I searched for a proper place to put this .... This is just a project truck and been working on it since 2018 .... It is one of the first Ram

s and older then 1994.
I will ask questions and ask for opinions. ....maybe some will be interested and contribute.
Because I have been working on it for so long, kinda like to catch it up to date and my plans for the truck.

The truck sat in a field for 20+ years when new it was a concrete construction company vehicle and I assume it hauled material back and forth to the job site.
The body was just hammered on this thing ..... some damage can only be explained by heavy equipment running into it ... not by traffic accidents.

Same time the company did a nice job mechanically taking care of their vehicles. .... As rough as it is body wise, the king pins are near perfect. 3 out of 4 bushings have zero movement.
One did have a slight 1/16th and the zirk fitting was bad ... I replaced the zirk and pumped grease in it and now maybe less then 1/32 of movement.
So it is bad, but nothing to worry about immediately .... all the grease points including the front steering, u-joints, shackles, fluids were all full. It had brand new brake drums and shoes on it ... the engine was low on compression from sitting so long ... after working with it, now it has 2 cylinders 95 psi and 100 psi 4 cylinders are 105-110.
It really needs a nice long drive in the country and engine will improve.
The generator was bad and the wrong style ... they were working on that, the coolant system was clogged and needed cleaning .... these were the things that took it off the road.

I have limited space and as a medically retired carpenter, this is my first project truck and it took some time to get the ball rolling. A fixed income I'm kinda tight on the $$ I want to spend on this project. .... My end goal is a daily driver around town where I do 90% of my driving ... I live in a small town with less then 4000 residents. Post office, hardware store, grocery store ... there is no garage for it to sit in so will be out in the weather and driven through mud puddles .... A beater with a heater if you will
I used acids to remove the rust, was the only way I found that worked for me.
here is the cab.

I spent a lot of time on it and got everything down to bare metal ..... I brushed paint on the frame after preparing it for paint, I got all the pieces underneath repaired mechanically for road travel.



I call it repaired, not restored ... If I go to the local car shows I will park out in the parking lot, not interested in showing it.
It is not perfect or is it meant to be .... I took out the dents that really bothered me, I left the rest for character. But I did try to do a decent job with it.



Anyways it has been a journey too get this far. Being disabled, I use this truck as my physical therapy .... lifting, bending, twisting, thinking .... It is nowhere near perfect, it has a name "Hound dog Hauler"



It runs, drives stops .... It has cheap single stage Tractor supply enamel paint with Rustoleum rust resistant primer .... I painted it a year ago and it is looking fine so far.
It has a new gas tank, all new lines brakes and fuel, I fabricated a 2 stage Brake master cylinder into it .... I need to finish the rear fenders, install a new wiring harness, new tires, I have done some work on the interior but needs more. I'm getting closer but still a lot to finish on it.

I'm just happy that today I get to pull it back into the work area and get started on it again.
When I first bought it, I had to teach myself to weld to install the new floor pan and bod panel patches .... other projects that needed welding.
One year life got in the way and never touched it.
I put a big push on it last year to get paint on it before the snow flies.
January the wife brother came to live with us after 1 week we put him in a hospital and he was transferred 75 miles away and we spent the next 4 months traveling back and forth ... last trip we brought his ashes from cremation home .... then the wife car needed a new engine installed ... I bought the used engine with a 90 day warranty, was exactly 110 days when I first started it .... it's a good engine and happy with it.
So 7:00 am I pulled it into my pathetic little work space and not even sure where I will first start.

 

I know I should start on the rear fenders. .... 100 frigging degrees out today and to hot to grind, cut, weld .... Every body panel on the truck is just loosely fitted for alignment.
Including the bed .... I can move it back and forth a good 3/4". Rear fenders are not adjustable, they just bolt in place .... The running boards are adjustable but bolt to the rear fenders and then to the front fenders. .... it is the old nursery rhyme ... The ankle bone is connected to the leg bone, the leg bone is connected to the hip bone .... the hip bone .....
I lust cant finish body panel alignment without the rear fenders in place.

