New guy checkin' in

[crashnzuk]

I know a guy in Rhoade Island, which is a very salty snowy state, and he loads up a paint sprayer with ATF every fall and paints everything under the truck with it. He claims it keeps the rust at bay, and since we've bought a truck from him, I can vouch that it seems to work. Love the new truck and flatbed. A very stately looking rig. Do yourself a favor and take a good look at the core support to frame body mount area. This is a heavily neglected area that slowly decays in the best of conditions. If you can get to it before it is too late, you can clean it up and paint it and get a lot more life out of it.

This thing came out of Bakersfield so it is VERY solid underneath, but I'll give the core support a look anywho I've heard the oil in a bug sprayer trick, that might be the ticket.

Very nice. I'm hoping to find a nice '83-'86 vintage Crew Cab 4x4 manual tranny myself.

Great rig. Welcome to OB. I wish you could bring that crew cab to the Rally for me to drool all over.

Heath

If the rally were out west, I'd be there.

Beautiful looking rig!! BTW I just noticed, the IP gear housing's either off an '87 6.9l or it's off a 7.3l. Do you know the history of the engine? Might not hurt to make sure that that's a 6.9l and not a 7.3l just so you can keep a closer eye on the coolant additive if needed.

It is indeed a 6.9, there are tags on the engine from the builder. The engine was a drop in replacement from a place in Minnesota I think. It only has 20k on it, along with the clutch, radiator, ps pump, fan clutch, ps box, yada yada. Most of the hard parts under hood have been replaced in the recent past. The turbo and Gear Vendor are both only about 4 yrs old with under 40k on them. The guy had it painted at the same time he installed the flatbed. At that time, he pulled the glass for tint and window track fuzzies. The guy said he had put about $18k into it since he bought it in '03. It really is a lot of truck for the money he paid.
Travis..