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Hello hello! Welcome to my unbuild/rebuild/build. Recently picked up this 86 pickup that needs some love. I got it for a steal, and it essentially has no rust, so it was an obvious buy. Also has brand new 33's which is always nice However, I soon discovered a number of issues that thankfully aren't detrimental. First of which being an overheating issue which I believe is down to the radiator being entirely too small, from a GM vehicle, and being 3" too high due to the body lift. Also due of the body is the fan not cooling because of the cut shroud. Fan clutch also seemed to not be working quite right - seemed to not be going fast enough to keep the engine cool in stop and go traffic. I should note, the 3" body lift was custom made...out of galvanized metal tubing. Interior I don't think had been cleaned ever, drivers window regulator wouldn't go up all the way, and the crank handle was a pair of vice grips. The "bed" appears to have been made by cutting down the stock bed and reinforcing it with square tubing. The sooper sicc roll bar bolted to the bed is held on by 4 bolts...total. The paint is rattle can, and the original paint underneath appears to have not been prepped at all. Finally (I think) the truck will sometimes die idling. Turning up the idle on the carb helped a little, but I think it just needs a rebuild kit. Here are a few pics of the tuck the day I got it.
First order of business was fixing the wipers. Motor was bad, but I decided to just order an entire new assembly since it's so cheap. There was also pounds of gunk stuck in the wiper channel that had to get sucked out because it was interfering with the linkage. Very easy and quick job.
Next up was a bunch of ˟˟˟˟˟ under the hood. New plugs, wires, distributor cap and rotor, radiator, fan clutch, and a new battery box. All very easy jobs. That's one perk of the BL I guess...great accessibility to everything.
Decided to strip out the old interior in place of a new. Got brand new carpet with sound and heat deadener, and will probably be getting new seats, just not sure what yet. Before putting the new interior in, I will be pressure washing the inside to get all the gunk out, and then doing some light rust maintenance. I may even line the floor with something, not sure yet. If I do decide on replacing the seats, I will be getting some buckets as well as a Tuffy security center console. Had one in my Jeep and it was one of the best purchases I made. One thing I can't decide on is suspension seats, or take-offs from some other vehicle.
Last post for the day...maybe...and it's where I need a little bit of insight. First and foremost, I have exactly 0 experience with IFS. I can tell there's a shackle lift in the rear, but not sure how to tell what's up front. Doesn't appear to have BJ spacers, but aside from that I don't know how to tell what, if anything, is up front. I will be dropping the body lift down to 1" for a number of reasons, but I think I'll be rubbing at full lock. Not a huge issue right now, but will need to be fixed. I'm not completely sold on BJ spacers, but also don't want a full 3-4" lift kit. If the front has no lift, I will probably just cut the fenders and call it a day. I'm more of a fan of keeping everything as close to stock geometry as possible, and creating clearance where necessary. 33's will be staying for the foreseeable future. For those that have cut fenders, please post pics to give me some ideas. For the giggles, here's one of the current body mounts:
Small update. Ordered a new radiator cap since I accidentally ordered a mini before as well as brand new urethane body mounts. In addition to these, I bought a 1" body lift from 4crawler: Ultra pucks, HD hardware, painted black, radiator drop bracket, and bumper relocation bracket. Should be money
Hey dudes, big update. She’s back on the road with only a couple issues now! I believe the ghetto motorcycle exhaust is causing some of the running issues and possibly the idle issue. Too much backpressure maybe? Will be ordering a brand new stock exhaust unless anyone has recommendations on aftermarket ones. Don’t want anything terrible loud.
In other news, I have stripped off 99% of the spray paint and about 5% of the factory paint...lol. Someone had recommended to me to use oven cleaner and a pressure washer. Seriously awesome idea and worked wonderfully. Had to play around with it some because I wasn’t sure how long to leave it on for. Definitey left it on too long in places and it ate all the way through the paint. sucks too because the paint underneath is pretty nice and I probably could’ve saved all of it. There was even stock decals on it!!!! Wtf. No idea why someone spray painted over it. I will more than likely end up respraying the truck back white and redoing the graphics.
Carpet is installed - what a pita. Seats back in. Working on fabbing up some speaker boxes for behind the seat. Can do a write up if anyone is interested.
New body mounts and 1” BL is on. Fantastic quality. However since the truck is basically stock height with a 1” body lift, We did have to cut the fenders slightly. All we did extend the back part of the fender and now we have perfect clearance. I’ll be taking her offroad soon and will find out if there are any more clearance issue. May cut more, May just extend bumpstops. That’s about it for now.
