Don't you just love it

Well I spent the last few days working on a 1986 Isuzu pick up my dad gave me years ago. He had blown or cracked the head on it so he gave it to me and I parked it. Back then I did look at it and found coolant in 2 of the cylinders and I then parked it. Well it was locked up when I started working on it but got it freed up. Looked the head over real good and found no cracks so I put it back together. Got it to fire up just a little bit ago but had left the radiator off. So now letting it cool off again and will check the head bolt torque and then install the radiator. Sure nice to be able to get something up and running again. Guess I should have done that a few years ago and saved a lot of gas
Hobby farm

Back when junk was paying good I bought and hung on to a 93 Isuzu pickup with a bad engine and a 97 Plymouth Breeze which I put a transmission in and have been driving almost daily.

$425 in the Plymouth including the junkyard trans. 30+ mpg probably has not paid for itself yet but it sure beats 18mpg Jeep.

I dont care that gas has come back down some I'm not going to forget the recent mess we've had and going to do whatever I can to buy the least amount possible.

Now I gotta get to work on the Isuzu.

Did you check compression after putting it back together might have been a blown head gasket.

Glad you got er running.

hey, if it saves money, drives ok, and looks relatively decent, then gidderdunn.

Well its sort of on the ruff side and has 190,000 plus miles in it but for the price I payed for it and the $85 in parts if it runs and get me by for say the next 5-10 years I'll be more then happy with it. Bed is rusting out on it and the seat is bad, may try to put in bucket seats if the one I have laying around can be made to fit

I had a Chevy Luv 4x4 made by Isuzu in 1980. It was slower that my 1965 VW. Had to be the worst quality truck I ever had.
Hope yours works out better than that.

Old,

Not trying to rain on your parade but a guy I work with has a little sideline operation where he "fixes up" older cars/trucks that have been parked, usually due to some mechanical deficiency that the former owner wasn't able or willing to have fixed............

Anyway I've notice he's ironically had a "run" on Isuzu 4 'bangers that he's "fixed up" and sold..........ALL of them have had blown head gaskets...........the first two he got away with just replacing the head gasket BUT the last one he worked on kinda "backfied" on him as the new head gasket failed shortly after he installed it...........after disassembling the engine further investigation by the machine shop revealed .015" warpage on the cyl. head................needless to say his profit margin on that truck dropped markedly............

Just something to think about if you have trouble with the gasket in the future....................

P.S. Head gasket failure is quite common on older engines with aluminum cylinder heads and cast iron blocks.............certain aftermarket companies produce steel head gaskets which appear to stand up better to the abuse encountered on those types of configurations(different expansion rates)............also the factory head bolts can be replaced with aftermarket stud kits(ARP)which can increase the clamping force helping to reduce head gasket failure as well...........

I've used both products on the 2.6 Mitsubishi engine with great results but the cost of both of those upgrades may be worth more than most people would be willing to spend............