Whats up forum?! Chawk signing on here from Minnesota.

Just picked up a '93 dakota club cab 5-speed manual. She's rusty but so far trusty, this is my first truck & I'm hoping to learn how to be a self sufficient wrencher!

Not my daily driver so I can afford to learn and not outsource the expertise.

Looking forward to baselining the new ride and learning from the wisdom of the forum

Nice to meet yall!

 

Welcome to DF! You wanna be in the First Gen Dakota section.

 

thanks! Are there any 1st gen threads related to baselining?

 

I don't even know what that is.

 

Welcome to DF! What's "baselining"?

 

Ha! Sorry to be more specific, baselining as in bringing it up to known maintenance level. Flush all fluids, inspect replace fuses & brakes, etc. Wondering if there are any other common areas on the 1st gen to look into and check right away!

thanks for patience with a noob

 

Welcome to the site and congrats on your ride! Snap some pictures when you can. There are so many owners on this site that if you ever need help or advise on anything, someone will have the answers.

 

When I first saw the word "baselining", I wondered why anybody would push it off a cliff or high building. Then I realized, that's base JUMPING. I've never replaced fuses unless they were blown. If they blow again, there's an issue. As for maintenance, just change all the fluids like you mentioned if you don't know when they were changed last. I always change the oil and filter as well as the coolant and thermostat on any vehicle I get where I don't have maintenance records.

 

Pics below! Rusty for sure, 193k miles in Minnesota will do that to ya I suppose. So far so good though. First project will be repairing the parking brake, not sure what specifically is wrong but it doesn’t work right now.

 

Looks pretty good for its age. Check out the first gen Dakota section.