I bought an RV

[bystander]

Hey Zim- don't got time to read the whole thread so if this was mentioned before...

Death wobbles.. suck. My Jeep has been plagued before. Check tires; flat spots, choppy surface, low in air pressure, dry rot, are they in balance? Seriously tires are no joke... its what keeps you and yer vehicle firmly on the ground.

Bad ball joints, tie rods etc check em. any broken boots, seals, etc...

Hows the brakes? bad brakes can trip some death wobbles too.

 

[Grubblin]

I'm just playing mechanic roulette right now.

Here's the best way to play that game. Go to your local auto parts store, the single owner small stores are the best,and strike up a conversation with the parts person that seems to know the most. It may not necessarily be the manager but it will be the one you see all the other people asking questions of. Ask him or her for the name of a good local shade tree mechanic. They all know at least one and sometimes they know several, usually these guys have store credit accounts to buy parts until they get paid from the job. As a side note, I've become friends with several mechanics like this that have let me buy parts on their account and me pay them for the parts, they get a DEEP discount bc of all the parts they buy and the store still makes money. If there's a choice of several mechanics then explain that you have a 22r, you don't have to get into specifics unless they ask, they'll know someone who can do that engine based on bullshit sessions at the shop.

I've NEVER, EVER found an auto mechanics business to be honest but every single one of the half a dozen shade trees that I've used have been honest to a fault. If they said the job would take three hours and cost $100 and the job ended up taking four hours they still charged the 100 they quoted. Sometimes you can lower the cost by helping them work on it, even if it's just another pair of hands. If you get a chance to do that then you can learn quite a bit about how to fix things for yourself just by paying attention to everything they're doing. Good Luck!

 

[DrewSTNY]

The 22R is definitely a workhorse.

I wouldn't be too concerned about the oil consumption unless you are going through more than a quart per tank.

I have had many VWs that went through more oil than gas, and they always ran like tops even if they fouled plugs like mad and left their mark in all my friends driveways.

Given that the old girl is only meant to run 50-60mph down the road, driving her at 65-75mph is going to make blow-by much worse. There is a lot of weight on that chassis for that engine, so 120k on the ticker could be about all she will get. However, she might run for a LONG, LONG time the way she is.

As the old saying goes, if she ain't broke, fix her until she is!!

Simple things to check -

Smoke out the exhaust when warm. If there is no catalytic converter, there will be some gray/black smoke out the pipe. No biggie. Blue/grey fog out of the pipe is going to be any of the fore-mentioned (rings or valves)

Oil on the ground - Probably leaking valve cover gasket. A leaky valve cover gasket can be a sign of plugged oil return passages. A good block cleaner when doing an oil change is decent at cleaning these out.

Smoke out of the oil cap when running is excessive blow-by and is a sign of worn compression rings. Get a compression test done, or learn how to do one yourself. Make sure to adjust the valves, if possible. I can't remember if the 22R had valve adjusters or not. The overhead cam engines with spacers on top of the valves are a PITA to deal with so I never massed with them.

I guess you could start with replacing the valve cover gaskets, distributor o-ring (not really a source of leaking, but if you are paranoid), oil pan gasket, etc. This will stop external leaks.

I would definitely get the compression test done to make sure that the cylinders are all somewhat balanced and that you don't have valve problems.

In this day and age, unless you find a mechanic that has been working on cars since the 80's, you are going to have a hard time finding anyone competent with these older engines. That's why I have switched to diesel power. Not much has changed there, and I can put a Kubota engine in my car, if necessary.

 

[DrewSTNY]

Death Wobble -

Small truck chassis, large box on the ass == PITA to drive at highway speeds.

That said, check your ball joints and tie rod ends first.

Second, check the steering gear. That truck may have a rack and pinion, but I can't remember. If the steering wheel goes back and forth more than 1/8 of a turn without moving the wheels, you need to figure out what's up.

Third, because I can't remember what front end that truck has...check the control arm bushings and and stabilizer bushings. Unless she was in an accident, those should be fine.

If everything is tight, put a heavy duty sway bar on the rear axle. That will help, but not eliminate the death wobble. Something like this: www.summitracing.com/parts/hel-7539 (Hellwig #7539). If you can find one, put a bigger sway bar on the front, 1" diameter or bigger.

Old trucks are cool as hell, but anything over 45mph makes them a friggin' death trap.

