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

the way that thing sits with them new tires, i think it would be awesome to turn it into a desert racer

I wouldn't be using more than a cup or so of diesel, and with the 10w40 that this engine uses it really wouldn't thin it out enough to be a concern...

I'm just trying to get a little bit of hands-on coaching, I do really appreciate all of the advice and info you're giving me Scottydoggs... but I learn much faster when I can change what I'm doing real-time and feel the difference.

If or when I ever get the chance to drive a non-synchro standard trans, I'll definitely keep in mind everything you're telling me.

The eventual, long term plan for this truck is to build it into a race truck...

I've seen a lot of examples of the 1st gen D50's as Class 7 desert racers and pre-runners, back when John Baker was still in business and making aftermarket parts for these trucks. I don't live anywhere near the desert, however, and I don't really plan on moving to the desert...

I think I'm going to build more towards mud and rocks... I could put Dana 60 or bigger axles and massive tires under it with 7.17 gears for rock crawling. The other option would be to just upgrade to something like a Dana 44 straight axle up front and something similar in the rear with some decent 33-35 inch mud tires and run it as a trail racer.

Regardless of which direction I go, I want to keep it close to stock for right now and just have fun with it in stock-ish form... I'm looking for a set of factory limited slip carriers, 2nd gen non-sport Montero UCA's (they're about 2" longer and will let me crank up the torsion bars without changing the camber and keeping me from hitting the bump stops when the front suspension is fully extended) and manual locking hubs just as small upgrades since it does snow here during the winter, and I do have to drive on unmaintained roads up the side of a mountain in order to get to work.

My coworker with the '86 S10 is already calling this a race truck, and when I told him it's getting a cage his jaw dropped a little. I'm putting a cage in it just because I still want this thing to be somewhat safe, but considering the thickness of the A pillars and the way this thing takes corners I'm genuinely concerned about rolling this thing. Add in the fact that it weighs so little and the center of gravity is already pretty high (and it'll only move higher) I'm seriously needing at least a roll bar if not a full cage before I'm comfortable taking it onto the highway...

After considering all of that, with the addition of Maryland drivers I'm not taking any chances.

Oh! And I went ahead and painted the new rear drums black, because I had half a can of Duplicolor caliper paint and I didn't want them to start rusting immediately. Tomorrow morning the paint should be cured enough and I'll go ahead and put the new drums on the rear... I have yet to order the new brake hoses, but I need people to buy my old parts so I have the extra money to spend. lol

I do have a few new things to install on the truck, including proper retaining cables for the hood pins, a new toggle switch for the off road lights, an oil filter that actually fits... Little stuff.

New problem with the truck... If I give it too much throttle, either while shifting or just driving, the engine will move just a little bit too far and pull the coil wire right out of the top of the distributor. I figured that out when the engine died in the middle of the road and I had to put it in low and use the starter to move it off to the side. When it refused to start back up I opened the hood and saw the coil wire dangling. I've got another, longer coil wire that came with the plug wire kit, I'll toss that on later. The engine mounts aren't destroyed or falling apart, but eventually I might get new mounts and fill them with some window weld polyurethane. Maybe.

I have new brake hoses coming in tomorrow, and some other stuff I ordered: an adapter for the carburetor to use a regular 5-1/8" air cleaner, a 2-1/2" to 2-1/4" header collector reducer with an O2 sensor bung, and a pop-out cigarette lighter that will actually work.

I got the new drums on the truck, the brakes are better but could still use improvement. The parking brake works really well though.

I'm going to start troubleshooting the A/C circuit soon, I pulled the relay out to test it and I'm going to start tracing voltage and try to figure out where the problem is. I'm really glad that this system is super simple, there's one relay, a thermostat and thermistor, a low pressure switch and a coolant temperature switch. I'm going to bypass the coolant temp sensor and thermostat/thermistor, just to make sure that the compressor and clutch work. Then I can finally check for any leaks and recharge the system if necessary.

Thanks for reading!

Got the brake hoses in and bled the brakes, the brake pedal feels firm now with the engine off. The booster still didn't work like it should, so swapped the check valve from my old booster into the free-from-a-parts-truck booster and adjusted the booster pushrod... Before I swapped the check valve, the booster really didn't do much even if I pumped up the brakes. Now if I pump up the brakes with the engine running, I can actually feel the difference and the brakes actually stop the truck like they should.

