. What do ya know it fired and actually ran real strong till today... I downshifted into 3rd heading into a corner and I'm 90% sure I sucked the intake gasket. I'll limp it home and swap it out later this week. I'm surprised the headgasket held up to being reused but it never saw a heat cycle and I torque it back down to 75 ft lbs this time just to be sure.

 

Another little update. Found that I didn't suck the intake gasket at all, the wiring to the distributor from the msd box had rubbed through and was shorting out randomly. Took it out for a spin this am and blew the #1 spark plug out if the cylinder. The plug had a short timesert on it and all the threads pulled with it. I bought a kit with the correct long timesert and green loctited it in place. That ought to fix it for good but if it pukes it again I'll have to change the head due to the PO's stupidity.

Replaced the exhaust yesterday too. Running 2 1/4" off the lce pro header back to a stainless magnaflow and out the tail. Not sure how I like it so far... it is great at cruise and pretty mellow under throttle but when decelerating it sounds like a box of bees playing gawdamned kazoos!

I might see about adding a resonator yup to smooth it out.

 

resonator would be nice. get her done man!

 

Yea its on the list. Need to replace my cheap aluminum blocks with the steel ones I started building last weekend and rebuild the rear packs to get it down a bit more then I'll start dealing with the exhaust again.

I am happier with the exhaust after driving it 30ish miles to work yesterday. I could actually listen to the radio and have the Windows down on the freeway. That damned old exhaust was re****ulously loud so that was impossible.

 

I drove with a open cat to atmosphere setup for a long time on and off (especially when I was single). It ended underneath the driver's seat and it reflected under the cab ALOT. It was the perfect sound but it was too loud. I eventually took girls around and realized how tough it is to talk to anyone and enjoy my music. so built up several different exhausts using old parts from other stuff. I eventually took my time to get a Magnaflow on and it sounded much much more tamed yet deep.

I don't have a bunch of drone but it ends under my bed... I need to route it out of there, hopefully it'll quiet things done some more.

I bet it's relaxing driving around now

 

Yea its nice to cruise around in now. The old exhaust was about as ghetto as you could get. I didn't have any straight tube so I cut up the driveline from a 97 blazer I scrapped. The end was 2 3/4" and the main part of it was 4" so it slipped right over the 2 1/2" from the header and was long enough to weld to my flowdisaster copy muffler. I welded the old 90* bend to 3" tip that was stock on my f350 and exit in front of the rear tire. It actually sounded good other than being loud and hanging so low due to the diameter if the driveline tubing.

 

Finally took the time to finish the replacement 3" blocks yesterday and rebuild the leafs. It dropped about 2" out back after replacing the second leaf with the 2nd leaf from a set of nissan springs Ive had for years. I swapped the overloads too since the toyota ones were arched and the nissan were flat. I'll swap the wasted shocks when I get home for some bilstiens when I get home and go autocrossing next weekend.

 

Been busy lately just haven't taken the time to post any progress.


We sanded the truck down and rattle bombed it a pretty close to stock shade last week and have been working on things ever since. I took a good chunk of the day and stripped the stock clear powder coat off the Jeep wheels (SUCK) so I could paint them black enamel and satin clear with brushed spokes.










We still have a good amount of work to do before leaving for Tacoma tomorrow so we can attend the PSTOC show.


Not sure what's up with the color on the last picture it is a VERY bright green like the second from last. But it shows the wheels at least.

 

Life happened and we couldn't get it together soon enough to make the show up in Tacoma but we did get it done late yesterday evening. I think it came out pretty decent.

 

thats awesome, I am trying to put one back together that is much the same condition as when you started, except hit in the front and rear, same surface rust and color. This thread is inspiring.

 

what wheels do you have?

 

Truck looks real good man. What about the interior pics?

 

The wheels are 84 ish jeep cherokee that I worked over and painted with enamel.

The interior isn't fantastic but it isn't too bad. I'll grab a pic tomorrow.

 

That makes me want to buy a really cheap old one just to d#*k around with instead of modding my truck. (still gonna do mine.)

I'm very interested to see the LS400 powerplant go in. Are you using the stock transmission?

For the interior, my brother did buy an '82 pickup a few years back and in trying to convert the interior to black he put some '96 Acura buckets in it. They were pretty damn comfortable.

 

The 1uzfe is going in my 80 not the 78. The 78 if may get an l67 tm V6 if I'm feeling.froggy.

 

Looks good WT. Looking forward to the L67 build