Foxy red

[irotagrup]

Well about 5 years ago, I bought my first truck for $140, a 1979 d50 with the 2.0 and a 4 speed, then one day she broke... lost all the teeth on the lower gear drive on the crank shaft, after about a week of looking i found a 1982 Power Ram 50 that was r47 red. My girl named her Foxy Red she had a blown head gasket, cracked head and thrashed interior... so i took my two trucks and and made one good one. After some extensive top end work, welded the head and milled it ect... didn't last too long. Stupid terrible head design. Anyway long story short did another head gasket and trimming chain ... and had a leak in the hose from carb to the intake for coolant... and there went another head gasket.
About 2 weeks ago i picked up an 85 ram 50 royal with a bad trans and shot steering but a running and smog passed 2.6L. I got if for a whopping $100 dollars and some stereo crap i didn't want. So i am engine Swapping for a fucked 2.6L to a better running one.

[irotagrup]

The Gas can in the engine compartment is because she hand holes in the tank. This was after i got out of the air force and came back from Italy

[irotagrup]

Got some pics of my donor truck will put up soon

[BradMph]

don't ever overheat a 2.6, ever. Use 180 thermostat and put gauge in. All these G63B motors were notorius about cracking. Heck I replaced 4 heads on a 2.0 for cracks. One was full length of camshaft, 2nd was a hole size of a quarter. 3rd was a crak near a jet valve, 4th was warped and is still in carport stashed away.

[irotagrup]

Hahah yeh no shit what a very temperamental engine

[irotagrup]

Hahah yeh no shit what a very temperamental engine

[pennyman1]

A 195 thermostat is the right temp for these motors - they won't run as good with the colder stat - I tried it and the diff is significant. Better to get the dual core rad and good electric fans with controllers to regulate the heat than run the cooler stat. Use an additive that makes the water cool better or run the evans coolant.

[irotagrup]

what about a stock radiator and a fan shroud with the 195* thermostat?

[pennyman1]

that will work too - just make sure the cooling system is clean

[irotagrup]

I will make sure that it is, just orders my 195 stat from rock auto, see about that Evans coolant.

[irotagrup]

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[irotagrup]

The grey truck is my donor 85 ram 50 royal that i picked up for a$100 fucking sweet huh? well day 1 i got it home and started tearing the interior apart, a couple days after started on the engine... note the idler arm there, if you turned the wheel it would make a horriable click and wheels wouldnt move, after a 13hrs of work i endend getting both engines out, removed that bad trans from that 85 cleaned up engine and trans, turns out that Foxy had a brand new cluth and flywheel in her, not so much for the grey one.

Few days later i put the 82 mikuni back on and but it on my engine, painted a few things on the engine valve cove, alt bracket, block, oil pan... later that day had everything ready to go lowered the better engine in to foxy started the trans bolts and guess what happened next....

[noahwins]

Why is the 2.6 more prone to failure than the 2.0 and what was the design flaw that makes them chew up heads? Aside from upgrading the radiator and fan and t-stat is there anything you can do to help extend their life?

Did Mitsubishi improve the design between the 1G and 2G? Mitsubishi engines are pretty confusing with all of the mix and match configurations and incremental changes within model codes themselves.

Something satisfying about taking 2 shot vehicles and kitbashing them into one good one. :thumbup:

[recian]

First off the 2.6 is a Dodge engine. The 2.0 and 2.4 are Mitsu engines. THATs why it's prone to failure lol but naw the heads in the 2.6 are HEMI heads. The heads were just poor quality. Theyre good when theyre working but liked to crack between cylinders. Could be too little material in them or a poor cooling system. I've got a R47 red truck too so props to you :) I'm taking a 4D55 from a royal and dropping into it.

[irotagrup]

Nice, well no one guessed but the fucking oil pans are different to looks like I got some work this weekend.

[pennyman1]

You are the second one who missed my post in a thread about the oil pans and pickups were different 2wd to 4wd. Sorry I didn't see your swap post to warn you. Someone needs to put the info in the wiki about that so others won't get hung up with that issue.

[irotagrup]

The oil pick up is different too? How so? Is it easy to change between the two? I will be digging into it tomorrow. Is my problem only really matter sense I'm going from 2wd to 4wd? So if u go from the 4wd engine it to a 2wd it shouldn't matter right?

[pennyman1]

if the 4wd motor is going to a 2wd, then is shouldn't matter, but since the crossmembers are different, then they may still need to be swapped. and the shape of the arm on the pickup is different because of the different shape of the pans.

[pennyman1]

Also, to clear up any confusion, the 2.6 motor is a Mitsubishi motor, not a Dodge motor - they were used in many caravans and k cars in the 80's, but they were built by Mitsubishi for dodge to use in fwd apps. Those 2.6 motors share little with our truck motors - point ignition, non jet valve head with a cam driven air pump, and a specific block for fwd use. Those 2.6 motors are why people think our trucks have bad motors - the problem was that chrysler speced them so poorly that they made them trash, and the owners tried to drive them like v8s with maintainance like a sloppy v8 and it killed them. There were no Dodge motors put in any Ram 50 truck - they were all Mitsu built. Some 2nd gen autos may have been chrysler a500s, but I have never seen one - if it had one, it was probably actually a mitsu tranny anyways, as chrysler got so lazy that all 4 cylinders were mitsu built.

[irotagrup]

So wll that be an easy swap on the oil pick up arms??

[irotagrup]

Got my 195 stat in today yay and my plugs for a tune up

[pennyman1]

the oil pickup swap is 2 bolts and a gasket - there may also be an o ring on the tube that goes into the pump.

[irotagrup]

Well the pick up was an easy swap just needed to make a gasket no problem o. After I got that oil pan on broke to pan bolt heads shitty it was very easy to get in and on the motor mounts and bolted in. Did get some new sweet ass wheels with some 31" tires. now that everything is in tightened up i cut out my old exhaust from a 2wd that i had in there.... but got in the exhaust for the 85, starter, intake ect, now need to find a good big diagram for the vacuum lines. then hopefully another weekend and she will be running.. heres some pics526552665267

[pennyman1]

How straight is the front bumper on the 85 - I have been trying to find a second one to change from the original style one on Geronimo.

[parrell456]

Nice! Foxy Red will be a cool 4x4 companion to Scarlett! Oh and Pennyman, tons of great info as always, sir!

-RHP

[irotagrup]

**UPDATE** I got foxy running, didnt pass smog but shortly after when i put the bigger wheels on she started over heating and i had to leave her on the freeway and she got towed to the impound lot and had to pay $300+ to get her back but she is still having probles...