Leave it alone soon you will make it pretty then you won't want to use it I will only buy used trucks that I can throw anything into and not worry Make it run drive and brake and forget the outside after a couple NY winters you will appreciate what I'm saying

Took the radiator to get soldered today. There's an old school rad shop a few towns over who specialize in old cars. Got the Griffin rad that's in my Duster from them. Besides fixing the hole, they boiled it out, repaired one tube and painted it. They said the core was good, flowed well.

I put it back in the truck but didn't have time to finish. Need an upper rad hose too so hopefully I can find one at the parts store.

Didn't realize that it was a big boy 28". I'm sure the 26" I had would have been OK but I stuck with the larger core.

Paperwork should be on its way back as well, hope it gets here before the DMV closes or it'll have to wait until Tuesday.

Thanks for all the compliments. I keep going out to look at it. I really love '70s Dodge trucks!

Been driving the truck around. Definitely a few issues but nothing major. Still can't take it too far, have not got the reg. papers back yet.

Got the leaky rad. fixed and back in plus got some new hoses. The coolant overflow tank leaked like crazy so I had to use an old generic one I had on the shelf. That one leaks too I think. Runs cool tough.

Burns oil for sure, blue smoke at idle and on accel. Oil on the dipstick is black. I believe it needs valve stem seals which I can do. I am hoping the rings are OK. I did change the air cleaner/breather arrangement. It had a hose from the breather to the underside of the air cleaner plus a PCV into the back of the carb. I put a regular breather on it for leas clutter. Maybe it does need both though.

Has a miss and a pretty loud tick from what sounds like cylinder #2. Have to look into that, hoping there are no major broken parts. Will find out more if/when I do the seals. There will be a leak down test in the near future. Ran some combustion chamber cleaner in there, seems to run slightly smoother now.

There is a bad sputter around 2,000 rpm under load which I believe is carb related. I switched out the 3310 for a double pumper I have and it went away but the DP is too much carb. I looked at the timing, seems in the ballpark.

Spark plugs were toast. The front half were all caked with carbon, not sure if there was any spark happening at all. Put new ones in (after the carb change and ccc treatment) but have not pulled them to see what they look like yet. Have not looked under the distributor cap yet to check for carbon/streaks etc. Definitely needs plug wires. The #3 boot was burned through so I switched it out for an old one I had.

It's a running project for sure. Not gonna go crazy with upgrades here but it needs some new parts. I will try and fix what's in it for now. Hopefully it does not snowball too badly!

Well, I did some work to get the truck tuned up. Advanced the timing a little, installed new spark plugs, plug wires and put a #6139 Thermoquad on it instead of the Holley. Seems to run pretty good! Off idle and cruise are OK. The one area that needs work is stabbing the gas from a roll. Put some richer primary metering rods in it, may need bigger secondary jets and more air door/spring tension tuning.

In any event, I drove the truck to work today (110 mi. round trip) and it performed great. Temp stayed at 180 the whole time, even in stop/go NYC area traffic. Oil pressure was steady enough not to worry about.

Frankly, the brakes are not that great. That being said, I doubt anyone in their right mind would expect a '70s D series with stock brakes, 15" wheels and a big block to stop like a modern vehicle. As mentioned already, the rears need to be adjusted. I tried briefly the other day to do it but I always struggle with that operation so I left it for another day. Might pop the wheels off this weekend and take a look at the rear drums to see what's what. Looks like the RR axle seal is a leaker so that will have to be taken care of.

The truck handles surprisingly well. I think the front sway bar makes a huge difference. Lowering the rear a bit it might make it even be better. It's not harsh or bouncy at all like my old '72 4xr4 was.

One thing that was sort of annoying was wind noise. With both windows open, it sounded like a hurricane in the cab. The passenger side window roller is too far to reach when driving so I had to deal with it for a ways until I could get to it. The L/F vent window is a little balky so I didn't mess with it.

All in all a good trip though. I'm stoked!

One of my favorite vehicles ever was a D100. Was stolen from me and recovered, with the front end mashed. Found sheet metal - all that was harmed - and put it back on the road. About a month later, while parked, the truck's front end was about knocked off by a flatbed truck - Lowe's parking lot. Fortunately, it was witnessed and again, just sheet metal.

My young daughter called the truck Peppermint, because of the red/white two tone. The name stuck. Drove the truck for 11 years. It had three pedals [4-speed] as well. With 3.91 gears and 275 60s, it got 10 MPG. Loaded, towing, empty. 10 MPG. Loved it, regret selling it.

You have a great start. Have fun with it and KEEP IT!

I really like your truck. Good luck with it!

Thanks!

I drove it back and forth to work again today, it's actually fun to drive. Learning my way around the TQ as well. Gotta ditch the Monster tach though, it's driving me nuts.

Took some pics the other day.

Even more jealous.

And since I pretty much gave up on finding a clean one at a decent price and bought a Durango, of course there are several for sale right here on the board.

