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This will be my chronicle of the rebuild of my little truck. I recently got this pretty cheap ($300). Piston #3 was burnt, previous owner already had the head professionally rebuilt, and included the complete engine gasket set.

The body is pretty much rust free except for a small dime sized hole in the passenger's floor boards and a quarter sized hole in the back right corner of the bed floor. The rest is all surface rust that will get sandblasted off when I strip it for paint.

I have already redone the instrument panel (pulled it apart, cleaned it all up, repainted the needles, painted the housing white, changed out to LED's). I have sandblasted 2 of the wheels and painted them, but have to strip them back down and redo them (forgot the base color before putting the pearl coat on them).

Now I have the engine block out ready to pull all the brackets off, clean it all up and get it machined. I'm having the surface machined and the cylinders bored. The shop also apparently does powder coating, and I'm thinking about getting the blocked done.

What color do you folks think I should go with, since I'm painting the truck Dark green with the side "dented in" parts pearl white?

Anyway, on to the pictures.

This is the paint scheme I want to go with, except change the black out to Forest Green, and change the orange to Pearl White.

That'll look good with the colors you want.
Personally I'd just go black with the block and leave the head bare aluminum. Maybe paint the valve cover to match the truck, forest green with white where it's indented for lettering? The block is just too much color in my opinion
What is your end goal for the truck?

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Luvless
1980 Mikado-Sold.

2002 Acura MDX the wifes daily
1993 Lexus SC400 my Daily
2004 Yamaha WR250F my new love in life

I like your idea for the engine. I'm planning on going gloss black in the engine compartment also. The lettering on the valve cover is going to be a bit of a PITA to tape off for the pearl white, though. But I accept your challenge!

Another little finishing touch I've always liked doing was to strip the paint off the top and bottom tanks of the radiator (they're brass), polish them up to a glossy shine, then clear coat them so they stay that way. Then gold anodize the top and bottom caps of the air filter on the Weber. Just those two little things. Never liked the whole chrome/gold over done thing. But a couple little touches here and there are a good thing.

Kind of like what I did on my Karmann Ghia.

A little update.

Finally got the engine block flipped upside down to access the oil pan. Still need to get one bolt out of an engine mount, then need to get the pulleys off the front and the flywheel off the back.

Any hints as to how to get the timing cover off without breaking it? I've got all the bolts out, but even smacking it with a 2X6 didn't budge it. As rare as those things are, I REALLY don't want to crack it.

And now I need to figure out the best way of cleaning the block the rest of the way without creating an ecological disaster in my apartment complex.

Anyway, on to the pics.

Got the block prepped for the machine shop (finally).

Just need to get the two C clips off the timing chain tensioner parts and catalog all the bolts in bags.

First 2 pics are of the block as it now stands, third pic is the reason the engine is needing rebuilt.

And after taking it all apart, it's a good thing I'm doing the rebuild on it. The main and rod bearings probably only had another 3000-5000 miles left on them. Thankfully the crank is still fine.

Took a closer look at the "dime sized rust hole" in the passenger's floor boards.

Well, shit...

Picked up a spare engine (not pictured is the Weber 32/36 that comes with it).

This one has a cracked exhaust vale. So, going to take my original cylinder head (that was completely rebuilt) and put it on this block (the original block as above has a burned piston).

I will then take my time and do a full rebuild on the head with the cracked valve and the block with the burned piston and make a slightly Gonzo performance version to swap in at a later time.

Got some painting done this weekend. Coats 1 & 2 on, next weekend is coats 3 & 4.

The next weekend is several coats of clear.

Got the new eyes for the truck. No more worrying about front turn signal lenses - the halo ring is parking / turn.

$80 Amazon Prime delivered to my door in 2 days.

Well, made a tentative wish list for finishing my truck.

Quite the eye opener. $2657.00 just in parts.

To get it on the road and driveable will be $1574.00 in parts.

Now to see if I can sweet talk She Whom Must Be Obeyed out of that amount of the tax return....

Got the grille, headlights, and bezels installed.

Also got the bumper cleaned up and hung. Didn't bolt it completely in as I need to remove it again to finish it. I'm going to put fine mesh wire screen in the old turn signal holes.

Man, that picture shows just how bad a paint job that is on the hood...

Finally got the pistons in and the head on. Still gotta torque everything down, but it's beginning to look like an engine again!!