1991 Dodge W150, Green Machine

I loved the 5.9 Magnum in my 1998. Lots of power, and ran beautifully. Drove that truck coast to coast without a hiccup. 

Only thing I remember doing was the plenum plate that Hughes I think made. Pulled down a solid 14 mpg regardless of speed or load lol. 

I'd like to find a 5.9 Magnum to build for this truck eventually, but the LA 318 runs good, and I dodon't t NEED the power, so it's a down the list item.

Once I have the truck in my control again entirely, along with the manual swap, I'm looking at various intake options. Namely the Mopar M1 and the Hughes FI. My concern is losing low-end torque, so being able to maintain that is crucial. I've got the F350 for the big stuff, but retain the D for light-loaded or smaller trailers.

Did the wires, cap, and rotor tonight. Old stuff looked okay, but its idling really well now! Plus blue means at least 50 bonus horsepower 

Fixed my heater hose looped mess complete with zip ties that I did to get it home. Cut a short section of hose and boy does that look better. The heater core will get done.... sometime. Its low on the priority list since it's a fair weather truck. 

No more plumes of oil smoke from the dripping valve covers, quiet, reasonable idle, I'm happy for today. Found a chunk of rotted vacuum hose that was causing the all over the place rpms at idle. 

None of this is very exciting, but when your days are filled with keeping a 16 month old occupied, it's the small things. More tomorrow hopefully.

Oh! Also got a 8 HP air compressor for free from the neighbor today. That counts for something.

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So over the last two days, I tackled the water pump, and hoses.

Pump seems to have been replaced before, happy to say everything came off easy as can be, no stuck or rusty anything. I was beyond pleased! However, the amount of red clay like dirt caked into EVERYTHING was crazy, just stuffed. I imagine this is part of the trucks former search and rescue life down in Alabama. 

Went with a gates pump, and same for cap, T-State, and hoses. Side Story: I work for the railroad, and one of the industry switchers I used to work, did Gates rubber, so I have a weird soft spot for them, just sharing. Did the fan clutch, because why not, and all three belts as well. 

The only odd bump I hit was I knew something was off with the alternator mounting bolts. Typical V belt style slide, but I remembered Dodge having the cool tightening bolt/nut thing for increasing belt tension. Someone along the way replaced that with a regular nut and bolt, that kept sliding. That wont do! So it was off to the junkyard while my thread sealer was drying, oh and in the midst of a massive rain storm. I went to U Pic a Part on 31st and Kedzie in Chicago, where they had a decent shape '89 D250. Bam, there she was, just as I remembered, and for the fantastic price of "Just take it, I don't even know what to ring it up as" we were in business.

Also (tried) to de-grease the engine. lol, well its better! Still quite gross, but hey, the 2.99 O'Rileys brand de-greaser is actually pretty darn good stuff, I'd recommend. 

This is my celing light drop light, and yes, it works fantastic. I still see a burned in imprint of white light when I blink.

Gross!

We're a foamin'

Didn't leak, probably was fine, whatever!

Here's some pictures of the D250, hope you laugh like I did! Oh and the hole that was covered up, that almost required an emergency room trip when my foot went thru, glad I was wearing jeans!

Sad Dodge, a cool Ford, and the best Junkyard signage I've seen

You can kinda see the bolt/bolt/nut combo thing I'm talking about here, flippin' best idea ever.

All done! Coolant in, no leaks, running great, perfect temp. 'twas a good day!

(Ignore any fluid splatter, it's from when my dog slammed into the garage door to say hi, and scared the living Christ out of me, no big deal)

Thanks for reading!

I've got some passing interest in the 'little' LA 312 blocks after Dulchich got one to 400HP though a cam, head work and a re-jetted Thermoquad. Those Magnum heads are really something- just as long as you remember that the rocker angle was changed slightly to get more power out of them.

Man, I wish my junkyard had signs like that. Upullit barely separates cars by REGION.

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

You mean 318.

In reply to Georges1991 :

I see you got caught in the rain at the JY, too.   I've been meaning to hit that yard with the .66 Dart, but I went a different direction JYing yesterday.

Surprisingly, I arrived at about 4pm, and had a solid 40 minutes of no rain at all. In and out worked out great, the Mopar Gods were smiling.

Cooter if you see any later W/Ds at the yards let me know! Thanks. The one downside since LKQ took over this yard, is the amount of old stuff has rapidly disappeared. The old owners kept that stuff around forever 

Yeah, I loved the back row of that one.   What do you need?

In reply to Cooter :

Oh nothing really urgent, I'd like to find some matching brown trim for my interior eventually, but I have to paint the floors and lay my sound deadening down first, and my new carpeting.

I just like to look around, it's fun to me.

Well new shocks ordered (KYBs 20 bucks a piece on Rock Auto, sweet)

Just figuring out when I can use a friends garage and tools, so we can get the front end apart. All the parts have pretty much arrived now.

Looks like we'll do everything, u-joints, axle seals, ball joints, tie rod ends, rotors and pads, just so it doesn't have to come apart again. Should drive like a new truck 

Well progress! Kind of.

This weekend was the begining of the front end work. I got the arguably more difficult drivers side done, the passenger will have to wait until next weekend, but that's okay. Now on to the story, because isn't there always one?

Parts to be replaced were, tie rod ends, axle u joints, seals and bearings as needed, rotors, pads, upper and lower ball joints, shocks, and the drag link, and all associated hardware. Quite a pain in the seat filler on a Dana 44. 

The best way to start anything is finding a stripped to hell lug nut, Okay drilled that off, got the wheel off. 

The we were left with this, looked okay, could literally move everything a dangerous amound side to side and up and down just looking at it, yikes.

