Hopefully assembling Thursday and Friday and maybe start to put it back in on Saturday if things go well.

 

Rotating assembly is all in. Just needs the pump and head pretty much put back on. And of course all the accessories and fun stuff.

 

Nice! Does the machine shop still have the head?

 

Nope, I have everything. Just hard to find time for my mechanic to help me.

 

Little bit of progress the other night. Got the pump on and timed to about 16.5-17 degrees and got the studs in. I didn't know that the rocker pedestals have to be machined down for the studs to work properly, so my brother-in-law is machining those out for me so we can install the head and hopefully get the motor at least in the truck tonight! Little by little I'm getting there.

 

Nice Work! It's looking good! Hope you fire it up soon!

 

Got it in the truck and bolted to the trans. Got a few things bolted on and whatnot but we're missing the alternator bracket and a bunch of bolts here and there. So hopefully a junkyard will have something or else I'll have to scrounge around for something.

In other news, I'm moving 300 miles away for the next 3 months to do an internship, but my friend/mechanic said he'd work on it for me in his free time to get it running. So I'm estimating in two weeks it will run and I'll make a day long trip to go exchange my Honda for it once he breaks in the engine properly.

 

Any updates on this? Your mechanic friend get it going?

 

Sorry about the delay, but yes it runs now! I was back in my hometown for a few days and helped him out with it and we got it to run. We're chasing little bugs here and there, it needs a power steering pump and the timing cover leaks a little bit of oil so we put a new gasket and some rtv on it to make sure. Apparently the TPS's on those are tempermental so he's looking into that while I'm back at work. Hypothetically I should be able to get it and start driving it around next weekend.

He has it now and will be breaking in the motor over the next week and a half and checking all of the steering and u-joints to make sure it's road worthy for me.

 

Well I didn't go get the truck. It's been having issues with killing itself on the road while driving. The air filter was really plugged so we thought it might be starving for air but that wasn't the case. One of my injector lines was bent (it was before when the truck last ran 3 years ago with no problems) so we replaced the lines but that didn't help. So my friend/mechanic is leaning towards a crank sensor or delivery valves (don't ask me what it's exactly doing and how he gets to these conclusions, it was his old truck so he knows more about it than anyone). He's in the process of trying to find the stock delivery valves to see if they make a difference, and he's going to get a crank sensor as well.

Hopefully when I'm back home in 2.5 weeks I can have a decent running truck.