Well, I had a ton typed out and then deleted it 
take two!
About 3 years ago, I decided I wanted to go on a nation wide road trip one summer - in a car that I had built. Inspiration for the dumb idea is here.
Next summer will be the only summer since high school where I won't be obligated to take summer classes or work full time, and it will be the last time I can do that honestly before having to buckle down and graduate. This is my 3rd car since I decided to make this trip sometime, and I think this is going to be the truck I cross country travel in.. in less than a year. Better kick in to gear.
I hate my stock seat. I think the passenger side is ok, but the driver's is worn and has a spring that pokes my right butt cheek every drive. After about an hour, that gets real old. I also want to have a console/ somewhere to put a cup holder, cause that's really inconvenient for coffee. Almost anything else I can just get in a bottle..
I've also crushed on old VW OEM Recaro/style seats and wanted some. Found some of that style out of a 1990 Corrado on CL for the cheap ($60 for both) and scooped them up. I like the fabric pattern and the high bolsters, and the seat just fits me well. I also like that the truck could easily have been modified with these in them 20-25 years ago. I like updating, but I also try to keep with things that would have been available in the 90's. Don't ask me why, it's just what feels right. Going to be interesting getting them to fit in the truck, as the seating portion is lower in relation to mounting but the seat itself is still much taller. When I re-do the floors, I'll probably have to update/create and reinforce some mounting points for these so they'll sit right. Passenger's seat is pretty immaculate and only damage to driver's is on the bolsters, so I'm hoping I can get that part patched/replaced relatively cheap. you can kind of see the damage in the second picture.
Wish me luck getting the first round of junk moved Friday! 
Doug
Nice score! Hard to beat vw seats for the money you can snag them for in the salvage yard, I got some from a Jetta k2 the other day not in as good a shape as yours but they are heated so my wife will at least enjoy that part of riding on my car lol.
classicJackets wrote:
About 3 years ago, I decided I wanted to go on a nation wide road trip one summer - in a car that I had built. Inspiration for the dumb idea is here.
Next summer will be the only summer since high school where I won't be obligated to take summer classes or work full time, and it will be the last time I can do that honestly before having to buckle down and graduate. This is my 3rd car since I decided to make this trip sometime, and I think this is going to be the truck I cross country travel in.. in less than a year. Better kick in to gear.
Hell, YEA!!!!
I did that for 2 months one summer, and had a great time. But I was exhausted by the end of the second month. My tour was in a CRX HF that I camped mostly, but also too advantage of the grad school I worked for to get good rates on hotels every once in a while.
So it kind of seems as if you should find a cap for your small truck. Or at least fabricate some kind of cover that will keep your stuff out of the weather.
Some of the key things for reliability- you are doing now- the big step will be the engine.
One other think you should really consider- the electronics. The age of your truck should show it's major problems- the wires are probably nice and stiff, and the insulation could be breaking up. But it will also show it's advantage of being very simple- which means that it's not a big deal to take an 4x8 sheet of something, and use it to lay out a wiring harness. It will also make the integration of the new engine a whole lot easier, neater, and more reliable.
A question of the engine swap- are you planning on changing the rear end? And if so, will it be lower- as in much lower? The performance increase of your engine is nice, but likely much more than you will utilize on a regular basis. So it's not a bad idea to put a pretty aggressively low ratio in so that you get some good fuel economy on top of a very healthy power increase.
The engine will be a huge step, which is part of why I'm trying to just replace everything possible now. Want to be able to essentially start with a low mile/low worry motor. I doubt I'll be able to make it a whole 2 months! I had planned to originally, but i'll need the truck/a dd as I'm going to be working until Mid may. My deadline/goal is to meet the family in Minnesota for our annual fishing trip that I've missed the last 3 years, and that starts July 15. So if I can have everything ready to go by May, I can spend a few weeks right at the end of work getting the actual swap knocked out and hopefully be ready to go mid June(I'm slow at this).
I do need to get a camper top, but those are relatively common so I'm not going to spend my money on that just yet. Still need to waterproof the cab!
Good call on the electronics, I would love to be able to replace it. What do people do as far as keeping as many different wires/colors/combos as stock? I can't imagine buying so many different spools as even the basics would call for.
