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95 Pickup 4x4 aka Susie Q

34K views 153 replies 16 participants last post by  Enemigo 
#1 ·
After years of canyon carving sports cars I decided to start looking for a truck for a little quarantine project for me and the girlfriend. Filtered my search to require a manual transmission and 4WD, and stumbled upon this sweet little truck with 130k miles, decided to check it out, and instantly fell in love. Since this is my first dive into the 4x4 world I'd like to take my time to learn the truck instead of just running straight for a lift and tires and calling it a day.

Failed CA smog on the first try due to high NO levels. Noticed that all the vacuum lines were cracked and even some were dangling so I replaced those and passed on my free retest the next day. Still don't really understand them as they don't match the diagram under the hood, seems like it's all been touched before.

Girlfriend replaced her first set of spark plugs with my supervision. She's still working on her righty-tighty's and lefty-looseys but otherwise did a great job.

Also replaced the stock blown shocks with $12 Gabriel Proguards from rockauto and it's a world of difference. It was borderline scary to drive on the freeway before.
 

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#27 ·
Your pickup is looking really cool. I have always wanted a pup. I'll have one someday but I'll have to wait until I finish school and get that cash flow :D . I just recently bought my "third" first gen rodeo and I also had a first gen Amigo that I threw in a 6vd1 and upgraded to 4x4. I love the first gen platform and the pup is the last one of the trio I have yet to own. Keep it up!

-Andrew
 
#28 ·
Yeah they can be addicting, just last week I was messaging a lady about a supposed $700 '88 trooper that ran, but it seemed a little sketchy and she stopped responding to my questions.

On the pickup I've noticed the temp gauge drops hard when I'm going downhill, leading me to believe the thermostat was stuck open. I bought a rock auto one, installed it, and the gasket leaked pretty bad. Took it back off and used RTV and no more leaks.

Took a trip up to the mountains for the weekend to chase some snow and had a blast. First real roadtrip with the truck. The tires did great and I had way more predictable grip than I thought
 

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#30 ·
Yeah it fit right in with no issues, I just took note of how the old one was positioned with the jiggle pin and matched it when installing. The part number was Stant 13858 and the gasket that failed to seal without RTV was an APEX AWO2032. I applied it to both sides of the gasket, attached the housing finger tight, then fully tightened the next day.
 
#31 ·
Tentin said:
Yeah it fit right in with no issues, I just took note of how the old one was positioned with the jiggle pin and matched it when installing. The part number was Stant 13858 and the gasket that failed to seal without RTV was an APEX AWO2032. I applied it to both sides of the gasket, attached the housing finger tight, then fully tightened the next day.
I didn't know to do any of those things lol. We'll see what happens. Thanks for the info for when I have to go back and do it right.
 
#32 ·
Went out and bought a truck tent and air mattress. $100 for the pair on craigslist, just had to patch one small hole in the mattress. 100 layers later of rubber cement and e6000 and now it works like new. Went out to the mountains with some buddies and had a blast. Tent and mattress worked great, probably the most comfortable camping setup I've had to date.

The truck ran decent, but it seems my hesitation issue and lean CEL is back. Spraying brake clean I could've sworn I narrowed down the vacuum leak to the EGR valve and thought I saw a crack in the rubber diaphragm, but when I took it off I didnt see one. Put it back on and now cant identify the vacuum leak any more. Totally confused
 

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#34 ·
Not sure, I grabbed it off a pickup in the junkyard so it was able to bolt right on with no modification. It uses 3 bolts per side to attach compared to the stock bumper which had two. Pick n Pull classified it as a "Trailer Hitch with Ball" (???) and it was only $30. Definitely got lucky with that one.
 
#35 ·
Nice truck tentin! I can confirm that 4.56 gears did come in some pickups. My 93 has a 2.6, 4X4, 5 spd and 31X10.5 on snowflake wheels. I checked it the other day and it's got 4.56. I snagged a G80 out of a 94 Trooper last week and will be putting it in Suzie's rear end soon.

Good luck with your build!

Alex
 
#37 ·
The 4.56 usually came with the "Big wheel package" on Rodeos, (4x4) pickups, and Amigos. Included mud flaps at all 4 wheels and snowflakes with the 10.5 x 31 tires. Trooper Big wheel package had the 4.77s. Dennis
 
#38 ·
Guess I'll give a little update. My lean code and very slight misfire at idle are still around. I did a hot compression test and my numbers were 180-185-180-190, wow! Installed my carter fuel pump just for the sake that I had it laying around after buying it when I had that wiring issue and that was kind of a pain in the ***. I was expecting kind of like a classic two belts held up by four bolts, but was greeted by vertical and horizontal brackets that just seemed to not want to let the tank drop no matter how much I wiggled it and played with the angles. Eventually I was fed up and just bent back the rear vertical bracket an inch with a ratcheting tie down attached to the bumper which gave me just enough wiggle room to drop the tank and install the new pump. Had to mallet the bracket back into place on reinstall but everything worked out. Glad I had to never do that on the side of the road or on a trail.

Narrowed down my lean code to a vacuum leak at the EGR diaphragm AGAIN. RPM's go up when sprayed with carb cleaner without a doubt. Seems to be temperature related whether or not it will leak, which explains my difficulty diagnosing it. Need to take a trip to the junk yard and get a new one.

Went back to apparently my favorite place to break Isuzus, Hollister hills. Little Susie Q did great all day and even rescued a 4runner that decided it wanted to tackle the biggest mud pit there without checking the depth (~2.5 feet). Wish I had gotten a picture but for reference this is the mud pit being referenced. My buddies 95 Montero was overheating pretty badly on the steep stuff and we ended up taking the hood off and throwing it in the truck bed which didn't really help much. Still survived the day though with a lot of cool down breaks.
 