 

[autumn]

The 22R is definitely a workhorse.

I wouldn't be too concerned about the oil consumption unless you are going through more than a quart per tank.

I have had many VWs that went through more oil than gas, and they always ran like tops even if they fouled plugs like mad and left their mark in all my friends driveways.

Given that the old girl is only meant to run 50-60mph down the road, driving her at 65-75mph is going to make blow-by much worse. There is a lot of weight on that chassis for that engine, so 120k on the ticker could be about all she will get. However, she might run for a LONG, LONG time the way she is.

Yeah, it's a real tank. The only thing I've found the deeper I go into the engine is just how neglected it's been, but it still runs fine.

As the old saying goes, if she ain't broke, fix her until she is!!

Simple things to check -

Smoke out the exhaust when warm. If there is no catalytic converter, there will be some gray/black smoke out the pipe. No biggie. Blue/grey fog out of the pipe is going to be any of the fore-mentioned (rings or valves)

Just a little white puff.

Oil on the ground - Probably leaking valve cover gasket. A leaky valve cover gasket can be a sign of plugged oil return passages. A good block cleaner when doing an oil change is decent at cleaning these out.

Haha yeah... I found the source of the leak. It's the radiator. There's oil in the coolant, but no coolant in the oil. The exhaust doesn't smell like antifreeze. Slightly frightening, because my understanding is this: when the head gasket is blown, oil and coolant can exchange freely because they have no significant pressure difference. If the head cracks, pressurized oil (50psi) can find it's way into a coolant line, but the coolant can't mix with the oil due to the pressure.

However, I have also read that unless it's blown really bad, on a 22R in particular, coolant won't mix with the oil. I don't really know what to believe.

Smoke out of the oil cap when running is excessive blow-by and is a sign of worn compression rings. Get a compression test done, or learn how to do one yourself. Make sure to adjust the valves, if possible. I can't remember if the 22R had valve adjusters or not. The overhead cam engines with spacers on top of the valves are a PITA to deal with so I never massed with them.

I swapped the PCV valve and the amount of smoke coming out of the cap went down by a lot. There's still a small, visible amount of smoke coming out though. Also, literally all of the rubber hoses are ancient and cracked, and need to be replaced. I'm so surprised that this thing runs at all.

I guess you could start with replacing the valve cover gaskets, distributor o-ring (not really a source of leaking, but if you are paranoid), oil pan gasket, etc. This will stop external leaks.

I would definitely get the compression test done to make sure that the cylinders are all somewhat balanced and that you don't have valve problems.

The crooked fucker I went to said the valvetrain is bad and that's where the whistling sound at midrange rpm is coming from. I'm guessing they just need to be adjusted, the guy tried to tell me he knew the valves were busted by taking off the air filter. Valve cover wasn't touched, I know because I asked him, and because those bolts are stripped.

In this day and age, unless you find a mechanic that has been working on cars since the 80's, you are going to have a hard time finding anyone competent with these older engines. That's why I have switched to diesel power. Not much has changed there, and I can put a Kubota engine in my car, if necessary.

[/quote]

That's a really good point. When I need to replace the engine I might look for the diesel 22R. It exists but I don't know how common it is.

Thank you for sharing your advice and knowledge, I appreciate you

Death Wobble -

Small truck chassis, large box on the ass == PITA to drive at highway speeds.

That said, check your ball joints and tie rod ends first.

Second, check the steering gear. That truck may have a rack and pinion, but I can't remember. If the steering wheel goes back and forth more than 1/8 of a turn without moving the wheels, you need to figure out what's up.

Third, because I can't remember what front end that truck has...check the control arm bushings and and stabilizer bushings. Unless she was in an accident, those should be fine.

If everything is tight, put a heavy duty sway bar on the rear axle. That will help, but not eliminate the death wobble. Something like this: www.summitracing.com/parts/hel-7539 (Hellwig #7539). If you can find one, put a bigger sway bar on the front, 1" diameter or bigger.

Old trucks are cool as hell, but anything over 45mph makes them a friggin' death trap.

Yeah, I couldn't exceed ~50mph without it wobbling. I was driving another large vehicle the other day and noticed it did the same thing when being passed by semis, which makes me a lot less worried about it. No accident damage so far as I can tell, everything on the frame is straight and in order. Bumper has a few dents but the fenders are definitely original and have never been impacted. Fiberglass has never been patched. So I'm operating under the assumption that it has never been in a significant accident.

