CSM

I have all the parts. I just need the motivation and time. Hopefully i can do an article on the hydroboost.

Thanks, guys. It has gotten a bit faded since these photos were taken. It needs a repaint, balljoints, hydroboost rebuild, new rear swaybar links, and drivers seat foam.

No issues with the one piece. Heavy or light. Its a huge aluminum tube. Steel wont work due to harmonics when its that long. It isnt necessary, but it met my needs at the time. I didnt have time or a place to fix the factory setup. I use name brand prestone or similar. I dont use the later model stuff. I could be wrong on the interval, but there are rust inhibitors that get used up in coolant. I havent had issues with cooling or changed a water pump in over 12 years. My family still isnt on board and does the water pump every 6 years and a radiator&heater core every decade. Eta, those links arent mine... some sort of ad. Kinda annoying.

Well, aside from the "usual" items, not really. It is a LA V-8. I am more familiar with the older 70s stuff, but for the most part I don't think they changed much. Below is a bunch of info. I doubt you will encounter all these problems, but this is more general info. most likely you will just have a slightly cranky old truck that wants a new rotor, cap, and eventually a fuel pump. The basic rules are air, spark, fuel. If it spins it has air. You can take a plug wire off and use a spare plug grounded against the frame or block to look for spark. Fuel, is slightly more complicated but generally if it has fuel it will run, even if dribbled down the carb. Though it will run poorly if the carb isn't happy. Vacuum leaks. track them down, replace or plug the lines that leak. A vacuum gauge can be a helpful tuning tool, but definitely isn't required. Charging system is old school mopar voltage regulator. Pretty fool proof, theres a regulator, a wire, and an alternator. If they work, they work. Starting system. Old school mopar planetary starter. I still have the original 1969 one from my barracuda, and it works. These can be rebuilt and will likely outlast the car. The relay to start it should be on the fender. It is a standard 3 prong, you can turn it over with a gator clipped starter switch or a screwdriver to jump the right terminals. Ignition system. You may have some sort of weird lean burn setup. I don't know much about those. However, it should have a mopar electronic ignition box on the firewall, and aside from a cap and rotor once in a while it shouldn't give you too much trouble. I would check the timing and set to factory. If you have problems with the distributor or if the emissions stuff is too much of a pain or makes it advance too much, I would just go get a drop in complete replacement mopar small block vac advance distributor and replace the whole thing. But, I bet it will run just fine as is. Also, look over the wires and look for burns or cracks. If there is a big ceramic thing on the firewall with a wire going from each end, that is a ballast resistor. I like to carry a spare one. Lights. Most of your running lights are likely grounded through the body. If they don't work with new bulbs, look at the sockets where they clip into the body, likely its all corroded or may need a new ground strap from the bed to the frame. Cooling system. You should have a copper radiator, or a very early aluminum. shouldn't have any problems as long as the owner did 2 year coolant changes. If not, you can try the flush, but eventually you might end up replacing it. Do the water pump at the same time. Fuel system. If the truck has sat for a while, I would just go ahead and replace the fuel pump. They generally go bad if they don't get used. i would also replace the fuel filters with clear ones. I just went on Amazon and ordered a couple FRAM G2 filters, they are old school clear plastic and are nice for troubleshooting. The ethanol in gas can really clean an old fuel system, dredging up gunk that will clog filters, bowls, jets, etc. Once this is all done though, it should be ok, but I wouldn't leave it to sit with an empty or half empty tank as the ethanol will absorb moisture from the empty space in the tank and really make it rust. The old school gas didn't have this problem. Emissions system (gas vapors) There should be some sort of a weird can somewhere in the engine compartment full of charcoal and a ton of vacuum lines running to and fro from your gas tank. I hate these things. They are mostly inoperative now and no parts are available to rebuild them, so I like to plug them. If you don't have this system, great! There may also be a can that is used as a vacuum reservoir, if you have this, I don't know what to tell you. My dart, charger, and barracuda didn't have that. Trans, yeah it should be a 727 of some type, mabe a 904 (light duty 727). It may have lockup on this new of a model, if so, great, hopefully it works. A band adjustment is probably in order. I don't know much about the Tcase. If the carb gives you fits, and it is a factory 2 barrel, you may end up needing to put a new manifold to put ezefi or a new edelbrock carb on it if you can't find a carb shop or rebuilt 2bbl carb. You will also find that the kickdown linkage will be important here if you do a swap. The kickdown is very important and the linkage isn't very adaptable to non factory mods. Lokar makes a cable kickdown setup that is decent. Choke. If it has an electric choke or a thermostatically controlld choke (rod sticking up out of the manifold to the choke lever on the carb) it may not work right. You can make it manual or remove it. Just be aware of whatever it is as it will effect cold starts. The engine should be fairly basic. Over time, it will leak oil. The valve seats were induction hardened at the factory. Over time the valves will recess into the heads a bit. This has nothing to do with leaded gas. It has to do with high cylinder head temps and miles. Leaded gas increased the octane of fuel, it never "lubricated" the valves. I would run diesel oil or amsoil Z-rod in the engine to keep the anti wear additives up for the flat tappet cam. If you don't, you run the risk of wiping a cam lobe and needing to replace the cam and all lifters. You have a pretty darn good motor all in all. There isn't much there to break. Look at the exhaust manifolds for any type of flapper valve, if you do, it is probably stuck. Hopefully it is stuck open. Some of these engines had thermostat controlled butterflys to close the exhaust to get the engine warmed up faster. PCV valve, replace it if it doesn't rattle when you shake it. Should be sticking out of the right hand valve cover and feeding into the intake. Another note on vacuum... not all vacuum ports are equal. Some are directly into the manifold, some are ported depending on throttle position or have a smaller orifice. When in doubt for troubleshooting, refer to manual if possible, or plug it. You want your brake booster going to the full time vacuum, haha. Theres my brain dump. You probably know a lot about it, but hopefully this helps. Lastly, parts for these old vehicles are generally really cheap! I look at Rock Auto, get the part numbers, then compare on Amazon, NAPA, etc. As many of the parts aren't selling fast, they have some killer cheap deals sometimes.

