Have any pics of yours? Paint on mine is terrible, I'd love to see what one looks like when it's nice!

Hopefully mine will get some fresh paint spring/summer of '13!

 

You're the man!!

 

I have alot of iphone pics..crappy.. but mines not the best either, if i ever paint it itll be the same colors, everyone seems to love them

 

Build me a Engine for the 96

 

One meeellllllllion dollars!


Got her mostly buttoned up last night, injectors cleaned and rebuilt, along with the fuel rail installed, wire harness, plugs & wires, rear fuel pump rebuilt, tank cleaned and re-installed, starter rebuilt and installed, modified Bassani Lightning X-pipe installed, upper intake cleaned, painted and installed, too tired for pics, I'll take some Thursday.


Also pulled the steering gearbox, cleaned it up and put new sector shaft seals in as it was leaking...

 

Let's hear that bitch run!

 

Good to see ya around these parts DTR....Thought we'd lost ya...

 

Well, I got the old girl fired up friday night, with only the front part of the bassani X-pipe on there. **** that was loud! Took a while to get the steering fluid burped and topped off, same with the coolant. Got the timing dialed in at 10*, all ready to go for a drive, and realized I couldn't find my god damn radiator cap anywhere! Parts store was closed too, as it was about quarter after nine.

Drove the Lightning over there first thing Saturday morning and picked up a radiator cap, drove the Lightning to the shop and proceeded to swap wheels and tires. The Big Red truck just had some junk tires on it for sitting, it's getting the stock Lightning wheels, and the Lightning is getting new wheels. Got 'er all buttoned up, Lightning put away in the shop for winter finally, and headed down the road to put the exhaust on it.

Spent most of the day Saturday putting exhaust on it, let's just say it took way too long, was way to difficult, and it sucks. I used the stock turbo mufflers from my brother's '07 Mustang GT, and let's just say they didn't fit as easily as I'd hoped. This was not my first rodeo with exhaust either. It'll work for now, later down the road I'll go with a Magnaflow muffler and single 3" tailpipe.

*Important note * I was hammering on the exhaust under the truck and missed twice, lightly grazing the front of the driveshaft tube.

So, with the exhaust done and truck all buttoned up, I proceeded to head down the road to take her out on the highway and "break it in". Immediately upon reaching 20-25 mph I felt a pretty severe vibration. I turned right around, went back to the shop and re-torqued all the wheels, they were tight. WTF? Start heading down the road again, still vibrating. Gets better around 30-35mph, ah **** it, I'm sick of this, I'm going to go seat the rings and come back and look into it. I'm thinking at this point I might have bent the driveshaft a little with my hammer whack, even though I barely dinged it.

I get about a mile down the road, headed for the interstate (still vibrating) when all of a sudden BANG! CLANG! , under the truck all hell breaks loose. I get it off the side of the road about 30 feet from the on-ramp to the interstate. I sit there, with the hazards on, swearing for about five minutes and muttering to myself about how I'm going to set this bitch alight. Finally muster up some courage, grab the flashlight, and go have a look underneath, and what do I see but one of the front f-ing u-joint caps missing!

I get back in the truck and call my wife. She comes out to rescue me about 15 minutes later. The whole time I've been pondering, do I limp it back to the shop at like 5mph? Or pull the driveshaft and tow it? I settled on option number two, as it's a pretty busy street, and I didn't feel like getting smoked by some idiot who's not paying attention. She takes me back to my shop, and I grab my trusty 12mm 12-point ratchet wrench, deadblow hammer and a couple blocks. My damn tow strap is no where to be found!

SO, back out there we go, I pull the driveshaft on the side of the road and throw it in the back of the Expedition, we swing by the parts store on the way back to the shop and grab a new u-joint. Grab some food at the drive-through and get over to the shop and down to business. Low and behold, what do I find? The u-joints have been swapped out and some point by a previous owner. Oh yeah, and also, HALF OF THE GOD DAMN CAP CLIPS AREN'T SEATED IN THE GROOVES!

The only thing holding in most of the u-joint caps is the spring tension from the little clip. I surmise at that point, my little "love tap" from the hammer when banging on the exhaust must have popped out the clip holding in that particular cap (which should never happen if the clips are installed properly)

So I get done, we head out and throw the 'shaft back in. Take it out and rod it on the interstate, (wife following me just in case this time) come back to the shop and change the oil and filter. As I'm cleaning up the floor after the oil change what do I find on the floor but the ****ing clip from that u-joint cap. AHA! Theory confirmed!

So, it's running/driving now, and all is mostly ironed out. I did get a check engine light on the way home from the shop, I need to put a MLPS sensor in it tonight (which I've suspected it needs for a while) and I'm also getting a 173 HEGO Rich code. 02 sensor is pretty new with only a few thousand miles on it, the ECT same story, and the IAT sensor is a new one I put in the new engine, because the old one was caked with ****. It only has post-rebuild run time on it, so I suppose it could be new and bad. If the 173 comes back, I'll swap MAP sensors with the Lightning and see if that cures it.

So there you go, I have more pics, hopefully I'll get them uploaded tonight.

 

Sounds like a few stories of mine.
Glad things got sorted out and taken care of.
Keep us posted on progress... It always gets us motivated to work on our trucks.

(I'm sitting in the Chinese buffet restruant wishing my 20 degree garage had heat)

 

Sad to say, but my purdy headers don't look like this anymore. My Ace Hardware ceramic paint must not have been to good, or the heat a new engine puts out was too much for it, or I laid it on too thick.

They look like crap now, flaking off everywhere. I'll get some pics of the truck with engine installed this weekend. I've been driving it for almost a week, but it's been colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra here. Supposed to be decent on Saturday -

Stay tuned!

 

use a small wire brush and rub off the flake to get to the stuff that isnt burned off, and spray more on and let it dry (if headers are warm even better) ive had to spray and burn and spray and burn a few sets of headers
after a while it wills tay on there