I figured out the A/C wiring, the negative wire going to the low pressure switch was mangled. Once I fixed that, the positive wire to the magnetic clutch had +12v when the A/C switch was on and it immediately blew the fuse the instant I hit the switch. I think there might be a few shorted turns in the clutch coil, because even a 25 amp fuse popped in the circuit... It's a 15 amp circuit, but the entire A/C circuit is actually piggy-backing off of the reverse lamp circuit. There is no dedicated circuit in the fuse block for the A/C. So I used the 40 amp relay and switch for the off road lights, the clutch engaged no problem and I couldn't find any leaks. It didn't get cold, but it got slightly cooler and didn't make any weird noises. I'm going to have the system evacuated and recharged after I pull the evaporator out and clean it, but it's starting to get cooler outside so I'm not going to worry about it until next year. I'm going to add another relay to the A/C, and use the positive wire that went to the magnetic clutch as the trigger for the relay.

I also put the carburetor adapter on (after filing it to fit) and a cheap 10" air cleaner, because chrome belongs in the engine bay.

2019-08-23_06-52-12 by Ben Stryker, on Flickr

I still need to clean the engine bay. I know.

man, that engine looks pretty clean now!
some purple power, a paint brush, a scrub brush, and a hose and the engine compartment will be lookin good,too!

I've got a few more things to do before I can focus on cleaning...

I bought a Thrush Turbo muffler, 2.25" offset inlet, 2.25" offset outlet. After driving the truck in actual traffic, I'm wanting a little more muffler than I previously thought I wanted. And it was on sale at AutoZone. I'm going to just clamp it onto the exhaust and see how it sounds, and from there I'll decide whether I'm going to add more tubing myself, or just take the truck over to a shop and have them bend up some tubing and weld it in.

I need to bleed the brakes again, there's a load sensing proportioning valve connected to the rear axle that is supposed to increase brake pressure when there's a load in the bed... But this one has been neglected for who knows how long and of course new/rebuilt ones don't exist. It might be somewhat functional, considering that both front rotors show obvious signs that the calipers are clamping down on them. I don't know if the proportioning valve is holding pressure in the rear wheel cylinders, or if the pumping I'm doing is just pumping up the rear drums and I still only have manual brakes.

I have yet to actually "test" whether the brake booster is airtight or actually functional, but the tests for that are super simple, like turning the engine on while holding the brake and seeing if it moves, turning the engine off while holding the brake pedal and seeing if it drops within 30 seconds. I don't expect it to be fully functioning, but there's not much I can really do right now if it's not.

I've also got a little bit more tuning to do. I adjusted the idle mixture to lean it out just a little because it smelled a bit rich, and I want to get a timing light on it to see exactly where it is. I had a small issue where it started running rough on start up, almost like it had a big vacuum leak. I got it to clear up by revving it to 2500 RPM, where it would instantly smooth out and jump a little in RPM before returning to a smooth idle. It hasn't been happening as often now, and part of me thinks it was the mechanical advance inside the distributor sticking a little. I'm considering pulling the distributor back out to clean and lubricate it, and I'm wanting to get a timing light on it because I'm mildly concerned that the distributor might be off by a tooth. When I was setting the timing by ear, I could advance it all the way and the engine wasn't missing as much as it should have been... Because the Weber carburetor pulls a lot more vacuum than the stock carburetor did, the vacuum advance on the distributor could be what's letting the truck run as well as it does. Plus, when I was setting the timing I didn't have a helper to hold the RPMs at 2k, so I used the idle speed screw to hold it and now I want to do it again the "right" way.

That and adjusting the idle mixture most likely changed the ported vacuum, which would throw off the timing as well.

Another weird issue, random fuses will pop at random times. I've had the reverse lamp fuse pop, the turn signal fuse, the radio fuse, the taillight fuse, and the fuse for the extra 12v outlets. The fuses for the lights might be because I had to cut the terrible attempt at trailer wiring out of the taillight harness, and there might still be some wires I missed that aren't properly isolated. I don't know why the radio fuse blew, or the outlet fuse, which was in a completely separate fuse block from everything else, and I don't have anything plugged into it...

But the dome light is working more often. It used to be about every 10-15 times I opened one of the doors it would come on, recently it's been almost every time. At least there's one part of the truck that's self-healing...

That's on the list.

reads like theres an electrical short somewhere. being show it seems with random things, it would make sense to be in a harness or near a fuse block

So a few things have happened...

About a week ago I took the truck out on a road test, as soon as I hit highway speeds the brakes started dragging. I barely made it to a gas station parking lot before they started smoking, and after readjusting the brake booster push rod I took the truck back home and parked it.

I did bleed the brakes again, and reset both the brake and clutch pedals. I now have 1/8" free-play in the brake, 3/4" in the clutch, and they're both at 7" height. The brakes feel decent, but I still need to take the truck out on the highway to be sure that it's fixed.

