The_Jackale

Thank you for the reply. Going to get the lines cracked. Did you just go back with stock injectors? I really do not care about power gains, just long term reliability. This may be the reason I am seeing 12 to 13 mpg... I also noticed I have white smoke/steam coming out of my oil cap now. So I may be doing a compression test soon.

I have a slight knock/ping to my motor that has slowly developed. Fuel pressure is 16 at idle, 19 running down the road. Slight black smoke at throttle increase from idle. Noise can be heard bouncing off structures. Not really feeling a power decrease. Uploading a video. It sounds like an injector but quieter than any videos I have seen/heard. Going to crack the injectors unless you guys think of something else to stop me. Going to be taking the truck on a 600 mile trip soon. 20200629_205502.mp4

I know that feeling for owning something rather than stuck in payments. For the same truck I have off the lot is a minimum of 7 grand. I'd rather it nickle and dime me to death knowing my mom is going into my pocket rather than the banks. You have almost a brand new truck!! When I do the cab swap I'm also doing all the electrical and making my dream truck, not a very big dream, I just want auto head lights, gps nav. Seat wamers, working cruise, auto start. Just some above stock features. I told my mom Id rather slowly put 45k into this than walk off the lot with a truck I can't even program. I learned how to work on all my stuff through forums 15 years ago after my dad passed away, he taught me a lot, but I wasn't old enough. Whats the ccv mod? Im running 275/70/18s for wheels, I wouldn't go any bigger, but I may have a spare sent during hunting and fishing season for mud tires. 90% of my driving is pavement, but I went 4x4 because I like to go camping and I've got my old Dodge 1 wheel peel stuck over 10x and in less than an inch of mud. Your post also made my wallet run and hide. Haha. I'm ordering ball joints this week.......what A pain. Thinking Napa.

I have all new TREs, new track bar (600 miles). I lifted the truck last night and my passenger side upper is toasted its 2x as bad as it was 600 miles ago. Ive also had 3 trips with 2 yards of soil in the back, and over 1500 lbs of bricks. Looks like I'm also needing rotors soon. And I have a U-Joint that I can't hear clicking over the motor, but I'm sure its clicking, its loose. Going to have some fun on the press I reckon. All these components I believe were original oem, the trucks only had a couple owners. 243k now on the clock. Ill be pushing 270k by next year. I've always owned gas rigs, I only paid 3800 for the truck, I'm at 5200 now with parts, another 1k In the front end is going to have the frame solid, looking for a donor truck for a cab. The rust on this one was a lot deeper than I thought. I can pick up a gas truck in my area for 1k running with 180k miles or so, diesels are 9k to 15k. And usually logging trucks or farm and beat. The truck was a death trap when I got it. Was all over the road. It was the most insane 55 mph roller coaster ride down the freeway that I have ever been on. Its well over 80% better than it was. Im looking at front bearings, rotor hubs(I think?) Pads, two Ujoints, 4 ball joints, 4 shocks, steering dampener that works on T style. It also has wheel spacers and the 2015 dodge 18s on there, which might be causing trouble also. 275/70/18 tires, inner fronts are bald. Looking at 1k for tires but the rears are fine, I may just do the fronts. The truck was a death trap when I got it. Was all over the road. It was the most insane 55 mph roller coaster ride down the freeway that I have ever been on. Its well over 80% better than it was. Im looking at front bearings, rotor hubs(I think?) Pads, two Ujoints, 4 ball joints, 4 shocks, steering dampener that works on T style. It also has wheel spacers and the 2015 dodge 18s on there, which might be causing trouble also. 275/70/18 tires, inner fronts are bald. Looking at 1k for tires but the rears are fine, I may just do the fronts.

So far, all new tierods, track bar, new bushings for the sway bar, it almost feels like the steering is okay (just slack from the box and possibly the shaft) Im almost wondering if my wheel is bouncing up and down like a damn basketball due to a really bad shock. I have a very very tiny bit of play in 1 ball joint, so those will be going on the list. Another note, I have no front cab mounts (windshield is also cracked due to body drop) looking for a cab to swap.