I'm really not sure on the rear end. I'm just beginning to learn some more about them, and honestly I haven't checked to see if there's anything the same size that would swap in easily. Realistically, I don't have the skill or time to swap in an entire rear end so I'm pretty much ruling that out for this trip. Stock is 4.11 and 4 speed trans, but I haven't compared the current 4th gear to the 5th that I'll have with the T-5. I would like to be able to cruise at lower rpm and this will never be a drag strip car so I would be happy running a lower ratio rear end.
I typically use a universal chassis harness with labelling and gm colors. Use factory connectors when no other options are present.
If you can find the actual colors that are used, then laying out the harness is just a matter of time. When I did the harness for my race car, getting the stripped wires proved to be a PITA in small amounts. But I'm sure there's someplace to get them. For a vehicle of your vintage, the connectors are very likely the simple blade type- and I actually got an engineering sample of 100 from the supplier. Told them I was alfadriver racing, and wanted to sample it. More than enough to make a harness and reuse the plastic housings.
The other option is to convert it to a Painless kit. Which isn't a bad option if you are short on time, or need to incorporate some good tools to fabricate your own harness. They make good stuff, as far as I can tell. edit- Painless = company- http://www.painlessperformance.com/ They are not cheap, and I'm sure there are other options out there. But they do save a lot of time.
On the rear- a 5 speed will do wonders- since you will go from 1:1 to a .8something:1 in high gear. The only thing I'd be worried about is torque capability- so until you can do the swap, be thoughtful of 1-2 gears and how much torque is going to the back.
I'll have to look into Painless - but more than likely that won't be my path for the whole setup(too much $!). I may look into getting their injector harness kit (I replaced the injector harness ends before on my 280zx and that was really beneficial) and possibly a few other wire ends, but I can't afford to get a whole setup from them. One company does make a whole replacement harness for the 2.3t but it's $500 something for the setup. Not terrible, really, but the harness that came with it is in good shape other than some brittle electrical tape.
Just looked up the gear ratio, and the T-5 from an SVO 2.3t has 5th gear as .78 (T-bird 2.3t is .79), so that should be pretty nice. For the rear end, I'll be careful. A few guys have done V-8 swaps and left rear end stock for a while, so I figure as long as I don't hoon out too much I should be okay for a while 
Duster I had totally missed your comment before, but that gives me something to look into. Thanks!
Nothing but good can come of this...
If there's one guy that knows how to rebuild an entire wiring harness it's alfadriver.
classicJackets wrote:
The engine will be a huge step, which is part of why I'm trying to just replace everything possible now. Want to be able to essentially start with a low mile/low worry motor. I doubt I'll be able to make it a whole 2 months! I had planned to originally, but i'll need the truck/a dd as I'm going to be working until Mid may. My deadline/goal is to meet the family in Minnesota for our annual fishing trip that I've missed the last 3 years, and that starts July 15. So if I can have everything ready to go by May, I can spend a few weeks right at the end of work getting the actual swap knocked out and hopefully be ready to go mid June(I'm slow at this).
I do need to get a camper top, but those are relatively common so I'm not going to spend my money on that just yet. Still need to waterproof the cab!
Good call on the electronics, I would love to be able to replace it. What do people do as far as keeping as many different wires/colors/combos as stock? I can't imagine buying so many different spools as even the basics would call for.
I'm really not sure on the rear end. I'm just beginning to learn some more about them, and honestly I haven't checked to see if there's anything the same size that would swap in easily. Realistically, I don't have the skill or time to swap in an entire rear end so I'm pretty much ruling that out for this trip. Stock is 4.11 and 4 speed trans, but I haven't compared the current 4th gear to the 5th that I'll have with the T-5. I would like to be able to cruise at lower rpm and this will never be a drag strip car so I would be happy running a lower ratio rear end.
IIRC, that rear end was used in IMSA RX7's back in the day. It may have been the rear end from the rotary truck, but maybe it was the same for piston and rotary. After all, the 13B in the rotary only put out 90hp I think. I put a disc brake Dana 44 from an isuzu rodeo in my mustan 5.0 powered mitsibushi mighty max. If fit like a glove. Then again, that was a late 70's pickup so maybe a bit wider than your late 60s designed mazda. Vehicles, like humans, tend to get wider as we go.
ssswitch wrote:
If there's one guy that knows how to rebuild an entire wiring harness it's alfadriver.
It's a lot easier than you think. Lay it out on a board, and run each wire from beginning to end- as you had previously measured and drawn out. Tie up, wrap, and put into the car. Once there, custom fit each line and put in connectors.
A car or truck of this vintage is a good car to do it.
