Thread: Junkyard rescue of an '87 Dodge Power Ram 50

Truck runs, but only on two cylinders.

2019-03-24_03-25-30 by Ben Stryker, on Flickr

That black spacer is kinda necessary, and the fact that most of it's missing means the cap is tilted on the distributor. Therefore cylinders 1 and 2 don't get any spark because the rotor doesn't make contact. Problem is, nobody makes or sells that spacer anywhere.

This is going to be fun....

I found a new one through one of the guys on the FB groups for these trucks.

$12 shipped is a decent price to me for a new one, now my only problem is going to be finding TDC on number 1 cylinder so I can get the distributor back in the right place.

remove the plugs, put finger over #1 hole, rotate engine until you feel compression stroke. if you have timing marks on the crank, you could put it at 0*. if not, it should be close enough to tell where it needs to be, it's only 4 cyl.

My problem is getting the half inch of grease off the crank pulley in order to find the timing mark. lol

Sounds like a easy fix, you got this

It was supposed to be easy, but I just figured out that the timing mark is TDC for cylinder 1... 50% of the time. lol

I just have to rotate the engine another 360 degrees to get it to TDC on number 1, pull the distributor back out and point it at number one again and it should, SHOULD... Fire right up and run on all four cylinders.

I guess I could put the truck down on all four wheels and go for a test drive, at that point all that's left to do will be getting the truck over to the on-post shop, using the coin-op car wash to knock 20+ years of grime and grease off the truck, and taking an oxy-acetylene torch to the control arm. If I can't get the bolts out, I'm just going to cut the threaded inserts off and tack weld either the nuts or the bolts into the control arm. Once the front shock is in, I will pull the torsion bars out and clock them properly, maybe crank them up a bit, put the new tires on and go for a drive.

Later on I'm going to try and revive the paint, I'm thinking it'll just need a couple hours with a buffer and some compound. I probably won't clay bar it, but it'll get covered in mud soon enough that it won't matter. lol

"compression stroke"

I would, but it seems like it would be kinda difficult to clay bar rust. Lol

I ended up talking the valve cover off and using a piece of wire in the number one spark plug hole while watching the valves to find TDC. The timing marks on the crank pulley are accurate, the distributor was one tooth off.

I would say I got the plug wires wrong, but the Haynes manual is wrong and I was going off of that... It shows the distributor as having the forf parts arranged in a square, but on the engine it's at 45°, and looks like a diamond instead of a square. So me, putting number one plug wire on the post closest to the one that the Haynes manual shows, actually put number one on number four.............

It's all a learning experience... Lol

If only it had enough patina all over... It's just a few spots, there's bubbling on the fenders and bed side, and there's no rockers left...

But I plan on replacing the rockers with square tube rock sliders, and eventually I might remove some of the rust and repaint it, but that's father down the road

It's more like moss or lichen than patina... lol

I'm just going to get the paint to look halfway decent, but not pretty. This thing is never going to be pretty, it doesn't need to be.

So the guy I ordered the spacer from sent me his last one, and it got lost in the mail... I've emailed every Mitsu dealership in the state, hopefully one of them knows what I'm looking for and can either order it or find another dealership that has had it in stock since 1990.

A spider nest hatched a few nights ago and I woke up to the entire truck covered in tiny little baby spiders. I took the torch to the truck. Spiders smell terrible when you set them on fire... I'm going to be buying an industrial sprayer of spider killer and massacring the rest of the spiders.

I bled the brakes, but the brake booster is shot and the master cylinder doesn't bolt directly to the firewall, so I'm going to have to either spend $150 on a repair service, or find a junkyard one that still works.

Murphy's Law is in full swing, and I'm not even mad. I've hit nothing but problems, and they've all been small and annoying. I'm totally ok with that.

Originally Posted by WarStryker13

So the guy I ordered the spacer from sent me his last one, and it got lost in the mail... I've emailed every Mitsu dealership in the state, hopefully one of them knows what I'm looking for and can either order it or find another dealership that has had it in stock since 1990.

Could you 3d print one?

I found another place...I've already ordered one from a CAT dealership in Florida. lol

Turns out it's the same part as was on 90's MCFA lift trucks (forklifts made by Mitsubishi and CAT), with the same 4G54 that came in these trucks. Part number matches.

I'm not going to mess around with trying to get one 3D printed... It would end up costing more than the $10 I just spent on a brand new one.

The spacer/gasket showed up, I didn't realize that it's made of rubber and not hard plastic.

https://youtu.be/EoJrkIjaeHA

IT'S ALIVE AND FIRING ON ALL FOUR CYLINDERS!!!!!

I still need to set the timing, adjust the idle, finish the exhaust, finish putting the new-to-me brake booster in, kill more spiders, figure out something to replace the old door cards because I ripped them off after finding more spiders inside the doors...

There's more that I'm forgetting, but this is one of those milestones that makes this whole ordeal worth it.

Oh, and I could get a sliding glass rear window for the truck for free, but I kinda like the plain glass I have now. Opinions?

is the gas tank empty or is the sending unit dead?

sound like a runner bud, kudos

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