Thanks. Hopefully I can find a clean, low mile ZR2 when I'm ready to make a purchase.

Thanks. I'm hoping to get back into the "game" soon, but it probably won't be at least until summer.

 

Well, I know I said I'm done and all, but I think I changed my mind. I was looking online and I found a white ZR2 with a gray interior (almost exactly what I want), but it's in Savage Minnesota. I'd be traveling from NW Indiana/Chicagoland to go up there and see it. Because of the risk that there could possibly be something wrong with it when I get there, I decided against it, although it is going for a killer price with low miles ($7000 with only 56000 miles on it). After seeing that, I decided to go and sit in my Jimmy and drive it around the block. Although the front end was bouncing because of something that's f*cked up, I decided I'm not selling it. It may be a bad idea, but I figure I'm already past the point of no return, money wise, if I sell it. I might as well dump more money into it and drive it for a while longer. It's sitting at my mechanic's shop right now. Usually I do all the work, but it'll literally take me all winter to get everything finished up on there. I'll pay the extra to get it finished sooner. I told him he could put it on the back burner for now because I do have 2 other cars at home that I can drive. He's going to rebuild the front end and quote me on an engine swap and figure out what's wrong with my 4 wheel drive. I figure if I do all 3, it should be good for a couple more years...hopefully. I guess I'm picking up that white towel and continuing on my path, as rough and expensive as it may be...

There's just something about this truck that makes me not want to get rid of it... I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I'm sure a lot of you have that same thing going on.

 

Tell me about it!

Yea man, I'm there too. Family keep telling me to throw in the towel but ...... I'm not a quitter. LOL

 

Ugh... It's getting fixed right now. Usually I do the work myself, but I don't have the time, tools, or facilities to do this job. The front end is pretty much getting rebuilt. It's going to be pretty much everything other than ball joints. I'm also getting a new encoder motor and the vacuum switch for the 4 wheel drive. Oh, and I'm getting an alignment. This will all be done for the low, low price of $1433.xx. I did get 12 months no interest financing on the work though. Yay for them giving me buying power...

Once this is done, I'm going to call TireRack and order some tires. The reason I'm going to call them is because I live close and I don't want to pay for shipping so I'm going to drive out there and pick up the tires. I'm probably going to get some General Grabber AT2s.

After all of this, the only thing I'll need is a new motor. My mechanic said that I've probably got about a year on the motor I've got in there now with the way it's knocking. I figure that's probably about 10,000 or so miles. It's knocking at 3000 RPM and it's really not that hard to keep it under that. There's a slight knock when I start it up, but supposedly that's normal?

 

Not normal, mine doesn't knock but occasionally you can hear the belt turning, but it's definitely not a knock.

 

Once your in, your in forever. You cant just quit. That would be no fun. Happy to hear your staying. Just drop a 350 in it

 

Glad your toughing it out. I lost the engine in mine last winter and picked up a low mile used one cheap. couple of weeks later and i was on the road again.

 

Hmm... I thought I read that a dealership told one of us on here that that's normal for the 4.3. Either I'm mistaken or the dealership is mistaken...

Haha, I wish. If I put a 350 in anything, it's going in my Caprice. The Jimmy is my daily driver that I just can't get rid of. Damn these things...

I've been looking into getting a used engine for a while now, but this whole Cash 4 Clunkers BS that went on is really making that difficult. I haven't checked in a couple of weeks, but I'm probably going to start looking again...as soon as I find out when my buddy can help me out putting it in, and how much $$$ he's going to want to help. I guess nothing's free though, especially good help. He's ASE certified and he's done these before. Too bad he's not doing my "front end rebuild" and fixing my 4x4. I could have probably saved at least $700 on it, but I'd rather not think of that. He takes a while to get around to side jobs so I guess I'm paying to get it done now. Speaking of that, it should be done late today or early tomorrow. Then I'll be ordering my General Grabber AT2s. Ughh... This truck is a drug.

 

You're probably right. I'll just think mine is abnormal since it doesn't knock.

Yay for having a abnormal truck

 

Superb choice on the AT2s


Glad youre sticking with it!