Who is Mopar1973Man?

My actual name is Michael S. Nelson. Where did this nickname come from? The nickname actually should have been MoparMan but most sites and email account had that taken so I needed a way to get around this problem. So I added the year of my first car to the middle which fixed this problem. My first car was a 1973 Dodge Charger SE.

Mopar1973Man, Why did you start a website?

Well, that is a strange story. I'm like most of you just a Common Joe needing to buy a new truck so I bought a 2002 Dodge Ram Cummins Turbo Diesel. The first 50k miles went good and then the dreaded P0216 code popped up. The first thing I did was run to the internet and start reading. Matter of fact my first forum I joined was "Diesel Truck Resource" back on April 01, 2004. I got the needed help to make some good judgment calls and repair my problem. I feel in love with the idea of helping others as well. So shortly thereafter sometime in 2005, I created my first website host from my DSL provider which contained basic repair information. This allowed me to just drop a link to an article instead of typing the article each and every time.

Mopar1973Man, When was www.mopar1973man.com born?

It was born October 4, 2007, is when I bought the domain name.

Mopar1973Man, Why did you start a web forum?

This continues the above story. As the articles got more and more popular I seem to get a slap on the hand from Larry Ellis of Diesel Truck Resource in 2006 for using my article links. So I moved over to Cummins Forum on February 11, 2006, and started helping other members with my articles still getting more and more feedback on how to improve articles and write-up my email account was getting hammered and I was editing HTML code pages by hand to keep articles up to date. So the forum gave people of like minds to get together and share information and better the article database.

Mopar1973Man, Are you ASE certified?

Absolutely not. I'm not ASE certified. I'm actually a certified computer technician. Graduated from ITT Tech College in Van Nuys, California 1989.

Bit More History Of Mopar1973Man.Com

As for Mopar1973Man.Com is was designed to be my web notebook of answers to common issues and problems with Dodge Ram trucks with Cummins Turbo Diesel engine. It started out as a simple HTML website and my notes published in HTML pages. This worked for quite a while but as time went on and the site got more and more popular adding, editing, and keeping up was getting harder. The biggest problem I ran into is the mass inbound emails of fixes, edits, new articles, etc. So vBulletin 3.8x forum was purchased and installed. This allowed all members to discuss ideas and create articles for common problems. I was still doing HTML pages so the HTML article database was converted to Joomla CMS 2.5.x. This now allows me to just create access for the family member and he/she can maintain their own article page(s) and update it when required. I kept going on the vBulletin line till version 4.20 is when I purchased Invision Power Board 3.4.6 to keep the site modern and up to standards of the smartphones and mobile world. So to this day, the site is powered by the knowledge of the "Family Members" and sharing this knowledge with others. Mopar1973Man.Com to this day pays its bills and debts with donations and advertising dollars.

Mopar1973Man, What do you mean "Family Members" ???

This phrase came forward one day because we all act like one huge family. Just like any family, we don't all get along just perfect but still work though differences with each other. We respect each other like fellow family members. Most of us will give our shirts off our backs to help others at times of need.

Mopar1973Man, What are your personal goals?

My personal goals are to have an efficient diesel truck that will last at least 500k miles. I've been studying 24 valve Cummins diesel engine efficiency for many years and at the current time, my high mark is 27.2 MPG on the ScanGauge II and the uncorrected math with 0.5 MPH speedometer error is 26.12 MPG. So in a nutshell, I'm looking for longevity, reliability, and efficiency.

Mopar1973Man, What else do you do?

I joined Salmon River Rural Fire Department back in 2004 and served as Station Captain currently. Then, later on, I joined Idaho County Search and Rescue and serve on their ATV search team.

As for hobbies, I guess I continue to play with websites, servers, computer hardware, and software for a winter hobby as for summer I tend to enjoy firewood hauling, hiking, biking, ATV riding, etc.

As for local jobs, I work on vehicles doing basic repairs. During the summer, I do air conditioning recharging. I manage several different websites at the server level for the site owners. I still do computer repairs as well but tend to lean on the Linux side more so now.

As of July 2014, I wad hired by Lindy Wheeler as a second mechanic in his shop in Riggins, Idaho. Lindy Wheeler pasted away from Cancer. (Rest in Peace, my friend)

As of 2019, I started my own shop doing Dodge Cummins diesel work.

As of 2020 I open a second shop with a 2 post lift and been service all name brands of vehicles.