ByTheSea

Mainly my vehicle is tall and ugly. I have been running tall tires from way back and finally lifted it. The fender cuts are huge, the body panels don't match, theres missing trim etc etc. The damage from hitting the overhead at the bank(Saris roofracks BTW are stronger than Ru Roofs and my GFs Trek combined) surely doesn't help the overall appearance I think things will be okay when I build the next one. I'm going for stupid tall but with modest fender work. That way I can claim it's mostly tire and they won't have any way to prove otherwise. Also the new car is clean and everything matches.

It's official. I got pulled over for a warning on the front bumper brackets and got tagged for lifting over state limits. Luckily this trooper had actually participated in my huge psycho wife/false arrest syndrome a few years back. We had a pleasant talk and he gave me a few good tips on what items will cause random trooper trouble in the future. Hmmm. Maybe I need to put a false bottom on when I build UberRu. LOL Gonna be tough claiming a tube frame is only a body lift.

You might look at this as a blessing. The next time you want to work on your car you can vaguely point out that it is somehow, maybe, just possibly connected to the overheat incident which you have totally forgiven:) Should be good for a few guilt free hours of tinkering and who knows what else(OK we all know but it's a family board)?

OK I'm really thinking I should change my board name to Roseanne Rosanna Danna,,,"If it's not one thing it's another!" I have done two tranny changes this week. Last night I got the latest tranny in and took the car out drinking,,,er,,,for a test drive. Everything was great till this morning. Driving to the shop and my oil pressure drops off and the car starts to smell like burnt oil. And when I stop it starts to smoke pretty good. Popped the hood to find oil everywhere but no sign of a leak. Rev the motor up and I find the leak alright. Damn o-ring betwean the cam case and head has expired with extreme prejudice and is squirting oil when the pressure hits hard. So I got the extreme pleasure of resealing the passenger side cam case in a sea of oil spray,,,yummy,,,and of course being a flaming stupid idiot I managed to put the cam sprocket back on 180 degrees off. Suprisingly it ran. OK rant mode off,,,thanks for listening.

You might try backing down your timing a couple of degrees till you get the EGR straightened out. Also you might benefit from routing your crankcase and valve cover breathers into a dump can and plugging the intake ports they would normally be in. This reduces the intake temp if you have any ring blow-by(like on older high mileage motors)

I found a tranny locally today from a wrecked 93 w 111K. Governor gear and reduction shaft gear are in perfect condition, fluids clean and nothing but a little fine gray film on the diff magnetic drain plug(no chunks). I got it cleaned up and did the "best parts go here" gig. I'm going to keep the diff section from the first tranny I bought and put it together with the rebuilt tranny section that was originally on the car, assuming I find the reduction gear. There may be hope for that since the car I just bought slips starting out and goes fine at highway speed. I'm hoping it has a good reduc and gov in it. The leftovers go back to the salvage yard for refund. In any case thanks for the good answers. SVXPERT, was that interchange only for the 89-90 or does it go all the way up to 94? Thanks, Brad

A helper is the best tool to have after a nice stable floor jack(wider really is better ) Popping the knuckle off the ball joint gives you enough room to remove the axle from the tranny. Also if you buy a 14 mm wobble socket and a 12" extension you'll be a happier person. Of course be sure to get a clutch alignment tool(basically a splined sex toy) to make life easier.

Other than Columbus Day would be cool. Maybe this will be the year I make one

Thanks for that info Paul. I usually get taken care of at the local dealer but today there was a kid at the counter who didn't strike me as the intrepid parts swapping type. He failed to instantly recognize the destroyed gear and shaft I set on his counter, even though it's the most common failure in Sube history after timing belts, cam seals and CVs. He did offer to knock the price down a bit but $400 for the gears , 1 seal and the 10 cent ball bearing I dropped on the shop floor still made my heart skip a beat

As far as installing the MAF itself your'e looking at about a 7 minute job allowing 1 minute to open and close the hood and 2 minutes to admire your handiwork. I can't say for certain on the price. I would think theres backward compatibility at least to late 1989 and probably with all the ea-82 Non Turbo cars (DL,GL) till 87. If thats the case you should be able to get one through this board much cheaper. We often buy whole cars for $250 but the prices you'll see from a wrecking yard can be awfully high.

I posted looking for a reduction gear for a 3AT FWD trans. It occured to me that since the gear is in the diff housing that the 3AT 4WD might use the same part. If anybody has a parts guide could you check to see if PN#31450AA130 is listed for 89-94 3AT 4WD? Thanks, Brad

Welcome to the club !!! Amazing how nice a two dollar trophy on the shelf can be Did mine with the wagon running 26.3" tires on ice. Haven't won more than a t-shirt since though Still having a blast doing it. Love beating out WRXs in Modified 4wd.

Not that it's that big a deal but after lots of searching I finally found it. Today I bought a TOTALLY RUST FREE 101K 87 GL wagon. It may be dent free as well but I won't be sure till I clean the rubber scuff of the rear quarter. Slipping fwd slush box but it's just the shell for my next off-roader. $400 and only 90 miles from my house! If you come from Cali or the South this is no big deal but I have NEVER seen such a clean Ru in New England. No Rust Out Jones ever got on this baby The secret is that it came up from Louisianna last year. I'm so giddy! Or maybe thats just anoxia talking from riding around in my rusty wagon.

