87 short bed slant six

[Gavone1976]

I am looking at an 87 slant six shorted with 168000 miles, new tires, shocks and cat back exhaust.Needs a tranny mount and the guy selling it said it will not down shift because it is missing some kind of pin connected to the lever from the gas pedal to the engine so the tranny dosent know it has to downshift so you have to actually downshift manually.he is looking to get 2750.Paint in decent shape(repaint).A little rust over the passenger wheel well.
Just wanted to hear your thoughts..
Thanks

 

[crazzywolfie]

really hard to say if it is worth it or not without seeing it. for the price i would at least expect the cab to be super clean(no rust) and everything functioning properly. if he has been driving the truck as is he could have damaged the transmission. it is not really too hard to find a bolt or something to use and control the kick down linkage so it does what it is suppose to.

 

[e50095]

Brother, another thing to be cognizant of when considering 80's carbureted trucks is many of them came with the lean burn system, where the carb and distributor are computer controlled. The computer relies on a ton of vacuum lines all over the place to determine timing advance and carburetor settings. The fuel mixture screw is capped, so the carb cannot be adjusted for fuel mixture by conventional means. After 30 years, you can imagine the vacuum lines are not in great shape, and most folks with lean burn ditch it for another carburetor and distributor set up. You can tell for sure by looking in the inner fenderwell on the drivers side behind the battery. That's where the computer is usually mounted, and it's clearly visible. Some of the earlier ones had the computer in the air cleaner, which is also obvious. I'm not trying to deter you, just know the conversion to HEI is fairly simple and well documented on youtube, and carburetors that will work are fairly common. Good luck.....

Ken in Pa.