Well guys, My new truck is a 2001 Dodge Ram 1500 Sport 4x4 Off-Road with the 5.9. Anyways I love my new second gen, I loved my old one and honestly prefer it over my 4th gen. Anyways I purchased the truck with 100,000mi and it was in pretty average northwestern states condition. This means winter, rust, and driven. Anyways I started my journey by driving the truck 600mi home. It did the drive flawless at 14mpg. Almost as soon as I got home I started working on it. First I removed the color match topper
and mounted a Western Ultra Mount Snow Plow...I live in northern Minnesota

next I pulled it into the shop and started body work. I taped the truck off leaving only my fender arches and first body line down. Then spent alot of time repairing rust and sanding the exposed paint with 80grit sandpaper.



After the rust was repaired, truck sanded, and surface prepped I sprayed it with U-POL Raptor liner, which by the way I am EXTREMELY impressed with. The stuff looks and feels identical to LINE-X and is staying looking good. It was extremely easy to work with and produced great results.

From there I put the truck all back together and then changed the oil in the plow (its only a couple years old) and took the time to paint it up and get it looking as good as the truck!






Then I ended up ordering a set of LED Smoked Cab Lights...which led to removing the headliner and drilling 15holes into a perfectly good leak free roof...but that turned out amazing. It helped bring some of the black up to the top of the truck.


And lastly the most recent part of the build was tinting my front two windows. I went with 35% Charcoal tint and I think it blends quite well with the rears

Other current mods to my truck is a stainless Magnaflow dual exhaust, stainless steel nerf bars, 3/4ton front coils, auto vent visors and synthetic everything.

 

I like it, it looks real good.

 

That's about the best looking 2nd gen I've ever seen. Like what you did with the black coating, the rims look sweet too. Reel nice work there!

The view of the back is lovely with the black on silver.

 

Well done! Let's keep these rigs going! Can't wait to read about interior, engine or suspension mods you have planned.

 

Nice rig. Not a technical discussion though, so moving to the general discussion section.

 

Good lookin' truck. Nice work.

How's the plenum?

 

great looking truck!

just gonna throw this out there...

unless you went with v10, or diesel coil springs, the 3/4 ton springs you put in were a waste of money, as the offroad factory springs are the same springs in a v8 3/4 ton truck.

 

I agree with the others... that's a nice look... well done!

 

I want to do that lower lining schtuff to mine!!

Come over and get it done....nao!!

 

I know this is almost a week old, but I'm posting because I'm definitely interested in seeing your truck take 'shape' if you will.

14mpg is pretty good! I've owned my ORE for 4.5 years and the highest I've ever seen was 12.17mpg! My truck is ahead of yours in mileage at ~130k.

Highly Recommended to add to your to-do list:
1. Rear limited slip clutch pack rebuild. They notoriously fail near the 100k mileage range. Mine lasted only shortly after. Catch it before it fails and takes out the entire rear end. OR go with an aftermarket limited slip/locker. Obviously, this is if you still have the stock setup.

2. Timing chain.

3. Plenum gasket.

4. Shocks if you haven't done them already.


Good luck!