'94 Green Goblin

[yeeharacing]

'94 Green Goblin - Pre-Runner Hybrid

Well this is going to be a really slow build. But I figured I'd start a page to get some ideas on what to do...
A little background:
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GREEN GOBLIN
4.0l V-6
5-spd
XLT Extended cab

I purchased the Goblin from the side of the road for $900. Trust me the Goblin looks better in the dark. After talking to the PO and a test drive it was very evident the front end had some issues. The front ujoints sounded like chains rattling while you were driving. The 4wd worked and there were no other issues evident so my brother-in-law said jump at it. It's a great price for what it is. It was getting to be mid October and riding the Harley to work in the morning at 45 degrees was getting cold and old.

I no sooner handed the PO the money and two other people pulled into the driveway looking to purchase the truck. He signed the title and we were on our way home.
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After getting it home we realized that the drivers side manual hub was not disengaging keeping the front axle in play. I ordered the parts from work to do the U-joints and purchased a set of Warn manual hubs off ebay. Once all the parts came in, we went to town on the front end. Upon removing the hubs it was very evident that there were no bearings left in the front end. Back to work to pickup a full set of bearings and seals.

While my brother was trying to remove the spindle from the front end with a rubber mallet the handle broke and sent the head of the mallet straight into my temple. Next thing I knew I was laying on the garage floor and my head was throbbing.

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After working on the beast all day and replacing virtually everything in the front end we got her back on four wheels and ready for a test. Of course we had to test the 4wd and beat on her a little to make sure everything worked. We took her out to the woods and ran through a few deep puddles and accidentally got about a foot of air under the front end through the whoops created by the ATV's constant use of the trail..

Well two days into the daily drive routine both radiator hoses blew at the same time, as well as the exhaust broke just behind the cat.
I ran to work and grabbed two radiator hoses and replaced them in the driveway. She still has no exhaust, I'm kind of liking the evil stares I get from people when I rumble into the parking lot.
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The end of the week and we made a two hour trek in her to go get parts for my brother-in-laws 94 ranger. His dad stripped every tooth off the gears in the transmission. While we were picking up the trans from a craigslist find I offered him $30 for the hood off the truck and he agreed. My hood was bent up in the corner and badly rusted. I also got a set of gauges from him too.

Fast forward two weeks and the gas guage stopped working. I pickup a fuel pump/sending unit assembly at work and carried it around in the truck for a week waiting for the chance to put it in.
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That's when Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey and I found out that work was closed about 25 minutes after I arrived. I figured here is my chance to get some work done on the truck. I got home and backed the truck into my brother-in-laws garage. And proceeded to remove the bed. I was racing against time and mother nature to get this done before the hurricane made landfall and we lost power.
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The wind started really picking up with 60-70 mile an hour sustained wind and gusts up to 90. I pulled the truck out of the garage and let Sandy power wash all the mud off for about an hour.

Backed the truck back into the garage and pulled the old pump out minus the float which had broken off and was floating around in the tank somewhere. I was elbow deep in a full tank of fuel trying to find this float for an hour. After the burning of my flesh became extremely irritating I figured I'd give up and come back in a few minutes. That's when my brother-in-law arrived home from work. I explained my dillema and he reached into the tank and after a few seconds of fishing around pulled out the float. I just about killed him...

Put everything back together and the truck wouldn't fire.... Some DumbAss forgot to plug the harness back into the pump. (I'm sorry I was excited to get the float out and put it back together.) <== OMG I started talking to myself on the internet right there... REALLY Bad sign!

Well the guage still isn't working and I'm thinking its due to the harness not being fully seated. Two clips crumbled when I tried to remove the harness.
Next up... Fix the harness, and Tires.

My NEAR future plans so far...
Plastidip the truck and wheels
Hurst Shift kit - Done
4-6 inch lift - No longer planned
32-33" tires - In Progress
Rebuild my brother-in-laws trans for my truck
Used motor - Done (Motor has some bearing noise in the lower end but it's getting me around for right now.)
I'm looking to build a trailrunner. Something with some longer travel suspension but still narrow enough for the NJ trails. Since we don't have any boulders out here in NJ I don't need a full on crawler.

 

[yeeharacing]

Ok.. A week after hurricane Sandy left most of NJ looking like a warzone we got 8 inches of snow. I was actually kind of excited to lock the hubs and play in 4wd. I haven't had a 4wd vehicle for close to 10 years.

