Well... its like everyone warned me about: the battery that the PO threw in there isn't enough to get this thing turning fast enough or something. It has been a real bugger to start as of late. I put new plugs in it last week and then the battery was dead.

I did figure out why the awesome push button glow plug ignitor was wired in though!!! The copper strip that links all the glow plugs was grounding out on the coolant outlet flange and had melted the insulation off of it. I manipulated it out of the way a little bit and put new heat shrink and a few layers of tape over it.

I'm contemplating having the engine gone through. Anyone have experience with this and/or know where to take it to see what would be involved?

PITA! It wasn't too bad take apart except for the ones behind the pump. The 8mm nuts holding the bus bar on were tough to get loose and even harder to get back on. Everything else was easy. Took maybe 45min to an hour

Now that's an oil change

I've seen that before! I would not want to do it that way though!

Looks like they got away with just one bolt on the early one, so why not just try the one and roll it?
Am I missing something here?
It appears to have a bolt through at the bottom of the diff housing that is common, is there a mount location there as well?
If I would bolt it up and roll it and see if it flexes.

KC

Well, I made a bracket to switch bolt everything up. The engine is in and running!

I still need to change the fluids in the transmission and do an oil change. There is also some questionable wiring with the radiator fan switch and relays. It does not want to come on when the switch gets up to operating temperatures. Fortunately/unfortunately, the PO had yanked the fan system out and put in an aftermarket fan with dash mounted toggle. Matt Sanders hooked me up with a stock fan and Sal helped sort out the wiring. Despite not working yet, I was able to splice in the toggle switch to work the stock fan until I can track down which wire/relay/switch is the problem.

I'm really excited to have the sh!+b0X out of my garage for a little while. Poor Bonnie has been at her grandparent's house all neglected since the end of Feb when the Trooper Bug showed up.