Motown Performance Automotive

04/06/2024

Made great progress today and I was able to get the monstaliner put on the roof! I think it turned out amazing! The mixing instructions are worth a few reads beforehand but I’m really happy with how it turned out. This is the “man on the moon” color. It’s a very light grey. And appropriate for me since I’m a aero guy at heart.

Next: install sunroof, install interior, seal sunroof, replace transmission, tires, radios, wheeling!

04/05/2024

Made some additional progress last night. The roof is welded shut fully now and mostly prepped for paint. It just needs the final scuff, clean, and tape off.

I was able to get the adhesive off of the window with a heat gun, scrapper, mineral spirits, and patience. But it’s still on the rubber seal. I’m not sure what to do here. I have a new seal coming but it’s apparently for a 100 series and may not fit. If that doesn’t work, I’ll have to try to clean the old seal and prep to glue it shut with weatherstripping sealant.

But if the 100 series seal works, I can cut off the old one and replace with the new. 🤞 this works since it would be nice to have a functional sunroof.

04/04/2024

I was able to make some more progress on the roof over the past few days. It's mostly been a slow go of repairing the rust and attempting to remove the adhesive tape on the sunroof! It's apparently a butyl tape that only comes off with heat... acetone doesn't work super well on it... so that's been fun. I was able to remove most of it but I'm not sure how I'm going to remove it from the sunroof without damaging the glass or rubber seals that the butyl is stuck to... I'll wing it and figure something out

02/09/2024

I made a little more progress on the roof this afternoon. I was able to chisel off the factory rails so that i can have a more clean look on the top. Next thing to try to figure out is how to remove the atrocisty of tape that was used to seal the sunroof. I dont know what kind of tape it is, but the adhesive is thick and the tape is kind of velvety. Hopefully a heat gun and some patience takes it off.

02/08/2024

Got a little time yesterday to continue roof tear down for repair and repaint. I knew that the feet of the roof rack had rust under them but dang! The weird thing is, the underside of the truck has less rust than the top.

Once I get more time, I’ll be cutting out the rust and weeding in patch panels. And then I need to get a replacement sunroof seal for the sunroof that was brutalized with the nastiest tape.

01/30/2024

Score! Scooped up a low mile A343F replacement transmission for the ! We’ll see when I get around to swapping it out

10/22/2023

The restoration process has begun!

first I started checking the spark plugs and compression on the engine to see if I could sort out the low idle intermittent dead miss. Compression checked out great and the plugs just looked old. Since the engine looked healthy enough, I put in new spark plugs, wires, cap, rotor, and ignition coil. The engine idles nice and smooth now!

Not pictured, I had to swap out the radiator. When I was running the truck to test the transmission, the radiator revealed that it had become porous. So a new radiator went in along with a fresh thermostat and coolant flush.

While waiting on some transmission stop shudder fluid to come in, I decided to clean the interior and prep the junkyard seats for install. I am putting heated seats on the front two and I decided to repair the tears in the driver's seat with an old pair of blue jeans! If figured it would work since they're a similar color to the exterior.

I also have been deep cleaning the carpet and it was gross! it definitely needed it. While cleaning the carpet and interior, I realized what the interior smelled like. It had a strange smell that was reminiscent of some weird air freshener. but when I removed the center console, I found v**e pen pieces stuck under it... so the smell was v**e. I guess that's the modern version of "did someone smoke in it". with the interior all cleaned up, it smells much better.

next is breaks and continuing to trouble shoot the transmission shudder / poor 1-2 shift. if that can't be fixed easily, it will have to come out

10/01/2023

We got a new 80 series! It will be the dad-wagon for me but it needs some work before it's ready to hit the road.

but what it is, is a low mile, low rust, 80 series!

The first stage is making it mechanically ready for daily use over the next year

05/24/2022

We are ready for the Back Yard Overland Tour !!!! It's going to be a blast doing our prerun!

04/01/2022

I gotta get me a Turbo Encabulator! think of the possibilities!

An early popular American reference to the turbo encabulator appeared in an article by New York lawyer Bernard Salwen in the April 15, 1946 issue of Time mag...

03/29/2022

Overland truck from Oregon!