Well I locked the hubs and put the truck in 4WD and Started my 5 mile ride home from work. About a mile down the road the front wheels seized up and locked. The truck spun out and I ended up pointing the opposite direction on the other side of the bridge. Luckily it was 10 p.m. there wasn't anyone really out and about. I just spun the truck back around and disengaged 4wd and finished my ride home. Which kind of sucked in a truck with bald rear tires.

I locked my hubs the next morning and pulled out of the developement in 4wd and everything seemed ok but then it started to feel like I had the parking brake on. I stopped at the light and pulled the truck out of 4wd and ran around unlocking my hubs. Raced back to the drivers seat before the light turned green.

Once I was back in 2wd mode the truck seemed fine. I did some testing on my own and think I've got it narrowed down to definately something in the t-case. I haven't gotten a chance to get under the truck yet and inspect everything. I hope to do that this weekend. Lucky for me when my brother-in-law bought that trans he also picked up the t-case. So if it is the transfer case we can just swap it out and rebuild the extra to use in either truck next time we have an issue.

On another note:
In the middle of the hurricane my dog had puppies. So I will be getting the lift and new tires in 6-8 weeks. Just in time for Christmas.

 

[yeeharacing]

Ok so I know I'm just talking to myself here but I need to log my thoughts...

Thinking the final end game for the truck will be a hybrid pre-runner/trail truck. Since we don't have any rocks to crawl here in NJ and most of the offroad areas are dirt/mud and hilly areas going crawler wouldn't make any sense. I'm a huge fan of pre-runners but doing a full on pre-runner wouldn't be entirely practical either. I'm thinking some sort of middle of the road between a woods truck and a 4wd pre-runner.

Phase I:
General maintenance
Get the truck reliable as DD
Transfer case replaced
4" Lift
Tires

Phase II:
Mid travel suspension
CAB/Bed cage
4-link rear
TTB front with long travel kit
32-33" tires
Glass fenders and bed

Tell me what you guys think... I see all of you perverts out there looking in my windows!!!! Come on in and have a

 

[kevinsranger]

check the front diff for problems, i never extended my vent hose and did alot of water crossings in a sand pit, the sand went into the vent hose and my pinion bearing is so worn down i can grab my front driveshaft by the diff and move it up and down quite a bit, that maybe the source of your binding, pull the front driveshaft off, lock the hubs and go for a spin and see if you feel the parking brake issue feeling

 

[yeeharacing]

I have only done one water crossing about two weeks ago during the hurricane... Water was up to the hubs only so I don't think that would have caused the issue. It did work fine before that when we first tested the front u-joints. I'm leaning more towards transfer case as the truck drives fine in 2wd with the hubs locked. I will definately check it out though thanks for the input.

 

[kevinsranger]

I have only done one water crossing about two weeks ago during the hurricane... Water was up to the hubs only so I don't think that would have caused the issue. It did work fine before that when we first tested the front u-joints. I'm leaning more towards transfer case as the truck drives fine in 2wd with the hubs locked. I will definately check it out though thanks for the input.

hopefully its something easy lol. you will learn to hate any kind of water crossings with that front axle. the bearings get destroyed because the seals suck. always use timkin bearings, spicer or timken seals, you'd be amazed the difference if you hold a napa or autozone seal next to them.

where do you go wheeling at?

 

[kevinsranger]

oh an my exhaust broke in the same exact spot, i picked up those split flanges and am gonna be fixing it this week, i can kinda still put the flare into the cat gasket and it stays til i hit a good bump lol then is screams the rest of the way home

 

[yeeharacing]

hopefully its something easy lol. you will learn to hate any kind of water crossings with that front axle. the bearings get destroyed because the seals suck. always use timkin bearings, spicer or timken seals, you'd be amazed the difference if you hold a napa or autozone seal next to them.

where do you go wheeling at?

I work at autozone part time but when I rebuilt the front axles I used Timken all the way through...

Right now I haven't got the chance to do too much. There is a sand pit near my house (Presidential Lakes near Wharton State Forest) that we go to. We usually load the quads and dirtbikes up into the trucks and take the kids... They go blasting off and my brother-in-law and I play chase truck.

