Roy's Garage: '90 2.4-4G64 5-spd D-50

[royster]

I know you took the cats out for a ride

Wouldn't THAT be something to see, goin' down the road?

Thank you for the encouragement, OG. I remain pretty confident that a lot of the oil burning since I put it back together is from manifold residual and burning off assembly oils. Sitting at idle, getting up to operating temperature is nothing like actual highway load. I knew that the truck needed a good run at high speeds before I started condemning anything.

I had hastily put a quart of oil too much at first. I drained it out yesterday before starting it up, having also added about 4 ounces of STP with ZDDP. (The ticky lifter is completely quiet. now). I checked the oil level when I got back home: it was so exactly on the line I couldn't see it! So I'll sure be able to monitor oil consumption. But like thillskier, I had been having to add oil every 200-300 miles before all of this. In hind-sight, no wonder.

Yes, I'll be watching this like a mother hen. With ANY major repair (after a failure), it takes some time and miles to re-establish trust in the vehicle. But this truck had given me no reason to think it wants to die.

I'M sure it appreciates the money (and care) I've put into its repair. I think "an arm and a leg" is an exaggeration...

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[OG Arrow]

Wouldn't THAT be something to see, goin' down the road?

Well then here you Go ! LOL

I took one of my cats on a road trip a couple of times ,,, he didn't seem to mind it at all !

Here's Cubby keeping an eye on traffic and checking out the road conditions
while I'm blasting down I-75 in my Neon on a trip a few years back from Detroit to Lexington, KY.
Cubby Travels1.jpg Cubby Travels2.jpg

Try takin em for a cruise ,,, you might be Surprised how much they like it.
(and if they don't ,,, you'll know Right Away !) LOL

[royster]

The female twin, I'm almost certain, would be fine for trips. Beethoven (orange cat, now deceased) loved to travel.

I've always thought it was cool to see people traveling with their cats.

The visual I was referring to was the three of them on the ROOF of the truck. If they started yowling, people might think I'm some sort of emergency vehicle!

[royster]

My sincerest thanks to BradMPH, Komeuppance, RedNeckMoparMan, MyLittleShitty, and all the others who helped me through this process. With the engine now as good as I can make it, I'm moving on to other things, until the 500 mile head re-torque. (At that time, I will check out the timing belts and everything else).

I'm about to drop the drive shaft and get that all in good shape. I want to assure that the mount and braces are lined up right...when i removed the transmission back in october, I remember having to force the mount to one side a bit, in order to tighten it. The bolt impressions are still on the crossmember, showing about 3/16" from original installation. I think that makes a big difference in u-joint wear. In doing research on transmission "swapping" from the 2.0 I found that the clutch assembly is slightly different, though the input and output shafts are the same, as is the transmission mount. Parts #'s are identical for u-joints. I'm looking into the possibility of switching the drive shafts temporarily. I'll post about my findings.

Thanks to BradMPH's thread on Mitsubishi color-matching, I now know the color my truck was painted, and can start getting the paint for it. A shop in near-by Strasburg will mix it for you if you have the color code. [Mine is S55] Not sure I want to invest in a paint sprayer and a lot of equipment I'll likely only use once, so I'll see what my options are. The Strasburg shop will actually put the paint in spray cans for you, and I can get good results with a spray can. It may be the guy has a paint booth, and will paint the hood for me if I do the prep. Fenders are a cinch (he said optimistically). At any rate, I'd love to see the truck sparkle as it did when it was new.

[royster]

Got the drive shaft off, ready to take to the shop tomorrow. Definite issues with the u-joints...the rear one has 1/16" play in it, and the foward one has stiff movement. Also need to replace the transmission mount, so I ordered one from RockAuto. NAPA wanted $54 for it, RockAuto has it for $13 (minus my discount, which was 68 cents) . Even with paying (under $7) shipping I'm doing well, ($30 well) and it should be here Saturday.

A simple operation to replace.