1st Gen Lunchtable Thread - General Discussion

Ooh I hadn't considered the bike moving abilities. Honestly I'm just stoked on moving materials like a whole ass 4x8 sheet of plywood and 8' 2x4s without doing some ghetto shit. I unfortunately have projects to complete on the house and this poor truck is getting roped into them.

Thanks, the secret sauce cleaned it up well I think. Gonna order some parts to fix its misfire tonight.

 

That's a good looking bumper, did you have to keep any of the stock bumper to cut to make filler plates or anything like the 3rd gen do?

 

I like the spirit, but the build quality of Fords is below what I'm wiling to put up with for a project vehicle.

 

Thanks, no cutting like in 3rd gens. Everything just fit right up. Two small complaint, lower grill mounts don't have anything to hook to and there was a gap in the driver side at the corner.
I'll do some zip ties to fix the grill and used a bottle jack to fix the gap.

 

I should say this gen of Ford, I rather enjoy the ones around the time the Coyote launched, the interiors got way nicer and the suspension design stepped up a notch in the heavy duty/truck lines.

 

I liked my 97 Explorer... but honestly it's hard to dislike those, they're just Mazdas... Mazda made the whole platform for Ford.

 

I didn't realize that. I knew there were rebadges and the manual trans was sourced from Mazda.

 

I forget which years it flip flopped on production, because eventually Ford became the sole manufacturer of them and rebadged for mazda... but initially it was vice versa with the design having come from Mazda using Fords drivetrains. Ford has had share in Mazda forever too, take apart a Mazda 6 or 3 and you'll find FoMoCo all over it

 

I think it was 98, the year they went from I-beam to A-arms and twin traction to independent front suspension. They changed a lot from 96 to 98 including the interior.

 

ive got oil pan goop. nothing for transaxle. dont do much work on anything that uses it

 

Yeah that's what I need; thought I had the black stuff but only had orange.

 

text me monday and i'll grab some from work

 

I see you got the poverty spec gauge cluster like mine. For the money, hard to beat what you got. Now LS swap it...

 

It's not off the table, be a weekend project with the engine space and trans tunnel room in this thing. Except for the driveshaft probably have to outsource that. Is it the same cluster? I was impressed it had a oil pressure gauge, however arbitry the marking may be. Jayson and I both want to put the screws to this 4.2 first and see what it'll take before it yard sales, we have a spare Borg Warner S369

 

Yeah it was the cheapest one they made. The 6.0 trucks did get a rev counter. Mine has the PTO controller for my revs so luckily I'm not completely in the dark.

Hardest part with the swap would be the transmission. Its what's killing me right now. A few grand to get one setup right. I did get the green light to order the parts I need but then the AMG got jealous that I wasn't spending money on it... I'm sure you can send a piston to the moon and gave a blast doing it with that thing!

 

I think for a goofball project like this thing would be I'd grab a TH400 out of our buddy stus scrap pile and send it. We were contemplating a way to make it into a money maker and thought a YouTube series on budget swapping a bunch of different engines into it could be fun. LS would have to be the first, it's basically required, and as of a week ago there's an unclaimed mildly built LH6 at Stus shop waiting for a new home.

 

I can't go auto on mine. Just wouldn't do it for me. I weighed it for a while and concluded that if I went auto, I would swap to a different platform.

If you were closer it would be fun to partake in the shenanigans. If your trying to make money, an LS really isn't the way to do it. Too generic really. Watched a cool auction last week that had a wild swap that I would've loved to see a video series of. Porsche 928 with a Toyota v12 swap. Now that's nutty.

 

Just a jumping off point, I can get one to use for free basically and put it back when I'm done. But I'm sure we could dig up something whacky too, like a supercharged ecotec, or Atlas 4.2 inline 6 from Isuzu, or maybe one of those Volvo 5cyls. The auto here is important because it keeps us from having to come up with a ton of different clutches. If you can drill a three hole bolt circle in a flex plate, there's a good chance you can adapt a Chevy auto trans to something.

 

You call it an atlas 4.2, is that the same as the vortex 4.2 found in trailblazers? Those are dope, sound like a 2J when uncorked. That would be fun.

 

Yup that's the one, Isuzu made it for Chevy. The atlas family of engines come in I4/I5/I6, the 4.2 I6 is the biggest but the I5 could be fun too. A guy on YouTube, Nivlac has really shown how stout they are. Kind of a slept on platform IMO