another newbie question: if i go down the steep snowy hill in the morning i assume i put it in 4wd. But when i get to a clear road i then put it back in 2wd right? And are there hub things I need to turn on these wheels?

 

yup, you could put it back if its not slippery and there should be a 4wd shifter on the floor in the cab.


~Mike~

 

In the dakotas and all newer trucks there is no hubs to lock. there is central axle disconnect but its all automatic. so just have fun and pull the 4wd lever and get where you need then put back into 2wd when its good.

 

not to take over ur thread but the inside of the intake looks wet when i open the flaps and i have poor gas mileage. So this would be the Intake plenum gasket that is bad? Exactly how mechanicly inclined doI have to be to fix it?

 

I have a 95 extended cab 4x4 5.2 L with cap myself. When I looked it up on KBB.com the private sale on it with 152k on it was 3600 2 years ago. I got mine for 2k. Two years later its got 172k on it. I really enjoyed the truck until I made the final payment on it 2 weeks ago. All of a sudden things started to go wrong. After a bunch of things went bad I started to do a little research on the 95 dakota. I wish I hadn't. This is what I read on the web so PLEASE People don't draw and quarter me for what I am about to write. I still like my truck. I am a mechanic by trade so these things that go wrong are no big deal to me. luckydodge did say he was not mechanically inclined so here goes.

1. 94 - 96 are notorious for chewing through lower ball joints and at $45 a piece that could get quite expensive if you have to pay garage labor rates. I agree with this cause I'm on my second set already.

2. 95 specific, In the summer time the fan clutch on the engine will not disengage thus killing horse power and placing excessive wear on the water pump. One article I read said that Dodge would replace the fan and clutch. I chose to go aftermarket electric fan setup so I don't ever have to hear that noisy fan again.

3. Experience with my truck (may be others too though I never had this problem with my Fords) If you don't use the 4WD often it kicks out of 4WD allot while in use.

4. One last thing you will want to look for. Try to go look at the truck after it rains and see if the passenger side floor is wet. This will be indicative of one of two things a) a leak around the windshiled or b) a leak on one of the roof seams.

These are a few of the things that I can remember right now. The Dakota is a great little truck don't get me wrong, these are just a few things that you may want to look at. Probably the most expensive of them all is the ball joints. The way to test for the lower ball joints is to jack up the taking all pressure off the front whell then with a crow bar stick it under the tire and try and lift up on the tire while looking at the ball joint. If you have any play at all, that joint needs to be replaced. Normally a backyrad mechanic can replace ball joints however a special ball joint press is required to do the job here. Advance Auto Parts rents one for about $159 that you gat back when you return it.

I hope this helps you out. Seeing as I too am a newb to this fourm I'm sure I am going to catch an ear full for this post but please gang be constructive. If I am wrong I will be the first to admit it. I have tried to check all my facts before I post. If I'm wrong I sincerely apologize.

 

playa sorry to hear about your gasket... I guess i'll have to bring my light to the test drive.

shadow i dont mind hearing the bad. I love to hear research. I knew before i bought my other car that the exhaust manifold bolts were garbage and you needed to replace them with grade 8s but here mine snapped before i did it and cost me a ton to have the heads taken off and them drilled out.

I can only hope the things you mentioned already went wrong and they fixed them and i do want to see the truck in the rain because the car i'm getting rid of had a water leak and it wasnt fun at all so i'm wary of them.

I guess the one 'good' thing is this will not be a daily driver so hopefully it will last a very long time in winters for me. I just will run it pretty often to ensure rust doesnt overtake everything (wish i had a 3rd bay in my garage lol) and take it for short sunday drives to keep it 'active.'

keep the bad stuff coming, i want to be forewarned

 

I snuck over this morning to look at the truck. Body looks good from this side. But have to put on lift of course. The gas door is hanging off side, dont know why they cant fix it. And tad rust inside that door. I saw they had a paper mat on right side...i got worried since you guys said to watch for windshield leak. It poured here last night.Tents collapsed, signs blown over...very bad. Well as luck has it, the door was open!

so i went and felt around the carpet and i felt what i just think was general humidity, nothing puddle like. But then i got to thinking maybe it all dried up since it's like 75 here all night.So I dont know. Would it dry that fast? And the water stains on the mat could have been from anything. It rained here 3 days solid last week and maybe they had test drive. But...did make me wonder why only a mat on the pass. side and not driver.

I got home and felt the carpet of my old car, which has leaked for years. And that was very noticeably wet. So maybe the truck is really dry and safe. I couldnt see in the bed well, tinted. Which is cool. And overall the cap had paint scrapes but no biggie

I didnt wanna open the hood, thought a guard may come out and shoot me lol. Oh and the tires are totally shot so they would have to come down in price of course.

 

i have a 94 dakota with the 3.9 in it ...in the snow it goes great i live in vermont so ik what you mean with the snow i have driven mine threw 2 feet o snow and it is stock! i has winterforce tires on it and they work great p.s there wan't any real weight in the back


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wow, i just checked and they reduced that pickup that i was looking at by 1100 bucks down to 2900.

So am I lucky or do i have something to worry about that they reduced it so drastically?

edit..drove over, it's gone...someone must have liked it

 

Drive by again and make sure its gone. For 2900 doesn't sound too bad.