I picked up a new, to me, truck yesterday. It's a 1996 Ram 1500 4X4. The GMC will head down the road shortly. I just prefer the Chrysler layout on mechanicals. The old girl needs a lot of attention.I drove it home, then rented a trailer to get my car home. About 160 miles total. A bit interesting with some major slop in the steering, and it has a leveler kit on it. Add a car on a car trailer and my headlights were searching for possums in the trees.



It came from the factory blue, then the previous owner bought several rattle cans of green. Then he replaced the door with a red one and the green paint didn't stick. One thing about the paint job, I'm not getting cut off in traffic. I'll eventually paint it one color. It'll either be green, blue or black. Rural King has a lot of John Deere green cheap. The old girl runs great and has a rebuilt transmission. I think once I fix the front end, it'll be a good driver. The dash is one of the worst I've seen, but it's amazing what a hot glue gun, pop rivets and gorilla tape can do..

 

Will you then paint the wheels yellow? I think I John Deere logo in the center of the grille would be appropriate as well.

 

Probably not. Those wheels don't hold paint very well. I don't know who put the wheels on but I've broken two sockets, stripped the outer shell off three nuts and am having to use a 5 foot cheater pipe to get the wheels off. I've run into this before so I'm going to replace all the lug nuts, then torque them down correctly. My impact wrench just sits there hammering.

 

Time for a new impact wrench? I know mine was OLD..... and it had lost a lot of it's power. Replaced it with the Earthquake XT from Harbor Freight, and it will buzz any bolt/nut right off.... Or break it.

 

My impact works just fine. I got back on the wheel removal this morning. What I expected to take 2 hours ended up taking 7. I finally cut the nut down and chiseled the center cap off and partially cut the wheel. A total of three sockets, two extraction sockets,and a lot of time and effort later, I got the wheel off. Then I found the center clamp I got was the wrong one. The actual tie rod replacement when I finally got the right parts only took and hour. I need an FEA yet, but the wander is vastly reduced.

 

Welcome back!
Interested in seeing what all you do to your truck.

 

I pulled the lug nuts off today and replaced them with new, solid chrome ones. I broke down and bought a new impact. It was the Earthquake XT like you have. It still sat there hammering. A few came loose, most did not. Rather than fool with the 5 foot cheater, I hunted around and found "Big Jessie". That is a cheater pipe for serious cheating. It's a 9 foot long, drive shaft out of an old school bus before they went to two drive shafts with a joint. I still have to replace the cut stud, but I got the nuts off. The old nuts are shot. Even half way off the impact had to hammer them. The new nuts went right on and torqued down good. I would dearly love to meet the idio....er...technician that put those one and whisper sweet nothings into his ear.

 

As you shove the ice pick in?

I have encountered lugs nuts put on by heavy truck mechanic with his 1 inch impact wrench...... I was wondering why they didn't pull the studs right thru the wheel.

 

I will probably never meet whoever hammered the snot out of those lug nuts. (Probably a good thing.) If I do though, I won't raise my voice. I learned years ago to A: keep my words sweet in case I have to eat them and B: people tune you out if you're screaming but a calm voice pointing out the errors of their ways terrifies them.

I was a volunteer police officer in the 1980's and early 90's. I had a young male driver drive the wrong way through an intersection, fall off the road into a construction cut and stand his car on end. All I said to hi once we fished him out of the water filled hole was, "You haven't been driving long, have you?". All his buddies were listening when I said that. He still got a ticket and had to pay for a tow, but I'll bet he never did that again.


On the impact, some people shouldn't be allowed a cooking fire, much lass power tools.