Dzimm

I personally like the original much better but I'd imagine finding one would be near impossible. Have you thought about building your own? If you have a welder, it would be much cheaper and you could build it closer to the original.

Imagine launching a boat from behind your pull behind camper.. prolly end up on a YouTube video of vehicles being pulled from the water at boat ramps.

Agee with the above, Toyota's are nice but they are expensive. My father traded his Tundra in on a Silverado to drop the payment a little and get a newer/lower mileage truck.

My photos no longer resize until I "post". This is a problem because most of my images are 3-5MB so I can only upload one or two at a time now. I can edit the post to add more as the previously posted ones resize and allow more to be uploaded but It's getting frustrating editing and uploading multiple times for one post. Was this a side affect of the recent forum update? I didn't have this issue before then.

More cleaning and some painting today. Intake manifold is stripped and cleaned. I installed some heat reflective tape to the bottom of the manifold to help reflect some of the heat from the exhaust manifold. I only did a little right where the manifolds are closest to keep good airflow under the intake manifold. Got a couple coats of paint on the steel alternator bracket and the water pump tube. I pulled the oil filter adapter off to clean and replace the o-rings and they definitely needed it. Completely hard and one broke on removal. I finished cleaning the inner fender area on the driver's side and got some paint laid down. After some clear coat, it looks super good. The paint isn't a perfect match but it's pretty close. The new exhaust manifold got a couple coats of high heat paint to help avoid rusting. The manifolds are hand tightened with a couple outer bolts for now just to get them out of the way. The gasket that came with the exhaust manifold isn't perfect, all the ports lineup but the bolt holes in the center don't line up correctly. I've flipped the gasket and it's the same so I'm going to have to open the holes up a little somehow.

You could make a little money selling all of that but IDK if it's worth the time, at least to me. I'm close and my family is within 20 minutes of it but I just don't want to deal with storing/selling it all. If it we're 6cyl parts I'd be all over it.

The DOT would have a heart attack if they saw that.. how'd they even get the boats up there??

Got more work done today. Finished cleaning the head and valve cover and installed the new valve cover gasket. I got the freeze plugs pulled and replaced as well as pulling the compressor bracket off. Did some deep cleaning on the engine. Lots of scraping, scrubbing, and spraying to get all the baked on oil and dirt off of everything. Looks so much better but still has a long way to go.

Got a little more of the engine bay torn apart. Also mocked up the high mount alternator. It shouldn't be too hard to accomplish. It would eliminate the smaller bracket from the front though, so I'm not sure if it would cause problems without it. I'm gonna look at others setups and see what they've done.

That's what I was thinking as well. Those perches would act like a lever if you put the center of the leaf way off to one side. Axle wrap to the extreme.

So why not buy a junkyard motor with a warranty and swap that in yourself on a weekend or pay an auto shop to do a quick swap? Would save you tons of money rather than going reman. That'll get it running before summer and when you eventually get the space to rebuild, rebuild the motor that's in it now when you don't have a time crunch because the truck is still driveable with the junkyard engine in it.

Learn and buy tools as you go. Will save you some money, gain you some tools, and teach you things.

The stock 2.25" diameter is just fine for flow on these engines and going larger can actually lose you power. As for exhaust, I settled on Flowmaster Super 44 on my 92, ax15, 2wd street truck as it was one of the most recommended exhausts for the 4.0 and sounds good but is not obnoxious. That said, I haven't installed it yet so I haven't heard it in person but I watched nearly all the YouTube clips of it and it sounds really good. My blue 97+ truck has a Magnaflow exhaust system on it and it sounds good but I know nothing about it as it was already on the truck when I bought it. The aftermarket headers all seem to be about the same and the only complaint I ever see is that some aren't flat and don't seal properly on the head. If you are going to pay higher dollar for one, make sure to read reviews to know it's got a good coating and is properly machined for the head. Oh and don't buy one that has a thicker flange than the intake manifold. I would keep the factory routing as all the mounts are already there. You can put a nice tip on the end to give it a nice look.

Tow a wrecked generator? Ha

Shot tailgate means wall art or Jeep bench! Good score!

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Dang that must be a big file. As for Google Drive, it's just an online cloud storage service. If you go to the website and login with your Google account or create one, you can upload the file and then share it with certain people. At that point it would only be available to the people you choose and avoid copyright issues. You can then remove their access after they get what they need.

Would be cool to have a Google drive with tons of electrical diagrams, manuals, ECT. That we all have access to.

I assume you tried compressed? Google Drive would be the next best bet.

Over the weekend I got some work done on the truck. The engine is mostly tore down so I can get better access for cleaning and replacing parts. The other side of the engine will get taken apart soon for more work. I'll update on what all I'm doing as I put it back together. I cleaned up the thermostat housing, water pump tube, and valve cover as best I can. The valve cover gasket was very confusing because it was a mix of a paper gasket and rtv where the gasket was missing.. someone repaired it very wrong which is why it leaked so bad. I didn't realize the valve cover wasn't painted black, it just had so much cooked on oil it looked that way. I think I'm going to keep it the unfinished aluminum color and paint the ribs on top red to match the truck. I plan on cleaning, repairing, and touching up the paint in the engine bay while everything is apart. I want this truck to be fairly clean and easy to spot problems and work on. I took a paint chip from the truck to the store and found Krylon Gloss Burgundy paint that is a very close match to the factory paint color. I'll use it to touch up the engine bay and maybe my body patches until I get around to painting the entire truck.

Sounds like the 1" had built in hub bolts and the 1/2" is one that floats between the wheel and hub? Can you find 1/2" spacers that have the integrated bolts? I've always heard bad things about the free-floating style of spacer. Edit: after looking at eBay it looks like the 1" is the smallest you can get with built in studs.

Sounds like you have air in the cooling system or are low on coolant. Try adding some coolant and burping it.

It'll hide knocking, not fix it. Your best bet would be figure out which part of the engine is knocking and go from there.

Sounds like you really want to save it. In that case, have it straightened out, not cut and welded. The entire truck is tweaked in a collision like that. So vote for #4!

Yeah a block heater makes a difference, if not getting you to operating temps, you will at least see warmer temps than you are now. Is the cardboard on the grill or the radiator? If you put it directly against the rad, it will block more air. Keeping your interior heat off while it heats up will help too.