Will anyone be mad if I start a stupid questions thread?

[EseLoco918]

Most gaskets are super cheap but the bad news is most of the time you'll have to work fairly hard to fix those leaks... although to be perfectly honest, it's not even that hard. Youtube is your friend when it comes to learning about this stuff.. aside from that, I'd highly recommend picking up an issue of Car Craft, Hot Rod Magazine and Popular Hot Rodding to get a basic idea of what can be done to engines and why these modifications are done.

The best piece of advise I can give you is to start with something that isn't beat up because if you know you wont be satisfied unless you have working AC, power windows, nice clean interior and even fuel injection... it's cheaper to save up for a Bronco that's already in perfectly good shape. I'm going to end up selling my Bronco sometime this year (even though I've done a lot of work on it) because I know I want AC and power windows with a clean modern interior.... and Overdrive!!!

Given that this thing just has a lot of leaks, none of them are really very bad, I am not currently going to worry about it. I am just going to keep the hood closed and just drive this thing until it is dead. I am not in a position to spend a ton of money anytime soon. But yeah, when I am I am going to save up and wait for the right truck to come along. In the mean time I might start piecing away at the Titan.

[Agui-E7TE]

I like the closing the hood method and not worrying about it. It's when you check everything that trucks start acting up
I have friends that almost never check anything and they never break down. I tend to check things on my Mustang and it seems to develop problems right after for some reason.

[EseLoco918]

Been having trouble with the truck dieing. Autozone tested, voltage regulator failure. Replaced...truck still not charging. Now i dont know what to do.

[hobbyturnedobsession]

Start the truck and pull the positive terminal off the battery while running. If the truck dies the alternator is bad. If it keeps running check the wiring.

[EseLoco918]

I work nights and I just got home at 4am. I will try this tomorrow before work but I was thinking the wiring harness coming off the alternator looks like it could be fried.

Trying to find that harness online...I can find the side that plugs in to the voltage regulator but I am not finding the other half.


Also, I want to admit to being mildly retarded because it may have to do with how I fried things...I may have accidentally tried hooking the battery cables to the wrong terminals resulting in smoke from that area and the solenoid.

[EseLoco918]

Start the truck and pull the positive terminal off the battery while running. If the truck dies the alternator is bad. If it keeps running check the wiring.

Yeah it shuts right off when I do that.

[EseLoco918]

New alternator installed. Still discharges. fml

[hobbyturnedobsession]

You definitely have a wiring issue. Is the truck charging when running? Is it discharging over night?

[EseLoco918]

Discharging while running. Autozone tested it again today and said the voltage regulator still said fail. We thought maybe there was an internal regulator on the alternator so thats why I replaced it. I will have them test it again after work tomorrow. Maybe I should try another voltage regulator? Otherwise, I think I need to rebuild the wiring harness unless anyone else has any ideas.

[EseLoco918]

Welp, everything I did was for nothing. I replaced the voltage regulator again at autozone and still no go. Got the wiring connection for the voltage regulator and took it home. Once I started taking it off of the solenoid I noticed it had a freaking fusible link which I pulled to see that it was burned out. FML.

It works now so I am happy but it sucks that I spent so much time and money fixing things that weren't broken.

[hobbyturnedobsession]

Hey its never a waste its preventative maintenance.

[Agui-E7TE]

I didn't see this earlier but I was going to suggest the fusible link. I had that go bad on my second fox body Mustang a long time ago. I too bought a new alternator and realized it still wasn't charging. I'd highly recommend going to a 3G Powermaster alternator in the future if you plan on running lots of electrical accessories and underdrive pulleys.

I'm going to switch to dual electric fans and since I already have underdrive pulleys, I'm going to have to do the 3G upgrade as well to keep the charging system working well under heavy loads.

As far as spending money you didn't need to spend, think of it as a future investment since your parts may have been on their last leg anyway. You also learned a valuable troubleshoot procedure that could get you out of the middle of nowhere if you ever have to fix it in the dirt in the future.

[EseLoco918]

Well, yes and no. I have decided that this is just a beater to drive to work. There is no part of this Bronco that doesn't need to be completely rebuilt. Everything is dented and/or rusted. Everything else is leaking and/or corroded.

I have some debt to pay off now, then hopefully later I will get a different Bronco to build and start with a platform that is a little more decent.

[Agui-E7TE]

Well, yes and no. I have decided that this is just a beater to drive to work. There is no part of this Bronco that doesn't need to be completely rebuilt. Everything is dented and/or rusted. Everything else is leaking and/or corroded.

I have some debt to pay off now, then hopefully later I will get a different Bronco to build and start with a platform that is a little more decent.

The best thing to do may be to try to trade it for a different vehicle all together. I had a '96 GTI and traded it straight across for my '89 Bronco. You never know what you'll find on craigslist. If you definitely need something to haul stuff around in but you also want to play with it on weekends, I'd say a first gen Toyota 4Runner or Pickup would be the best thing to get. They're bulletproof with the 4-cylinder and you'll get decent fuel economy. Something like that could hold you over until you save up more cash to get a nice Bronco to build.

[hobbyturnedobsession]

Or a ranger

[Agui-E7TE]

I hate to say it but, you know as well as I do that a ranger will not outlast a 4Runner or Toyota Pickup in quality and it certainly won't get near the same fuel economy. I have friends with Rangers (3.0, 4.0, 4.0 SOHC, and even a 5.0L swap) and they all say the same thing. They're cool in the dirt but kind of a pain with fuel once modified and they always seem to develop small little problems that piss you off to no end. Granted the 4.0 SOHC engine in the 2002 and up is really good but those cost a lot more to obtain (more than a decent Bronco at least) and the only ones that are awesome are the ones with a V8 swap but then you have to deal with modifying everything else to work/live behind that V8.

One of my buddies actually gets no better than 10 mpg on the highway with his '96 4.0L Ranger with full size Bronco TTB front and 8.8 rear with 32-inch tires. He mostly tows it everywhere because of the poor fuel economy.

[robertcrav]

I had a 3rd gen 4runner with the 3.4 on 33s, and my worst tank was 14 messing around on Cleghorn, was 16-18 everywhere else

[hobbyturnedobsession]

Ive got s 94 ranger 4.0 ohv with a standard and a 2" leveling kit. It gets 22
Mpg but i dont have anything done to it.

[EseLoco918]

I had a '99 Ranger for a while. It had awful gas mileage stock. I hated the living shit out of that thing. Sealed wheel bearing that Ford engineers thought "would never wear out" cost me $500 bucks. Between that and all of the stupid shit I had to fix on a regular basis is why my next truck was a Nissan.

I got this because I wanted a 4x4 for the snow that I could also pick the kids up in and I am tall so I wanted fullsize. I am not too worried about the fuel mileage, I go 15 minutes to work and 15 home.

I might try to find a 4door tacoma or something for the woman so she will stop driving the titan all over the place.

[Agui-E7TE]

I had a 3rd gen 4runner with the 3.4 on 33s, and my worst tank was 14 messing around on Cleghorn, was 16-18 everywhere else

My buddy had a 95.5 Tacoma (was the split year they made both the Taco and the older pickups) with the 3.4L and a 5-speed. That thing got crazy good gas milage and had 33's as well. My next truck will be a Tacoma just like it because driving the Mustang with the mystery motor and the high stall TC isn't good for fuel economy in heavy traffic (although it still pulls no less then 11.5 mpg in heavy traffic and at least 20 mpg with no traffic). My Bronco drops to 6 mpg in heavy traffic in L.A.

I still probably put more miles on it in one year than most people on here do to theirs but my fuel bills are outrageous to say the least, haha!