Well, turns out this truck needed a bunch of work. Not surprised, it is kinda beat in some regards. It's all in good fun though, I'm not upset.

Went to get it inspected a few weeks back (safety only for older vehicles here in NY). While on the lift, the shop noticed loose tie rods and a leaking R/R axle seal. They wouldn't pass me but didn't charge me for the inspection which is only $10. Go and fix it and bring it back they said. I used to work for the guy (briefly) and he was a real ball buster. I had a feeling he would be difficult but the place is close to my house so I bit the bullet and went in. Lesson learned...

Anyway, a few days later I took the rear drum off to see what things looked like. First off, the wheel and axle assembly was totally loose. Kinda scary actually. Got the wheel and drum off to reveal that everything was completely coated in grease, and I mean EVERYTHING. Both the inner and outer seals were shot, there was no sealing going on at all, nor braking for that matter. In addition, the bearing adjuster retainer was completely bent and the lock was twisted over itself which was why the wheel was so loose. The brake shoe self adjuster wire was broken off and several pieces of hardware literally fell out when I slid the drum off. There was also a large chunk missing from the rear shoe pad. Guess the 'ol ball buster made a good call. Didn't anticipate this level of destruction though.



So I hadda order a bunch of parts for this thing to get it back into fighting shape including completely new rear brakes, axle bearings and seals. Had to locate a new adjuster set but luckily I found a good set locally through Steve K. Thanks Steve! I felt bad having to cut up nice Timken bearings but they were useless without properly working adjusters. I don't have a bearing splitter so out came the cut off wheel and chisels...

Funny also that the guy included a set of tie rod ends when I bought the truck. He mentioned he would throw them in and I asked him if the truck needed them. He said, "naahh, I just had 'em so I'll throw 'em in". Ok then.

Found a bunch of NOS parts on Ebay from a surplus guy - an OE wiring harness, armrests, parking lamps, seat belt retractors, a right side taillight lens and a door handle mechanism. Got an NOS bulkhead connector from another seller which was good since my original was pretty crusty. Someone on FABO offered me an NOS coolant overflow tank to replace my leaky unit so I grabbed that too. No, unfortunately, I am not made of money. All this stuff was relatively cheap if you can believe that.

Also found a cheap, reman distributor on Ebay to replace the worn out stocker. The old ignition seemed pretty weak, the reman unit looks great and should work well with the new plug wires and harness.

Lastly I put an order in for a new booster to use one of Eberg's aluminum master cylinders I had on the shelf. Made new rear brake lines and master cylinder connections. Found an adjustable prop valve hacked into the rear brake line, was surprised to see that. Not sure what it was actually doing since the right rear was doing the opposite of braking. Guess we'll see if it does anything when I get it back on the road.

While the axles were out, I took the diff out to replace the massively leaking housing gasket. There could not have been more than a pint of fluid left in the housing from all the leaks. Once I got the pumpkin out, I realized it's a 742 case so no crush sleeve, hooray for that. Thankfully no pinion seal leak. I need to top off the trans fluid as well.

Got some lowering shackles from someone on here the other day, should complete the rear end work for now.

Besides all the stuff listed here, there's a few more things I need to tackle before it starts getting cold. I put a pretty big dent in this stuff though and it turns out it was needed. Hope to have it all back together this week sometime.

Like the truck, that's why I own a 76, going to be a 512 when finished

So considering how much work this truck needed, I am frankly amazed that A) it ran, B) it didn't burn to the ground and C) I didn't kill myself or someone else with it. It's kept me pretty busy over the last few weeks bringing it up to code. It's been down for about month but as of today, it's back up and running.

Here's a list of stuff done so far;

R/R rear axle bearings and seals

R/R center section gasket

Rebuilt rear drum brakes with all new parts including drums

Made new rear brake lines

Installed rear lowering shackles (dropped the rear about 3")

Changed booster from 4 to 2 bolt, installed new aluminum master cylinder

Made new master cylinder lines

Replaced right inner tie rod

Replaced park lamps with NOS

Replaced engine harness with NOS

Replaced distributor with reman unit, re curved, installed FBO limiter plate

Installed new cut-to-fit plug Taylor plug wires

Removed radiator for repair - soldered by rad. shop, re-installed. Had to trim frame rail flange to locate the radiator properly in order to install the rad hoses properly. Not sure how the guy did it before.

Installed new upper + lower rad hoses

Installed NOS coolant recovery tank

Re-wired starting system, made new battery cables

Replaced starter relay

Replaced the starter

Found the under dash harness was completely unwrapped and every wire was cut and spliced due to an incorrect year fuse box. Truck had no dash lights, turn signal only worked on one side, gas gauge worked intermittently, ridiculous monster tach, oil pressure and temp gauges were wired into to existing harness with quick splices, broken pin on the printed circuit board, blower motor would not turn off, connectors were cracked/destroyed, factory 8-track radio harness was completely hacked up and not working, etc.





