The 89 lipstick on a Pig

Whelp here it all starts, I forgot to even start this thread when I got the truck but Russ (Type4) reminded me that I need to be out here reading more stuff from the community and stay active.

So here he sat the weekend I bought him, bought down in Mill City, OR for 1700$ with a bad trans (only had 2nd and 3rd with manual shift only) so I drove em home to Forest Grove just happy as a freaking clam.
89 lariat with a 94 front clip on it. Everything else is still that half **** bricknose build.

Unknown miles cause I forgot to write it down and I don’t really care anyways.

Welcome, what’s your plans for it?

So I drove it the rest of the summer with just 2nd and 3rd only just happy to finally have a crew cab 4wd. I did learn right as fall hit that not only does the windshield leak but the wipers killed themselves, so finally 2 wiper motors later and they kinda work (I will some day get around to fixing them to have the delay)

At around the same time the rain kicked in it started barfing trans fluid in that oh so sparkly grey metallic red flavor. So I said well I sure got the moneys worth out of the trans that I knew was bad already.

So I had Cory at Transmedic in Gresham, OR rebuild it with all the updates and upgrades save for the billet input and output shafts since I ain’t going that far with it.
Cory pointed out that there was no communication with the TCU but because I came in high regard with the guy he cut me a deal on the trans, but he wouldn’t fix the nightmare of a wiring issue going on with the truck.
So I drove it around while trying to make all the gears work and just kept getting pissed off that this fully built 4 speed trans only had 2 gears and I really needed to start pulling my horse trailer and camper again.

So I bit the bullet and bought a us shift quick 4 with the full kit literally everything they offer for the e4od I got.
I installed it with the bare minimum required which is all the trans connectors, tps and tss. Away I went happy to have the truck shifting through all the gears I paid for.
But then the rain came and the motivation to keep wiring up all the additionals faded plus I went to go work about 9hrs from home in a frozen hell scape, so wiring was also the last on my mind but come spring for sure it’s getting them done, I mean I gotta get the tach in my dash working after all.

Now for a bit of a bash
On 8/4/22 I ordered a 3g alternator kit from CDD (before I knew about the guy)
On 8/8/22 it was supposedly delivered, but this is where it gets funky. My mail carrier had not put it in the parcel locker in which it for sure would have fit in, so they sat it next to the group mail box and left( post masters story) Well I started calling and emailing Wes asking where my stuff is and eventually he started a insurance claim (was only going to cover 200$ of the over 300$ I spent on the part)
Well I filled the online paperwork out and Wes never filled his out according to his own insurance claim. I emailed and called multiple times with just bad attitude or snarky comments in tow.
Well 11/27/22 was that last I ever heard from Wes and he no longer answers my calls.
So if there is anyone in the Texas area that is willing to help do a bit of small claims court stuff for me I’ll give you everything I get from him.

Over the Christmas break the wife surprised me with a gauge set for my truck (with my own money of course….) it is the 4 pillar gauge set from glow shift their max tow dual read out. I know glowshift isn’t that great of a brand but I actully like them a bit and love it even more as my none gearhead spouse is trying to get in on the hobby.
About the same time I got the gauges and such, I did a water pump and fan clutch, but I wasn’t going to just put whatever in, I grabbed A A Ron Loder’s( from the Facebook group don’t know if he’s on here) 9 blade fan upgrade and she works freakin well.
I also happened to have picked up a complete ats 093 kit from a guy locally for only 200$
I dropped it off at Russ’s to get rebuilt (god I love loving so close to the guy)
On my return trip to the frozen hell scape I hit a damn pheasant and poked a hole in the rad. So a little time at the truck stop and some extreme high temp jb weld later.

hacked89 said:

Welcome, what’s your plans for it?

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I plan to take it as far as the turbo Russ built me will take it. Maybe upgrade a bit down the road. But this is legit a work/lifestyle truck. It HAS to work to keep its place. Haul hay, horses, my camper
I travel ALOT for work, I’m a marine side Piledriver by trade so I follow to barge crane wherever it goes and my truck, trailer and boots gotta follow. I am looking at Justin’s 90cc pump and Russ’s injectors. The only other thing is to maybe put a diy charge cooler on it down the road, but we’ll see.
I don’t need the big power anymore, I just want it to pull the Lewiston ID 6mile hill at 50 towing 10k and I’ll be happy.

