Remember this truck? 
$400 '94 2wd v6, destined for 5.9 swapped beater greatness. Well until I realized it didn't have enough floor to mount seats to, no brake lines, and a wiring harness worse than my D350. So it was stripped for what few decent bits it had and scrapped.
The source for the 5.9 was to be this truck.
2000 Dodge 4wd short bed. I've since learned that this is actually an offroad package truck. What with the bigger trans cooler and radiator, extra skid plates, factory lift, and 3.92 gear ratio. This was extra the truck I drove for most of the time I was driving in high school. My parents extra truck. Back then I had my D350 the first time and It was rarely usable even then, so I put plenty of miles on this thing. This thing was hit with a life of abuse and neglect. The rear diff was run dry causing the carrier bearings to seize to the housing and pretty much toast the hole thing. A used axle was sourced in a hurry from a 2wd truck with a 3.54 gear. I'm fairly certain the spring perches are on a different angle on this axle, causing a really bad driveline vibration that eventually took out the most of the drivetrain.
The case shattered when the driveshaft FO'd, taking out the exhaust in the process. We thought this was the extent of the damage.
Enter the third truck.
1994 5.9 4x4 short bed. This truck too was harvested for anything we thought was useful and scrapped. transfer case, driveshafts and rear axle being the biggest things.
I still hadn't started actually pulling the grey truck apart. So it wasn't until after the 46RH transmission I thought I didn't need was gone that I discovered the full extent of the damage to the grey truck's transmission. The transfer case mounting flange had actually sheered clean off. While the 46RH wouldn't have been a plug in swap in the 46RE equipped truck, the tail housing I now needed would have worked just fine. Luckily one was sourced for just $20 from a local scrap place.
Now why exactly am I bothering with this thing or typing this thread? Well...
Dad needed to replace his daily truck in a hurry, and started to fix this truck. Before work actually got done he found another truck and bought it instead. He mentioned he was then going to get rid of this truck. I myself don't have a truck anymore and was planning on finding another, so I asked the silly question "Well how much do you want for it?" Long and complicated story short, I'm basically buying him a set of tires for his new truck and getting this truck in return.
So there we are. I'm back wasting time and money trying to fix a neglected Dodge truck. I don't understand either.
You just can't live without them.....I know
Ive learned that some kind of truck is a requirement in my life. So i know what its like.
Finally got a chance to get the broken tail housing off of the transmission. Going to try shoving the whole mess back together under the truck tomorrow. Need to check if the rear axle from the donor truck actually is the right gear ratio. My dad claimed he checked it with the "mark the tire and turn the driveshaft" trick and it worked out to roughly 4:1. It should be a 3.92 gear so I'm going to take the cover off, look for any numbers and count ring gear teeth if I need to. It'll be a chance to look things over in general anyway. I've decided I'm probably not going to keep this truck very long because I'd rather have a 2wd long bed. So as as soon as this one's a driver again it's going up for sale. The wheels are still for sale but if nobody has bought them by the time I'm ready for tires I'm just going to put these back on. New tires in a size that fit these wheels sure aren't cheap but the cost of normal sized wheels makes up the difference unless these are sold first.
I make poor decisions, have bad taste, and can't make a final call on those bad decisions.
Enter truck number....berk I lost count. 1996 Ram 1500 2wd extended cab with the 5.2 Magnum.
Put the grey truck's headlights into the blue truck, also grabbed the driver side mirror. The chrome bumper was bent just enough that the headlights didn't fit anymore so I took it off. I have a black one that is straight that's going on once I confirm I have all the clips to put the plastic trim back on.
I didn't want to know the story behind this tail gate, or did I want to be seen in public with it. So I through my spare one on.
Initial plan was to fix the grey truck and sell it, but I think I'm just going to fix it enough to move it and use it as parts for this one. That's why I decided to just roll this truck into this thread instead of starting a new one.
Day 4, I've started driving it to work already. I feel like I made a good poor decision this time.
I have livedthis episode of life more than once. With dusters and s10s.....
In reply to Dusterbd13 :
It's so easy to talk yourself into buying a terrible vehicle when you have leftover parts from 3 nearly identical examples sitting around. I'm literally waking around the garage tripping over parts I forgot I had and going "oh my new truck needs that"
Bumper from the white truck is now on the blue truck. The plastic trim seems to be warped from sitting out in the sun on bumper off of the truck, the air dam is toast, and I live in Kentucky and therefore don't need a front license plate bracket. I got to looking apparently the bumper trim is surprisingly cheap if I order it new from LMC, so that may happen.