Usually I wire things that are so far from stock that the original harness routing no longer applies.
So u mount all the major components where I want them, then the fuse panel, then connect the dots.
noddaz wrote:
Nothing but good can come of this...
That's what I keep telling myself 
I may start out by trying to re-do the rear body harness and see how that goes. I also definitely need a new fuse block (only holds 6 haha!) but that should be relatively "easy" to do. Really wish I wasn't going to have to move like 4 more times between now and next May so that I could leave all my stuff in one place or consider getting a temporary DD other than the truck, but this is what I've set myself up for so have to deal with it now.
Progress on things that take $ to do will slow down some this fall as I will be back in class and not making as much (or any) money. Trying to knock things out as I go now, but the list of things I need to buy to be able to do this "right" enough to be reliable for a while calls for lots of money I don't have. Definitely need a new clutch, as well as timing system, battery, lots of wiring, windshield, window felts, etc.. All here understand that, at least!
Doug
Well, decided to get to it and get the disc brakes all sorted out. Got a few minutesx in last night and have done quite a bit done so far today. I goobered up one of the lower ball joints (didn't even need to take them out 
) and won't have replacements in until Tuesday, so I can't button everything up completely until then.
Found out why my steering clunked when I wasn't moving but turned the wheel:
Luckily OReilly's had one for $12 that I picked up last week, so got that fixed! New Tie Rod ends are in and I cleaned/painted the "tube" for them. Here it is with the backing plate on.
Need to get upper and lower Ball joints removed and I can go ahead and press in the new uppers. The lower ones are proving to be a real PITA to get out, they mount "in" the LCA as you can kind of see here.
I also wanted to share how I got my new bearing races put in without any special tools!
I used a hammer and chisel to pound out the old races...
Sorry for the wonky picture, but here's what you need: 
Both old bearing races (unless a socket will fit the race perfectly, like mine did for the outer)
One old bearing
A hammer or something heavy. (I used the old caliper cause I don't have a hammer with me in my temporary digs.)
Just put the old race on top of the new one, put the old bearing in the center (for more area to hit), and start hitting. Using the caliper actually helped for me because it meant that I could hit two sides at once. Voilaa. You'll hear the sound change when it's pressed all the way in.
Maybe this is pretty well known, but I didn't run across it when googling how to do it. Hopefully I didn't damage anything!
I have a better way to get races in using ZERO tools: Hub in the oven (toaster oven will do if the hub is small enough) for ten minutes. Race in freezer for like amount. Don't burn yourself dropping them in
I love the guys story as well. Lots of fun to read through and awesome to see all the pictures!
I got my new master cylinder put on today. Bench bled it, mounted it and attached the hard lines... and then realized the rear port (where I removed the residual pressure valve) was leaking no matter how much I played with the line. Pulled everything back off to check wh, and compared the port to the one on the old cylinder.. Found the problem!
Swapped the old port onto the new master cylinder and had no issues after that. The front port (rear brakes) seemed fine and didn't leak, so I didn't swap that yet, although I'm keeping the port from the old master cylinder was well.
I quit being dumb for a few minutes and had no issues getting the ball joints off the truck after that. The lowers won't get out of the spindle for some darn reason. I have the harbor freight ball joint remover and it won't move them, neither will hitting them with a BFH. I'm stuck on this one, really need them out.
New Uppers compared to the old ones though, they're in now but were darn ugly before..
Hopefully more as the week goes on. Only Issue I've run into is that the brake hardline won't separate from the softline on the passenger side, so I'll probably have to limp to the nearby shop to get a new hardline/fitting made up and the soft line replaced there.
New lower ball joints will be here Tuesday, so I hope to be mostly buttoned up Tuesday night or Wednesday at the latest and then I'll deal with the passenger side lines.
Well, already showed the biggest issue I had at first with the port from the Master cylinder not matching up quite right.
Lower ball joints came in yesterday and I got everything put back together as expected!
I had everything back together for the 2nd (3rd? 4th? lost count) time and bleeding the system just didn't help much. Hmm.. It was dark at this point (last night), so I called it quits. Got back at it today, tried to bench bleed the master again but the kit I got doesn't have two of any of the same fittings (wtf, who does that) so it didn't go great. But, I discovered two or three places where my brake lines/fittings weren't sealing perfectly, and also had to change out the port for the rear brakes with the one from the old master cylinder like I had done above. I could see the air bubbling up around the fitting when my roommate would press the brake pedal.
