Hey everyone. My name is Bobby V and I bought a 2001 Ram 1500 4x4 over the summer. It is an extended cab with an automatic and the 5.2 v8. The truck is pretty bare bones work truck. Vinyl floors, crank windows, mechanical everything, it’s exactly what I wanted in my weekend truck. I bought it from an older gentleman who bought it new in 01. His initial plans were to buy a boat and tow it with the truck. Well the boat never happened so the truck was used mostly for Home Depot trips and moving furniture. In the last year the gentleman’s eyesight has started failing which led to several accidents parking and he decided it was time to sell. When I got it had 92k miles, a broken headlight, bent up front and rear bumpers and scratches and dings everywhere. I put it on a lift at my brothers shop and found the suspension was in good shape and mechanically nothing major wrong. After replacing a bad turn signal socket, an oil change, a new air filter, and an alignment, I put it to work helping me remodel my home. Now that it’s winter and the projects are on pause til the spring I’d like to turn my attention to getting some work done on the truck. My goals are mostly to just keep this truck on the road and as reliable as possible. I don’t plan on towing or hot rodding this truck, but if there are some worthy upgrades to be made that won’t sacrifice reliability I’m down to do the work. Here’s some photos of when I got it:

Here she is as soon as I brought her home.

Here’s the mangled front bumper.

After a quick wash the paints ok, some scratches and big dent on the front fender.

Rest of the truck. Not as bad, but definitely plan on replacing the bumper and doing something with the trailer harness

One small dent in the rear cab corner. Not too worried about.

Interior is very clean and very basic. Dash is shot but the mat keeps it out of sight for now.

Just more the same inside here

 

Before any real work I washed the truck up and hit the wheels with some oven cleaner and an SOS pad. Can’t believe how nice they turned out.

Before cleaning

After cleaning

 

I started with the front bumper first as my wife couldn’t stand looking at it.

As luck would have itt my neighbor had a spare bumper he traded to me for a case of beer. Here it is with my license plate added. Looks like I get to add fog lights to the truck

After lots of wrestling I got the front bumper off.

I couldn’t stand the anemic headlights so I decided to do the sport conversion. Here’s the original output. My camera doesn’t do it justice but it’s very hard to see on dark roads.

Out with the old.

I got a set of depot headlights sylvania silver star bulbs and a conversion harness.

Already looking better

Pictures off my phone don’t do it justice but holy cow! It’s amazing the difference.

Here’s a little more illumination from the start of my driveway.

I got the bumper on and sitting where I like it. The wife is happy as I no longer have the junkiest truck on the street. Doing this really showed me how bent the grill was, I have a large gap between the grill and bumper. Add it to the list. I’d say the front end project is mostly done for now. I plan on buying the ce auto relay harness. After having the harness melt on my brothers 91 d350, it’s cheap insurance to me. I’m on the lookout for a fog light harness and switch to make these lights work and plan to tackling it at the same time as the relay harness.

 

Wow. Nice work! There is also a relay harness available, that takes most of the load off of the headlight switch itself, as they are notorious for getting hot, and melting...... You might have to do some shuffling on one, since you did the sport conversion.

I DO like the light output there. Wish I had though of that when I replaced the headlights on my 98.

 

Looks like a great find. Really not to much these need, wouldn't hurt to check out the intake pan gasket, they love to fail. Just shine a light down the throttle body and see if there's oil sitting in there. If not you should be ok for a while. If its starts burning oil, first place to check.

Not to be to critical but is that a sport conversion or just a clear lense headlight? Its great upgrade. In my opinion a clear lense headlight is better then the sport upgrade (less wiring hassle with mildly similar results). The true sport conversion is a quad beam setup, I only see a single bulb in each light, pictures can fool though.

 

Thanks! I helped my brother put the LMC harness in his ram. I wasn’t too impressed with the kit but you get what you pay for. I talked with Daniel Stern and he doesn’t seem too enthusiastic that his harness will work with my truck and offers no refund if it doesn’t. I have then talked to CE Auto about his harness and while more, it has a refund if it won’t work and I get both the inner and outer bulbs on at the same time for low and high beam, very slick. Has anyone had experience with this harness? It looks like the winner to me.

 

Thanks for the look. The plenum is on the list I’m compiling of maintenance to do just to be safe, I’ll probably have a list of my work to do posted later today, let me know what you think.

As for the headlights they are depot sport headlights. To get them to work temporarily I bought a conversion harness that makes the outer 9007 bulbs run on low beam and the inner 9004 bulbs run on high beam. I’m the photos I posted I believe it’s on low beam so you would be correct only 1 bulb per side is on. My ultimate goal is the ce auto relay harness so I get all 4 bulbs on for low and high.

 

I have the LMC harness in mine, and it works. Light output is MUCH better, but, that is from a combination of new housings, bulbs, and the harness. MAJOR difference from when I bought it. I *think* there is a thread in the FAQ/DIY section that has wiring diagrams to set it up so the switch just controls relays..... Doing your own harness will likely end up being cheaper, and you can use higher quality components, and heavier gauge wire. (more light output. )

 

Thanks HeyYou. Looks like I got some more research to do before I pull the trigger on anything.

 

guess my eye fail me I could not see the second bulb. Maybe this is what your referring to but Genos Garage (and maybe others) sells a bright box. I believe that runs both low and high beams on high, and can also offer fogs on high I believe. Genos is primarily a Dodge Cummins website but they're great for lots of chassis/body components for dodge

I appreciate the heads up on the relay harness too, I found one on eBay for 9004 bulbs. All other modifications aside, to solely make the relay harness work with the sport headlights. They sell sport harness conversion kits on ebay? use that with a 9004 harness? I mean a quick google tons of people are offering these.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/38358282793...3ABFBM3J-cqKdh