Asi laydying..your doors look really slick with the decals removed. Truck looks awesome. When you removed the decals did you have any ghosting or shadows left on the paint? If so how did you get rid of it? Or does it take a few days in the sun and it bleaches out on its own? I might remove my own door decals soon if I could get it as clean as yours.

Jimmy

 

01Silvercc. do you think you could a post of how to do this or point me in a direction of a post already been done on this. if it does not cost alot and it is pretty easy i may consider doing this. I hate that D*** pinging noise, that is what my dad told me that it was i am glad that i found the colporate.

 

It's easy. Get the "Super Stat" 180 degree thermostat from Napa, part #530080 and a new gasket. The thermostat cost me $8.69, a dollar or 2 for the gasket and you will need a tube of Permatex or similar water pump/thermostat gasket sealant. Make sure it is specifically made for water pumps and thermostats. It sets up quick and is made to work with antifreeze. I bought a big tube for a few bucks, but they should have a small one-time use packet on the counter for a dollar or so.

Do this with the engine dead cold and it will be a lot easier. It's kind of hard to get to the tstat on the engine. I removed my alternator to get better access to it. You will need to do that to be able to get a scraper down in the tstat location to remove the old gasket material. Disconnect the battery negative cable or you could see some interesting sparks.. Remove the alternator, remove the bolts for the tstat and pull it and the tstat housing and its long connecting tube up out of there with the radiator hose still attached. Have a drain pan or bucket handy to catch the little bit of coolant you will spill. I used a long piece of wire to hold the housing and hose out of the way. Some have said it helps just to leave the housing attached to the radiator hose so you don't warp it trying to remove it from the hose.

Then remove the old tstat and scrape all the old gasket material off the tstat hole on top of the manifold and the bottom of the housing. To really get the surfaces clean I used laquer thinner on a shop rag after I was done scraping. There really wasn't much scraping to be done anyway, most of the old gasket sealant came off in a few big pieces. Be sure to stuff a shop rag down in the tstat hole so no gasket material or dirt, whatever gets in the intake. Put the new tstat in the hole with the spring going down into the hole, coat the new gasket with sealant on both sides and stick it to the bottom of the housing flange and put a bolt through one of the holes and kind of drop it down in place. Start the one bolt, leave it loose till you get the other one started and then tighten them down, snug then a little tighter but not too tight or you will crush the gasket. Reinstall the alternator, serpentine belt and negative battery cable then give it 30 minutes or so for the sealant to set up. Then you can run the engine with the radiator cap off and heater on high so the tstat will open when it gets to 180 degrees. Then you can add coolant to bring it back the right level. Keep adding it till the level of coolant is just below the radiator cap fill neck and you can't get it to take any more. I used the Advance Auto Parts brand 50/50 pre-mixed coolant. Only cost a few bucks for a gallon. I only had to add maybe 2 cups of coolant to bring it back up to the right level. Then just put the radiator cap back on and check everything real well for leaks with the engine running. A good bright flashlight helps with that.

While you have the tstat and housing removed, take a good look at the coolant temperature sensor sending unit. It's the little black rectangular shaped part mounted in the manifold right next to the tstat. On mine I found the plastic housing on it was completely cracked in two and I could just lift the element right up out of the brass body of the sensor. A new one cost me about $15 at Advance. I did mine on a Sunday evening and Napa was closed. Anyway check it and if you need to replace it get some of the paste-type thread sealer for it. Teflon tape makes it too hard to screw the new one in and it's brass so is very soft metal and you don't want to mess it up. A flare-nut wrench helps with the reinstallation too.

Make sure the PCV valve is working OK. Even if it still rattles whan you shake it, a new one is only a few bucks. A clogged PCV will also cause ping. After that just drive the truck, and you will notice the temperature gauge does not go quite so far up at normal operating temperature. What the 180 tstat does is trick the PCM into thinking the truck is not completely warmed up yet so the PCM adds a little more fuel to the air/fuel mix and advances the timing just a little. This makes it impossible for the pinging preignition condtion to happen. You may notice a little more power on the butt-dyno too. Even Dodge themselves have said the 3.9 is more efficient and makes better power at 182 degrees. They used a 195 tstat to pass emissions regulations.