The steering wheel has about 1/4 a rotation of freeplay. It also has no power steering. I can rock the steering wheel back and forth (from one side to the other about 3/4 a rotation) without the wheels being affected at all.

I didn't know sway bars exist. That's pretty cool.

I appreciate you, thank you for all of your advice.

 

[autumn]

Thank you for your advice and information. Thanks to everybody. I appreciate all of you and you've made my life so much easier with your advice.

Pb blaster might help with the plugs.

Good luck.

Thanks for the tip! I'll give it a shot.

Hey Zim- don't got time to read the whole thread so if this was mentioned before...

Death wobbles.. suck. My Jeep has been plagued before. Check tires; flat spots, choppy surface, low in air pressure, dry rot, are they in balance? Seriously tires are no joke... its what keeps you and yer vehicle firmly on the ground.

Bad ball joints, tie rods etc check em. any broken boots, seals, etc...

Hows the brakes? bad brakes can trip some death wobbles too.

No flat spots, good tread, air pressure is a little low but not severe, no cracking. The tires are only a few months old. I don't really have a handle on the condition of the brakes because they're working against the inertia of the 7,000lb body. Takes about 500-700 feet to come to a complete stop from 45mph if I'm not slamming on them. Could be wrong because I'm pretty bad at measuring distance, but I haven't been made uncomfortable hitting red lights at 45-50mph, and normal city traffic. Only had to push real hard on the brakes when I misjudged my braking distance one time. Rotors look good.

I will check the underside to the best of my ability, I was going to take it to an alignment shop but this shit with the engine has taken priority unfortunately.

Here's the best way to play that game. Go to your local auto parts store, the single owner small stores are the best,and strike up a conversation with the parts person that seems to know the most. It may not necessarily be the manager but it will be the one you see all the other people asking questions of. Ask him or her for the name of a good local shade tree mechanic. They all know at least one and sometimes they know several, usually these guys have store credit accounts to buy parts until they get paid from the job. As a side note, I've become friends with several mechanics like this that have let me buy parts on their account and me pay them for the parts, they get a DEEP discount bc of all the parts they buy and the store still makes money. If there's a choice of several mechanics then explain that you have a 22r, you don't have to get into specifics unless they ask, they'll know someone who can do that engine based on bullshit sessions at the shop.

I've NEVER, EVER found an auto mechanics business to be honest but every single one of the half a dozen shade trees that I've used have been honest to a fault. If they said the job would take three hours and cost $100 and the job ended up taking four hours they still charged the 100 they quoted. Sometimes you can lower the cost by helping them work on it, even if it's just another pair of hands. If you get a chance to do that then you can learn quite a bit about how to fix things for yourself just by paying attention to everything they're doing. Good Luck!

That's really good advice. I'm going to go do that right now. There are no local auto part stores here, just an advanced auto parts, but it'll have to do and it's only a couple of blocks away. I've been in and out of there all week so I've got a specific person in mind.

That's also what I've been looking for. I found a guy who said he's a retired mechanic and his body can't handle the work anymore, but he'll let me use his shop and can walk me through what I need to do (I had originally inquired about a rebuild). But he's being kind of sideways about how much he wants me to pay him so I'm trying to find someone else. And yeah... I had a shop quote me 35 hours for a rebuild... the crooked motherfuckers I went to quoted me FORTY. Diesel mechanic next town over quoted me 22 hours... more reasonable but from everything I've read, an experienced mechanic shouldn't take more than 15 on a 22R, assuming there aren't complications.

 

[autumn]

Death Wobble -

Small truck chassis, large box on the ass == PITA to drive at highway speeds.

That said, check your ball joints and tie rod ends first.

Second, check the steering gear. That truck may have a rack and pinion, but I can't remember. If the steering wheel goes back and forth more than 1/8 of a turn without moving the wheels, you need to figure out what's up.

Third, because I can't remember what front end that truck has...check the control arm bushings and and stabilizer bushings. Unless she was in an accident, those should be fine.

If everything is tight, put a heavy duty sway bar on the rear axle. That will help, but not eliminate the death wobble. Something like this: www.summitracing.com/parts/hel-7539 (Hellwig #7539). If you can find one, put a bigger sway bar on the front, 1" diameter or bigger.

Old trucks are cool as hell, but anything over 45mph makes them a friggin' death trap.

