I've been told you guys like everything. I'm gonna put that to the test, lol. I plan to document the slow rebuilding of this utterly abused 1988 Dodge Ram D-150. It'll never be a big-horsepower build. I might do some small performance tweaks, but mostly I'm going to be fixing and cleaning up things.
Back story:
A few months ago, I was perusing the "old and cheap" vehicles on Facebook Marketplace, as I'm sure many of us like to do. I came across this old dodge pickup.
How do you say no to that face?
I thought it was super cool, but I already had too many projects, so it stayed in fantasy land. I watched as the seller slowly lowered the price, week after week, until earlier this month, it got into "why not" range. So I called my brother up. He wasn't as enthusiastic about it as I was, but he agreed to help me get it home. I contacted the seller, worked out a deal, and for $800 I drove it home that weekend. It stalled at every stop and the brakes rattled your teeth anytime you even thought about touching them, but it was mine and I love it.
The drive home -- Look! Air conditioning!
Safe at home. That's my 89 Bronco II :)
Here's some photos from before I did too much to it:
The previous owner did some "modifications" that I will be un-doing. But I'm probably keeping the lights on front lol.
The first order of business was getting those dry-rotted tires taken care of. A new set of Cooper Discoverer RTXs did the trick. I decided to let NTB do the oil change while they were at it. The guy couldn't find the oil filter in the system when I was paying so I got the oil change free! Huzzah!
While I was there, I was informed that my brakes were shot and one of my motor mounts was chained in place!
I went on an amazon/ebay/autozone shopping spree, picking up new headlight bucket/turn signals, tail lights, door locks, rotors, pad, calipers, and an original Dodge service manual. I also wen to the local salvage yard and managed to find a single D250 that had already been picked over pretty good. But I pulled a passenger door, hood, front driver side fender, seatbelts and retainers, a few other small pieces.
Calling them "shot" is being generous.
Tires and tail lights on the truck
Better shot of the tail lights. I like the black trim.
Headlight buckets/turn signal lenses on. Gonna paint the grill to match eventually.
While I was changing the brakes, I noticed this little gem. A compression fitting -__- (notice the lock from the motor mount in the background, lol)
I figured out my "stalls at every stop sign" issue. The EGR solenoid is supplying vacuum all the time. So for now I have the line off the EGR so it will idle. I have a smoke machine on the way to help me track down what I assume is a major vacuum leak. A lot of the lines are questionable at best, so they're all getting replaced eventually. I have a sneaking suspicion that they aren't routed properly anyway. Much of this truck has been futzed with and is not right. It should be a fun project!
careful measuring, and and an angle grinder. They are okay for a POS, but a bit ahem, agricultural. With practice, they could turn out well.