Electric Motor/Electronic Parts cleaner from any hardware store. Just a tip. Let it dry before starting small electric motors or your slot cars,etc- will burst into flame (No Personal Experience ). Should be fine for the MAF, Mine didn't seem to mind it. On the catch can I prefer Sprite. The green can looks good wedged into manifold

A Gremlin????

They are heavy. They leak when you lift em up. The torque converter falls on your toe. They have a lot of stupid bolts to the flex plate. They won't come out from under the car on the floor jack. I'm stuck doing one and it's not my car. Good thing I love my GF or I'd have to torch her car about now. Did I mention that auto trannys suck??? LOL.

So,,,I suppose my rear stock driveshaft doesn't like the lift kit. I think thats what the high pitched squeal is coming from. Who has the Part #for the Bronco(I think thats the one) u-joint that can be fitted to the rear driveshaft. Thanks for any info, Brad

Hey Tim, Good on you trying the untried! Saves me money,,,LOL. Let us know how they work out. Brad

Adam, After a visit to the junkyard I'm guessing it's a T100L divorced case from a 83-86. If so did you keep the whole length of shaft betwean the tranny and t-case or did you shorten up a bit? Are you running into a flipped R180 up front? Headed for double cases in the future? I see at least one site that claims to have a twin case adapter coming for the T100L. So I guess if youv'e gone this far then the next step might be going to 4.44 ratios from a forester. You could get up near 90:1 when it's all said and done. Then flip both diffs again and add portage hubs and get an additional 2X. Last but not least theres supposed to be a R200 center chuck with 4.9 gearing which you could slide into some z-car R200 diff cases. Good cheap transportation,,,LOL. Nice work BTW. That t-case is a cool bit of genius you found.

So just one more little idea. If your'e running a t-case then I assume the front diff is just spinning? You could maybe just eliminate it all together to reduce the weight and spinning mass of the diff? Alternately you could make a hella PTO set-up. Just switch the tranny to 2wd and only the front output shafts spin. You'd need a disconnect betwean the shafts and the PTO so it wouldn't spin when driving around. Looking forward to those pics. Hmmm. Theres a few Nissans in the paper cheap,,,Hmmm

Hey Adam, I know it's cliche but a picture is definetly worth a thousand words. Brad, drooling in anticipation, Rose

You can slice the u-bracket off your shifter and move it up a bit. This shortens the throw without changing the stock look and boots. You will need to heat and bend the shaft a little after you move the bracket so that it lines up in the middle. Carefull not to flip the bracket over or you'll really need to bend that sucker a lot.

Hmmm, Some interesting responses,,, On the idea of putting a Soob motor in a Zuki,,,why? There must be better candidates than a 90 hp ru. And I'm too old to be getting my rump roast broken driving one of those silly things on the highway where you hit the roof on every ripple. I dissagree mildly on whether a Ru is a Ru if you take away the I/S. I'd say it's still a Ru with a 6 cyl Chevy mill or a Nissan T case. What do you call a Jeep with a Buick motor in it? I do think that a body dropped onto a complete truck driveline would be less Ru-Like but I'd drive it nonetheless My own car is part Pug, part Ford, Part Nissan with a big dose of ghetto cheese added for flavor I'l put in anything that works,,,especially vinyl performance stickers. I do think there are ways around the CV issue. I just wonder if as a practical matter we'll ever get the articulation and traction from an I/S that a straight axle gives. The straight axle appeals to me mainly because I see it as a way to get real travel and lift without having to put a huge Rube Goldberg of bracing and tubing under the car to keep it from toppling off the lift like a drunken stilt walker. My car is heavy enough as it is. If I were using it mainly for off roading then the added weight wouldn't be so bad but for me it's a daily driver that has pretentions of being an off road warrior and WRC rally car Of course a T-case is heavy so maybe it's moot. LOL However we dice it Soobs are cool and silly at the same time but at least we got em!

Just doing a little mental doodling at the junkyard today. The older Toyota trucks use a conventional axle front and rear which have pretty close width to our cars. You could switch a rear into a Ru with a quad link set-up. R/P sets are available to match all our ratios 3.7, 3.9, 4.11, 4.44. No more busted rear half shafts, real Lockers, etc. The front would be a little harder as you'd need to add a transfer case or a whole tranny/t case set up. The case idea is of course workable. The tranny and t case would require some more doing as in adapter. But of course that can be done as well. Again the benefit is more travel and a front locker Somebody posted pics of the Zuki with quad links and bags for front suspension. That would be neat. Or run a nice 17" travel Bilstein coilover up to the strut tower. Obviously this is some serious fabrication but maybe worth it for the really hard core off road fellows.

Now my mom can wreck a rad. She decided to go just a little further after the crank pully fell of the Loyale and the idiot lights came on,,,@75 MPH,,,but sadly she melted the end tank off the rad before the motor puked,,,My moms an animal with Soobies!