Went out and bought a set of wheels off of an '03 Ram, not really thinking that they changed the hub design on the newer trucks Took my wheel off of the front and went to put the newer one on... center cap pops of and lands at my feet and I quickly realize 'this isn't going to work' Now I am having to try to rethink my options as I already bought the wheels (very good looking 17's btw) and cannot bolt them up for the sake of the diameter of the hub right there against the front rotors... Very discouraging, but have thought about something like the 1 1/2 inch wheel spacers (type that bolt on) to solve the fitment issue. I am also fairly sure that they changed the offset a bit on the newer trucks as they do not seem to set quite as far out on the rear when bolted up like the factory wheels do, almost sit in too far I suppose, so it may not make them stick out or sit any differently than my 16's sit now. Anyone think of any reason to not use spacers in a position like that??? It is a 2x4 so there is no wheeling involved and it is never loaded very heavy.

Other than those thoughts, smiling over the 16mpg that it is getting despite needing a tune-up in the very near future.

 

Well later today I'll be taking apart the dash to assess the damage.





This is the second break in for my vehicles in a year while parked on a busy 3 lane road in front of my work.

Broke the support tabs from the dash assembly and not pictured the cracked cluster cover. He didn't care that our companies security camera was staring right at the truck. He didn't even get the cheap $50 kenwood stereo, he was foiled by the bolts and flimsy mounting tabs.

 

That blows!

Soon to be buying a snow plow.

 

I would get yourself a Haynes manual or some DIY to follow, but if you look at the pictures that sheriff posted you can see the dot on the lower gear, but if you look closely, you can see a small notch in the cam gear. These are supposed to line up. Once your crank is at tdc#1. The crank notch should be straight up. And once you put the new t-chain on, you might have to remove it and manually adjust the cam a small amount to match the crank notch. the dots will line up. TDC is the most important thing. I may be wrong, but judging by the pictures of Sheriff's, That's all there is to it.

 

That's pretty much it.
Haynes says to make the rotor on the distributor point at the #1 spark plug and get the dots lined up on the cam and crank sprocket.
If you look at this picture you'll see that the stock sprockets have a line and a dot. I didn't see that until I had them off the truck and I had a dot and a line lined up. But as long as you don't rotate the cam or the crank after the sprockets are removed then it'll be fine because the new sprockets have keyways on them and they only go on one way. It took me a minute to figure out why the dots on the new ones were 180º off, I had to wipe the sludge off the old sprockets to find that out.



What did I do to my Ram today? I took some pictures.


I hate pollen.

 

Got ma DodgeForum.com decals couple days ago, and finally got it put on, and ma huskers helmet decal. Go Big Red

 

not a damn thing...it's been sitting for the last two days b/c bad weather has kept me out of the field...grrr

can't wait for the concrete in the new shop to cure enough to park it inside


but tomorrow most likely i'll get some pics of it, with my new camera i'm gonna buy tonight (my mom washed my old one in a pair of jeans....sucks, it took pretty good pics too....but this new one will probably be soo much better)

 

cleaned my truck, filled her up, took a couple pics there in a thread somewhere around here, oh yea burned some rubber...I got to stop doing that need my tires to last me about a month.

 

check engine light came on, put on 3rd brake light now doing halos will have pics soon!

 

If thats the case with the keyways, Couldnt I just take the t-chain off where it is when get down to it? as long as i dont rotate the cam or crank, itll be the exactly the same as if i hadnt replaced it?

or should i still make the notches line up?

"

INSTALLATION

(1) Place both camshaft sprocket and crankshaft
sprocket on the bench with timing marks on exact
imaginary center line through both camshaft and
crankshaft bores.
(2) Place timing chain around both sprockets.
(3) Turn crankshaft and camshaft to line up with
keyway location in crankshaft sprocket and in camshaft

sprocket.
" -01 Ram FSM

What does it mean by step 3 of installation?

can anyone clarify this?

wouldnt the replacement go on the exact same way? or am i missing something here?