It also helps to use the Autolite 3923 copper spark plugs. The 3923 is one heat range cooler than the stock plugs, further reducing the preignition. I tried a lot of different things and 4 different kinds of spark plugs, and some different fuel treatments and combustion cleaners to try to get rid of the ping. Not to disparage their product but Sea Foam did not work at all. The best in-the-tank cleaner I have found for my truck is Gumout Regane. I use the Regane Fuel System Cleaner that is in the clear bottle, not the fuel injection cleaner in the silver bottle. There is a difference in the 2 products. Regane has a higher PEA concentration and it really does work. The majority of the other fuel treatments out there are mostly kerosene and don't do much good. I am not a fan of miracle cures in a bottle but I run a bottle of Regane at every oil change. It helps keep the combustion chambers, valves and injectors clean, which cuts down on carbonization in the cylinders, which is another cause of ping. Before I changed the tstat out though I paid a local tire shop to do their fuel induction service. It forces a combustion chamber cleaner into the manifold with shop air pressure. I know it cleaned my engine very well, it blew a big cloud of white smoke out the tail pipe for half a mile on the test drive afterwards. BG and Ever Wear are 2 of the induction cleaners that work. I had the Ever Wear one done at Tires Plus. I think it was $69.95 with a coupon from their web site. You don't have to get it done to see the benefits from the 180 tstat but I know it helps. Using the Napa distributor cap and rotor button with brass contacts and good plug wires also helps performance and MPG. Get a V-8 throttle body from a junk yard and that will help the truck run stronger too. If you get a V8 TB get the matching throttle cable from the donor vehicle and it will save a lot of headaches. Run a good quality gas to help keep everything clean and that will help too. You can run 89 or 93 octane to stop ping, but not at today's gas prices. My truck runs real strong and has not one bit of ping, and always runs on 87 octane.

Hope this helps.

Jimmy

 

exhaust, modded intake box, hurst shifter, stereo and speakers, homemade grill inserts, clear corners (now i need a driver side headlight cuz its full of water and a passenger side fog light its full of water, so next summer im replacing headlights, corners and fogs with the nicest looking stuff i can find and its all getting cleared before it goes on), smoked tails and third brake light, bed cover, some forum stickers and a sticker for my school lol, and my newest mod that will be on as soon as it arrives a superchips max microtuner.

 

Thanks that is exactly what i needed. it was very descriptive. i will definately have to do that. sorry but one more question people keep saying some of the autolite spark plugs are temp lower what does this do to add performance or make the truck run better. thanks again.

 

YW. Glad to be able to help. The "one range cooler" on the 3923 plugs means the electrode end is just a tad shorter and doesn't quite stick into the combustion chamber as far as the factory plug or their equivalent. With the spark kernel further away from the fuel in the chamber there is less time for the preignition to occur. The 3.9 runs very well on copper plugs like the 3923. I don't really know why, it has something to do with the physical reaction of the temperature of the plug and the design of the combustion chambers. It's one of the mysterious things that maybe some one who knows more about engines may be able to tell us. As far as adding power, I guess it's personal perception. I've had 2 Dakota's, both with the 3.9 and run 3923's in both with no problems. But Platinum, Iridium, whatever "better" plug which means "more expensive" in my book, are not really required for a stock 3.9, if you ask me.

Jimmy

 

i have mostly done low cost add ons and maintainance...

180 degree t-stat...noticed less pinging and overall better running and took me 15 minutes to do, well worth the 5 bucks

homemade intake...noticed a little more power

tried the 3923 plugs and it ran worse so i went back to the stock plugs

glass pack muffler

tonneau...getting about 2 mpg better with it

CB radio, speakers, vent shades...

have done a cooling system flush myself, changed most of the fluids, i maintain it as well as i can...no area has not been looked at

 

Yes there is some ghosting. However, I never notice it. If i'm really looking for it i can see it but never from a distance and usually only in twilight. the truck was well taken care of by the previous owner and kept in a garage. it kept the paint nice and red. wax the truck to minimize.
I saw a dodge in glenville, indiana that just had the sport and "da" removed so it read "KOTA"
didn't look bad, but not for me!

 

I removed the decals on my 97 2wd sport dak w/ 3.9. I used the hair dryer and a spatula from the kitchen, don’t use too much force. Then I cleaned any residue with rubbing alcohol. It was like they were never there. No ghosting. Luck for me my 04 QC had all the badges removed when I got it.