About the brakes, I forgot to mention... It's not the brakes that worry me, but the gas pedal. The dude welded an extra inch into it, and it's impossibly hard to depress. Leg gets sore after an hour. Takes all my tensile strength to get the pedal to the floor on the highway. No fucking clue why, but I'm used to it now. Been too busy worrying about the engine to research this yet. All my google time has been used up learning about the timing system and whatnot

Thanks again

 

[Kim Chee]

About the brakes, I forgot to mention... It's not the brakes that worry me, but the gas pedal. The dude welded an extra inch into it, and it's impossibly hard to depress. Leg gets sore after an hour. Takes all my tensile strength to get the pedal to the floor on the highway. No fucking clue why, but I'm used to it now. Been too busy worrying about the engine to research this yet. All my google time has been used up learning about the timing system and whatnot

Thanks again

May have installed an extra strong spring (or it needs to be lubed if rough).

 

[DrewSTNY]

Haha yeah... I found the source of the leak. It's the radiator. There's oil in the coolant, but no coolant in the oil. The exhaust doesn't smell like antifreeze. Slightly frightening, because my understanding is this: when the head gasket is blown, oil and coolant can exchange freely because they have no significant pressure difference. If the head cracks, pressurized oil (50psi) can find it's way into a coolant line, but the coolant can't mix with the oil due to the pressure.

So all the alarms are going off in my head right now. That could be bad or could be something simple.

I don't know about that particular build, but on some Toyota trucks they had an "oil cooler" that could cause that to happen. I have seen them on 80 series Landcruisers, but I don't know about the 1-ton pick-ups. I would not be the least bit surprised if your truck has one. If it's fucked internally, you can have the same result, but I might expect the coolant to mix in with the oil as well with a bad cooler.

I am assuming that it is a stick shift and not automajic. If there is not a separate cooler for the slush box, it can leak tranny fliud into the radiator, but it should have a red tinge to it unless it's really old, then it will be brownish like engine oil.

The other possibility is definitely a cracked head or bad head gasket. Head gaskets can do some funky stuff when they are bad. Either way, I would probably pull the head and have it checked by a good machine shop.

Your mechanic that said the valves were bad by pulling the air cleaner probably saw oil pooled in the air cleaner or the filter was pretty dirty by the crank breather. On something that old, I would be surprised if the filter and air cleaner housing weren't a bit oily. Either way, he was full of shit and had no idea what he was talking about. That's the main reason why I stayed away from mechanics up until recently. I finally found a guy that I am certain knows his shit and won't fuck me over. I still do a lot of my own work, but getting old and creaky makes working on cars not so fun anymore.

Probably for now, I would watch the rad pretty close, replace everything you can that's made of rubber, drive her like she'll break at any moment, and save up to get a new/rebuilt head dropped in.

Probably the hardest part of that job is getting the timing chain on right and fixing all the bolts that break taking it apart. Good thing is you don't have to worry about breaking every bolt in the head since you are getting it redone, but breaking bolt off in the block would be a real bummer. After you are done extracting the head from the truck, you will have intimate knowledge of that old beast and probably know more about old Toyotas than 99% of humanity.

I'm pretty far away from VA otherwise, I'd come down and give you a hand. Hopefully, I don't steer you too far off course with the armchair QB advice. Let us know how it works out, that is for sure an awesome rig and deserves to be used.

 

[autumn]

So all the alarms are going off in my head right now. That could be bad or could be something simple.

I don't know about that particular build, but on some Toyota trucks they had an "oil cooler" that could cause that to happen. I have seen them on 80 series Landcruisers, but I don't know about the 1-ton pick-ups. I would not be the least bit surprised if your truck has one. If it's fucked internally, you can have the same result, but I might expect the coolant to mix in with the oil as well with a bad cooler.

I am assuming that it is a stick shift and not automajic. If there is not a separate cooler for the slush box, it can leak tranny fliud into the radiator, but it should have a red tinge to it unless it's really old, then it will be brownish like engine oil.

The other possibility is definitely a cracked head or bad head gasket. Head gaskets can do some funky stuff when they are bad. Either way, I would probably pull the head and have it checked by a good machine shop.

