I just saw your post about you moving to pinedale. That is about 30min drive from where I work.
Might have to meet you and see the bronco one of these days.
Trav

 

Haha I thought heavily on trying to apply to be a pilot. I know I'd love the job if I got in, but I'm not quite sure if I want to go that route. I wouldn't really have much time for all my other hobbies and aspirations if I went in as a pilot, at least not for the time I was a pilot! It would be one of the coolest jobs in the world though....


As for which place I like better, so far I really like working at this door company. I pretty much have liked all the jobs where I work, but this work seems more entertaining and enjoyable to me. It's more hands on and I don't have to worry about crabby customers!


And Trav, where do you work? I'm guessing it's either Heber or Show Low! We are not currently staying full time up in Pinedale (especially now that it's getting pretty freezing!) but we go up there often. We currently have a small place shared between our family in Heber as well, but we got the Pinedale place so we could have a place of our own (but we are still on the outskirts of the Phoenix area just outside of Fountain Hills). The house is pretty nice up there, it's adjacent to the national forest so there will always be wilderness next door! The sad thing is, despite there being a one car garage, it's not meant for vehicles. There is a foundation pillar right in front of the garage door so only quads/small trailers fit going through the door. My parent's aren't too concerned with garage though either unfortunately! When I get my own place, I'll need a 3 car garage MINIMUM (I'll probably have to settle for less though..)

We were just up there this Thanksgiving weekend. First time I had to deal with plugging in the block heater! I had no problems. My hood was nice and normal, but the rest of the truck was covered in ice!

 

I am in snowflake I am at the collar general over here.i go to show low all the time though.
Trav

 

Oh that's the other place I was thinking of guessing, the name just left me while I was typing. I suppose I could have just looked at your location on the post header as well.....

I made my first trip into Snowflake this last weekend with my dad when we were up there! We took my dad's truck, so my Bronco was sitting at our house. We ended up just driving around kinda exploring the area since it's kinda cool to see what's up there. We drove out towards the giant windmills and then saw this really cool canyon that came out of nowhere. We ended up eating at some Mexican restaurant on the way back to the house, I just can't remember the name. I remember the sign said "Rest rant" because of some missing letter though!

 

Ya I almost never drive either of my fords to work ( bronco is still down and the f150 uses a lot of gas) so I almost always have my Chevy.

You were on the opposite side of town then where I live. I am about a 45 min drive where I work.

Snowflake\Taylor is one of those towns where you know it is there but don't think of it which I like cause it makes it fairly peaceful.
Trav

 

Yeah it was pretty nice up there. Pinedale is peaceful as well which is nice. Goldfield ranch (our place down in the Phoenix area) is also a ways out of town so things are quite here as well.

I'd like to hope I can get a place that's not too busy/crowded when I get around to getting my own place, but I think I'm going to have to settle for something more congested based on my job choice and my potential future budget.... I don't think I'll be looking much at houses once I go on active duty because I still have a lot of student loans I'll need to pay off and I'll be constantly moving around. I suppose I'll have to see where I'm at when my loans are payed off and I have some service under my belt. I know my girlfriend likes living in the center of things (like shopping areas and whatnot), so I'm a little worried about that when I get around to getting my own place!

The most important thing is garage and yard space! I'll need a 4 car garage minimum! (One spot for my Bronco, one for the Camaro, one for my girlfriends truck, then one open spot for working on/painting vehicles!)

 

Don't forget a garage space for my f250 I'm about to get!

 

I think you need to update your picture from one of your truck outside your house and not the lot we bought it from!

I'll take that intercooler that was stashed up in front of your radiator as well!

 

I was going to but it was pouring rain yesterday. I forgot today when I put the door handles in.

If I can't find pipes for under $600 I don't know if I will hook that intercooler up anytime soon. I was looking up prices on them earlier, and they are way more than I thought they would be.

 

Just an update for anyone who's interested.

I found out recently that I shouldn't have rerouted the CCV hose into the front of my large 6637 air filter. By doing that, I sucked up 2/3rds of my oil in about 2k miles, then managed to get air in my high pressure oil system due to being so low on oil (also my Bronco died on me.)

I think I'm going to get the original air filter housing to properly re route my CCV into the intake, and most likely order an oil catch can kit as well. In the meantime, I'm leaving it open to the atmosphere.

I also got my fuel pressure gauge working which made me realize my fuel pressure is a little on the low side. I managed to compress the regulator spring to get it back to a better range, but I think the fuel pump is leaking as well. I'll be getting an electric fuel kit probably from Beans or Bar None this month so hopefully that will take care of that! My fuel mileage has gone down a few MPGs and I have been getting spots of fluid under the truck recently so I'm pretty sure it's fuel that's dragging in residual oil/grime!