Come up with what you think they are worth. I havent priced them in a while and tried to sell them but people were too lazy to use them. I can show you how my brite box works too. Pretty simple. Jumper and a relay.

She was more than a little fussy getting off the trailer. A full tune up is in order. The funny thing is that once in the garage, the car ran fine.

@Mopar1973Man I have the plugs.

Crew cab dodges are really expensive right now.

I would. Most of the old stuff probably doesnt work anymore and is just a big vacuum leak.

Texts ok? I still want the power wagon! Haha. But i doubt that will happen. It is mint. The only downside about it is closed knuckles.

Awesome. Was 1990 still carburetor?

Update: Runs & Drives... Ok, it occasionally coughs, but hey, it was in a coma for 8 years. It just needs an enema! After Nick and I dove in early on, I kinda got in stuck in the trenches of newborn dad life. Currently the kid and I are kind of like North and South Korea. Some days, theres lots of sabre rattling and posturing but other days it is great. I took advantage of today and was able to get the other big stuff finished that Nick and I did not get done last time. What works The factory fuel system now works! The car has oil pressure! The original oil pressure sending unit gave up the ghost I think, as a manual gauge popped right to 40 pounds and stays steady. The car even has plates. The lifters still have an occasional rattle to let me know they are there, but I am hoping they are just gunked up and will loosen up with some quality oil and driving. The old generator system works flawlessly. Though by design it doesn't charge much at idle, it jumps right as soon as the RPM goes above 850 or so. The turn signals work, the brakes mostly work, the E brake works but doesn't disengage without an special verbal incantation I have developed with one hand under the dash fiddling with the mechanism. What don't work I need to reattach the brake light wiring to the master cylinder, as they were smoking from missing insulation. The speedometer cable is supposedly disconnected, no idea why. Passenger side rear window won't go down, hopefully an easy enough fix. Numerous little nuisance electrical items like the temp gauge, the dash switches need their 57 year old contacts cleaned, and the long out of production non gear reduction Bendix starter needs rebuilt. Chrysler has used the same starters since 1964, but that doesn't help me! The trunk floor has holes and the exhaust needs replaced. The only real show stoppers that I need to fix asap are the starter and I need to fix some holes in the copper radiator. Aside from all that its good to go! Hopefully I will be driving it to work daily very soon after a couple shakedown drives. https://youtu.be/OnJBEAYoH60

You need an engineer to ride with you to watch all that stuff! Haha. I do like it tho. I hate having my phone out of my pocket, i would forget it once in a while. At work, we have a similar setup with a dedicated guy to watch it. Egt, rpm, oil px x2, oil temp x2, oil coolers, oil quantity, torque, fuel flow, volts freqs loads, all x4. Then cabin px, a transponder, fuel management across 8 tanks, and an errant few hundred circuit breakers that pop now and again... plus keeping an eye on us! I think he is underpaid.

A thought... depending on the use. The 4th gen gas trucks are really reliable. Some older work trucks are deals. The hemi engine is very reliable. All told, if i ordered a new dodge tomorrow it would have the 6.4 hemi.

I wish i had watched it. I am happy the AFC and the North won.

I know. I've been busy. It is going to be busy until late april I think. I haven't even touched the 60 chrysler in months. I am telling myself I will try that this week, but we shall see. It all depends on what work opens up and what the baby is like day to day. Don't have kids folks... or if you do, pay extra to get one with a pause button. :D

I wish Dodge made suburbans throughout the 70s and 80s. I would own a 1st gen cummins powered 4door ramcharger.

I didn't make it over either. No third party witnesses.

Mine needs a bath and repaint pretty bad.

My setup you can read in my sig, is a great all around setup. Its fast empty, its fun, and it tows ok. I kinda wish I had gone a little smaller or stuck with a stock stall converter. IMO, if you tow fast or tow with over 30psi of boost, you are going to break expensive stuff. The engines don't like being pulled that hard that long. If you want to build a toy truck, go for twins. If you want a race only truck, a big single or twins is ok. If you are trying to build a dedicated truck for some purpose, you need to define what that is. My goal was all around fun bun still good to tow. I am pushing about as big of a single as I would want to tow with at my altitude. At sea level the turbo is perfect. I have a smarty and don't plan on changing it. A quad would likely be better, but over a couple years I have a tune that works well. Studs, turbo, quad, injectors. Change your coolant every other year. Then rebuild your trans and rear end when you shell those.

I sent you what i thought it was then. Or mabe to Nick...

I watched it before heading to work. It appeared to me that there was a lot of people at both. Either way, there is no way of knowing for sure. The quantifiable TV ratings were the best since Reagan, but does attendance really matter anyway? The media is exhibiting a huge amount of furor over something so trivial. The media sucks. I didn't vote for Trump in the primary. I don't want to see continued rule by Executive Order and congressional gridlock. I prefer rule of law, small government, states rights etc. However, I am happy with Trumps appointments and the distinct lack of another radicalized progressive socialist in the Presidency. Go America, Go Trump.

Ill check today.

We should do that. Someday.

Possibly a nut to use to pull the old injectors with the valve cover bolt, but i have never needed a nut.