That Guy

Those might not be the only partially melted wires in the harness. Speakers could be bad wires, connections, or head unit. In this case wires or connection make more sense.

They will, both alloy and steelie.

Jack up trans a little, take bolts of crossmember out, rubber mallet and knock it loose then slide one side back and it will drop out from between the frame rails.

Looking at this, it looks like the central timer module.

I thought that green plug was windshield wipers or the BCM, maybe radio? The dash isn't that hard to get out, an extra set of hands helps. It is cumbersome. It is a lot harder with the seats in the truck.

@Mopar1973Man What do you do with your pop out to keep is pristine? I have heard soooo many horror stories about failed components, weak walls, and leaks.

That's not bad at all. I was picturing them being just above the gauge cluster.

I am wary of china bombs. Neighbor has a gooseneck 6yd dump, I was getting a load of gravel after driving ~40 miles there, guy dumps the bucket and I hear a bang. The tire just completely blew with the weight. The other three were fine and all had been replaced within the last year or so. The loader said the in cab scale said about 5500lbs. This is the same neighbor with the Keystone. He had a blowout that tore up the side something fierce and also broke some wires..... and the propane line to the water heater. Older friend of mine (81 now) had a very nice mint condition 85 Pace Arrow Class A. Always parked under a carport and even had the tire blankets to prevent uv damage. I wish I would have bought it. Man was impeccable with maintenance. Had a very cool mural of a P51 on the side with the pilot starring eye level with truckers, got several comments over the CB about it. The whole paint scheme was like that, all sky colors, not the various tones of brown typical at the time. Picture an old disco van with bubble windows, but less psychedelic.

Probably 30-40' or so. It would need to sleep 4 adults in reasonable comfort. Price limit of about the mid double digits, but less is better. Layout isn't that big of a factor. Neighbor has a ~40' keystone 5'er. Not particularly impressed by it quality wise. A friend bought a newer 20' ultra lite. Already had issues within 2 months of ownership. Also not impressed by the quality. All the ones I have l personally seen at the local camping world look amazing but feel like they are made out of the absolute cheapest materials.

So the family is wanting to get an RV, I have only ever heard generic advice or read articles from places trying to sell me things. So a list of my concerns and thoughts... Pop outs. I have heard to avoid like the plague and I have heard that they can be decent. Other that slide grease, how does one prevent leaks? Are they worth the trouble? Maintenance of seals? I'm leaning towards a 5'er, but self propelled and bumper pull are not out of the question. I would like the option to double tow if it isn't self propelled. Maybe an airstream? They seem to hold up for a long time and are built a lot like a rail car from what I have seen. Am I wrong? I read on here something about condensation and the thin vs thick walls. In Louisiana, condensation issues simply are not an option. It drops below dew point almost nightly and average humidity tends to be between 60 and 70% frequently going into the 90's and 50's. I know many people can get lazy with maintenance and leaks are far more common than they should be. I am inclined to walk away from anything that has had any leaks at all regardless of size. I'm guessing that is the smart stance? My mother and father had a 28' park model back in the 80's when they worked construction before children. We are leaning to another park model or 'destination' model as I've heard them called. Length/weight are not a huge concern so long as it stays below about 16k. Any answers or insight to those is appreciated. Tell me if I am being a complete maroon about some things. I've never had first hand experience with one. I found the checklist that someone posted on here, that will be handy.

I thought about on dash gauges. Never sat well with me. Im 5'11" and that would eat up some of my foreground I think.

Unpredictable is an automatic locker. You are going up a steep switchback road on the side of a mountain in a truck with nothing in the bed in a light drizzle, start to slip a little... next thing you feel a clunk, and then you are sideways. Luckily you were only doing 15-20 mph. I'll take a limited slip before an automatic locker... road manners are much more predictable, everything being relative. But, I think the torsen style may be the best of both worlds. The guy in the video said that if you apply the brake a little it will give enough torque to lock up the torsen and away you go. In the name of selectable lockers.... I had my hands on a 6x6 Pinzgauer. Had all hydraulic controls for the lockers and transfer case. Thing would walk through anything, and portals meant it would clear most anything too.

Sold me, except, many of us are running factory limited slips that still function with several hundred thousand on the clock. Maybe he is referring to 20,000 off road miles?

Kinda hard to find those for dodges. Ford and Chevy guys seem to love them. Best I can tell, they have tabs that hang on like a garage door remote, except around the headliner rather than the visor. It is Autometer. They have a very good reputation and are synonymous with racing. Everything I have touched that has be made by them is good stuff. Point being, it is likely to be easily installed by joe blow with basic hand tools. No removal of and major interior bits from what I can tell. Closest I can find where someone documented the install in any detail whatsoever. Spoiler, its a square body Ford. https://www.nickpisca.com/diesel/fuel-system/new-overhead-gauge-pod/ This reads like a page out of a Haynes manual. Just enough to get you started, but vague enough to leave you scratching your head. https://www.americantrucks.com/auto-meter-overhead-console-gauge-pod-dual-21-16-0308-ram-1500-manu-install-r102908.html I think I want to do this in the 2012 once it gets registered in Louisiana and doesn't have inspections... I don't want to move the grab handle so above the mirror seems like a good spot.