Your mechanic that said the valves were bad by pulling the air cleaner probably saw oil pooled in the air cleaner or the filter was pretty dirty by the crank breather. On something that old, I would be surprised if the filter and air cleaner housing weren't a bit oily. Either way, he was full of shit and had no idea what he was talking about. That's the main reason why I stayed away from mechanics up until recently. I finally found a guy that I am certain knows his shit and won't fuck me over. I still do a lot of my own work, but getting old and creaky makes working on cars not so fun anymore.

Probably for now, I would watch the rad pretty close, replace everything you can that's made of rubber, drive her like she'll break at any moment, and save up to get a new/rebuilt head dropped in.

Probably the hardest part of that job is getting the timing chain on right and fixing all the bolts that break taking it apart. Good thing is you don't have to worry about breaking every bolt in the head since you are getting it redone, but breaking bolt off in the block would be a real bummer. After you are done extracting the head from the truck, you will have intimate knowledge of that old beast and probably know more about old Toyotas than 99% of humanity.

I'm pretty far away from VA otherwise, I'd come down and give you a hand. Hopefully, I don't steer you too far off course with the armchair QB advice. Let us know how it works out, that is for sure an awesome rig and deserves to be used.

That's a good point. The transmission fluid is probably really fucking nasty but it doesn't have a dipstick so I can't easily check. It is a manual. 4 speed unfortunately. Thanks Jimmy Carter.

It does have an oil cooler, I checked on rockauto. I should be getting my toyota workshop service manual and a good compression tester/leakdown tester in the mail today so I can inspect it a little more closely. Also, the threads on the female side of the radiator cap are stripped and the radiator cap is loose, so the coolant might not be holding pressure. It locks in alright but it's got a lot of wiggle. My inexperienced, uninformed guess is that maybe low coolant pressure would prevent a noticeable amount of coolant from getting back into the oil if it was the head gasket.

I changed the oil yesterday and accidentally did an "oil pan flush" (got distracted and forgot the bolt, dumped a gallon of oil through the pan, put the bolt back on and filled her up) and drove the RV around for an hour. 45 mins highway, 15 mins idle. Oil still looks fine, isn't diluted. Just looks like fresh oil. Hasn't darkened at all either. Radiator still has oil in it. I'll flush the coolant when it's not 20 degrees outside and see what happens. Oddly enough the overflow tank is still hanging out at 'max' after I've driven it over 1,200 miles so it can't be that much oil leaking in. Coolant in the resevoir is still a somewhat light green but murky. Engine's highway temp hasn't changed over 1,200 miles, it's staying really cool. Side note, radiator fan belt is loose as hell.

Yeah... I was shocked that this self described 'master of old engines' with supposedly over 30 years of experience would tell me that he knew the valves were bad without putting feeler gauges in 'em. So far as I know that is the ONLY way to properly check them.

Being able to do/get help with the work is the plan for that reason. I want to be able to do it myself, but I've got pre-emptive loss anxiety. If the engine didn't run I wouldn't have a problem trying to get it in working order all on my own - even if it took me months - but it runs right now and I don't want my lack of knowledge to change that... like you said, fix her 'til she's broke. Doing the timing chain doesn't really scare me, just pulling the head.

Honestly, I was considering driving all the way to Arizona to have a friend's father give me a hand. 6 hours to Elmira isn't bad at all by comparison. If it's a legitimate offer I'd just drive the damn thing up there, get AAA RV Plus and have it towed the rest of the way if it breaks down. I can afford to pay you pretty decently for your help. My only internal debate is short block vs long block. Wondering if the crank is good or if it'd be like putting shiny implants on top of a bottom row of rotten teeth. Hard to tell because while its only 112k miles, it is a 4 cylinder pulling 7,000lbs... Plus, a short block would be $700, a long block $1700. That's shipped from a specialty 22R shop in California with a very, very good reputation.

 

[DrewSTNY]

The parts house I used to work at in high school had a similar truck. Damn thing ran like sin even with a plugged fuel filter. You couldn't even blow through the filter, but the truck ran like there was nothing wrong. It always sounded like it was going to blow up when you got it out on the highway, but it was super dependable.

Being a 4 speed, there is no connection to the rad, so that eliminates one possibility. Now to figure out if it's oil cooler or head. Got any pics of fluids you took out?

Running around town without an immediate darkening of the oil is a good sign.

Can you wait to come up until the weather isn't being so psycho? You can park at the house, no problem. Got a pretty decent paved pad in front of the garage, plenty of space. No sewer hook up though.