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#39 ·
Tentin said:
that was kind of a pain in the ---. I was expecting kind of like a classic two belts held up by four bolts, but was greeted by vertical and horizontal brackets that just seemed to not want to let the tank drop no matter how much I wiggled it and played with the angles.
FWIW, many of us learned that removing the bed is much easier. Mine, being converted to a dump bed was super easy. Dennis
 
#40 · (Edited by Moderator)
Haven't updated in a while. I tossed the $12 rock auto shocks, they had great road manners but were not good at all off road. Not only that, the rears were way too short after doing the shackle lift and I was missing 3" of travel. I bought some KYB Gas-a-justs after being impressed with them on the Amigo. Stock sized front ones, and then rears from a 1987 ford f250 after reading that they would work. The top mounts worked and they were the perfect length (3" longer than stock), but the bottom mounts were not correct at all and I had to remove the metal eyelets on the shock bushings which was not fun at all. All said and done though, huge improvement from what I had

I got some wheel spacers after noticing some rub on the inner front fenders. Totally bought ones way too big (2") thinking the studs were longer and that I had to clear them, but really I could've gotten away with like a 1.25" or so. Had to do some clearance modifications with an angle grinder and a mallet, it's all on the inside though so it's not visible. Also I removed the plastic part of the front bumper, not for clearance reasons just thought it would look cool. Definitely want to fab up a winch bumper at some point.

Here's a glamour shot
nobumper.png


Anyone know what these two connectors are? I assume they're for some sort of diagnostics but just wanted to make sure

thumbnail_20210506_150752.jpg


And then what is this black thing? The wiring all leads to the device on the right which is on the lower part of my dash near the stereo

thumbnail_20210506_151050.jpg
 

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#41 ·
Looks good. Have you read anything qbout how do the wheel bearings hold up with the spacers? I'm just curious, if not it'll be interesting to see of they affect your bearings any.

I'm guessing here but my diagnosis port on the 6VD1 engine is a three pin so it's likely that it is the same on yours as well. For that black box thing, I'm thinking an aftermarket alarm or keyless entry setup, or some weird amp thingy. Its definitely not a stock option so see if you can trace the wires to any other components for clues.

-Andy
 
#42 ·
I'm not too worried, the truck basically just gets driven around short trips around town and to the trails and that's about it. What scares me more is all those horror stories about wheels falling off, but I figure most of those are due to improper installation. I coated my studs in red loctite and torqued down to 85 ft/lbs, and will probably re-check them from time to time.

I've got manual door locks so I'd find it weird if it was any sort of alarm. It almost reminds me of a 1/4" stereo jack. But yeah I probably just have to chase the wires.
 
#43 · (Edited by Moderator)
Got a little creative and made my own seat cover after not finding anything I liked with a universal fit. 5 yards of Joanne's fabric and about 500 zipties. Total cost just a little over $20

seat.jpg

This is a pretty good before/after picture.

seat2.jpg

All installed. Just need to find some gray headrests

homer.jpeg
 

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#46 ·
I adjusted the valves again (.008 intake and exhaust) and also soaked the iac tube in pb blaster overnight. Turned the truck on today after 24 hours of soaking, white puff of smoke out the exhaust for a few seconds, then noticed that the truck has a loud whine. Sounds like a supercharger. Not sure what's going on, I took a video.



I disconnected the smog pump belt since I originally thought that's around where the sound was coming from, no change. Removed the cam cover to see if it would be louder, no change. Really seems to be coming from under the valve cover. What could I possibly have done wrong?
 
#47 ·
Susie Q's all good now, just needed an italian tune up. Added a few hundred miles with no issues. First time taking both isuzus on a camping trip together, what a blast. We really love these trucks. Amigo took a little bit of a physical beating, I'll update that thread once I fix it.
 

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#49 ·
Can't believe it's been over a year already. When I first bought this thing it barely made the two hour trip home, failed smog, and frankly ran like dookie. Nowadays I consider it reliable enough for roadtrips, and that's just what I did last week. We drove up to Oregon to visit family for a week and hit the dirt pretty much every day I was out there. 1300 miles or so with no issues, although my driveshaft carrier bushing which was torn before leaving is now becoming quite a clunky nuisance in 1st gear. New one on the way, hopefully arriving in time for my next trip this upcoming weekend

Here's some shots
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#50 ·
Driveshaft carrier bushing/bearing assembly has been replaced, the old one was torn 90% of the way around. Still some shuddering going on when pulling away in first gear, especially up hill. U-joints are my next guess, but they don't seem to have any significant play in them when shaking them by hand.

Truck started becoming quite squeaky around town but spraying down every bushing I could find with white lithium grease seems to have solved the problem.
Automotive tire Grey Grille Automotive lighting Audio equipment

Installed a powered 8" subwoofer under the passenger seat (shown visible for photo purposes). Sound system sounds 10x better now that it has some actual depth to it. Bass control knob is just in my cupholder right now but I'll find a cleaner place to hard mount it later.

Still waiting for my Lokka front locker to arrive, then the plan is to source a 4.56 G80 rear and front from a junkyard trooper. Also have plans for a tubular front bumper and eventually winch, but I need to decide whether or not I'm going to do a 1" body lift first. The tires just barely rub when the truck is fully loaded up (3 people) and off roading, so I imagine with the weight of a bumper and winch this problem will present itself more.
 
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