I'm back! Ran into some financial troubles and couldn't pay the membership haha. The truck now has T steering. Still having issues, body mounts, shocks, still feels like the tires are not tight enough together. And I of course somehow moved my steering looking for a donor truck because the more I got into the rust issues with this cab, the worse it got. Pitch welds are expanded beyond "easy" repair. Front end is still wobbling and jumping around on me. Nothing is actually "loose" that I can see or feel. My next project is getting this thing jacked all the way up and dropping the suspension down to feel it without load.

I wish, no. 1400 in steering, brakes, maintenance items. I just bought the truck so I'm replacing all the broken/warn out items. Working on finding the correct parking brake cables right now...

I'm doing the HD steering. No damper, then adding in the steering stabilizer. Which looks like I can just use the one meant for the truck I have 1400 worth of parts to order this week. Next weekend will be fun! I have to adjust the steering box play and order the bushing I think.

That's the part that is confusing me! We just found out my buddies 95 has the dampener in the same spot as mine, then another 97 i just ran into had double ones on the axle. Are there two different y type steering setups? And the 3rd with double dampeners on it would be a lifted HD version for bigger tires? so technically 3 on these trucks? I guess Ive never really got into steering as much as I thought not working on trucks and mostly cars all my life.

So I went to order parts....but I went out to look and my dampener is flipped up and it doesn't look like any photos. Its been a long week so maybe Im just tired. But is this a 3rd gen setup under this truck???

I have to redo mine, they look stock with 241k miles, since I just bought the truck I've search high and wide to see which ones are the best bang for the buck. And yes, crap shoot is the term that best suits. Rockauto seems to be the best to get them, but they have two types that will be sent out, one is good, the other is not as good. Napa over charges for the same ones, moog has changed theres from like 5 years ago, and they are not as good as the old ones unless of course you get the old stock, which is unlikely. This is just what I've come across for info in the past 2 weeks.

Debated, but its not bad enough for the month it would take me to swap them. Maybe if I slowly gather the materials for a 98.5 to 2001 swap with suicide rear doors id do it. But I think the mounts are different Maybe after 1997 then. The 1997 had them. I have one on the passenger side. But the bed is rotted out on the drivers side. Going to tackle that when its not raining and do some patch panels spot welded for a temp fix.

Looking up into the sky through my bed! Driver and passenger side front mounts are bad, centers are cracked, rears are fine. And this is a reason why you should not take off your inner fender liner.

So I have finally brought my truck home a couple days ago, its taken almost 2 weeks since I have bought the truck!!! I have a list to follow and repair items, junk yard items to look for ect. Today Im starting off with the Drivers side door latch, THIS IS THE WORST I'VE SEEN. and yes that would be JB weld. WHY? No idea, but I can confirm it will not fix this apparently. I also have rust at the base of the seats, it looks like the vapor barrier was off the drivers side door for a long time. The panel was not attached when I got the truck, and the previous owner said he did not remove the barrier. So of course the drivers side has rust and water damage under the carpet, down below the cab mounts in the front are gone, going to be working on a way to lift the cab about 4 inches up to weld new ones in. The bed has a tennis ball size hole by the wheel, they had removed the inner fender that projected it. So today we are taking advantage of the sale at pick n' pull to grab a list of parts from the gassers that are in there. Hopefully get a door I can cut apart and weld into mine without changing the color. Im going to measure the thickness of the floor and see if I can save it, but I think long term its going to have to be cut out. I try not to patch over rust, I'm not the best welder, but the Hobart 140 works okay with gas. And I have plenty of grinding and sanding discs. Cannot wait to get this thing on the road. I have not posted because there's been no need due to the amazing search feature. So I figured I would do update threads instead since all my questions are already answered.

Looking at the package deals. I have not fully inspected it yet. I am looking where I can post a thread of the restoration of this rig and do a massive photo shoot with all the issues. Lol. Just wait for the photo of the door......