I think I might start on the wiring .... I really would like some opinions on wiring. I think the best thing is to install a aftermarket wiring harness.
I have seen some good reports on aftermarket generic wiring harness .... good automotive wires and well marked.
I just got a junk one and really do not want to use it. ..... The fuse box is junk, none of the wires are marked .... the cover has embossed in it the fuse location and usage then has a sticker over it telling a different orientation ... then when I start tracking it down nothing is like the diagram says .... It is just junk but it has good wire.



So I'm tempted to just cut off all the color coded wire and build a new harness from scratch .... this truck needs very little wires to operate. .... My yjought was to depin the fuse box and wire it the way I want .... impossible.

Have a simple fuse box I can modify and use.



Then I bought a few of these ...

Heavy gauge for headlights, turn signals, heater. .... Will be a very simple wiring harness.

Sometimes I think I should just get online and order a better wiring harness ..... just not decided yet.

 

man oh man would i love to have that truck.. wanna trade ?????

 

Oh man do not tempt me .... you got a 1962 Valiant?

 

I've been looking for a '61 2 door post Valiant for 50+ years. You don't have a Ram. You have a Pilot House Dodge. I've had two of those. A 1949 1 ton pickup with a 9 foot bed and a 1950 winch truck. Both had Ram hood ornaments but Dodge called them the Pilot House. I also had a '52 B-3-PW Power Wagon. Trust me, your cab is MUCH more comfortable. A lot easier to drive and work on too.

 

The "ram" didn't come along till 1981.

 

sorry to say i do not...................

 

@ol' grouch you are 100% correct along with @Moparite It is a pilothouse because of the rear corner windows and they claimed it had the most visual area available at the time ... 1949 Chebby had the same corner windows .... possibly the rear window had 2 square inches more of space?
I only call it a original Ram because of the hood ornament .... it was a Ram before Dodge knew it had Rams.



@sidsdodge92 I was only kidding about the valiant .... this is my 3rd pilothouse and I specifically searched for a 1949 and bought it off the internet with only pictures and had it delivered to my driveway. Yes I probably paid too much for it .... but happy with my purchase.
I honestly have been searching for some time for a older valiant .....they were just so ugly they all were sent to the scrap yards .... what a great little car mechanically though.

 

They say we eat a elephant one bite at a time. ..... I have been fighting some electrical issues .... I thought I had a bad condenser for the points .... same time I installed the new condenser I installed a Ballast resistor to convert 12V power from the system to 6 volt at the coil.



So naturally Dodges added a Ballast resistor on the firewall


So I have been fighting a no start or poor start issue ..... I was blaming it on the condenser, now I'm questioning the ballast resister .... The ballast resister and condenser were both installed at the same time.

So I got frustrated and walked away .... yesterday I installed the fuel filler tube, been waiting on the flexible hose to get it installed. Then added 5 gallons of fuel.

So the fuel system is pretty close to being done I think.

While fighting the no start issue .... I want to connect the charging system .... all is new and just needs wired up.
A whole lot of battery draining going on and I bought the battery 5 days ago.

Getting back to the no start issue .... I find my ballast resister has 12.7 volts going in .... the coil has 12.7 volts going to it .... it should be around 6 volts.
So I ran down to Napa and bought a brand new ballast resister to replace my Rockauto brand new ballast resister ..... still 12 V+ at the coil.
So 2 new ballast resister bad out of the box .......

 

While fighting my no start issue thinking it is ignition wiring because that is the last thing I worked on .... I realized my new carburetor is no longer squirting fuel

Note to self, be nice to your carburetor and it will be nice to you.
I noticed something was getting worse and then decided not to start at all ..... I have always ran the truck off of a 2 gallon can .... I simply was not ready to install the new tank, had welding and paint work to finish up.


Since I ran it like this for a few years, I should have done something better with it. .... I remember one time removing the fuel line from the fuel pump and the hose was plugged with bugs that had got into the gas can and sucked through the hose...


Naturally mother nature wanted to play along ..... so it comes to no surprise I'm spending my day doing this.


So I'm hoping this will take care of my run issue .... not sure why it was not squirting fuel. I have not found any blockage or a reason for it not to work properly.
Since it was hit or miss on running it was not a severe blockage, I blew all passages out with air and carb cleaner .... I will at least know the carburetor is not a issue when put back together.