Good evening everyone. I've decided that I am going to go ahead and start a build thread to document the restoration of my 2001 Off Road Edition Ram. This project has been underway for a couple of years at this point, so the first handful of posts will be the history of the truck, my philosophy and aims for the build, and the progress up to this point. The posts will be quite long, contain much detail, and might have a story or two thrown in. It will have many pictures and videos, as I have done a fairly good job of documenting so far. I hope you all enjoy tagging along on this journey. I have learned much about turning wrenches from my ownership of this ram, and I look forward to many more years of service to come.

History

I come from a GM family, and my first dozen or so vehicles were a bunch of GMs and 1 Ford Ranger. During my college years I had a 91 C1500 (2wd) silverado that I was daily driving to keep the miles down on my nice Z28 Camaro, but it was a high mileage single cab that was giving me fits and it wasn't very good in the snow. I ended up needing to sell that Z28 to fund my final year of undergrad. Without the camaro as a backup, I now needed a better daily driver, so I decided to sell the silverado as well and buy a little nicer truck. Naturally, I first went to look at a GMT800 Z71. This was 2013/2014 and the truck was an 05 or 06, so less than 10 years old. It was a nice truck, but GM had really over-softened them for my liking. Steering and brakes were way too light, and the 5.3 was downright anemic. Next I went and drove a 2004 or 2005 F150 with the 5.4 in it. I actually really liked that truck. It pulled hard and I felt it hit the road great, but the price was just far too high for me at that time in life. Turns out I dodged a bullet there (pun intended) because those 5.4s are nightmares when the cam phasers start failing. Lastly, I drove a rather clapped out 2000 Ram. It was 2 wheel drive, which I really didn't want, but the price was right. I just about pulled the trigger, but happened to take one last scan of craigslist and found that a little po-dunk country auto dealer near my hometown a couple hours away had just listed a 2001 Ram with the Off Road Package for sale.

I had come across the ORE trucks during my research, and found them to be attractive, but there weren't very many around. I wasn't sure I'd ever seen one actually. Needless to say I jumped on the phone with my dad and asked him to run up the road and take a look at it since it was only 15 minutes away from his place. He gave it the green light and I headed that way in a hurry. Something just felt right about the truck, and I've always been a strong negotiator on vehicles, so $4500 dollars later I had bought my first Chrysler product. It's a 360/46re combo with the heavy duty service group, towing group, and a few other goodies, finished in Dark Garnet Red Pearl and Light Driftwood Satin Glow.





It had around 130,000 miles on the clock if memory serves, and while it was in fairly decent shape, it was far from perfect. There was already some rot in the bottom of the driver's door and the wheel arches as you can see. It needed tires desperately, was missing a fog light, had a destroyed air cleaner lid, and a few other minor issues here and there. Overall though, it was a really nice truck.




First thing I did was throw a set of Cooper AT3s on it. For a broke college kid this was a big expense, thankfully I worked at Tire Barn part time so I got a little bit of a discount.





Next up was a remote starter and security system I have bought with the intention of installing on the camaro but never got around to it. No more getting into a freezing truck on winter mornings. The truck also didn't have keyless entry, so this was a nice upgrade as well.

 

During the early years of ownership I didn't have the funds to do very much with the truck. It mostly just saw daily driver use and basic repairs when necessary. I played around with a few combinations of wheel coatings in different colors, but not much more in terms of customization. In June of 2015 I almost lost is as a storm brought down an enormous tree limb just a few feet from where it was parked behind my garage. Shortly thereafter the same tree did drop a limb on it, but fortunately it was small and only caused a dent.









A year into ownership and the rust in the bedside is already getting pretty bad, so I decided to try my hand at some bodywork to slow it down...here's how that went haha. Needless to say, I was no natural bodyman.

 

Immediately preceding my move from Bloomington to Indianapolis in 2015, the transmission had decided to take a dump. I bought a reman unit from ETE Reman and threw it in last minute so I could use the truck to haul the trailer full of my things as well as the girl I was dating at the time. I don't have any photos of that repair, but it didn't take long before I got the opportunity to take some because just 2 years later that remain unit took a dump. Total glitter fest.






The unit was still under warranty, but I had installed it myself, so getting them to pay for the labor was a huge fight. They insisted I take it to a specific shop on the other side of the city. I limped the truck there, transmission slipping all the way, only to have ETE come back and say they would only cover a fraction of the labor. So I went to bring the truck home, and the trans finally let the last of her smoke out on the way home.


Determined that this would not occur again, I installed the replacement unit with a temp gauge in the pan, a Transgo Tfod JR shift kit, and an auxiliary filter from Derale. I also deleted the check ball, bypassed the radiator, and routed the fluid through both the factory aux cooler and a 2nd aux cooler. There's no kill like overkill.

 

With the exhaust rusting away (yay salt belt), I decided it was time for a little more rumble, so on went a glass pack.





