BroncoII4x4.com

Hi all,
I'm Dave living in north Delaware, I have *no* 4x4 experience other than driving my "new to me" '88 bII for the last month or so. It's a black/tan E.Bauer ride... very clean and with only 81K on it. I got it from an elderly gentleman who felt it was time to get his wife in something with airbags!
I cured a few minor issues right away:
1. Rewelded broken spotwelds on the drivers seat back ("shell"? ?) , had to strip the upolstery off it... that was fun.
2. Prev owner put a new 'stat and rad. in it but the guage still would sometimes drift up to or above the N in the normal range. I tested the temp sensor comparing it to a new one in a beaker of water on a hot plate. Sure enough, the old one was out of calibration. (FWIW, the new one when heated to 212* boiling point registered dead smack in the middle of the temp guages normal zone.)
3. Rear brakes dragging... frozen left emeg. brake cable. New cables, shoes and misc. h/w, their good now.

I guess this is my #1 issue: Lifters taps like heck until it's fully heated up, like 4-5 minutes but don't tap on subsequent start-ups as long as it's still fully heated up. I understand thats the beasts nature with these miles but she also has a quiet knock down low... rod or main brg. ? ? . so I checked ther oil pressure. On start-up, when cold, it was 60psi but 5 minutes later it barely held 40 @ 2000 rpm and at idle 15-20.


So, whats up with that? I read a thread about a thrust washer ? at the front of the cam that ,when worn, allows oil pressure to bleed off ... starving the oil gallery? Gotta pull the timing gear cover right? Can the cover be pulled without dropping the oilpan?
BTW, I checked engine compression and lowest/highest readings were close ... 100/110 psi , but I don't know if those values are all low or what. ( Trying to determine overall motor condition).

This is starting to turn into a Tech Forum thread so i better stop here.

Anyhow, hello everyone.

welcome to the board!

my dad lives in millsboro, DE. about 30 minutes from 1 off 24.

unfortunatly the 2.9L is kind of an expencive motor to work on. I would say if you have solid oil pressure at start up and the lifters rattle for a few minutes, a few of them probably dropped. if the 81K on the motor is right then the truck probably set for long periods of time which can cause this. if this is what happened then you will need to replace them and IMO it is not worth it because the heads need to be removed to replace the lifters, which means tearing the complete top of the motor off.

if there is bottom end noise this would lead me to believe that the motor has 181K on it, remember there is not 100k number on the odometer. honestly I would throw some lucas oil addative in there or run a heavier weight oil to try to get the pressure up and drive it till she blows. in the mean time look for a cheap motor and gather parts for up grades!

again welcome to the board!

Hey, thanks for the reply.

- Millsboro : we have a summer beach house a mile west of Rt 1 on Rt 24, but I was born and lived all my life in Wilmington. Good to meet ya.
(My son lived in Millsboro one summer).

- 2.9 MOTOR: I'm leaning towards just leaving it alone... I did stick a qt. of the Lucas oil additive in it a couple weeks back.... might have quieted it some.... hard to tell .

- 81 k on odo: *could* be 181K but it's carpet/seat upolstery and generally everything inside it definetly does not look to be that used. I looked at another bII for sale with 85K on it and it was trashed inside...driver seat springs exposed through foam cushion, ect. That truck did look "turned-over".

Anyhow, I'm really jazzed about this cool little truck and am gonna be posting about it for some time to come. (first tech post already in). Dave.