thought i would post this up for people who are trying to gain some MPG's from their trucks.

I was going through a time where my MPGs were 8 mpg around town.

---I hollowed out the CAT---------------------Free

---Put on a Cherry Bomb Turbo muffler------$35

---New Timing Chain w/new gaskets---------$60

---Harmonic Balancer---------------------------$90

Total= about $185


after running through some tanks of gas, and having the truck run 100 times better, i am now averaging 12.2 mpg around the city.


this is awesome since for less then $200 im getting about 4 mpg more.

Id definatly reccomend people doing the timing chain, due to the power increase i got from it.


Hope this helps some people.

 

I've been toying with the idea of redoing the T-chain, I just don't want to get in there and find out it's still good. Is there any way to see if it has slack without pulling the timing cover?

The previous owner took good care of it (his father was a dodge mechanic) so I don't know if it was already taken care of with a higher quality replacement.

I've owned the truck for ~55k miles.

 

i replaced my t-chain at 67,000miles and it was looser than the girls i went to highschool with

 

Remove the distributor cap so you can see the rotor, then manually rotate the crankshaft until the timing mark lines up at TDC. While watching the rotor for motion, slowly and carefully rotate the crankshaft backward just until the rotor just begins to move. If you get more than... uh, I believe it's three crankshaft degrees, the chain's a candidate for replacement. You'll want to independently verify that tolerance, though, because three degrees is the number off the top of my pointy empty head.

 

there is a way that has something to do with moving the rotor button or the rotor button having slack, but I be damned if I recall how or what the procedure is.. I'm sure somebody will pipe in with that info, or maybe that's enough info to search with..


edit:
uh, unreg ninja'd me..

 

Thanks a lot for the info, I'll definitely be looking into that this weekend.

 

do the chain....trust me...took me about 4-5 hours in my driveway, and a good hour an ahalf of that was cleaning the parts......VERY simple job, and Awesome outcome....definatly worth doing the t-chain...

i did mine about 2 weeks ago now....had 207K, and i could literally pick the chain off the gears, a tad bit more of play, it could easily have jumped time.......very very loose


better safe then sorry, and its not expensive.

i have a video im going to upload

 

hres the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcZhPSwHmu0

 

12.2 MPG in town?
Lucky bastard.
I can't even get that on the highway. I get like....9.


BTW, nice video....the accent threw me off for a minute, then I remembered you're from Maine.

 

Im proud to be a Mainah ...Proud to be from the puckabrush