Off Roading Forums banner

Against my better judgment.......

650 views 6 replies 3 participants last post by  Jacob_Royer 
#1 ·
Saturday my brother-in-law comes over and wants me to take a look at a truck he wanted to buy... Anyway after looking at it and driving it I said buy it! I can't believe i did this considering it was a dodge..... Anyway I know a few of the regulars on here praise the mopar and I have a couple questions. First here is what it is.

78 dodge 1/2 ton short bed adventurer 4x4
318/qjet(no not a thermoquad its a q-jet)
6" lift 33x12.50x15 TSL swamper radials 50% tread on 15x10's
roll bar, pipe bumpers new paint job (a bit of bondo) funtional cowl hood, bedliner. Runs great after cleaning the carb and replacing the egr valve and the hose going to it for some reason they used a colapsable hose for a vac line. which seems to have cured its only oil leak. the tranny is a tf727 which was suposedly rebuilt (looks new at least) and shifts very good actually chirps the tires on 1/2 shift. has a few missing wheel studs (had new ones in the glovebox. has no exaust whatsoever. But it drives very well for a lifted truck has no play in it and the 4-wheel drive works good. Anyway we ended up driving away with it for $900 i hate dodge but i would have bought it myself for that! Anyway I was wondering about what can be done to prevent the tf-727 from taking a dump like they all do. I suggested buying the largest tranny cooler he could find and changing the filter/fluid about twise a year. Neither one of us know crap about mopars but for the price ohh well maybe i just wanted somone else i know to be able to go 4-wheeling with me when i get my rig done.. Next week he is getting exaust no emmision testing around here at all and nobody seems to care that much about noise i got this crazy idea of buying some of those $79 summit headers and having 2" pipes ran out the back with no mufflers know a guy that did that on a 302 and it sounded awesome. but will the 2" pipes create enough back pressure with no mufflers to get by? As i said i have no knowledge of these things whatsoever from what I can tell they are more related to a chevy than ford but as I said i know a few guys in here know about the mopars and what you can do with them. It has no lockouts on it so i was assuming that it was full time 4wd. somone stuck a hurst t-handle on the t-case shifter so we had to play with it to figure it out but couldn't get it to spin front tires in what seems to be 2-hi so i am asumming these things are part time but always spinning the front axleshafts when you are in 2wd? i know gm had that stupid full time setup that was junk and ate tires. Well i better stop probably going to make people mad talking dodge in here....





Not a ford but for 900$ not bad..
 
See less See more
2
#3 ·
You're brother-in-law made out like a bandit !

Just read this post after replying to the other post. A Q-jet means it's an 85 or newer engine, as thermoquads ended in after 84.

Yes that is fulltime 4WD, the only way to disengage it, is to pull the front driveshaft (good for 2-4mpg better).

Get him to spend $30 and get the remote trans oil filter kit from Summit. That and half an hour will help him get more miles out of his 727.

http://www.superford.org/registry/vehicles/detail.php?id=4970&s=17326#content

Don't understand the hate you've got for 727s, though I'll join you on ranting about the lighter duty 904s. You gotta understand these trannies lived and survived behind real 490 ft/lb of torque Hemis and 440 Six packs.

There was a time in the early 70s when many GM drag racers were putting 727s behind their rat motors with adaptor plates.

That bark of the tires you like is a trademark signature of the Torqueflite. They shift pretty hard stock and can be modified, with next to no aftermarket parts, to crucify tires, U-joints and lug nut studs.

You can dial up the line pressure (free), pitch the accumulator spring(free) and adjust the kickdown linkage (free) to make a 727 shift like your being rear ended.
 
#4 ·
i don't think the q-jet is original looks like it came off a 80's gm because the engine has a vac advance distributor no egr no smog pump and no airtubes in the heads plus they have not had air plugs and been plugged. the q-jet has one electronic plug on the top and no idle mixture screws. going to replace it with an old style qjet. The guy he got it from said he was not real sure what size the engine is but somone had told him it was a 340?? I have no idea. Runs alot stronger than any 318 or 360 i've ever drove and is deffinately a small block but as i said i don't know how to really tell anything apart on dodge. I just have never known anyone to have any luck with any auto dodge tranny older or newer. truck's cars front drive reardrive everyone i've known that owned an auto dodge has ended up replacing the tranny. that is why i've never bought one myself. maybe there is a cooling isue with these things i dunno. Isn't the acumulator spring pretty easy to get to with the pan off? also any info on dialing the line pressure in sounds like replacing the internal filter and adding an external and cooler all at once would be a good idea.
 
#6 ·
i don't think the q-jet is original looks like it came off a 80's gm because the engine has a vac advance distributor no egr no smog pump and no airtubes in the heads plus they have not had air plugs and been plugged. the q-jet has one electronic plug on the top and no idle mixture screws. going to replace it with an old style qjet. The guy he got it from said he was not real sure what size the engine is but somone had told him it was a 340?? I have no idea. Runs alot stronger than any 318 or 360 i've ever drove and is deffinately a small block but as i said i don't know how to really tell anything apart on dodge. I just have never known anyone to have any luck with any auto dodge tranny older or newer. truck's cars front drive reardrive everyone i've known that owned an auto dodge has ended up replacing the tranny. that is why i've never bought one myself. maybe there is a cooling isue with these things i dunno. Isn't the acumulator spring pretty easy to get to with the pan off? also any info on dialing the line pressure in sounds like replacing the internal filter and adding an external and cooler all at once would be a good idea

Getting an earlier, adjustable Q-jet will be a step in the right direction. You'd need a different intake to go back to a Thermoquad and it's easier just to put an Edelbrock carb on in that case. The vac distributor can be tuned to produce dramatic power increases on those Mopars.

A 273/318 or 340 are all internally balanced engines and don't have an overly large harmonic balancer. The 360 is an externally balanced engine and it's balancer is pretty substantial.

The 340 will have the 3-4-0 somewhere on the block in a 13 or more digit casting number. If it is a 340 of 68 thru 71 vintage then it's got forged crank and premium internals and should be sold to finance a 360 engine, as those years of 340s command a real good buck amongst the faithful. 72-73 aren't so special.

Sixlitre
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top