As I said a couple of days ago, here are some photos to go along with the last update.

This is the ballast resistor for the ignition coil. I went to pull out the old ignition coil and saw there was a hairline crack down the body of the resistor, and wiggled it a little bit. It fell right apart, so I called Napa and ordered 2 of them. One as a spare, and one to install. They were only a few bucks and easy to install. Also take not at the screw holding in the bracket. Both of the screws were stripped out and required some vice-grips to get out. I replaced them with bolts which will make it easier to take off in the future.




After I got the bracket out, it needed some rust preventative maintenance, so I got to cleaning.




This is what I was working with, grime coated rust infected metal.




After some sandblasting and wire wheeling, the metal looked like new and even smoothed out. It was 20 minutes of cleaning and probably saved me $20 of buying a new one.




Here is the completed bracket with the new ignition coil and ballast resistor on there. The difference was night and day. It is the little things that adds up for a nice looking truck.




After that was reinstalled, I cranked her up and got her running. I played around with the timing a little bit then noticed a pinging sound. I troubleshot a little bit and heard it coming from the power steering pump. At first I assumed that I was going to have to replace the pump, but thought to check the power steering fluid reservoir. It was bone dry. When I turned the steering wheel, it made a whining noise. So I topped it off with power steering fluid and the pinging and whining noise was gone almost instantly. Problem solved, and dodged a $80 part. I let it idle for awhile and kept revving the engine. Had to adjust the throttle cable a little bit but after 15 minutes the engine wouldn't overheat and it idled smoothly.

I drove it home that night, parked her and started to get some stuff ready to go salmon fishing in the morning. Next morning I got up early and went outside to bring our fishing poles to our other truck (2012 GMC Yukon) and noticed the front door of my truck (D50) was wide open. I should have mentioned that I can't lock the doors because the key I have doesn't work. I didn't think it would be an issue since the apartments I live in are gated and have private security that walks around from 10pm to 6am. Anyways, I noticed that the front driver door was open. I went up and looked inside and didn't see anything obvious that was missing. So I shrugged it off and went about my way and went fishing. After a full day at the river and on the lake, I came home skunked. Not a bite. As I was cleaning out the Yukon and putting things up, I figure I should double check the truck and make sure I didn't overlook anything since I was half asleep the first time I checked. And I realized I have my mechanics tool box missing with about $1500 worth of tools and equipment, my registration, insurance ID card, and title was also missing. I was missing a gas can, 6 quarts of oil (Royal purple too, the crooks even know what is the good stuff I guess), and the side of my camper shell had a busted out window. So I called Anchorage PD and the state troopers and reported the incident. Since the police weren't much help, I took matters into my own hands and left a friendly sign for the crooks.




Since then, I haven't had an issue. Now I just need to buy tools again, and that isn't going to be an easy task. So fast forward a couple of days, the truck is still running strong and not overheating. I went ahead and swapped out my winter studded tires for some brand new summer tires.




And to my relief, the truck not only doesn't overheat, but it runs on the cool side. This is about as hot as the engine gets now.




So now that she is running good, I think I'm going to move onto something else. I want to get a radio put in, but haven't decided yet. My wife and I are going to be moving out of Alaska in 5 months, so I don't want to get into anything too deep since we're shipping the truck out of here and it has to be running. I will probably do some minor body repair like filling in the rust and popping out the dents. What do you guys think? Thanks for reading!

-Tyler