Dedication and perseverance! Thanks! Going over about 140 pages of info on here for the steering :'(

We made it back out with the 1995 Cummins (Hildi) and we stopped at the Orileys dist. Center on the way and picked up a ESS. Priced out ball joints (they are really bad!!!!) They had 1 ESS in stock. It was meant to be. We started by checking the harness, I found 2 wires that were cracked and arching(they were touching with the jacket blackened a bit) by the bend on the block, they were just a tiny bit melted, just enough for the wires to touch, i think this took out the sensor some how. I put the loom back together and fired it up. No tach, no speedometer, no check engine, water in fuel, ect. So no pcm function. Unplugged the speed sensor and I gained back the speedometer, and lights. So I went to work cutting off half my hands with the sawzall so they would fit in between the sensor and fan. I brought mostly standard tools, of course the nuts and bolts were metric.....replaced the sensor using a cigarette pack to set the gap. Fired up the truck, the tach was working, i didn't even test drive it, threw all the tools in the back, said goodbye to my brother and hit the road! Had to be back 85 miles away through Seattle to see my wife at the hospital. The drive back was white knuckle. The steering in this thing takes a champion driver with 3 world cups to drive. It was all over the road. 55 mph all the way back, and 63ish in the 70 zones on the straight aways. At one point we had about 5 Dodges back to back with their engines roaring down the freeway. We made it all the way back, I pulled in at around 930 waking the neighborhood up with the 4inch straight pipped exhaust (this thing needs to be quieted down!!) So today I'm going to be jacking up the front and making a parts list of all the needed suspension and steering components, bushings ect. I know I'm new to the forum, I try and include the issues, what fixed it, I've seen this on the forums already, but every truck that might have the same issue internally might have a different fix. So I like to post it again so others can find it easier and hopefully track down the issue quicker.

Update. Im headed out in a bit, to the truck to trace wires, printed what I needed. Also picking up a new multi meter since I dropped and broke mine last night. This site is great for info, thanks for having an awesome community.

Major reason I need a truck, I haul a lot of scrap 2x6 pallets to build furniture it looks a lot nicer in the summer, trust me @winter-yard-art. Im also getting a car hauler and a smaller tractor to work on the side with. Shops actually cleaner inside, tracking down a speed sensor, dodge wants 350, but its 4 days out. Napa 180, autozone idiots say its 22, i said thats the gas variant, they told me THEY ARE THE SAME!! No. Im sorry to hear about that, I read some other posts. Hopefully everything is getting better. I also read down below on the main page, herbal supplements. I started laughing because I use Braggs to manage my diet, otherwise I'd be over 300lbs with a face full of junk food.

I hate that I can never clean up before starting a new project. The wife always yells at me for cleaning the shop too much, well......no one else is going to clean it! She says: I don't understand how a person and clean so much, and for so long and never have it finished. No sense in the arguing, but when you so many hobbies you just end up buried haha

You are my people!!! Not at all.. I have a terrible sense of dark humor. Soooo. Not a worry.

Hi guys, I bought a broken truck! Now Im also fairly good at testing electrical components which is the only reason I laid down 3800 bucks on a 241k mile Truck. Oh and Diesels sound sexy :D and will pull my future projects easily. So I didn't have much time to figure out the issue on it. But the symptoms are, No tach, no speedometer, no lights(wait to start, check engine ect) and the trans was said to be in 2nd, topping out at 30 to 35. And also the coolant temp was not working (but I think that is on a different line electrical circuit, will confirm). Im going to buy a new coolant sensor just in case that one is bad, because I thought it was a direct connection (sensor to cluster) Just for fun on the test drive, I left the the crankshaft position sensor unplugged from the front of the motor and The speedometer was working, wait to start was working and the trans felt like it went to 3rd but no over drive (because no tach) Safe to say that the sensor I unplugged was bad? It had continuity across pins 1 & 2, but not reversed, i figured a good one should have continuity across both sides. Also my meter fell and broke (new age crapsman) so I was not able to continue to test last night once I parked the truck at my brothers. Now to get this sensor, napa has it for 180, but its two days out, dealer is 350 and 4 days out. Edit. Ordered 2 sensors, one from amazon, one from napa. Im curious if the 23 dollar ones works! Its not the gas one either.

I picked up the truck and moved it 25 minutes to my brothers house. 3800 with 241k miles, new injection pump, alt, fss, 4 inch exhaust, filter, and wait......trans..he put 5 grand into the trans 10k miles ago Thank you guys for the warm welcome. I miss being on sites like these. Tomarrow is the big day I get to go rescue the truck for the 2nd time. Im going to post on the 2nd Gen forums, the best I can on a phone for the limp mode issue it has. Its a common the common one where no tach, no speedometer, no wait to start. Ect.

Is this sorta what you are building.