Anyway, when I left off in March I was in the just finishing up rebuilding the motor. I'll pick up from there.
I cut the rest of the radiator core support out to make finishing up the engine work easier. Plus it needed to be removed anyway. Tearing things up is fun. I finished up the engine rebuild and hooked all the necessary stuff up so I could test it before putting the core support back in. The first crank was one of the most exciting things I've ever experienced :)
It was so thrilling seeing the truck fire up again! I drove it around the yard a little bit just because holy crap it actually works! My dog wasn't a huge fan of it running open headers, but she lived.
While I had the core support out I took some time to clean up a lot of rust and other garbage where the core support used to be. I'm sure you can tell, but the clean shiny silver parts are what I cleaned up and painted. On the driver's side you can see where the huge rust hole was. I used the good ol' aluminum sheet, liquid nails, and rivets method to patch those holes up to (hopefully) keep it from rusting further.
Since I had the intake off anyway I figured it would be a good time to clean that up and paint it. It was rusty and just looked like crap. I used some 000 steel wool to clean up the "Electro-injection" sticker then sanded and painted the intake back to fairly close to what it was originally. I removed the little vacuum system thing that was supposed to redirect hot air into the motor to warm it faster when it's cold since none of the tubing was there anyway. One less potential vacuum leak.
I also installed a new A/C compressor, condensor, expansion valve, etc. and had all the rubber hoses rebuilt.
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| I forgot to put the flipping insulation on this the first time and had to redo it. Fun. |
Since I had all that junk out anyway I went ahead and installed new headlight mounting housing things and an H4 conversion kit I got on ebay for 20 bucks. It has glass lenses and all and seems to be decent quality.
I also got a new horn for the driver's side. The truck was supposed to have 2 horns but one of them fell out somewhere before I ever got it due to rust. I may be missing a few minor things here and there but I'm getting the main bits. It's been a while...
I got the rest of the AC stuff installed and put the bumper/grille/etc. back on. I don't know why I didn't take any pictures of that, but whatever. Actually putting the front together took months just because I was lazy and busy. I drove it around without a grille and with only 2 bolts holding the front bumper on from March to around August. Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself, since it was running and in road-worthy condition, I drove it around the yard and around the block and various other places with open headers. I think I mentioned before that I had to cut the old exhaust out. I took it to an exhaust shop and had them build me a nice single in-dual out exhaust system. Looks great when it's cold seeing the exhaust pour out of both pipes nice and even.
I like it :) Sounds good too. The truck's got a knock of some sort but it's been going on for like 4,000 miles so apparently it's nothing too important. One of the lifters ticks too but whatevs. I drove it for quite a while without issues, then the driver's side brake caliper went out on me. This is the one that I rebuild rather than replacing back in March of 2012. This time I didn't mess around. I went to OReilley and bought the same caliper I have on the other side and replaced the whole thing in the parking lot at my apartment complex, lol.
Got my girlfriend to help me bleed the brakes, put the wheel back on, and the ol' truck's been stopping like a champ ever since.
Here's some pictures of the truck how it sits today. I also got a new camera, as I'm sure you can tell. Those aren't HDR images, that's just how this Canon S100 rolls.
I've got some electrical issues to work out and some interior work I want to do. Suspension will be the next big thing...
Thanks for reading!
