Builds Golden Boy / was 'an as-yet unnamed gulf spec diesel 1991 HZJ pickup'

[John Young]

I've been driving GB a fair amount and with a winter storm coming I filled up the front tank yesterday. This morning, I found this:

That is diesel leaking from around the REAR filler.

I've also noted a small parasitic drain on the battery; and I wondered if maybe one of the fuel switch solenoids is stuck. It is too cold and nasty to climb around under GB right now, but I am going to have to sort this...

 

[John Young]

I still have not fixed the diesel leak, but I figure, it's just diesel. What's the worst that could happen?

Anyways...I've been using Golden Boy as a daily driver getting a sense of the thing. I have to say it is fun driving around. Random people give me the thumbs up and/or ask me about it. Today I needed ten 40 pound bags of grave for some landscaping so I headed over to the local Home Depot for the COVID-safe pickup. The guy who helped me asked me about the truck--turns out his family was from South Africa and he had ridden in one there.

I couldn't resist opening the hood to give him an eyeful of the 1HZ.

While I was waiting I saw a guy with an enormous pile of paving bricks in old banker boxes. He was loading him into his BMW 740i

He had filled the trunk already:

And he was planning on piling the rest inside the car. I knew this was an older BMW, from back when they were good cars. I really was a bit concerned he would blow out the suspension. Besides, I really wanted to see how Golden Boy drove with a bit of a load, so after a bit of conversation it was determined I would not be going out of my way really to give him a hand, and we loaded up GB:

I have to say that Golden Boy performed admirably, arguably even better than when unloaded. Very well behaved. There was 400 pounds of gravel and about 1200 pounds of pavers in the back. Golden Boy never had a problem or displayed any wierdness. Really great experiment.

This is Bret, just before we were to unload the pavers. Nice guy. Maybe a little weirded out that a random stranger offered to help him out, but he took it in stride. My boy is going to Embry Riddle in the fall and it turned out Bret knew someone whose grandson just graduated from there. Always good to get the skinny on a college before going there, so this little detour paid a bit of a dividend.

 

[AirheadNut]

That's awesome! Those old leaf sprung trucks do seem to like a load. My G-wagen had a leaky diesel tank that I kept putting off fixing, I think I freaked several people out, they thought it would explode!

 

[John Young]

That's awesome! Those old leaf sprung trucks do seem to like a load. My G-wagen had a leaky diesel tank that I kept putting off fixing, I think I freaked several people out, they thought it would explode!

I'm tempted to take a propane torch to the garage floor to see if I can get it to light up!

 

[John Young]

I just have to add that after I dropped off the pavers I went into a little shopping center and on the way out a random group of 5 or 6 teenagers--teenagers!--stopped, looked at Golden Boy and gave me the thumbs up and made several nice comments. How great is that!?

 

[AirheadNut]

I just have to add that after I dropped off the pavers I went into a little shopping center and on the way out a random group of 5 or 6 teenagers--teenagers!--stopped, looked at Golden Boy and gave me the thumbs up and made several nice comments. How great is that!?

It's great driving unique vehicles like these! I had a couple of stoplight conversations last week.

 

[John Young]

I've been doing some long overdue landscaping to address a wet spot by the side of the house here in Virginia and I've been making some progress:

I needed a bunch more pea gravel and some stepping stones so back to Home Despot in Golden Boy for another load.

The very nice guy, Alexis, who along with his colleagues, helped me, immediately asked about the truck and we had a nice long conversation. It really is nice. I had not anticipated that I would see so much interest just as I use the truck for ordinary chores.

 

[Gun Runner 5]

Definitely not the vehicle to have if you’re in the Witness Protection Program.

 

[John Young]

Golden Boy had a little fender bender on Route 7 in VIrginia this evening...

I -think- the bumper can be straightened out again; might have to be painted because the chrome will be bunged up. Does anyone know of a good shop in the DC area that will actually try to repair vs just replace like they do now with plastic bumpers?