Biggest issue I've found with it so far is that it won't stay in OD on the interstate. From my checking I've found the likely cause for this could be anything from something out of adjustment to the clutches in the OD housing being cooked. It's also burning oil on startup, probably from valve seals. Did I forget to mention that this thing as 312k miles on it? Yes, I'm stupid.
Blue truck needs a lot of help but It's already being used as my daily driver. Grey truck's future is still up in the air as I can't commit to killing it or saving it.
I changed the oil, filter, spark plugs, plug wires, distributor cap and rotor. Then I zip tied a new Pioneer head unit into the the busted dash. It's still on daily driver duty with no new issues to report.
Living in the Northeast I am very jealous about now, I had three of the same era truck and they all rusted into the ground years ago.
And I do understand about not giving up on a group of cars as you have enough parts to keep them going, I went through to big groups, first was about six Dodge Darts (real Darts) then I had about nine Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizons over the years. The worst part ( ;) ) is the Darts have been gone for almost 20 years and I still find odds and ends til this day, I have moved twice!
Have fun, Paul B
Truck is going good. I like it. But its a high mile truck aquired fron a shady character. So when it lost 3rd gear on the way to work today I wasn't that surprised. It limped home in 1st and 2nd. So unfortunately it's down for now but its coming back as soon as it starts staying warm enough to be ok laying under it long enough to drop the trans. I have however decided that I'm going to swap in the 5.9 from the grey truck while im in there.
The attempts at bringing this back have been a bit of a roller coaster. I did a fluid flush on the trans which seemed to clear something out good enough that it could go back to normal. It drove better than ever did under my watch. Then it started slipping again. Soon after a loud bang was followed by an even louder whining noise and an end to all forward motion. It was flat towed home, cooking the front brakes in the process, and left to sit in the yard for a few days. I then got lucky sourcing a used trans for cheap enough that I was willing to risk it. I started pulling the deceased trans. The exhaust manifold bolts were not putting up nearly as much of a fight as I expected. That's about the time I looked up and saw something that looked funny.
The little shop of horrors is not currently equipped to do a chemical analysis on this substance, but it is very clearly different from the cast iron that surrounds it and is quite squishy in nature. I think i found at least one of my water leaks.
Looks like this next chapter of the story involves a 5.9 swap. Now to decide which engine I'm pulling first.
5.9 is out of the grey truck.
Next victim waiting nervously.
Only took an entire month to finally get the engine out of the blue truck. Nobody was injured when the hoist fell over and sent the junk 5.2/46re rolling over to the edge of the driveway. Next part of the plan is to finish cleaning up the 5.9 and the junkyard fresh 46re.
Also I remembered mazdeuce sent me a bunch of these stickers and I hadn't tagged anything with them yet...
Engine and trans is mounted. PCM from the 2000 is swapped over, mounted right in place of the 1996 PCM and the connectors were the same. Going to attempt using most of the 1996 wiring harness unless I find major differences, which I haven't so far. Finally making slow progress on my "this wasn't supposed to be a project" project truck.
You wouldn't happen to have, or be able to, take good pictures of the accessories and such, would you? Im trying to figure out how to use the magnum serpentine belt system on my duster.
Before buying parts and them not being usable.
In reply to Dusterbd13 :
I'll look through and see if I can find any I took, if not I think I'm ready to go ahead and bolt everything up and then I'll get pictures. I can say the full size truck setup is quite bulky. the alternator and AC compressor are almost as tall as the huge keg intake. I'd look and see if Dakota or van stuff is any more compact.
About the "no major differences". Looks like only every single connector is different. Does anyone smarter than me see a problem with simply moving all the offending electrical components from the 5.2 over to the 5.9?
In reply to Daylan C :
Do it. Write about it. Win.
I finally took the time to look and find where the engine harness does actually seperate from the wiring harness on these trucks. They just do it differently between years.
Now I get to look and figure out if all these wires actually do the same thing, and move the 1996 3 connectors onto the 2000 harness. Then plug the 2000 harness into the 2000 engine and PCM, then...I don't know, magic I guess...
1996 and 2000? Obd1 vs 2.
Keep the sensors and wiring and ecm for the truck youre using, and install into the engine youre using.
In reply to Dusterbd13 :
While 1996 was the first year for obd2. I couldn't find a flaw in being told to do less work. In the process of moving things over now.
When given the option of an easy button, hit that E36 M3 like a fat kid in Dodgeball. They should both use the same PCM logic and more than likely the same sensors, but make life easy.
Dusterbd13 said:
When given the option of an easy button, hit that E36 M3 like a fat kid in Dodgeball.
You might have earned use of my signature space again.
