I bought this awesome truck. I fell in love with it instantly. heres the list of things I need help with, i know nothing about any trucks.

It has the v8 318 with the holley 6280 from 87 dakota 3.9L
The truck has the California emissions thing on it. so the vacuum is all messed up. It idles rough, the top idle has to be set fully screwed in to idle half way decent. 10 min. idle results in a 1/8 of a tank of gas. blows white smoke from around the erg valve, choke holes and out the tail pipe. i did notice what looks like oil coming from around the exhaust manifold on the passenger side. also acts like the times is turned to far up.

Theres a clunk from the drive train when going from reverse to drive and back. thought it was the universal joints nope. torque converter maybe?

Can't help with the first problem, however the drive train clunk is most likely the rear end. It is quite common with the 9.25 rear end, there is play that develops between the ring and pinion gear. The only way to fix it that I know of is to rebuild the diff, but it will likely come back again.

My 87 has had the clunk since it was new.
Still has it at 175,000 miles/

you have one hell of a vacuum leak and possibly a blown head gasket

That's what it might be. My oil is the color of milk chocolate but no white. I'm gonna put all new seals in it. Had a friend tell me my rings maybe burnt.

if it looks like chocolate milk and its thick then it definitely is a blown head gasket

Or a cracked head, or cracked block, timing cover gasket, or intake manifold gasket.

those are options too... I was just trying to be optimistic

Hey guys i was just reading through this post and had a question it sounds like one of you may be able to answer. My head gasket blew last week and i replaced them today. I just unwrapped my intake manifold gaskets i ordered and they are metal... Is this normal? Do i need any kind of sealant with them? Also the head gaskets left small tabs sticking out in the front and rear of the lifter valley, is this normal? Do i cut them off or fold them under the cork end pieces of the manifold gasket? Thank you for any help you can offer, I now have to go to the parts store because they sent me an oil pan gasket set with two front seals and no rear seal...

when my gaskets blew I just swapped motors because I warped a head and it was cheaper to swap than to fix but ive replaced head and intake gaskets on multiple first gens and every time ive gotten the felpro cardboard/paper (whatever ya wanna call it) gaskets never fully metal intake gaskets...