So while drunk web surfing I found a guy who makes these awesome custom dash bezels. Originally he made them to fit a bricknose dash fit a double din radio. I just asked if he could make me one to fit 4-5 rocker switches and 2 power ports l. In less then 10mins he had a fender that was damn awesome. Making it today 1/23/23 and will send to me to fit test as well as to sell possibly. It should just snap into place with the factory tabs so I pretty stoked. I’ll post here for sure when I get it

So for Christmas before I knew the wife got me gauges (with my own money…) I went and tried something I haven’t done I bought recaps (brand new)
I got on Treadwrites website and there they were, a full set of “blemished” recaps that were nearly the size I wanted for a absolute steal. So charge card came out. Got them right on Christmas and lucky when I got home from the frozen hellscape it happened to just be snowing a icing over everything in my part of Oregon. So good time to out them on.
I got 35x12.5r18s I wish I could have gotten them in a 33 as I don’t need the truck to be so high anymore and I kinda wanted to lower it back down a bit anyways. So far I love these damn tires, holding there own up in the hellscape with all the at and mts.

So with all this extra time I have while working so far from home I take whatever time off we have that I don’t go home to work on cleaning up this 093 turbo kit. I put some MEK on the factory air box to strip the rest of the paint off. I polished the down pipe for some stupid reason. And cleaned all the oil and grime off the pedestal and related parts. All of it is getting ready for some cerakote going to see if it will hold up like they say.

As the weather broke and I finally got a tiny bit more of time off. Fine ok I ran out of beer and didn’t want to make the 34 mile drive into town to buy more. I don’t have a problem you do….

So I started with getting the gauges all wired up and that set me into one of my autism fits… so I had to go and make the wiring harness just right, which made me want to add some pass throughs to where the factory tcu was (remember I have the sweet us shift quick 4 now) but then I needed big cables to pass the power through for the inverter I want to have to charge all my chit. So a big Amazon trip later. Making sure to get only real copper lugs and real copper wire not tinned alumn…

Whelp last night while pretty buzzed i through the ole credit card out the wallet and ordered more fun stuff, now I gotta get the choice made for the 90cc or 110cc
I’m leaning pretty hard toward the 110cc

Well moved my glow plug controller today when I got around to installing my new harness from ididiesel, I will say it’s a nice kit but leaves a lot to be desired about fitment on how it sets in the valley area. I’ll be pulling my motor this year and slapping in a new refreshed one anyways so I’ll really fix the wiring when it’s out and easier to work on, I just want it to sit in there all purdy like. Won’t take long, plus I’ll make one of them brackets to put the controller on the valve cover.

On a side note I spent the day at work doing fluid and filter changes on everything the company has on this job, and would ya look at that, the RAYCOREs have just paid for themselves on the tug we have. So dang much algae has been in there and didn’t notice, only got a low fuel pressure light last week when doin some water doughnuts but went away pretty quickly. So ya know gotta burn off or transfer about 3000 gallons of diesel so we can take the hatch off and go clean it out. If these raycores were a lot cheaper and rugged itd be pretty nice to have em in your alternative fuel setup.

Which Racor are you useing on the Tug?
I know in the Boat world, they use the Racor`s a lot, some times several in line. I have read they plumb them in for fuel polishing.

I have the 500FG on my 86. They sure do the job with that large settlement bowl on the bottom to spin out the garbage, plus the Filter up higher.

The one`s for large yacht`s are much bigger than the 500, think a 900 and a 1000 series etc...

Used the 200FG on smaller Diesels, used one for 400K mile`s.


Goat

Old Goat said:

Which Racor are you useing on the Tug?
I know in the Boat world, they use the Racor`s a lot, some times several in line. I have read they plumb them in for fuel polishing.

I have the 500FG on my 86. They sure do the job with that large settlement bowl on the bottom to spin out the garbage, plus the Filter up higher.

The one`s for large yacht`s are much bigger than the 500, think a 900 and a 1000 series etc...

Used the 200FG on smaller Diesels, used one for 400K mile`s.


Goat

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I’m pretty sure it’s a 1000 series but I could go look to confirm, we have 1 for each main engine and 1 for the transfer pump from the main tank to the day tank. Company put them in when we were took about 90 gallons of water through the tank breathers as a hopeful way to grab most of the remaining water out, tug is new mains only have 400hrs on them

Overloaded-dadbod said:

plus I’ll make one of them brackets to put the controller on the valve cover.

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Banks shows one for their Side Winder kit and will probably sell it separately. It doesn't mount to the valve cover. It bolts to a couple of intake manifold bolts and puts it above the passenger's side valve cover.