I posted about the over cleaner in my build thread, not sure if you had seen that. I think no more than 5 minutes is safe, any longer and you do risk pulling off factory paint for sure.
I posted about the over cleaner in my build thread, not sure if you had seen that. I think no more than 5 minutes is safe, any longer and you do risk pulling off factory paint for sure.
yep that’s where I got the idea! Thanks for that man. First time we did it was about 10 minutes...lol.
Hey dudes, need help on finding an exhaust. Can't stand this straight pipe and motorcycle muffler setup the PO did. What do you guys recommend? LC engineering looks pretty tasty but is kind of expensive. Not looking for headers just yet. Just everything after that.
Alright boys, let’s talk reman engines. Let me first explain the dilemma. The truck runs, just not great, has an overheating issue and it stalls randomly at lights or when parking. It also just feels like an 86 engine that no one has taken care of. Probably never been rebuilt. In the process of hunting down these issues but it isn’t looking good so far. We may have the cooling fixed once we fix the leaking hoses but won’t know for sure until is done. We also found coolant is leaking out of the bellhousing, so we probably need a head gasket. We really don’t have the time or expertise to tackle this ourselves so would be having a shop do it. While he does this, he wants to also have the head sent off to a machine shop to check for cracks. I already know this is going to cost a fortune. And then if the head is cracked, that’s even more money in parts and labor. A reman engine from davez offroad is only 1500 plus whatever install would be. Also comes with 2 year 24k mile warranty. I have no plans of selling this truck anytime soon, I’m just having trouble deciding which route to take. Do I take it to a shop and potentially spend just as much if not more tracking down what issues it is, which may lead to a new engine anyway? Or do I just bite the bullet and drop a new one in right now and not even worry about it? I got this truck for cheap too, so I figure if anything a new engine would raise its value.
Yeah, not about to do that. This is still my daily driver for the most part (also have a motorcycle).
In other news we just replaced a couple of radiator hoses which seems to have eliminated the overheating issue, at least for short distances. Haven’t driven it for more than 20 minutes at a time yet so I may still have a head or head gasket issue that’s causing overheating over time. Hard to tell because I don’t seem to be experiencing any other tell-tale blown gasket symptoms. For the time being, we’re going to replace all hosing and clean, rebuild, and resetup carb.
Alright boys, found that the head gasket is indeed bad. We are going to just throw a new complete head and gasket set on and call it a day. Got a complete head, head kit, and head bolts all for just over $300 per the recommendation of a fellow user. 12 month 12k mike warranty too!
Oh...I forgot I had a build thread. I guess it's time for an update. We ended up completely rebuilding the engine from lce. Block is the only original part, and virtually everything under the hood is now brand new. New clutch and headers as well. Now she fires up immediately, has tons of power, and has no leaks.
I found a guy selling MR2 seats for cheap $80 for the pair, so I grabbed those to replace my blown out bench seat. Still on the hunt for a center console, but I may just grab one from Walmart. Pulled the rollbar off to repaint, and decided I liked the look so it's staying off.
Have a grille, headlamp doors, bumper end caps, corner lights, and bumper lights waiting to go on after paint. Also will be redoing the bed, probably with some roll on bed liner.
Currently putting in new wheel bearings, tierod ends,rotors, pads,calipers, and lines. Drums to follow.
This should safely get us back on the road where it's straight to the exhaust shop, then off to get painted. Here she is in the current state, sorry for lack of pics.
08-05-2018, 05:43 PM
However, I soon discovered a number of issues that thankfully aren't detrimental. First of which being an overheating issue which I believe is down to the radiator being entirely too small, from a GM vehicle, and being 3" too high due to the body lift. Also due of the body is the fan not cooling because of the cut shroud. Fan clutch also seemed to not be working quite right - seemed to not be going fast enough to keep the engine cool in stop and go traffic. I should note, the 3" body lift was custom made...out of galvanized metal tubing. Interior I don't think had been cleaned ever, drivers window regulator wouldn't go up all the way, and the crank handle was a pair of vice grips. The "bed" appears to have been made by cutting down the stock bed and reinforcing it with square tubing. The sooper sicc roll bar bolted to the bed is held on by 4 bolts...total. The paint is rattle can, and the original paint underneath appears to have not been prepped at all. Finally (I think) the truck will sometimes die idling. Turning up the idle on the carb helped a little, but I think it just needs a rebuild kit. Here are a few pics of the tuck the day I got it.
as well as brand new urethane body mounts. In addition to these, I bought a 1" body lift from 4crawler: Ultra pucks, HD hardware, painted black, radiator drop bracket, and bumper relocation bracket. Should be money 
