Intro to Rufus

[1Gary]

The Good.Well I do really like this truck.The good and bad.It is common to find the bottom of the third door rotted out on all them.Therefor to find one dent /rust free is a real issue.Also the third door handles,all of them break because they are made of plastic.JTR believe it or not sells a aluminum handle that does fix that problem.I got a sports model that does have features that are kind of nice.But that makes getting parts for it very hard.A example of that is no one makes the Y pipe for it.Believe me I have beat the bushes to try to find one so I could just do a R & R on it while replacing one of the O2 sensors and while the exhaust studs/nuts would be easy to take off because we had it off recently replacing the clutch.I did locate a company called Vintage Parts that buys all the GM obsolete parts.The Y pipe is odd in that welded to it and apart of it before the cat is a resonator.Want to guess how much Vintage Parts wants for it??. Well they have only three left and want $818.00. The price is firm and doesn't include shipping.Well that isn't going to happen nor is a custom one built at a muffler shop for $250.00.Mine is slightly dented and I'm guessing restrictive and the joint looks like it might crack at some point.If it wasn't for the dents,I would just re-weld it.For now I am going to have it scan again to confirm the passenger side O2 sensor is the cause of the check engine light.That side looks like the oldest of the two.The cat is the typical $250 dollar range and I sure am hoping it isn't that.

So my advise is if anyone wants to buy just a shop/daily driver pick up-truck,this would be a poor choice.I do have some PM's sent out to members out of state to try to find the third door and if only because I do like this truck so much is the only reason why I will see it threw to the end.

[1Gary]

Well the crossover from Walker part number 50204 is a direct fit for a RWD 4.3 automatic that Autozone claims is a direct fit.It very well might be for a automatic,but on the stick shift 5 speed the header flanges misses about 1/4".The good news is it does go around the bellhousing nicely.Also the pipe going back to the cat is too short.So we ended up cutting it in the middle and spacing it with about a 6" pipe.We then cut off the flange of the crossover going back and cut the old crossover just behind the secondary cat and welded the new crossover to the remaining pipe going to the main cat.Cleared the code,it held for a 20 mile drive back to my house.Got my fingers crossed that we have this fixed now. We do know of jobs that replaced the smaller cat with a pipe and a code reappeared because the main cat wouldn't hold enough air.

To explain this better is this truck is for Calli emissions and those have a smaller cat welded to the original crossover and that goes back to a larger cat.A two cat system.$$$$

[astroturf]

Wow, That is alot of effort for a shop truck...

Are you sure this has not become yer new money pit?

[1Gary]

On the positive side of the ledger,as sure as anyone can be.

[1Gary]

Rufus should have a smile on it's grill soon.Third doors are very hard to find even from a rust free state like Florida.All of them rot out in the bottom of the door.Well Skip brought one up from Florida in his trip to the balloon fest.It's a major move forward in cleaning up the truck and somewhat a haft bass restoration.I'll get some pictures up after I get it to the shop and it unwrap.

THANK YOU SKIP!!!.

Rufus got on this trip 22.7 miles per gallon on this trip to the balloon fest.Not too shabby considering I haven't touched it in terms of a tune-up yet.All I have done was a gas filter.