Not too worried about getting paid, would be cool to see another old truck get more life.

Are you handy construction type tools? Maybe we can work something out in trade.

 

[autumn]

The parts house I used to work at in high school had a similar truck. Damn thing ran like sin even with a plugged fuel filter. You couldn't even blow through the filter, but the truck ran like there was nothing wrong. It always sounded like it was going to blow up when you got it out on the highway, but it was super dependable.

That's pretty funny. Same deal here... still has the factory fuel filter. Haven't pulled it out yet but it's probably 98% clogged.

Being a 4 speed, there is no connection to the rad, so that eliminates one possibility. Now to figure out if it's oil cooler or head. Got any pics of fluids you took out?

Well that's good. The oil I dumped was jet black, and that was after I had to add 2 quarts over the 1,200mi return trip. When I accidentally ran oil through the pan, it wasn't discolored coming back out, and didn't seem to have any crap in it. I haven't taken the old oil for disposal yet so I could strain it and see what secrets it's holding, if any. It sat outside overnight and there's nothing separating/floating to the top. I could also take a picture of the coolant and inside the radiator cap if you want.

Running around town without an immediate darkening of the oil is a good sign.

Yeah, we'll see what happens when I put another 100mi on it though.

Can you wait to come up until the weather isn't being so psycho? You can park at the house, no problem. Got a pretty decent paved pad in front of the garage, plenty of space. No sewer hook up though.

So I looked up the weather stats for Elmira, looks like it really starts warming up in April. Climate data says the average high is 44 for march, 58 for april. Is that about when it actually stops being crazy? Don't need a sewer hookup, I can just feed the highway some nitrogen... water pump is busted so the only thing I'd use the toilet in the RV for is piss.

Not too worried about getting paid, would be cool to see another old truck get more life.

Are you handy construction type tools? Maybe we can work something out in trade.

If you mean do I have extra tools- I wish. All I've got is some ratchets and sockets. If you mean work, I've done interior renovation and fencing. Full disclaimer I'm not very good, but under the capitalist protestant work ethic standards I would be considered a hard worker. I haven't had any problems with general handy stuff like resealing doors, caulking, painting (though I'm not a good painter), cutting/placing trim, sealing drywall etc.

 

[DrewSTNY]

April is a pretty good month, March usually has a big snow later in the month as a last gasp before spring really kicks in. After Easter weekend should be good to come up.

Capitalist protestant types are a bitch to work for,but I'm a lazy bastard minarchist Jesus freak so we ought to get along fine.

Hopefully, the dog doesn't try to eat you, she's a bit of a pain with people and animals - well pretty much anything that moves - but she's good, just a pup.

Unless it's majorly broke, which I highly doubt since you just took it on a long trip, we should be able to figure it out over a weekend or a week, whichever. I have an engine hoist if major surgery is called for.

 

[Grubblin]

I've noticed a couple of people say if it isn't broke don't fix it. I follow that saying when I can, I believe in it when I have a place and resources, but I'm also very wary of it. The reason for that is that if you know it's "off" and don't fix it, the truck always seems to break at the most inopportune time possible. I'm thinking of two miles down a dirt road on BLM land and twenty miles along pavement to the nearest parts store OR in a two hour time limit parking, no overnight parking, towing enforced. I just got done hiding out in the truck in one of those parking lots last week bc it busted after the parts store closed. I thought if I stayed there maybe I could talk the police out of towing me. I got the part when the store opened, installed it and was off before anyone got called. Luckily it's not tourist season when their patrolling for that kind of thing. This doesn't sound to be the case with you since you're trying to fix it now but not fixing something that you know is wrong because it's still functioning to some degree can come back to bite you in the ass. It's bitten me more than I can remember anyway.

 

[DrewSTNY]

I've noticed a couple of people say if it isn't broke don't fix it. I follow that saying when I can, I believe in it when I have a place and resources, but I'm also very wary of it. The reason for that is that if you know it's "off" and don't fix it, the truck always seems to break at the most inopportune time possible. I'm thinking of two miles down a dirt road on BLM land and twenty miles along pavement to the nearest parts store OR in a two hour time limit parking, no overnight parking, towing enforced. I just got done hiding out in the truck in one of those parking lots last week bc it busted after the parts store closed. I thought if I stayed there maybe I could talk the police out of towing me. I got the part when the store opened, installed it and was off before anyone got called. Luckily it's not tourist season when their patrolling for that kind of thing. This doesn't sound to be the case with you since you're trying to fix it now but not fixing something that you know is wrong because it's still functioning to some degree can come back to bite you in the ass. It's bitten me more than I can remember anyway.