Right now we are trying to find time to work on getting my truck fixed and he just replaced the trans in his truck and is now working on getting it running better since it was sitting for 5 years.

oh an my exhaust broke in the same exact spot, i picked up those split flanges and am gonna be fixing it this week, i can kinda still put the flare into the cat gasket and it stays til i hit a good bump lol then is screams the rest of the way home

Mine broke in the pipe about 4 inches from the cat... I'm tempted to just take it off and dump the pipe out in front of the rear wheel.

 

[kevinsranger]

I work at autozone part time but when I rebuilt the front axles I used Timken all the way through...

Right now I haven't got the chance to do too much. There is a sand pit near my house (Presidential Lakes near Wharton State Forest) that we go to. We usually load the quads and dirtbikes up into the trucks and take the kids... They go blasting off and my brother-in-law and I play chase truck.

Right now we are trying to find time to work on getting my truck fixed and he just replaced the trans in his truck and is now working on getting it running better since it was sitting for 5 years.



Mine broke in the pipe about 4 inches from the cat... I'm tempted to just take it off and dump the pipe out in front of the rear wheel.

only place i know of over there is hidden lake. i got stuck there many times lmao


auto zone sells the pipe that comes out of the cat and clamps onto the rest of the exhaust for like 30 dont they? i was gonna go that route but i have a muffler i want to use so i'm waiting to get the whole system together before fixing it right.

you said you have a spare transfer case right? cuz i have one laying around too if you need it.

 

[yeeharacing]

Yeah they do... I'm kind of in the same position cause I want to do a Flowmaster cat back on the truck..

I appreciate the offer and will keep it in mind, the t-case we have is from a craigslist purchase and we don't know anything about it so I may take you up on that. From what the guy was telling us he did some heavy duty wheeling in the truck it came out of so, chances are it may have to be rebuilt and niether one of us has the time to do it right now.

I'm working 80 hour weeks between the two jobs and he's been working alot of over time doing hurricane clean up.

Saturday will be my first day off in over a month. I plan on sleeping till noon then putting the truck on the lift and doing some troubleshooting.

 

[kevinsranger]

Yeah they do... I'm kind of in the same position cause I want to do a Flowmaster cat back on the truck..

I appreciate the offer and will keep it in mind, the t-case we have is from a craigslist purchase and we don't know anything about it so I may take you up on that. From what the guy was telling us he did some heavy duty wheeling in the truck it came out of so, chances are it may have to be rebuilt and niether one of us has the time to do it right now.

I'm working 80 hour weeks between the two jobs and he's been working alot of over time doing hurricane clean up.

Saturday will be my first day off in over a month. I plan on sleeping till noon then putting the truck on the lift and doing some troubleshooting.

well i have the tcase, i havent ran it, it came with a trans i bought a while back, the trans was good for two years, so i'd assume the t case is good too

 

[yeeharacing]

Swapped the transfer case last night. Shook the old one. It sounded like it was full of marbles. Everything seems to be working now. I also changed the plugs and wires as well as changed all fluids and changed the fuel filter. The problem now is that the truck is misfiring around 2000 and higher rpm. It seems to get better the longer it runs. I'm hoping that the issue works it self out tomorrow.

 

[yeeharacing]

Turns out I had 3 and 5 plug wires swapped. That fixed the misfire... Drove the truck to work and the head gasket blew when I pulled into the parking spot.

My thought right now is to pull the engine and either rebuild it or purchase another 4.0L and rebuild that so I know the engine is 100%. Transmission is on its way out as well. Sounds like an input shaft bearing starting to go. For now I need to find a vehicle to get me to work and home while the ranger is down.

 

[kevinsranger]

Turns out I had 3 and 5 plug wires swapped. That fixed the misfire... Drove the truck to work and the head gasket blew when I pulled into the parking spot.

My thought right now is to pull the engine and either rebuild it or purchase another 4.0L and rebuild that so I know the engine is 100%. Transmission is on its way out as well. Sounds like an input shaft bearing starting to go. For now I need to find a vehicle to get me to work and home while the ranger is down.

i have a spare 4.0 ohv out of an explorer sport, 90,0000 miles, complete intake to oil pan. you'd have to swap your intake most likely tho cuz it is the plastic style, not sure if it will work. i was gonna just throw my intake on it if i swapped it in

 

[yeeharacing]

Sent you a pm...

Pulling the engine is most likely going to be a huge hassle and a long process because most of the exhaust bolts look like they were under water most of their lives... *meaning there are going to be broken bolts and lots of exhaust replacement in the process.