Hey all! Picked up a gen 2 the other day for $250. It's a 99 3.9l shortbox with the 5 speed and 4x4, the tires are 33s. Frame underneath is excellent. Reason I got it so cheap was because there's a chance the block is cracked- The waterpump is COMPLETELY torched in this thing, so PO filled it with water and forgot to change it out over the winter (although when I ran some hose water through, it came out a tinge of green). I originally bought it to swap the tranny & transfer case into my '92 Auto Dakota, but if I'm super lucky, this trip to the pull yard will yield a water pump and fan clutch assembly and all will be well, but I realize there's only about a half a thousandth of a percent that the block isn't cracked. Everything to my knowledge is relatively transferrable between the two years so if it's spent, it's spent. Got my moneys worth just in tires

Tomorrow after I get everything put together, I'll attempt a crankin' and update with my conclusion on this trucks fate.

 

Good luck!

 

I ended up with a pretty nice unit, a bit of rust on the fan pulley but I'll be able to clean that up some. The pull yard has a pretty nice selection of 2nd Gens (Hey there, pretty little Magnum V8) and only ONE first gen (that I could find), with plenty of options, although it did take about one hour of truck searching, fan shroud fightin', water-pump-ain't-no-good-in-this'n before I found this wicked nice unit. With that said, if I end up having to turn everything over to my '92 I shouldn't have any issue finding a correct length drive shaft(s). Anyways I'm still working on cleaning up the water pump gasket face, being a single father to a wonderful little 9 month old daughter takes precedence over my 3 projects I have going right now.

Well, picture because

 

Good news! She fired on up today. Had to grab the ignition coil off the 92. PO routed the power steering too close to the fan so I sliced the hose a bit. Quick fix with some rope routed it out of the way.

EDIT: Aaaaaaaaand now we're back to no start. RPM started to climb at idle a bit and I ended up stalling it out in gear (my mistake). Now it's a hard crank, possibly letting the engine cool will yield a good start.

EDIT2: I let the truck sit overnight, and after I ran to the store I thought I'd give it boost for the hell of it. Fired right up like it had never sat. Still a mildly high idle (~~1200 +/-100) but I have a sneaking suspicion that is the seafoam and Isoheet at play. I did key it three times to prime the pump since there is a slight possibility the pump could be on it's way out, but my rule is don't change it till it's toast. It idles just fine as it is and I didn't notice any intermittent issues in what little driving I've done. Today I'll probably jump over to working on my '92 and tearing apart the rear end that appears to have completely locked up on me.