For those following along, the 91 Dakota arrived this morning. The rear axle was locked up because the pinion nut had backed off and was allowing the pinion to fall inward towards the ring gear. I pulled the drive shaft off, tightened the nut, reinstalled the drive shaft. I can now move the truck around under its own power. The V6 smokes bad, and has a miss. I pulled all the plugs, its a wonder it ran at all. I didn't have a compression tester here today, but I had on old set of plugs I threw in. The motor smoothed out a little, I suspect it has a cap & rotor, and wire issue, but it smokes so bad its won't matter. The PCV Valve rattles, and the air breather is not plugged, and there seems to be no blow by puffing out the valve covers. I ran it long enough to get the temp gauge to start moving, but the smoke kept bellowing out. There is no tail pipe, and there is too much smoke you can't tell from looking under the truck where the smoke it coming from. The motor has 174xxx miles, I'm probably not going to mess with it. The trans feels great (I didn't run it down the road) the brakes are grinding, and the oil pressure is just above the low line. The frame is very nice, and there are enough parts on it we will be OK.

The 96 Dakota arrived tonight. I drove it up into the driveway. I will check it out later this weekend. The guy sold the Ram last night. Two out of three ain't bad...Gene