Thought I'd pass this info on in case others are having the typical rust issues on their Dodge trucks.

Over the last few years or so I started to get some rust on my 2004 Dodge Ram. It wasn’t “terrible” but typically what you can see is not all of the damage. Fortunately the rust was limited to the back end of the truck at the wheel well lips, the bumper and the bottom of the tailgate. The bed, cab & other places are still in great shape & it only has 112,000 miles so I decided to get it fixed. I looked at new trucks on & off & still cannot believe what they go for. My kid is in college so saving money sounds good.

The after market parts are all available and very reasonably priced since they’re made in Taiwan. The left and right patch panels with the inner edges of the wheel wells were $260 shipped from a place called "MrTailLight.com".

Patch Panels

The rear bumper with all the brackets, step pad, lights and hardware along with the tailgate with a new handle, cables, latches, rods and hardware was $425 shipped. These I got off ebay from a seller called "bumber-outlet". Typical issues were that the items should have been packed better. The bumper was dinged on the end & it cracked off small pieces of the plastic step pad. The tailgate was bent in the upper corner & there was a horizontal hump in the sheet metal throughout the center. This was probably just a bad stamping but the seller made good on all of it by giving me a huge discount & sending me another step pad. I would easily buy from them again because the customer service was exceptional & the parts were shipped fast & free.

Bumper Assembly

Tailgate Assembly

It’s not a show truck or a restoration, just my daily ride so buying expensive original parts from Dodge made no sense. I don’t want to drive around a rot box and be the target to get pulled over by a cop hoping that he will be able to give me a ticket for other problems he finds.

Anyway, here are some before and after photos. The guy who did the work is local to me in NY and did the work on my yellow Plymouth Scamp back in 1992 or so. On the truck he cut out the rust in the wheel lips, welded in the new parts, sanded, prepped and primed the bumper and the tailgate, then painted these parts and did it all for $1500. All I had left to do is assemble the tailgate hardware, drop it in place & put the new license plate lights & step pad on the bumper.