Money Doesn't Grow on Trees

This truck needs a ton of work, and its one of those projects where ill continuously be doing more work to it over time throughout my ownership.
But right now my main goal for my senior project is to get the truck as close to road legal as possible. I'm thinking my budget will be in between $1,000-$1,500 not including what I've already put into it This week I'm ordering 500+ dollars of parts off of rockauto.com which will include suspension, brakes, and many other components. On top of that I plan on needing to buy more pieces as we tear down the drive line and potentially find more parts that need replacing. I also know that I'm going to have to pay a professional to replace my windshield seal and bring it to a shop for an alignment (unless I find someone who knows how.) There's lots of little things to troubleshoot and replace that I wont remember all of them until we start driving it or get tearing something apart, but I know that no matter what it is we'll be able to fix it. Throughout my ownership the goal is to not invest more than the truck is worth, and I'm staying on track to keep that goal.

Not Really Affected

With this whole pandemic going on everyone including me has been affected in different ways. Remote learning has become the standard for our classes and a mandatory "stay home, stay safe" order is in act. Luckily, for me, I have plenty of projects to keep me busy while stuck at my house, including my senior project. Since I don't have to travel anywhere far away or interact with a wide range of people I'm able to continue my project as normal.
There are a few small issues however like a lot of parts stores being closed and since my Uncles shop occasionally has a good amount of visitors, my Dad and I decided to halt going up there for a few weeks while the virus dials down.

The good side of this is that before the virus hit hard in the states we got a LOT of work done including getting the truck driving under its own powerhouse. While in quarantine I'm searching online for the best deal on parts; so far www.rockauto.com has the best bang for the buck for all the pieces I'm looking for. This week I plan on doing a big order of $500+ of parts including brakes, suspension, and components for many other parts of the truck. These parts will be more than enough to keep me busy and hopefully get this pickup ready to be on the road and legal.
I've also been indulging books and forums including my Haynes Repair Manual, and Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance. These resources help me look at the project from a different perspective, one of a more professional mechanic or enthusiast.

Overall I'm very fortunate to still be able to pursue my project with minimal delays. Hopefully this pandemic doesn't last too long and I can drive around town in the truck ASAP.

Hard Work Pays Off!

The Truck is running! my Dad and I went up to the shop yesterday morning, pushed the truck in the garage and got right to work. Right away we double checked all the vacuum lines to assure they were in the correct spots and made sure fuel was getting to the injector rail. After that we figured we'd check all the wires we could and that's when we noticed an issue...

Two of the wires going into the ECU were split open and one was even completely cut off. We quickly took out the wires and patched them with electrical tape and a connector. After that we hooked the computer back up, triple checked everything one more time and hopped in the cab to turn the key. It started right up! it was super loud because we had no exhaust on it but the engine sounds a LOT healthier than the old one. I'll do a routine tune up, new oil, filters, spark plugs, distributor cap and rotor, new plugs and that should help it run even better. It also sounded like it was skipping a little bit which usually means there's a vacuum leak or a ground isn't hooked up right, so we'll also hunt those down.

There’s still a ton of more things to do to this truck which I will get done but now that its able to move under its own power it'll speed everything up a little more. I'm planning on ordering a ton of parts this week including suspension, brakes, and more and once they arrive we'll install them onto the truck. But for now there's still lots of stuff I can do without needing to buy parts, I have to get the interior ready to have a seat installed which means fixing the rust on the cab corner and repainting the floor. It’s motivating to see our work pay off though and driving the truck out of the shop filled us with joy.

The Engine isn’t Running... Yet

Bright and early on Sunday morning my Dad and I got right to work on finishing setting up the engine. I had done the research I needed to hook up just about everything else that needed to be. My dad worked on hooking up the ground wires that the previous owner had disconnected for some reason while I routed the hoses, vacuum lines, and miscellaneous wires. After about two hours it was finally time to try and start her up, the big moment.
My Dad hopped in the cab and right as he started cranking the engine gas started pouring out the injector rail... Whoops! That was an easy fix, the fuel filter on the newer engine didn't fit the bolt we used from the 80s engine so it was leaking; After swapping the bolts we tried again.
The engine wanted to start but it just wasn't running. It'd pop off and almost start but it wasn't continuing to run. We couldn't smell gas and the plugs were getting spark (My Dad tested them and got woken up hahah) so our best guess for now is something's up not right with the injector rail. Either the pressure in the fuel system isn't right meaning we hooked up a line in the wrong spot, or a fuse went somewhere, or maybe even I plugged in a wrong connection somewhere, we just aren't sure yet. After wokring on the truck for another 4 hours, a total of 10 all weekend we were ready to call it quits for the day and go home and search forums and manuals to try and diagnose our issue.

