I completely understand. I have a bunch of kids and grandkids, but none that really want to get their hands dirty regularly, even on their own vehicles. I did have fun recently teaching one of my daughters' about the Toyota dealer trying to steal her 10 year old Prius by telling her it had a blown head gasket (due to overheating issues) and the estimated repairs would run $6500. When my daughter called me with that news, I asked if they ran any test to truly determine the head gasket was blown, which they had not. Come to find out the the coolant was low and air had gotten into the cooling system. Properly flushed the cooling system and the engine now properly cooled. Later on, found out that the electric water pump was going bad and needed replacement (got a code for it). Replaced the water pump and thermostat/housing and all is now well with her car. She got involved with some of those repairs to save that $6500.

I do have a friend that has same hobby of working on old Chrysler 60s+70s muscle cars as I do. We sometimes assist one another with various repair jobs on each other's cars, in addition to catching some of the local car shows/cruise-ins.

 

Happy new year to all!! And yes it’s 2WD. I plan on getting the motor completely re done new heads cam whole 9 yards new harness maybe even a aftermarket PCM since now my truck falls under antique law wich means i can get away with a lot less restrictions ect.

 

Yup. Mine qualifies as an Antique as well......

Careful with heads. You don't want just the regular stock replacements. Several companies offer 'new' castings, with thicker decks, so they are less prone to cracking around the valve seats. There are also the 'monster magnum' heads, with larger valves, etc.

You won't find a new harness off the shelf, that would have to be custom made. (not cheap, if you pay someone else to do it.) While you have the motor out, pull the harness as well, thoroughly inspect it, fix any of its issues, and then re-wrap it. Good as new.

 

Monster magnum heads hmm I’ll look that up I was looking at Edelbrock heads originally. I also want to bypass a lot of the censors ect like 02 and other useless ones wich is why I was thinking a PCM flash or something along those lines .

 

You wanna keep those O2 sensors. They are primarily responsible for making sure the fuel/air ratios are correct. Without 'em, your gas mileage tanks.

 

Check your plenum - often cause of oil burning. Intake sucks up oil from the valley below. Easiest check is driver side pull the PCV hose - plug both the hose and the fitting on the side of the intake. Pull the crankcase breather hose off the air filter box. Start engine. If you feel vacuum on the hose you have a plenum leak. If you want to get fancy hook up your vacuum gauge or just stick your tongue in the tube. I use my thumb. If you do have a plenum leak, and want to give a nod to the OG plenum plate fixer, buy the Hughes kit. Otherwise $40 on ebay by a guy who cuts the plates for $40. If you wind up with a dorman gasket set, make sure to toss out the thermostat as these stick open.

As for seats. Buy "seat cushion" off ebay for $30. Get some new seat fabric covers. Not seat covers to cover you existing ones, but to replace your existing OEM seat upholstery. Now you're out another $25. Enjoy.

 

I used to "be that guy" who hated all the sensors. O2 sensors aren't useless, you'd just lose MPG. Not into race engines anymore so someone correct me if I am wrong but even if you were to put a race engine in there and ECU to control it you'd likely use a wideband O2 instead of the narrow band so you can monitor actual AFR. Stock, upstream O2 provides lot of input on injector pulse (higher mpg) and PCM DOES use downstream O2 to fine tune fuel delivery.... it's not just for detecting the cat is doing it's job or detecting a constant lean/rich that saturates/depletes the catalysts of oxygen both giving your infamous p0420. I'll take every MPG my PCM will give me.

 

I don't remember what my front end rebuild ran me. I did it over a couple of months and did the brakes all around at the same time.I'm thinking around $800 in parts. That was all the front end parts except the panhard bar (previous owner replaced that before I got the truck) as well as the front and rear brakes with drums and rotors.