93ToyKid

Well my cousin decided to sell his 89 project truck that he bought from a guy who left it at a repair shop outside for about a year. It had a blown motor and rearend, and my cousin was gonna fix er up. Well it sat in his barn for a year and a half (long enough for him to install 37" Goodyears, 4.88s, and front and rear lockers. Detroit in the back, with a TruTrac in the front). Well he wanted something a little more beat up to knock around on rocks, so he sold it to us. It's an 89, 3.0 V6, automatic. The truck really is in great shape. The guy use to have 44s on it , so the front end was trashed. Luckily for us, he had the front end rebuilt before leaving it all by its lonesome at the shop. Anyway, dad and I found a 94 motor with only 80K on her. We installed it. Not too much difficulty, had to swap a few parts, but it went okay. Went to start it up and she came right to life. Sweet. Took her out for a test drive, and smoke started barreling out of the engine compartment. &*@#!!!!!!!! Hehe......just a misbegotten heater hose we forgot to hook up......antifreeze all over the place. After hooking that up, everything worked perfectly. Guages all came to life, everything worked. But there are two things that are concerning us:
1. The motor makes a very loud clicking sound while driving. I know the grommet around the steering column through the firewall is torn, which is letting the noise into the cab. My other truck was doing this before I sealed it up, but not nearly as loud. Is it just the injectors are dirty from the crap gas and the new motor sitting for a year? I know this is the 3.0s nature, but this clicking is VERY loud right now. Just plug the hole and forget about it?
2. When I put the auto tranny in gear, there is a violent jerk. I know the play is in the rearend. Again, it has 4.88s, 37s, and a Detroit locker. Is it just the nature of this setup, or is the backlash way off? The gears and locker are brand new, and I would rather not destroy them!
Thanks in advance for any advice! Gotta get her right for this weekend. Me and dad are going on our first off road excursion, maybe up towards Virginia. I'm so freekin siked!!! Later........

93ToyKid

Anyone?

paranoidandroid

hey. my dad's 85 toy pickup sat in the garage for 3 years before we brought it to life. then we started her up, and had the SAME prob you described. Basically, the rust inside the fuel tank is causing the problems, which then gunks up the fuel filter and the engine. We replaced those immeaditely, then flushed the engine with new oil and it was better. Not sure about the tranny problem. Did you do a flush of the fluid inside? Hope this helps.

93ToyKid

Thanks man. We're gonna run 1 or 2 tanks of fuel through her, then change the fuel filter and oil. I know the clunking isn't the tranny, I can roll the truck and tell there's play in the rearend. We were going to do a tranny flush, but I've heard horror stories of yota auto trannies going out after a flush. Thanks for the input!!!

93ToyKid

Anyone else? Seems to be running better.

rivercat

have you isolated the play? is it in the rear end, u-joints, tranny? the ticking could be a valve.... did you check your backlash on the lifter?