Okay I am going to look at a 1984 CUCV M1009 Blazer 6.2 TH400 today, asking price is $3500 and it has 97k miles on it. I have read some postings that suggest these spend a great deal of their life idling which belies their low mileage for their age.

Is there anything specific that I should be looking for? I know I should check the coolant for oil in the coolant, check the dipstick for blowby & water. Obviously I should be looking for leaks of any kind, oil pressure, cold start characteristics etc. What other things should I be looking for? Do I need to be looking at the bottom pulley / harmonic balancer for a wobble ?

Are there issues specific to these military trucks that I need to watch out for?

Why am I interested in one of these? Well I want an extremely reliable machine, I do not want a ECM/PMD controlled engine, strictly mechanical. I also plan on using high power radio equipment that could cause sensitive electronics to $hit the bed and I don't want to be stuck on some hilltop with a dead ECM.

 

guessing you mean illegal high powered CB amplifier thats so poorly constructed/filtered/tuned it interferes with electronics?

sorry man.. anyone with any radio knowledge knows a proper system isn't gonna mess with any ECM/PCM etc. theyre all shielded anyways.

 

Actually I'm a licensed ham operator and running a 1500watt linear is not illegal for me, however I am playing around with point to point microwave which can stop/fry an ECM like flipping a switch. ECM's do not have hardened Faraday quality shielding and some of their wiring not only is not shielded, it will actually resonate as an antenna for catching stray radio waves.

Thanks for being so helpful.

 

licensed also, and still 1500W of microwave isn't going to fry a pcm, it might interfere if it's pointed directly at it, but who in their right mind would do that? if your doing PMP in the microwave range I would imagine your going to have quite poor results if your vehicle is in the transmission path. you do realize how physically small the bandwidth is right?

like I said if your system is tuned properly it won't interfere, if that was the case why doesn't all the traffic out here come to a halt when they drive past the local weather radar which is much more than 1.5kw and located about 100' off the highway.

 

I would agree it takes a direct aiming, which can be the result of an accident, and ECM's are not near as hardened as you think, a stray spark, a field collapse, or voltage spike is all it takes to knock out most ECM's, look at the work that has been done for police cars to utilize microwave as a stop tool, doesn't take much signal, just a direct hit to the vehicle.


I want a fully mechanical truck, I added my reasons because I knew some would ask, I did not add my reasons for a deep discussion on microwave.

 

no problem.

but a friend of mine just purchased basically the same truck your looking at, and it's ok but for 69k or so miles it has it runs just fine. the body is falling apart tho . you might be able to find a good deal on an old ford with the 6.9 I liked mine better than the 6.2 in his CUCV.

if all the fluids check out good I would roll with it, but maybe get him down a bit on price unless it's pristine, 3500 sounds OK if the body isn't rotting off the mounts in the rear and it runs and drives flawlessly

 

I passed on the CUCV, body was ready to fall off the frame, leaks galore, water pump was loose and there was an odd metal to metal rattle noise coming from the timing case.

I found a 97 Dodge 2500 4x4 automatic with a 12v Cummins in very clean condition, drives tight and strong, no leaks, shifts good and the interior is immaculate, nice one owner truck with 170k miles on the clock for $8k. I was there within 30 minutes of it being listed on craigslist and by the time I left there were 2 other guys who showed up to buy it, too bad for them, I bought it for the asking price.

 

good deal, and good luck with it.