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

[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.