Where to start! Well, you may not beleive me when you look at it, but I purchased this regular cab 4x4 a little over a year ago for 500 bucks! It was a mechanic's dream sitting in a college student's driveway in northern New York. It had given him every kind of trouble it could (and hasn't spared me either) so he gave up on it and purchased a Cherokee.
When I came across it, there was a dead battery, broken cooling fan causing a punctured radiator, stuttering engine that wouldn't stay running, the automatic transmission(which had been replaced with a junkyard special one year earlier to the tune of 2300), would only shift between 2 and 3 on its own, and the t-case shifter was seized. Those were the things he noticed, and I pointed out the exhaust leaks from broken manifold bolts, and a few other things, to get the price to 5.
Well, after plugs and wires, a cap and rotor, a transmission relay (stuck ON), an electric fan and some radiator sealer,and a lower ball joint, she was back on the road.
Then orders came down to move from Ft. Drum, New York to the Yakima Training Center in central Washington(Oh, I guess I didn't mention that I am a Utility Helicopter mechanic/Crewchief for the U.S. ARMY, did I?). On that RELAXED drive of 2950 miles, the transmission decided to give up the ghost a few miles past Butte, Montanna after 2500 miles, and 2 mountain passes towing a U-Haul trailer(filled with tools mostly!) So my buddy took my trailer and I back to Butte, and I got a 24 foot truck(Smallest they had!) and a tow dolly. So back on the side of the interstate, we pulled the dodge onto the dolly with ratchet straps, dropped the driveshaft and headed out. Moral of the story, BE PREPARED AND ALWAYS CONVOY CROSS-COUNTRY!
Fast forward, I popped out that tranny after getting settled into my "new" barracks, and tore it down on top of a dryer in the laundry room. While waiting on some performance clutches to show up for the tranny, I pulled the cylinder heads, port matched them, the intake, and exhaust manifolds, drilled out those broken bolts, and cleaned up the valley and cylinder decks. With the top end back together, a new sun shell, and rear carrier bearing inside the transmission along with all new frictions and a converter had me ready to throw the trans back in. Oh, and that seized T-case shifter? I finally replaced it with the later model from the dealership. It has a bearing instead of a bushing to pivot on, and it was totally worth the 115 bucks.
Now, a million little things and a few big ones chewed up the 6200 dollars of my running tally, and my nearly 800 hours of labor. Where did it all go?
She is now sitting on 33 inch Mickey Thompson MTZ's (THAT I LOVE!!!!) with a mere 2 inches of lift from front torsion keys and rear blocks. This is what gives it the toy truck look I was going for, and why I named it PROJECT TUCKER,although at first I wanted to call it Harlot, for the amount of trouble it has given me in return for my work.
Skyjacker shocks keep the Pro Comp Rock Crawler wheels from turning into a bouncing blurr going down the highway.
A flowmaster 30 series muffler covers up the non-existent tire noise, and an 808 watt sterio drowns out the rumble of the exhaust. It's a circle of life thing.
The Xenon HID projector headlights and matching tail lights compliment the textured graphite metallic paint that I layed out in a clever pattern to cover up the 10 year old paint imperfections.
So now that the 91 Blazer I previously posted has now made it's way to my brother's driveway in Wisconsin, and this project is nearing completion (if that is ever possible) I will be selling this one to start anew, because I am as much the crewchief as I am the pilot in my little world, and I need somthing else to throw my money at. My 91 Suburban is begging me for some upgrades, but so far I have been keeping my new tow rig stock. And on the other hand, I had the crazy idea of doing a turbo and some lockers on Tucker, OH! and a light bar, a disc brake rear axel, and some......