Sometime this week we're gonna go back up to my Uncle's shop and troubleshoot the engine, but for now I'm still looking into different possibilities of what could be wrong and how to test them.

Time Lapse From Saturday

Here's a cool time lapse that I filmed on Saturday, its only from an hour or so of us working but it turned out nice! Hopefully I'll be able to take more videos during the project because they're fun to show to people, enjoy!

Non-Stop

On Saturday my Dad and I worked on the truck for over 6 hours, from 11 to 5ish. What took a lot of the time was trying to connect an exhaust tube to the four wheel drive vacuum; the screws ended up being  stripped on it so we wasted over an hour playing around with that. Once we got past that things moved at a solid pace and we finished installing the intake manifold, re-built the fuel injectors and started some of the wiring. We basically got the engine just about ready to go except for needing to do some research on where some wires went and which lines and hoses went where. After a good day's work we headed off home and I felt satisfied with how close we were getting to the truck running. Later that night I did some research and asked forums for help on where everything went and prepared to finish hooking everything else up the next day. 

The truck on the lift while we're working on the engine

The engine bay finally starting to look complete

Wednesday Workday

Here’s a video showing the work we’ve done to the truck over the past week, the engine bay is starting to look complete!

All Sunday Long

On  Sunday my Dad and I got back to work on the truck and we got a LOT done! We got the alternators switched out, distributor and coil wired up, radiator put in and a few other things. Now what we have left is putting the intake manifold back on and hooking up the wiring harness. If the weather this week stays good hopefully we’ll be have everything together and ready to go by the weekend.

My beautiful truck from a far

The old gasket on the engine that had to be peeled off

Surfacing the Intake Manifold and making sure it’s flat and clean

Surprisingly Clean

The manifold before being cleaned

I brought the intake manifold back to my house and quickly researched the best way to clean one of them. Right away I found a forum where someone had taken his off to clean it and he said power washing worked the best. So that night I sprayed down the pieces with intake manifold with throttle body cleaner and let it sit all night.

Later that week when it was a nice day I borrowed my friends power washer and sprayed down the in and outside of the manifold but long story short, it didn't really do that much. I realized that the inside of the manifold was actually pretty clean, it wasn't very gummed up or full of carbon which was means that the last owner used a good air filter.

The final thing I'll need to do is take all the old gaskets off of the manifold and plenum then buy new ones to replace them. I also plan on trying to clean the fuel injectors and fit them with new gaskets to reduce their risk of leaking. This truck is getting closer and closer to driving and it's all I've been able to think about, I'm pumped to continue making progress.

The power washer I used

The manifold after its shower (It didn't look much cleaner)

Closer and Closer

I went up to my Uncle's place and started taking off the intake manifold. I opened to chapter 2 of my repair manual and found where it gave instructions on how to remove it. I ended up getting all the bolts off but for some reason it wouldn't budge. I pulled and pulled but no matter what, nothing. I ended up just quitting for the day because it was getting dark, so I packed up my tools and came back the next day.

Overnight I watched some videos on how the manifold was assembled and it helped a ton. I took of the plenum and then the fuel injector rail which then freed up the manifold completely. Once I took of those extra parts I could finally see what the manual wasn't telling me about; a hidden bolt. I was kind of mad that the bolt wasn't shown in any diagrams or any videos online but once I screwed it out and felt the satisfaction of getting out the manifold and its wiring harness the anger turned to motivation.

A Solution to The Wiring Issue!

I was looking through my Facebook messages a couple days ago and found a message from a few weeks ago. It was someone who had seen my post about the engine swap I was doing and he had said: " All you should have to change is the intake manifold and the distributor and you'll be fine, no other differences."

That one message opened my eyes, I finally realized how to solve my wiring crisis. Since the wiring harness from the new engine doesn't match up with my trucks I have somehow make them connect. I realized that the wiring harness is connected to the intake manifold, meaning if I swap the manifold from the old engine onto the new engine all the wires will match up almost seamlessly.

This will end up being a lot easier than cutting and rewiring the harness, I'm excited to get up to my Uncle's and start tearing it off.