Don't forget your pronged socket! 

Now on the Dodge hub set up removing the rotors involves pulling the hub, and driving out the wheel studs. They were junk so all new ones were in order. Then we got this

We had the backing plate and spindle to remove, the dust cover promply flaked to nothing upon removal

Some big manly whacks and she popped off

The work area

Man's best friend

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This is when everything started to fight me, no problem, bigger hammer!

The drag link was SHOT! absolutely smoked, barely hanging on, probably accounted for a good amount of the steering play.

Getting naked

Can't forget our U joints

Needless to say the shocks didn't really do much of anything

New joints pressed in 

Now heres some quality engineering by the fleet specialists in Alabama. Instead of using the castle type locking nut that requires a special socket (OTC 7080 fyi) they made some sort of sleeved nut... thing? Then used a chunk of thin metal to sleeve the knuckle. That was neat, but it was all tossed and the proper nut installed.

For reassembly remember to slather everything in anti-seize lol

New rotor and studs pressed together 

New seals and bearings and blah blah. Slapped it all together,

Annnnnnnnnd, ta-da!

All new and correct. Side two will go a lot quicker now that I know what the hell I'm doing. I've never done any of this, and was hoping to have some buddies come over, but everyone was busy, so it was me and the radio. I'm fairly proud of myself, even though its really not anything special.

George

Broke down and ordered new calipers and hoses too. Everything else is new so I figured Murphy's law would apply here lol

Love this truck!

Good call on the calipers and hoses. Might as well do it all while you're in there. 

This truck is super cool. 

All that front end work gave me flashbacks to a few months ago when I went through hell on earth to do mine. You are lucky you have one of the later trucks! Nice work!

Yep figured it was prudent to just do it all. Talk about project creep, I dont think there is anything else to replace up front now!

Yeah Tony, your thread gave me nightmares until I realized the later 44s are slightly better. Thanks!

So, minor update,

New caliper and hose in on drivers side. Put the wheel back on there, all done.

Dug into the passenger side today, the wheel bearing fought me, had to cut it off, so that slowed down progress, and of course I only bought one when I ordered parts! Lol.

Still have to slide the axle shaft in, replace the caliper hold down bolt

Put the new shock in

Then when I get my new wheel bearing, slide it on, and put the spindle and hub on and toss the new caliper on, then I'll be ready to go to Firestone for an alignment!

Still excited because I can taste the finish line of this project, so close. 

George

It's done! Well this project in particular is.

So i got home from work at about 3 AM saturday morning, and decided to head put to the garage, since I had an appointment at Firestone at 10 AM. Thing was, I was at about this point for progress, 

I had gone friday and picked up my new plates, and finally got those on the truck-

So I got to work, new caliper on, got the rotor and hub on, and tossed the locking hubs on as well. 

It was about 730 at this point, as I also had to check and retighten my power steering belt, that was causing my odd noise at higher rpms (was a really strange noise, not like a belt slipping at all) snugged it, and it went away. 

Sitting on the ground, with everything back together

So I dropped the truck off at Firestone at 10:00. Here's where the fun starts.

Get a call at about 12:00, "uh hey we can't align your truck" 

"why"

"The tech says he cant get the tie rods to move to adjust them"

Now these parts had been on the truck for 6 hours. Doubt they rusted solid that fast! So I went over to pick up the truck, and after lots of back and forth, they pretty much admitted they had no interest in doing the truck. Thanks!

Went home, and decided to try the string and measuring method for setting the toe to make it drive able. Guess what? It actually came out really good! I can go straight down the road with no hands on the wheel, Feels tight, it's like a new truck, I'm very happy, and I learned a lot on this particular job. 

Went crusing around, truck was driving great, after an hour or so, I headed home. Pulled in the garage, stepped out of the truck and.....

drip, drip, drip. 

The timing cover gasket now decided it was time to head out. Lol! Oh well. Ordered a new cover and seals, along with a double roller chain, thats the next project. Thanks for reading,

George

In reply to Georges1991 :

Could it have been the large "Good Year" on the tires? Plus they can't sell you up with all those new parts. Your tape measure alignment will be perfectly fine if your floor was reasonably flat. That is how I did 200 mph vintage Can Am cars.

Lol, I guess I've just never had someone flat out say we're not interested for something as simple as an alignment.

Yes floor was level, I am very happy with the way it drove after. Little to no wander, and great return to center, easy steering effort, like a new truck, what a difference.

That's cool about the Can Am cars!

This seems like what I'll go with for the TC/Cover. Quite a bit cheaper than I imagined it would be, so that's good.

Ready to get started!

Well pulled the truck out today to give it a wash and look over before the work starts on the timing chain and cover.

Then the absolute junk battery in it decided to short and smoke as I tried to start it to move it back. Great.

I have an old AGM Mercedes Benz battery that's been sitting on the garage floor for 3 years. I knew it had to be stone dead. I was wrong! Fired it right up, and in was astounded. 

Back to the garage!

Timing chain is done! Wooooo.

So ripped into the Dodge today, after hitting the junkyard. Grabbed a new mirror and some odds and ends. Then got started.

Old chain was absolutely toast. The picture doesn't convey how absolutely shot it was. Amazing it didn't run worse.

Nice new double roller

Almost all back together

And a shot after I pulled the wheel off for an unrelated brake pad hold down bracket repair. All went well and boy does it feel different! Like a new truck really. Extremely happy.

It feels like a new truck, it really does. Amazing how much difference that makes! 

So now, I need to put my stereo in, got some cool behind the door speaker grilles from the junkyard so that'll be cool. Then get my sound deadner and carpet put in here soon too. Very excited!

George