I'll post up some pictures when I get the electric fuel installed. I don't know if I ever posted pictures of my gauges so after I wash my truck and clean the inside, I'll post some picture of that too!

 

Subscribing for my Diesel bronco build

 

Well my fuel pressure has now jumped up to about 60psi at idle and seems to be in a good range. I'm still thinking I have a fuel leak, so e-fuel is definitely something I plan on doing soon.

However..... I just saw a 96 powerstroke for sale for super cheap and I'm very tempted to buy it. If I do end up getting it, the e-fuel will have to be on hold for another couple months.

I just figure, if I can pick this 96 powerstroke up for 2k, it would be a perfect truck for my to take when I go on active duty. I'm too scared to take my Bronco anywhere out of state because I think it will get damaged (if I'm stationed up north) or stolen somewhere else. This 96 is a little beat up cosmetically and has 350k miles, but if the blow by on it isn't bad, I think I'm going to get it!



If that's the case, my next "mod" on my Bronco will be smashing the firewall back where the driver side up-pipe is touching! I finally decided to check that side and realize that's why my truck is so damn loud compared to my friends F-250!

 

Well just an update.

I installed e-fuel from Bar None. I don't want to rag on them, but I wasn't super impressed. I'm sure they mean well and many people have had good experience with them but overall I had some issues (shipping and order delays, instructions not originally sent, leaking fittings, then no response from customer service as well as disconnected phone lines.)

Overall I'm happy with most of the setup, but I had to purchase some different hoses and fittings to replace the leaking parts which ran me about 150 bucks. I have yet to install them, but I have bigger issues to deal with first....





The bigger issue is I finally got around to compression testing the motor I put in........ A good range would be 380+ with new being around low 400s.

I have 4 cylinders around 280 to 295 with a few others in the low 300s. The motor is beyond worn out. Im pretty sure the fuel in my oil is due to terrible compression numbers. It's weird because the motor ran so well and pretty smooth as well. It had tons of power on top of that so I didn't think it would have been so bad. I should have expected this from the awful shape turbo wheel, horrible K&N filter on before, and overall terrible neglect of the donor truck though. I actually think the motor in now may have been 586k miles and not 186k because I believe the odometers roll over at 400k. The truck was in such bad shape, it wouldn't surprise me if the mileage was higher.

I did manage to pull another motor with 290k however from a wrecked truck. The turbo wheel looked slightly dusted but overall nothing too worrysome. I couldn't test the motor because the truck wasn't running at the time, but I believe it's going to be okay! I know it will be in better shape the the motor in my truck now! I just have to clean and reseal this new motor, then swap all my good new parts over!

I'll save up to get the current motor I have rebuilt so I'll have a good spare!

 

Wow.......great attitude! I think I'd be ready to throw a match on it all by now lol

 

Haha thanks! Yeah I can't say I'm too excited that I have to get a replacement motor within such short time of completing the swap, but it won't be all too bad in the end.

I do plan on needing another powerstroke motor for another swap later down the road (*cough* my camaro *cough*), so I'll have one waiting for a rebuild. I'd like to start on that swap soon, but it's realistically going to be 5 or more years before I can get to it because it's going to require major modification which I don't think I can do at my parents place! Depending on where I get stationed and how my active duty service goes, I may have even longer to wait on that swap, but that gives me more time to rebuild the motor!

One semi-nice thing is I thought I may have had to pull the motor in the Bronco before discovering the bad compression. The drive side exhaust manifold was rubbing against the firewall which was causing the extreme loudness in the cab. I was hoping I wouldn't have to pull the motor, but was pretty sure I would to press the firewall back. Now since the motor has to be pulled, I'll be able to get this taken care of after all!

I just picked up the correct size bolts to mount the replacement motor on the harbor freight engine stand I bought so I'm going to try and get that taken care of tonight! Once I get that motor on the engine stand, then I can use the engine hoist to take off the 350 small block off my saw horses so I can put it on the engine cart I bought for that. I was going to swap a 350 in my Camaro before I figured out the fuel in oil issue with the Bronco. I got the 350 motor painted and new valve springs put in, but it still has a little ways before its ready to swap in. That will have to wait until I get my Bronco up and running again!

Technically, the Bronco runs and drives great now, but I know the diesel mixing in the fuel is going to be really bad for my new injectors and HPOP and whatnot, so I'm just not going to run that motor anymore!