Yanked it ALL out, attempted to repair and made it pretty far but threw in the towel when I found a complete, clean harness on Ebay that included the bulkhead connector, fuse box and instrument cluster, heater control and some other stuff. Bought It Now, done.

Relocated the ammeter wire to prevent future issues but stayed with the amp gauge for now.

Removed the monster tach, relocated the oil and temp gauges

Replaced broken heater control with good used one but it's from an A/C truck, had to mix'n'match parts from each unit to make it work

Fixed the sticky driver's side window regulator

Replaced the door latch remote with NOS part

Cleaned the interior

Freed up the heater water valve, re-secured heater hoses to inner fender

Installed electric choke for the Holley carb

Rebuilt carb

Installed AR throttle cable bracket

Replaced beat 14" Moroso air cleaner with 11 1/2" Moroso

Replaced beat, stock valve cover breather with shiny chrome one

Replaced horn

Things left to do -

change the oil (nasty lifter tick)

verify TDC mark on dampener, remove old, incorrectly installed timing tape and install new

tune with new set up, hook up vacuum advance

new valve cover gaskets

top off trans with fluid

de-gunk the engine and trans

Have a beer

Wow, you just completed in a month whats taken me 15 yrs to do! Nice Job, nice truck.

Thanks. Guess I wanted to get it done. I am fortunate to have the time to do it, even if it's just an hour or two a day.

Still lots more to be done for sure but the things I listed needed to be done for reliability's sake. There is a definite improvement in several areas, especially the brakes. Nice to have working dash lights too. Starts on the first crank now, even cold. Tuning is still way off, hope to get that in the ball park this week.

RMCHRGR I noticed you mentioned leaving the amp gauge in, wanted to let you know recently I purchased a volt meter and took it apart placed the workings in place of my amp gauge and it was able to fit and be covered by original gauge lens so on, really only thing you can see dif is some blue print on new gauge other than that looks clean I'll post a pic soon just to give ya another project to do...

And gotta love the gas pedals missing mines been that way for 16 years. got one but don't care for foot position when installed......

Thanks for the tip, I've seen that done. Everything seems to be working OK right now so I probably won't bother with it unless there is an issue. If something does come up, I will bypass the thing altogether and be done with it.

The main reason the ammeter can fail is unwanted resistance in the wiring, especially in the bulkhead connections. Once they corrode and/or pull apart, it's just a matter of time. I relocated the red wire out of the bulkhead and routed it through a hole in the firewall with a rubber grommet. It's long enough that it reaches the starter relay from the post on the back of the gauge. I used factory connectors with the fusible link. Should be OK for the foreseeable future. The B+ wire from the alternator is brand new so hopefully there won't be any issues with that side either. The gauge itself appeared pretty clean so back in it went.

Found a a small leak in the rear brake line so I have to fix that before I take it back for inspection. Drove it around a little this AM and everything else seems hunky-dory.

Next little project is an air fuel gauge and a small tach. I took out the radio so there is a big hole in the dash where I plan to put some gauges. A voltmeter might be good there too. Perhaps after the holidays...

I think the rear has been switched, IIRC no 8 3/4s in 1976. With a bigblock and 4-speed it should have come with a 9 1/4.

As the 9 1/4 and 8 3/4 have different distances from axle centerline to center of front yoke, either the driveshaft was switched or shortened.

R.

Yeah, it's not the original rear, the center section is a 742. The perches are the correct distance and it's LBP so I'm guessing it came from another rig. Not sure about the 'shaft but I'm guessing it came from wherever the rear came from.

This truck was a factory 318, not sure what trans was in it but I believe it was the NP435 since the floor has the factory hump.

The guy I bought it from said he found all the drive line stuff several years back including the big block to NP435 bell.

OE or not, it works.

Just a couple more quick updates.

Fixed the leak at the rear brake line, just needed to re-tighten a fitting, all good.

Drove the truck around a little more extensively this morning, got it up to operating temp for a good while and cruised it over 50 mph. Happy to report that everything is good. Had a little scare at one point when the coil wire came loose, got a horrible vibration at around 45-50 mph, felt like the truck was going to shake itself apart. Coasting into my driveway I had all these things running through my head - dreaded pinion angle from lowering it, something in the front end came loose or a wheel, etc. None of the above, just the coil wire. Re-secured it, went for another test run, no more bad vibes.

There are really no issues, it runs and drives fine. I'm stoked. Guess it shoud be OK after all the work done to it but its nice to have it all come to a good conclusion.

So what's next? I want to change the cam in this thing to something a little more suited to the overall combo. Not sure when I will get to that, maybe in the spring. Then overdrive, A/C and possibly EFI down the road. Plus body work and paint but it's nice to have a car I don't care about leaving outside or driving in the rain.

Thanks for tuning in.

It must move out pretty good with a 400 4 spd? Burn rubber alright (you know, the important things)?