You are the man! Thanks for the info. I am slowly putting together a parts list from this to make a set for myself.


Hey I just read through your build. Nice truck, we almost have some matching dents. lol. Looks like you got a solid build ahead of you. Can’t wait to see it and get more inspiration for myself.

 

Hey guys. Hope everyone had a good Christmas and the new years looking good! My baby bonding time ended so I’m back at work now. Between catching up after two months off, the newborn at home and the holidays I haven’t had much time to work on the ram. As I mentioned, I am getting part numbers to make my own headlight relay system. I also got everything to do the cap, rotor and spark plugs, along with the diff gear oil and transfer case fluid. I may try and do as much of that I can this weekend, weather and children permitting.

 

Hey Everyone. Not a lot of progress on the to
do list but it grows. We had a pretty heavy rain storm a couple weeks back. I didn’t think anything of it. Saturday I go to take the truck on a quick home
depot run and am hit with a musty dirt smell as soon as I open the door. Mold! The front seat is fine but the rear seat had become a Petri dish. I hit the seat with some color safe bleach and after drying out overnight with the windows down I hit the seat with my wife’s little carpet shampooer. A little digging it appears my third brake light has a leak. I have a new gasket on order but plan to silicone the heck out of it when it gets here. Hoping I can beat the rain storm this weekend or I’m going to have to put a tarp over the roof.

The wife has me getting into an early spring cleaning. I foresee many dump and goodwill runs to try and free up some room. Our 1080sq ft home is getting a bit cramped with 2 kids now.

 

Kids will do that for you.

I have found though, that regardless of how much space you have, things accumulate to fill the space available.

 

Hey everyone. Been a while since I last update. I’ve been busy with my son’s baseball and flag football teams. I have a 2 month sport break now.

Yesterday I went to drive the truck around the block. I hear a pop and my driver side seatbelt went slack. It now will not retract. Anyone have this happen before? Looking around online I see there’s some posts about removing a solenoid in the retractor assembly, but that seems to be more if the belt won’t extend, not retract. I did some looking and I can’t seem to find a replacement driver side seatbelt for the quad cab anywhere. Anyone have any suggestions where I can shop? Or should I just consider a whole new seat from the junkyard?

 

Likely won't find a new one, try car-part.com. They should be able to find something for ya.

 

I wonder if the pyrotechnic charge went off in your seat belt. When I let the kid have my old Ford Focus, she ran into the back of a brand new car being taken home for the first time. The air bags didn't go off but the seat belts did. The charge is designed to tighten the belt and work with the ir bag in a big crash. A small crash will just set the seat belt off. Good thing since new bags are NOT cheap and salvage yards won't sell you a used one.

Is your air bag light lit? I think I sent my belt retractors and air bag module off to "Myairbags" or something similar. They rebuilt the belts and reset the module. If the ir bag light isn't lit, you might get by with just the belt rebuilt.

 

Hey everyone. It’s been a few months since I posted so I wanted to give an update. On Hey You’s advice I tried car-part.com for a new seatbelt. It led me to a local dodge yard that was able to get me a seatbelt quick. The yard turned out to be DRT, the place that makes the lower dash replacements. I got to see on in person and ask them some questions. I’m definitely interested in one for the future now. Anyhow I got the old seatbelt out and new belt in. It looks like the retractor spring just exploded, I had a dozen feet of metal ribbon falling out of the old seatbelt housing. I am back on the road with the truck.



I took the truck camping in the sierras for a week over the summer with my son. He’s 6 now and starting to get enamored with the truck after sleeping in the bed for 4 nights.

He wants to help me make it nice and asks if it can be his first car. I have had some odd thoughts of looking for a bigger truck that would be easier to fit the family in. But the simplicity of this truck and the fact that is has yet to meet a job I throw at it that it can’t do makes it hard to justify, and now I think my son would kill me if I got rid of it. I heard him telling one of his buddies how cool his truck is because “you have to spin a handle to roll the windows down!”



I have been slowly gathering all the needed parts for a diy headlight relay kit, I want to compare how it does vs the lmc one. Currently my lmc kit plugs into my sport headlight conversion harness that was an Amazon special. This setup splits my low beam to the outer 9007 bulb and the high to the inner 9004 bulb. I believe this is how it came from the factory, but I see the ceauto harness and some ones others have made use both bulbs for low and high. As a short interim measure I am planning to make my own sport headlight harness that will power all 4 bulbs for low and high and see if that is an improvement.



I read through jimjam300s build, which has given me some new inspiration and ideas for the ram. I’m adding some sway bar disconnects to the “fun add on” list.

 

“you have to spin a handle to roll the windows down!”

Ok, that comment cracked me up. I remember a time when power windows weren't basically standard equipment on even very basic vehicles.

Oh to be young again.

 

I remember when air conditioning was flipping the wing window around.