Ranch Truck Revival - Lots of help needed

Picked up an 89 4R with a California history, but in TX the last 6 years. It's got 254k. 3.0. Manual Trans. Lifted. Body and suspension are fine (or easy enough to sort out). The engine hums along, but I've got more leaks than I can count. I need help tackling them or figuring out what order to tackle them in. Long (or maybe not so long) term I want to do a 3.4 swap. Right now this thing is good enough as a ranch truck but I'd love to bring it around and get it reliable enough to drive as an occasional DD in the city.

So problems to start with:

1. Brakes suck. I've ordered a 1" MC and a DD booster, so going to do those. If I don't really need it, can I remove the Cruise Control stuff while I'm there? Will do brakes at the same time I tackle ->

2. Clutch was not engaging, pedal right to the floor. But today it let me pump it (20+ pumps) and I have a clutch again. Assume master and slave replacement is probably a good start. But when looking under I saw the clutch fork boot is shot. Is it possible mice would have tried to get into the clutch for snacks? Do I need to peel off the torn boot to make sure the fork is fine?

3. Look at all that oil on the bell housing. Rear Main Seal? Do I have to fix it? How do I tell if RMS is the issue vs fluids from one of the many other leaks?

4. Smoking - Hard to tell if it is oil burn off, or just a bad gasket at the exhaust manifold to exhaust, but it puts out some smoke. Start by puting in a new gasket to see if that gets it sealed? Or do I need to start by tacking whatever is leaking onto the exhaust manifold?

Ideally I would start with the Clutch MC, SC, and boot. And while there do the brake boster and MC and maybe pull the cruise control. SO now it shifts and stops. Then tackle the smoke.

Thoughts?

 

Your valve covers are most likely leaking as they are a common source of leaks on the 3.0 especially the left one. That is most likely causing the smoking. I would fix that first as it is the easiest, the right hand one is much harder and more involved, and then clear everything off and look again. Sorry, can't comment on 1 & 2.

 

Sounds like you need to bleed the clutch to see if you can get it to engage.

If you don't want to bleed it first you can look under the clutch pedal there is a 12mm nut. Back that thing all the way off the stop and it will start spinnig that rod. Push on the clutch to see if the pedal stiffens up. If it works for a while then gets worse you probably have a leak.


I don't think a mouse would eat a clutch personally.