I'm going to try an overall system bleed again tomorrow, and if that doesn't cut it then I'll be taking it to the local shop to have them do an official bench bleed.
In the meantime, my 3 month old clutch master cylinder has begun leaking fluid pretty seriously into the truck. I may need to go ahead and replace that again, I guess.
Doug
Well, it's been a pretty slow month since my last update. Moved everything I own back to Atlanta for the semester. The truck actually handled it really well, for what had to have been 1000lbs of junk in the back (you can't see the engine block or any of the parts tucked under the cart, haha).
In other news, I've found a shop that will clean and hone the block for around $100, so I'll probably try to start that process in the next few weeks. Ready to kick that into high gear.
Question for people with machine shop experience: The 2 shops i've called between both build complete engines, but both "don't re-ring" when I ask about it. Am I asking for the wrong thing or is that something machine shops just don't touch..?
One more question - my Clutch master cylinder is still giving me issues. If I park on a hill, it leaks down significantly. What could be causing this? At the start, i would find fluid in the truck, but haven't even had that lately. Could the master/slave cylinder already need replacing again? (both 4 months used).
Beyond that, school has kept me busy. Getting little things done here and there, but not enough to warrant much of a post. When the engine looks pretty again, I'll update.
They won't re-ring because they can't control bore-out-of-round with just a hone. They want to bore the thing oversize, slip in a nice new set of pistons and not have to deal with the possibility of blow-by right out of the gate. Some shops will recommend plain iron rings because they seat almost immediately. Unfortunately, they don't last as long as moly rings. If pistons are available, I'd go ahead and have it bored oversize with a nice hone job for the rings you choose.
Jerry From LA wrote:
They won't re-ring because they can't control bore-out-of-round with just a hone. They want to bore the thing oversize, slip in a nice new set of pistons and not have to deal with the possibility of blow-by right out of the gate. Some shops will recommend plain iron rings because they seat almost immediately. Unfortunately, they don't last as long as moly rings. If pistons are available, I'd go ahead and have it bored oversize with a nice hone job for the rings you choose.
Thank you for the information. That definitely makes sense. It would just add some extra liability to them. Pistons are available, but a decent set will run me $550+ and I just can't afford that on a college budget. I've had a hard time trying to find moly rings for this engine in stock size, but I also haven't figured out all the right places to look. Still hoping to be able to find that, and then maybe drop rings in myself.
I'm curious for this shop's take as well, as I think this engine was rebuilt at some point in the past (the block has this plate attached to it that the spare shortblock doesn't)
We'll see. Still looking around for replacement rings, and once I open it up I'll know If I need to look for new bearings or not..
turboford.com should be able to link you too all the correct info. its been 7 years since i built a lima 2.3 but that was the place to go with any questions.
TurboFord has been a little slow in some answers but I think I should be able to find what I need - I'll ask the gentleman at the machine shop, too. My goal is to get the block taken up there this coming Friday.
Haven't had much progress otherwise. Replaced my clutch master and slave (again) on Thursday since they had seemingly both been leaking. Luckily, it only took about 30 minutes from start to finish (including bleeding) this time around. Need to adjust the idle some, as it definitely smells like it's running pretty rich.
I also need to replace the thermostat. I think when I added one, I added a lower temp one than OEM, as I haven't seen the temp gauge hit even the halfway point since I added the thermostat. Hasn't been an issue too bad in the hot weather, but I want to make sure it's running at the right temperature and I just haven't taken care of that yet. No recent pictures but I'll try to get some this week. Still need to get with Geico about a windshield replacement, too.
Edited to add: I've had some bad thoughts about flares/widebody type stuff after seeing the picture below and a brief article on Speedhunters with lots of pics of a REPU. Time to learn some bodywork..
That serial number on your engine "97531" is incredibly awesome for a numbers geek like me. All the odd numbers under 10 in downward order? That just reeks of awesome, and I would be tempted to expand that theme to more of the truck.
In reply to rcutclif:
How do you suggest I go about that? That is pretty coincidental, and as much of a nerd as I can be I don't think I ever paid attention to the number on the tag.
I have Monday and Tuesday off of school, so I plan to get a short block torn down this weekend and to the shop Tuesday morning. I found the piston rings I need on Amazon for $80, but they'll have to wait until I can sell something..
I'm excited for some new pieces that will hopefully be on their way to me pretty soon.. No pictures yet but I will say that they should help me keep my wheels/tires tucked under the bed in the rear.. 