I had always liked the sport version of the rams, particularly the quad headlights, so I decided to add a set of those. I made my own harness with a set of relays.











I got tired of the black wheels, and decided to try gunmetal grey.





The truck really needed a bedliner, so I sprayed in some Raptor Liner. Turns out Raptor Liner isn't that great, and didn't hold up very well. I am not a fan.

 

In late 2017 the next big trouble strikes, and the magnum blows a head gasket. I had the heads redone and decided to perform the "kegger mod" while it was off. Also put on an aluminum plate and shorter bolts. Knowing what I know now, I strongly recommend AGAINST the "kegger mod", as the long intake runner is of benefit in a heavy truck application like this. In the latest engine build, I am keeping the intake runners their full length and porting them out as far as they will go, but more on that later.











150,000+ miles and still visible crosshatch in the bores, not bad! Amazing was EFI and modern piston/rings are capable of.

While the heads were off I installed a cheap set of shorty headers. I would later rip these off and basically give them away. They were junk. Don't let the marketers get you, on a daily driver cast iron manifolds are where it's at.

 

New AC compressor and a Steering Wheel wrap in 2018, otherwise nothing major.




I'm really not a silver guy, so on a whim I decided to try a different color for the lower section. I knew the rust was getting bad at this point so I'm just playing with rattle cans to see what I like in preparation for a real restoration in the near future. Gotta say, not great haha.





2019 and 2020 is when I am starting to become more advanced in the ways of the gearhead, and am diving more seriously into the hobby. I'll discuss my philosophy in the next section, but at this point I've pretty much decided this truck will get a restoration. Being that the generation of cars I've always dealt with is from the 90s and early 00s, one major barrier I've always had to playing with cars is tuning. When I had my Z28 I hated the fact that every time I made a change it was a $400 trip to the tuner. To me this ruined a lot of the fun. HP Tuners had just started to support the JTEC computers found in these rams, so I decided to learn how to tune myself.



Over the winter in 2020 I decided to do a complete makeover of the truck's audio system. Prior to this it has some aftermarket speakers in the doors and a basic pioneer single din in the dash. I installed a Sony double din with a custom dash bezel, an infinity amplifier under the driver's seat, a compact sub under the passenger seat, and did a lot of sound deadening. I researched how sound deadening works, and decided to mimic the expensive systems with a DIY approach. To accomplish this I used EPDM roofing sheet material separated from the floor by carpet padding. It worked outstanding and was quite economical.












I ran the cable for a phone hookup under the carpet and drilled a hole in the center console cup holder attachment. Now my phone can sit in this slot charging and providing android auto input to the head unit.

 

I got a screaming deal on a Bakflip bed cover from amazon warehouse, so that went on as well.


Here's a last glimpse of the truck getting some use before coming off the road.

 

Philosophy

I suppose now is as good as ever to explain my philosophy and why I've chosen to embark on this journey and restore a truck that will never be worth big money or win trophies. Around this period of time in the late 2010s and early 2020s, it was starting to dawn on me that modern cars are no longer viable. As systems have become increasingly complex on an intricate level, vehicles have become more reliable during their initial use period, but far less survivable long term. Looking down the pike, I realized that soon, anyone who is not operating a vintage fleet is going to be stuck on an infinite treadmill of cars that get more and more appliance like by the day. Classic cars as we think of them at this moment in history were once mere cars, worth barely anything, and now they command unreachable prices for even the most mundane models. Seeing this future ahead of me, I decided to follow in the footsteps of Tony Defeo and begin building a fleet of classics. I figure I'll always need a truck, so why not start here, and I can teach myself all the necessary things and acquire all the tools and equipment along the way. Tony lays out his philosophy in this video, and I highly suggest you watch it. I am not doing things exactly as he does, but very similar.


For me personally, I've decided that the cutoff is CAN-BUS. I realize 2nd gens have a limited BUS system, but it's really not the same animal as you find in stuff starting around 2005 and up. For me, if I'm gonna have a car, it has to function fully as if it were new. I can't live with something that runs and drives but has a bunch of random unfixable failures because this or that module went out and the dealer no longer has the part. Also, with proprietary software and specialization came a wave of dealer-only parts, and the requirement to have a subscription service to access dealer level scan tools which are required for some procedures. To me, that means you don't fully own your car anymore, and I insist on owning mine.

The restoration officially began in August of 2021.













If you ever need to strip raptor liner, heat is your friend.

The original bed is scrap, as are the original fenders. We decided to use them to practice some bodywork by cutting a hole out of the fender and welding it into the bedside and priming. Not awful.




Here's the truck serving as a giant platform so I could build what was going to be a paint booth.

 

Here is where we get to see how bad things have gotten, and how far we have to go.






More random wheel color experiments, more fail.

 

Bought myself a nice paint gun...and a core engine to build.





I got this engine for only $100.







Bearings showing some copper


Crank in good shape


Little piston skirt scuffing

Wasted cam bearings