I bought this truck from my cousin for $275 knowing it at least needed a head gasket and possibly a transmission. When this truck broke he bought another d21 off of my dad. I told him I'd trailer that new truck to him and pick his broken truck up at the same time. On the way home it was snowing and i got off an exit to get some gas. I stopped at the bottom and accelerated and turned. My wife and I immediately looked at each other as we heard a crazy noise.... It was the truck coming off of the trailer!!! Some how no damage was done to the truck or more importantly anyone else! We think someone may have messed with the tie down straps while we stopped for a few hours at a shopping center. People can suck. Fast forward to me diagnosing the problem with the truck.
I took the head off and found this( hint: its not a head gasket) :
Then i did this:
Then i did nice things like this:
And this:
And ended up with this:
I had a few small hiccups after getting the engine in. Mainly it was not idling correctly. I thought i had installed the timing chain incorrectly because the black link wasnt lining up when i took the valve cover off. So i literally took apart the whole timing assembly only to later realize that those black links on the chain are only for lining it up while first installing. You can turn the engine over and they won't line up again for multiple rotations..... SO that sucked. I then spent $3 on a pcv valve which has pretty much fixed the idling issues. Figures. Hah.
I also had some ticking in the head after initially starting it. As heard here:
http://youtu.be/hBOaWXLEBeo This however was just a lifter which completely stopped after driving it a couple miles.
Now I'm enjoying drives through the country as seen here:
http://youtu.be/nhE9TRzbPsE
I'm pretty happy. Less than $1000 total spent on a rust free d21. Now... do i wanna boost it?
