So, so far going through this rig, I've found some things to do. First, I noticed the oil pressure gauge ran a little low so I replaced the sending unit and was happy to see the oil pressure go up. The front driveshaft had a wasted front u-joint and the splines also had considerable play. I brought the shaft to Southbay Driveline in San Jose and the owner said the splines were pretty shot. So, I had them hack off the splines and weld on a heavy duty Trail Gear spline and yoke for me. The on-board air compressor was a cheaper non-constant duty compressor so I swapped in a Viair 450C constant duty compressor which is a lot better for filling 37 inch tires and running my air locker.
Now for the big one. Even though the engine looks beautiful and runs well, it freaking DRINKS OIL! It eats through 1 quart of oil around every 600 miles. I know 22RE engines are known to burn some oil but this seems to be on the excessive side from what I've read. I pulled a couple spark plugs to see if the oil is getting past the piston rings but the plugs looks good. I've also heard it could be worn valve stem seals. What am I going to do about this? Absolutely nothing. Since the engine runs well and seems to have good power for a 22RE engine, I'm just going to drive it like I stole it and always keep oil stored in the rig. I could swap in a nice rebuilt engine from a place like 22RE Performance in Chico, CA but that would run me around 3-4k and I really don't see the necessity just yet.
I paid 12k and I thought that was a fair price for a nicely built crawler, but since the engine is a little suspect, I'm now thinking I overpaid a bit, but maybe not. Supposedly, the guy who built the rig had around 30k into it. But ya know, what the f*ck. I'm not getting any younger and I always wanted a built 1st Gen and now I've got one. Time to go thrashing around and see if I like the more extreme side of 4wheeling. I'm first going to try it out at the local mall and see how it handles the speed bumps. As you guys know, mall crawling can be pretty technical.