 

[John Young]

As I mentioned over in the Iota posting, I pulled the bumper from Iota to bring with me to the US over the holidays.

Golden Boy has had the damaged elements removed now:

The replacement bits seem to fit just fine:

And I've been refurbing the replacement bits from Iota with a needle gun and elbow grease:

And here's the transfer of the winch opening from old to 'new':

Looks like the donor bumper has had some bondo applied to it, but that's ok. I'm going to cut the opening this morning. I only have today and tomorrow before I go off to Florida to visit my younger boy. Not quite sure I will finish, but I will try.

 

[John Young]

Turned out the bumper had a lot of bondo on it...but more about that later.

I put the new bumper on the truck to confirm placement of the opening and saw that the factory opening was a lot larger than actually was needed.

And the opening is offset from center of the bumper.

I tried out my early Xmas present, which worked, but honestly was just barely up to the challenge.

Anyways I got the opening roughed out.

 

[John Young]

Sanding down the loose paint.

And some self-etching primer fillowed by black frame paint.

I'm just going for 'presentable' at this point. I've also de-rusted all of the hardware, and derusted and painted all of the bracketry that holds the bumper in place. I hope to get the bumper on today.

 

[John Young]

Well, I ran out of time...and did not get the new bumper on.

But the new parts taken from Iota in Dubai look good and fit well, I am happy to say.

I've also decided that I am going to coat the bumper in bedliner. The shiny black just does not look all that great, I've concluded.

I took the overnight train down to Florida and on the way to Daytona from the train station my son and I went by CruiserMatt's wonderful shop to have a look at how Biscuit, the RJ77 is getting along.

It is getting close. The wiring has been the major headache. The poor old truck has had lots and lots of make-do kind of repairs it seems. But Matt is methodically going through everything. I'm happy to have this done carefully and I'm very glad Matt is on the case!

 

[cruisermatt]

Should we bump the RJ77 thread with all the work done?

 

[John Young]

Should we bump the RJ77 thread with all the work done?

I need to finish the description of the rest of the trip from Utah to Florida on the RJ77 thread

 

[Honger]

I need to finish the description of the rest of the trip from Utah to Florida on the RJ77 thread

Well... get on with it!

 

[John Young]

Well... get on with it!

I will, I will....

Bit in the meantime, aside from a loose tie rod end, my younger boy is really enjoying having Biscuit in Daytona Beach.

Please take not of the nice new Aisin locking front hubs that CruiserMatt found for Biscuit!

Meanwhile, back in Virginia, Golden Boy slumbers in the garage with the front bumper still waiting to be bolted on, while our white 1993 Middle East 80 braves the cold, wet and salt to keep the rest of the family mobile.

 

[John Young]

I came back in VA just in time for a late snow. Both station wagons were together again for a time.

And my intent is to bring Golden Boy to Florida on the Auto Train tomorrow. Still working on the bumper. My older boy came by to lend a hand:

The good news is that the bumper components I brought from Dubai on my last trip all seem to fit with a little convincing. Last thing I did yesterday was go to the local discount tool store and buy a metric tap and die set to chase some threads. I'm -fairly- confident I will get it all back together today.

BTW the new black rubber looking stuff on the side piece is cut up vinyl floor edging. We will see how it lasts. In the meantime it looks good and serves the function. We spent a fair amount of time yesterday polishing the chromed parts--I mean why not? But they are not perfect and I am thinking that at some point in Florida I will take it all apart again, weld up the unused holes, grind them down, and then take the whole kit and kaboodle off for sand blasting and powder coating. At the same time I will change out the wire cable on the mechanical winch for synthetic and maybe put running lights on the bumper too.

 

[John Young]

Well today, with a lot of coaxing, the front bumper got put back on with the help of my younger son.

I had to use a big welding clamp to push things into alignment.

But on it went.

The plate is a bit worse for wear, but it only has to last for the next couple of days until I get it to Florida... on the autotrain.

 

[renago]

very nice bumper