Same here. We could do a whole thread of "worst break downs and where". Like the time out west near Amarillo when my truck lost a front brake caliper complete with mounting bracket locking up the front wheel solid in the middle of a 10k mile tramp around the country. Took two days to get fixed and had to catch a ride to Lubbock and back for parts! Or the time a rear axle bearing shit itself all over I44 east of St. Louis towing a camper. Took a week, another trailer, two more trucks, and a lot of phone calls to junk yards trying to find parts because you can't just buy BUDD hubs from the local parts store. And those are the ones that happened after I "fixed" the truck to make sure it was ready to go before I left town.

Zim is on the right track trying to make sure everything is OK, but there has to be a balance between "is she really dickered right frikin' now?" and "how much longer can she go until I really need to spend serious cashola?". He just drove a truck of unknown condition half way across the country without blowing up or catching on fire. I'd say that's pretty good.

 

[autumn]

April is a pretty good month, March usually has a big snow later in the month as a last gasp before spring really kicks in. After Easter weekend should be good to come up.

Capitalist protestant types are a bitch to work for,but I'm a lazy bastard minarchist Jesus freak so we ought to get along fine.

Hopefully, the dog doesn't try to eat you, she's a bit of a pain with people and animals - well pretty much anything that moves - but she's good, just a pup.

Unless it's majorly broke, which I highly doubt since you just took it on a long trip, we should be able to figure it out over a weekend or a week, whichever. I have an engine hoist if major surgery is called for.

Would the first/second week of April be okay too? The only reason I ask is because it totally fucking sucks here and I want to get out ASAP. I'm so far into Appalachia that I hear people dropping racial slurs in everyday conversation. I'm still 100% on board if you want to wait though.

I'm good with puppers, they usually like me.

That was going to be my next question.. engine hoist

Sounds like a solid plan though.

Here are the pictures:

Radiator cap:

Coolant resevoir:

Dipstick:

 

[DrewSTNY]

If you want to shoot up here between Mar 27 and Apr 8, we should be able to make it work.

BTW, put some water in that radiator, man. She's bone dry!!

I usually fill it up to the top then find a hose to squeeze while I hold my other hand over the filler opening to burp the air out.

The other way is to just keep adding water when it's cold, before you go out for the day and let the air make its way out by itself.

The over flow tank looks completely normal. No oil at all there.

The oil on the dip stick looks perfect, too.

Go ahead and get that rad full up, no air, then see what happens.

EDIT: Spelling

 

[autumn]

If you want to shoot up here between Mar 27 and Apr 8, we should be able to make it work.

BTW, put some water in that radiator, man. She's bone dry!!

I usually fill it up to the top then find a hose to squeeze while I hold my other hand over the filler opening to burp the air out.

The other way is to just keep adding water when it's cold, before you go out for the day and let the air make its way out by itself.

The over flow tank looks completely normal. No oil at all there.

The oil on the dip stick looks perfect, too.

Go ahead and get that rad full up, no air, then see what happens.

EDIT: Spelling

Sounds like a plan, friend

Took your advice and filled up the radiator, let it settle overnight to get the air out. No change in leaking. It's now down to the full line, color of the oil hasn't really changed. Spark plug boots are stuck so I need to fashion something to rip them off before I can get the compression/leakdown test done (and probably end up having to helicoil 'em)

 

[DrewSTNY]

Can you post the link to the video again? I looked through my emails, but the video was not preserved there. I didn't get a chance to look at it last night. I was making a tarp bivy sack for a demonstration I have to do tonight.

I got the idea from the forum - https://squattheplanet.com/threads/diy-tarp-bivy.30566/

 

[autumn]

Can you post the link to the video again? I looked through my emails, but the video was not preserved there. I didn't get a chance to look at it last night. I was making a tarp bivy sack for a demonstration I have to do tonight.

I got the idea from the forum - https://squattheplanet.com/threads/diy-tarp-bivy.30566/

Sounds like a fun demonstration, what's it for?



I grabbed my service manual, popped the hood, started the engine and sat down in front of it. It took about 5 minutes of attentive listening, but I think it's coming from the fan belt. That or the carb.