Studs are in the future plans. I torqued to ~135 ft lbs this trip through, so far, its holding up fine, granted there's only 9 miles on it since.

I believe the ID is 3/4. I have 5/8ths hose that will just barely fit in the stock one on the block. As far as where to put it, I can't help there.

I have experienced the front axle load of the Cummins more that once. It will instantly sink to the axle/frame given the chance. Last time I was on scales, F~4300, R~3000. Narrow tires do indeed bite harder.

My powerlock/traclock works quite well (I forget which it these came with). It makes a huge difference. It is no fun being stuck is the grass because you backed up one foot off the pavement. Eaton stuff in general is fantastic and very high quality. My chevy has an old Eaton LSD and I couldn't be happier. No issues in chatter/hopping in sharp turns, and it has gone places I didn't think a 2wd was capable of. As for splines, I couldn't say. You may also consider a locker, either manual or automatic depending on just how much you go through. Locker>LSD in nasty stuff. The automatic lockers are built with more speed differential in mind before they bite owing to being on/off, where as the LSD will ease in and out with very little slip without notice since even when 'locked' they still allow for some differential.

My first question.... what are they doing about the efficiency of losing ~20% of power each way? It is bound to be a brushless 3ph motor, owing to the 3 wires, which means thats an inverter box. Looks a lot like my prius drivetrain bolted to a turbo. It's great for traffic (I have gotten 75+mpg in city) but is not great for highway(45-55mpg). It is more efficient to just not have the hybrid system, but the ability to store otherwise wasted heat energy makes up for it in intermittent power situations. On the highway, it's just extra weight. EMD built their later 2 strokes with a turbo that was driven off of the accessory drive of the engine. It has a clutch that disengages after notch 5(iirc) and allows it to spin free. Acts like a supercharger for starting and through lower power. Allowed them to get rid of the supercharger/blower all together. It was a very reliable system that didn't need servicing any more frequently than the rest of the engine. It was more economical and had higher total power.... win win. Seems like that would be the way I would go as an engineer

Well gents, about 3 months ago I replaced the O-rings on the dv holders and it hasn't quite run right since. I suspect that it is somehow sucking air or leaking fuel into the crank case. They are very simple injection pumps and I, for the life of me, cannot figure out where I went wrong. If anyone here has an idea or has worked on these, I'm all ears. It runs well at WOT against the gov, but the idle acts like it drops a cylinder. If you engage the blades too quickly, it will bog down and stay there or die. Can be hard to start sometimes. I rotated the barrels to max fuel and the issue is somewhat better but still not normal. It ran fine before I replaced the O-rings but just poured fuel out of the top in between the pump body and the DV's.

I'm fairly certain I saw that in an Andy Griffith episode.

Few dollars to digikey will have a new one pretty quickly, just need the numbers off of it. My last order was like $15 for a small bag full of capacitors and 2 1w LED chips. Me won't touch it? You would really need a hot air soldering gun. The iron will work in a pinch, but makes life hard. My mother has started to go blue/grey color blind (one of the reasons she retired) and won't do any repair unless it is big components or house wiring. She had several pairs of magnifying spectacles.

Sounds like a mosfet has gone. Little black 8 pin square about 5/16" square. Hard to tell on the blurry picture. Simple enough to test on the board with a multimeter.

I love board level repair, unfortunately, you are HIGHLY unlikely to find a shop that is willing to actually work on it. My mother worked in radio shop in Debutts Yard for Norfolk Southern for 22 years, retired about 2 years ago. She made sure I was capable of fixing a circuit board. Father was the one designing the boards that she fixed. Out of curiosity, what model of Asus is it? Surely you have some small screwdrivers and torx stuff lying around. Unplug/remove batt, pop the case open and look for burnt chips or loose connections. If that's not your style, I'd be willing to have a look and see if it is something simple, have to ship it. Even if it is something like a board, you can find them online. I have my 4th monitor (I ran 2 pairs of matched monitors on my desktop) in pieces sitting at the house in Chattanooga waiting on me to replace the surface mount caps(they can go bad too apparently). My little laptop that I use currently had bad subwoofers, assuming you can call something that is 10mm x 25mm a subwoofer. I didn't want to pay $50 so I sourced some more of that size, popped the boxes open, a few tiny dabs of super glue and $3 including shipping later, I had non crackling speakers. And it is one of those tiny 13" ultraportables that I bought for school.

In the 2012, I have eased onto the clutch too slowly in 5 th and slipped it a little. In the '97, doing 75 on the interstate I floored it in 5th and felt it slip. I smelled it when I got stuck on a 30° slope in the mud. It took wide open in fourth gear to get out of the mud. Never with a load oddly enough. I was at a stop light and a single axle day cab was next to me. Guy took off in a huge cloud of smoke from the clutch area. I'm not sure if it was one of those automated transmissions or bad driver..... or both.