So I'm pretty sure I made up my mind in what I'm going to do with the truck. It needs a lot of body work and chassis work to pass safety. The brakes need to be completely replaced front and back, it needs new ball joints, tie rods, and shock absorbers. The sway bar links might as well be replaced while I'm at it. It needs a new power steering rack, The floor is rotten right where the e-brake cable enters the cab. The rockers have a couple holes, and one cab corner is rotten. The box is shot, and it needs new tires. No where near winter ready. So that being said, I believe I'm going to park the Dakota at a friends house for the winter, then come summer, start re-building it! In the mean time, I have a buddy who just bought an '02 Oldsmobile Alero with a 2.2L ecotech in it. He is willing to sell me it for whatever he is into it for. He has about $1,100 in it so far, so depending on if he fixes the windshield on it or not, I will get it for under $1,500 safetied. Then I will be saving tons of money on gas driving the Alero, it will be mechanically sound, and it will hopefully be reliable. It's got just under 196,000KM on it, and all I really need it for is to get to and from work. We will see what happens. But in no way am I getting rid of the Dakota again! I regretted that for too long lol

 

At least you found a good DD for the meantime. Once they get parked sometimes they stay for longer than you think. Hopefully your Dakota doesn't meet that fate.

Maybe each paycheck buy one part for the truck. One tie rod or one shock ect. Before you know it you'll be ready to rebuild it without spending a lot of cash all at once. And at one part at a time is cheep.

 

Yup, that's exactly what I was thinking. One part a cheque is the easiest thing for me to do at this point in time. If the body meets its final day from sitting too long, then I will be using it for a donor truck on the motor swap on the one I gave my gf and then I'll buy it back off her, or buy her the dream truck shes always wanted and get the old one back for free. Or just buy back the old truck off her and pull the body from it. But hopefully I keep the rebuild train on the move so that mine doesn't sit for too long. I don't want it to rot and become useless, I'm really liking it. Been using it with temporary insurance since I bought it. It's not the safest thing, but I've driven my fair share of crap trucks, and this one isn't nearly as bad as my worst experience. Goin to help do some more work on that Alero with my buddy today, and then we will see in the near future if it will be mine. He's still up in the air on if he wants to sell it or not tho. But fact of the matter is, I don't have the money or time to get the truck ready for winter, so she's gotta sit whether or not I get a new DD...

 

Glad that your not gonna sell it. I love mine.It took me a week to find the time to put my water pump in, and after driving it I fell in love all over again.It's good to see the 1st gen dakotas on the road. There are quite a few around here.Good luck and I hope all goes well with your Dakota.

 

If that Allero is an automatic, I'd be careful. There's no dipstick for the transmission, so they often get neglected and ruined.

 

This is the second Alero I will have owned. First one got rear ended. The guy I'm buyin the new one off of, bought my old one to fix. The transmission shifts nice and smooth, like new, but we did a filter kit, and fluid change anyway just to be sure. Also looked into the rack and pinion mounts as they are known to rot and make the car extremely unsafe. All in all, this Alero is a steal. In the end, I'm lookin at only payin $1,500 for a safetied, road ready Alero with the 2.2L. Not too extactic about the 4 cyl, but I need to save money. My buddy has actually thrown out the idea that I sell my 93 and keep a close eye out for a good deal on a second gen. He figures the 93 is too rusty and doesn't wanna help me work on it. I don't know tho, everythings up in the air. We will see next summer!

Another option is to pull the motor, trans and everything else needed and swap the motor into my gfs 93 v6, then sell the other one as a v6 and buy my second gen

I guess I haven't really made up my mind haha

 

plans have changed again..

A buddy I work with needed a new car that is good on gas and everything, sold I told my other buddy to sell that Alero to him. But with that being said, the buddy that was gunna sell me the Alero, found another Dakota for me for $500. With that being said, I'm using the '93 Sport for parts. My gf's needs new front brakes and an alternator, so I'm gunna use the ones out of the Sport to fix hers, and take the motor and everything else needed for the v8 swap on this $500 Dakota and scrap the Sport body. But not before I pull a chunk of rust off with paint on it so that I can paint my new one the same green.

The $500 Dakota has no rust on it, and needs nothing for a safety, so I feel it's a mighty good deal!

 

Well, the whole plan with the $500 truck, it ended up being sold on me. Whatever. I actually begun the slow rebuild of my truck. I got most of the body work done. Having a hard time remembering to take pics of my truck tho lol. Been so busy with all the other projects we got going right now. I will try to remember in the next couple days to take pics!