The Thrush Turbo muffler mellowed out the exhaust quite a lot, it's got a really deep tone at idle and part throttle and it's not obnoxiously raspy at wide open. It's loud enough to announce my presence to everyone, but still quiet enough that I only get a few dirty looks from the neighborhood Mommy Brigade.

I reset the carburetor to baseline and re-tuned it, just to be sure... Right now the truck idles at about 500 RPM, but it's going to stay there. The Weber 38 DGES carburetor has enrichening progression holes in the throat, and if the idle speed screw is set more than 1/2 turn in, it will exposed those holes and cause dieseling, over advanced ignition timing at idle, and a host of other problems. So it's set at just barely under 1/2 turn, I have zero vacuum advance at the distributor at idle, and there is no dieseling anymore.

I also reset the ignition timing, but I'm going to have to revisit it with a timing light... Now that the timing isn't being advanced at idle by vacuum, I'm starting to suspect that the distributor is off by a single tooth. I can swing it to the fully advanced adjustment position and the engine will still run smooth, but at the halfway point it starts to miss.

I've also had a small intermittent issue that seems to be either the mechanical advance sticking, or the vacuum advance malfunctioning... I'll try figuring it out later, after I deal with the more important things.

As for the random fuses blowing, I'm going to attribute it to old wiring. I have no doubt that there's too much resistance in the wires themselves and that's what is causing the higher amp draw. I probably won't do much about it, at least not in the near future.

I did a little "troubleshooting" of the wiring, and ripped out all of the harness that used to run the stock Mikuni carburetor... Now that it is no longer connected to the ignition wiring and causing a parasitic draw, the truck runs better.


I also degreased the engine and pressure washed everything. It's still not fully clean, but it's much better than before and I can actually see the timing marks on the crank pulley.

Progress is definitely the word.

My coworker needed to get some free tires that would hold air in order to be able to move his little project truck in and out of his driveway, so we took mine to go pick them up. We got out onto the highway, got up to 65 mph without any weird issues or noises and the truck had zero issues holding at that speed for at least a couple of miles. The brakes work as expected, the transmission shifts flawlessly, and the truck itself is still ultimately slow. It's quick to accelerate, but once it's up to speed it's obvious that it still has 3.91 gears and a 4 cylinder engine. I

know the ignition timing is still not where it wants to be... I did manage to borrow a timing light last night, and later today I'm going to see where it's actually at and hopefully get it set to where the engine is happy. I'm hoping I'll be able to get around 30° total timing in it, but I'm going to start with 8° BTDC at idle and see what the mechanical and vacuum advance bring it up to. I have a hunch that the mechanical advance in the distributor is sticking or binding, and the vacuum advance is old and worn out, but I'm going to get it as good as I can with what I've got and look for a better distributor at the junkyard.

I found melted insulation and exposed copper on the wires going to the A/C compressor clutch, which explains why it was pulling so much amperage and blowing the fuse... I'll work on separating them from the rest of the harness and running new wires. I'm also going to add an additional circuit to the stock fuse box just for the A/C. Right now it's pulling power from the reverse lamp circuit, and I'm tired of it popping that fuse. I'm gonna need a second stock fuse box to harvest the wire terminals out of, and I can add some extra circuits to the stock fuse block while I have it all apart.

Still quite a bit left to do, but I'm calling the truck ready for daily driver status.

Side note: I might have "accidentally" spun the tires while leaving a parking lot to merge with traffic... still getting the hang of driving a standard, I guess.

Starter gear drive went out yesterday... YAY.

IMG_20190912_224712496 by Ben Stryker, on Flickr

Plastic? Boo.

Funny thing is, the starter for a manual truck is supposed to be direct drive. The auto trans starters are gear reduction... Which explains why this almost brand new starter ate itself trying to start a manual trans truck for however many years...

New direct drive starter is on the way, I'll keep this one for the spare parts.

Using the starter to move the truck is really tough on it. Plastic is that weak link.

I actually haven't done that yet. Lol

The plastic can't handle just starting a manual transmission, let alone moving the entire truck... Too many torques.

So I figured that while I've got the truck in the garage, I'd go ahead and get a few things done... I replaced the upper radiator hose, I found a pinhole in the old one and a new hose was only $10. I relocated the ignition coil from the fender well to the intake manifold, mostly for looks.

When I started investigating the A/C wiring, I found melted wires all the way up to the fuse block under the dash, so now I'm pulling the dash out and checking the entire wiring harness. I didn't really want to do this yet, but such is life.

Oh, and I finally made the trip over to Harbor Freight, torque wrenches were on sale for $20 each, and I picked up some stubby ratcheting wrenches because why not.