91 Ram 50 2wd

[abeemanator]

So I went and looked at a 91 2wd Ram 50 today and took it for a test drive, I must say, after driving with carb'd vehicles, EFI is a nice change, it had a lot more power than I expected it to have and it ran pretty nice, it has 230k on it but it looks like it has never ever been beat on and it drove quite nice, it has had synthetic oil ran through it for years as the guy told me and he never worked on it himself, the wheels are uglier than shit and I noticed one lug was broke off, I never thought I would say this, but I would love to have a 2wd again, I have just been so pissed that the weber I bought for my Toyota had .50 main and secondary jets, and leaned the piss out of my 22R, I have been told that the 22r will last forever, but not with a Weber on, that damn thing killed my 85k mile engine, the valve seals are leaking oil and it had a drastic decrease in power, oh well. The truck $650 on the Boise CL.

Anyway, while I was taking a test drive I noticed that the truck idled a little funny, and the clutch was really...uhmm...well.. crunchy? I guess. Like the cable was just old and needed to be lubed or replaced, it had a lifter tick (Which might have to do with it idling funny). And the headlight switch was busted, so you had to unhook the battery to turn the lights off, and there is a good sized dent in the back of the cab that was put there when a tree fell on it, and the windshield was cracked, everything else worked great and I would give the interior a 9/10, I did not see a single tear in the seat or a crack on the dash, but the light switch is all FUBAR'D and the radio didn't work.

It is a bone stock base model, 2wd, nothing special, not even p/s, alot different than my 4x4 Power Ram 50 Custom. What was funny is he talked himself down from $900 to $650, its been on CL since the end of September. I hope to pick it up on Tuesday, as long as my boss will loan me $600, or I sell my Toyota.

http://boise.craigslist.org/cto/3294845688.html

393639383939

[abeemanator]

I am going to go pick this up on Wednesday, I have my truck sold to a friend of mine for $550, unless he wants the Pioneer deck that is in it, then it is $600. How do i get that dent out of the roof?

[abeemanator]

I have been driving the truck around and it drives and rides nice, and has alot of power, but at idle it will miss on a cylinder but when I give it gas it will start to hit, and it has a lifter tick, could the lifter be holding the valve slightly open?

[abeemanator]

Have not updated in a while, Anyway, I picked the 91 up and have been driving it, I wish he told me it used oil, instead of stopping at a stop sign and hearing CLICK CLICK CLICK from the lifters, I haven't done a comp test but I can tell that one of the cyl is still low on compression, it doesn't show signs of a blown head gasket (The oil is leaking from the valve cover gasket by the intake manifold) And I think it is a bad lifter causing the low comp, I get paid on friday and I am going to put a set of lifters in when I put a new valve cover gasket on. I have an issue where it jerks like its running out of gas, and one time It acted like it quit receiving fuel to the injectors, I let it sit for 5 minutes and cranked on it for about 5 seconds and it started, but wouldn't rev when I pushed the gas it only backfired about 8-10 times and then it took off, I was like WTF is going on??? and it had 3/4 of a tank of gas, and today it my plugs fouled out while I was pulling wires to find which cylinder was missing, and once again I had to baby it up to throttle, I got going 40 and downshifted and just put it to the floor and it slowly started firing on all 4 just fine, except at idle it misses and I think It is just caused by a bad lifter like I said. Other than thoes little problems its a Bad Ass little truck, alot of power for 238k miles, and it is extremely clean on the inside, there is a tear in the corner of the seat and two spots on the dash where it looks like it had a dash mat attached.

I worked on the 87 a little but I cannot get the damn thing to start, where I can crank on the battery in my 91 for like 1 minute before it starts to loose considerable power, it wont crank my 87 over for more than 5 seconds without dying. I am still looking for a 2.4l to put in it, but I don't want to use my engine from my 91 as the 91 is too nice to pull the motor out of. So I guess I will continue to search CL for a wrecked or rolled 90's ram 50 / mighty max to steal all the parts from to convert to EFI.

Also does anyone have a link to a good build up of a 4G64/4G63 Hybrid and what it would take to do such?

[irishkael]

for your 4g64 and 63 you may look at www.projectzerog.com they have just about everything you need to convert your truck

[abeemanator]

So I went for a drive this weekend to a little town I used to live in called Garden Valley, ID It is near 75 miles one way there, so I filled up the tank and wrote the mileage down, drove there, drove around alot while I was there and drove home, I checked the mileage and I had drove nearly 200 miles, 150 of it going 55-60 mph, Filled the tank again (Was a little under half), it was 8.06 gallons, did the math and highway driving I get roughly 25 mpg, a whole lot better than my 4wd Toyota, which was lucky to get 15-18.

[abeemanator]

So I replaced some collapsed lifers and did a compression test to see why the truck misses at idle, and intermittently at higher speeds.
The results
#1 110 psi
#2 95 psi
#3 5 psi
#4 110 psi

WTF is wrong with 2 and 3? I am thinking I have a blown head gasket, lots of steam in the morning and if parked in the garage it will leave a spot of water on the floor, and slowly uses water, it also leaks a little oil from what looks like where the head meets the block. So could it be a blown head gasket, or would it be a burnt valve, all my plugs were a slight ashy white, which would seem to me would be just about right, and all of them looked equally the same, there is no oil in the water or vise versa.

[Backtobasics]

#2 is a little low, but ok overall. When psi is that low, it usually is a valve issue. Worn rings will still have some compression. A leak down test will tell you if its a valve (my guess), and you will be able to determine if it is intake (hiss in intake tubing or throttle body) or exhaust valve (hiss in tail pipe).

[abeemanator]

It is defiantly the exhaust valve, I can hear it out of the exhaust when it is running, and if I put my hand over the exhaust pipe, I can feel it push my hand off, and then stop for a fraction of a second, and then push again, if I listen through the intake while it is running it just sounds like normal, I have low compression at idle but at around 2000 or so RPM it will start to run on all four. So what am I looking at to do a valve job, just a ball park figure, I figure I would need valves, valve seals, intake/head/exhaust gaskets and the valve seats redone. Does anyone know where I could pick up a New or Rebuilt head complete with all new parts?