UGH, I need somewhere to vent this... and I THINK this is the right area... admins, please move the thread if it's not...
I can't believe how much of a moron the guy who had the BOMBLAZER before is... NOTHING was tight, the transmission wasn't in properly at ALL, the upper coolant hose was loose and leaking everywhere, the throttle cable is held on with a wire that sticks terribly and jams the throttle open, the exhaust was done by him and has terrible welds with holes all over the place, and the worst thing is the distributer wasn't even being held down. The moron put it on TOP of the hold down. I can't believe this guy... and he said he was a mechanic for 3 years and got bored with it. I think he sucked at it and gave up...

 

You didn't check/ have the vehicle checked before you purchased it?

 

Sucks to find out you have purchased someone else's experiment.

 

heh heh. Mine never had a coolant flush in 200K+ miles. I know because the upper hose exploded and sprayed rust water everywhere. The prior owner took it into a shop and they replaced the rad and hoses but never flushed the block. Took me a couple of hours of flushing to get everything cleaned out.

It had 5 different tires, both in size and maker and the spare was flat and hard as a rock.

And the headlights, oh the lovely headlights. The left was a skylight and the right pointed straight down.

but for $800 I couldn't say no.


And think, you get a project vehicle to play with.

 

lol, well, I'm still happy with it. I DID check it over and run it (start it) when I was considering it, and I knew the upper hose wasn't tight... but when I started it then it wasn't leaking oil and transmission fluid like it is now. I wasn't too worried about the exhaust cuz it's only partial and I'm going to replace it anyway. The thing that worries me now is that he said he built the motor... I'm not sure if he had enough know-how to build it or not but if he did I hope everything is TIGHT. I thought the leaks were bad gaskets, but nope, EVERY bolt was loose... only thing that was tight was the intake manifold. And I didn't even think about looking at the distributer... that was the worst one...

But yeah, I'm still really happy with the BOMBLAZER, I'm just not happy with the last owner. I'm gonna get the tranny I need soon and then I can take it out and try the 4 wheel drive!

 

Sounds like he just turned the nuts until they made contact! hahaha! I can't wait to hear what you find in your engine

 

ugh, don't even SAY that... The engine sounds fine, since I got the distributer to stay in ONE place instead of moving everywhere... That explains why the idle was going from 1000 to 1500 and back down to 1000 all the time... and it still idled way too high until I adjusted it. I bet he put regular octane gas in it too, it needs at least 89 octane with 10:1 compression...
it's bad enough he jimmied a 2wd transmission in the thing and had a crappy driveshaft put in it. I'll have a good tranny for it soon though, and the original driveshafts were in it, thank goodess... on the plus side, since EVERYTHING was still set up for 4wd even after he put that tranny in there, it'll be easy to get the right transmission in it.
I can't WAIT to take it for a run in the desert, I haven't really gotten to drive it yet... the rear u-joint broke in our driveway cuz of the POS driveshaft he jammed in it... looks like he welded it himself and it was so off balance it shook the thing all the way home when we were towing it, and broke the rear u-joint in our driveway when I tried to park it.

 

oooooh, guess what I found NOW... anyone wanna take a guess at what the ignition timing was set to at idle? anyone? 30* advanced!! that explains the detonations... man, learn more and more every day dontcha?

 

That should have sent up a red flag alone!

 

I will never buy a vehicle from someone who brags about being a mechanic. Our cars are always either the crappiest or the best-and if it's the best, you're going to be payin a lot for it. Otherwise, we know what the car can do without, so we're a little lazier to fix it! lol! And then if you get a mechanic that has "done all the work" on thier own vehicle-I don't even do all the work on my own vehicle.
I'm not saying that there aren't any mechanics out there that do all thier own work, or do a good job at it-it just seems like there's more that suck at what they do to thier vehicles than there are that are decent. Personally, I know about 150 mechanics, and I can think of 3 that I would buy a vehicle off of if they did all the work to.

I feel your pain though man. I bought a 69 Chevy C-10 off a guy and had similar issues-granted they weren't quite as serious as yours, but I've definantly been on the recieving end of shoddy craftsmanship.

I guess in cases like this, the old saying definantly applies-"you buy cheap, you get cheap". But like was mentioned earlier, it looks like you got a decent project truck. And as jacked up as it may be, it seems like you have just enough there to keep it salvageable. If I had the money for something like that, I'd be down just so I have something to tinker with.