Well I am the proud owner of a 99 Dakota 4x4. I purchased it back in 2005, when my wife and I decided we really needed a truck. I did have another truck before the Dakota. A Dodge Ramcharger that I bought back in 2001. I began building the Ramcharger for heavy duty mud bogging. I swapped in a Cummins turbo diesel with a torqueflite 727 automatic out of a 2wd, a Dana 60 front axle, a Dana 70 rear axle and a NP205 divorced transfer case. I put 13 inches of lift on it, and I had a set of 46" Michelin XML tires which I also bought. I got about 75% complete. However, I wasn't able to finish the truck due to several distractions along the way, such as various home improvements, sometimes a lack of money, and life in general. In '05 we really needed a drivable truck, and with the Ramcharger incomplete, we bought the Dakota.
Initially, I had no intentions to build or modify the Dakota. I needed it as a daily driver. I had intended to finish the Ramcharger, for serious off road use, but in the meantime, I had the Dakota and with 4wd, I was able to enjoy it for mild off road use. I was pretty happy with the Dakota, and I eventually made small changes to it. I added a set of 32" Dunlop Mud terrains and removed the lower part of the front bumper and mounted a set of off road lights to the front. But there was one thing I really disliked. It was those damn unit hub wheel bearings. Over the years, I had to replace 4 pairs and they weren't cheap. The problem with them was that they couldn't be serviced. If I took the truck in mud, it wouldn't be long before I'd have to replace the bearings. My best solution was to just keep it out of the mud, for the bearings to survive.
Around 2009, the paint began to fail. The clear coat begun to peel off, leaving the pigment underneath to turn to chalk. The truck was looking pretty bad. I figured that for now, all I needed was a cheap paint job just to get by, and I found several people online, who painted their rides with Rustoleum. I figured I had nothing to lose, So I picked up a gallon of Safety Yellow, which was the closest color they had to my Solar Yellow Dakota and I began by prepping the body. Well I discovered bigger problems then just needing a paint job. I discovered some significant rust. When I took off all four fender flares, there was rust holes underneath, which I didn't know existed. This got me to physically checking every square inch of the truck, especially underneath, and what I found, wasn't good news. The passenger side rocker panel was eaten up, but worse, there was serious rusting under the body where the body mounts bolt to the cab supports. This was not going to be an easy fix.
At the time, I decided to clean up the area as best as I could, coat the area in POR15 and hope for the best. The truck was living on borrowed time. I knew that eventually the supports would fail. One day the support did fail. I took the truck out on a trail and drove over a berm. I knew that I shouldn't have, knowing the condition of the support, but I did it anyway. There was a loud bang when it happened and at that point, the cab was now attached to the frame by only three mounts. I was seriously considering scrapping the Dakota and buying another truck, but I just couldn't come to scrap a perfectly good running truck. My options were to either repair the damage or replace the cab. The damage was going to be very difficult to repair. I was going to need a lower cab corner and the cab was going to have to be removed from the frame to make proper repairs. If I had to remove the cab, it made more sense to me to just replace, and if I was going to replace the cab, why not go with a bigger cab? So off I went in search of a quad cab. After a few weeks, I managed to find a rust free one in junk yard.
To be continued…
Ed
Initially, I had no intentions to build or modify the Dakota. I needed it as a daily driver. I had intended to finish the Ramcharger, for serious off road use, but in the meantime, I had the Dakota and with 4wd, I was able to enjoy it for mild off road use. I was pretty happy with the Dakota, and I eventually made small changes to it. I added a set of 32" Dunlop Mud terrains and removed the lower part of the front bumper and mounted a set of off road lights to the front. But there was one thing I really disliked. It was those damn unit hub wheel bearings. Over the years, I had to replace 4 pairs and they weren't cheap. The problem with them was that they couldn't be serviced. If I took the truck in mud, it wouldn't be long before I'd have to replace the bearings. My best solution was to just keep it out of the mud, for the bearings to survive.
Around 2009, the paint began to fail. The clear coat begun to peel off, leaving the pigment underneath to turn to chalk. The truck was looking pretty bad. I figured that for now, all I needed was a cheap paint job just to get by, and I found several people online, who painted their rides with Rustoleum. I figured I had nothing to lose, So I picked up a gallon of Safety Yellow, which was the closest color they had to my Solar Yellow Dakota and I began by prepping the body. Well I discovered bigger problems then just needing a paint job. I discovered some significant rust. When I took off all four fender flares, there was rust holes underneath, which I didn't know existed. This got me to physically checking every square inch of the truck, especially underneath, and what I found, wasn't good news. The passenger side rocker panel was eaten up, but worse, there was serious rusting under the body where the body mounts bolt to the cab supports. This was not going to be an easy fix.
At the time, I decided to clean up the area as best as I could, coat the area in POR15 and hope for the best. The truck was living on borrowed time. I knew that eventually the supports would fail. One day the support did fail. I took the truck out on a trail and drove over a berm. I knew that I shouldn't have, knowing the condition of the support, but I did it anyway. There was a loud bang when it happened and at that point, the cab was now attached to the frame by only three mounts. I was seriously considering scrapping the Dakota and buying another truck, but I just couldn't come to scrap a perfectly good running truck. My options were to either repair the damage or replace the cab. The damage was going to be very difficult to repair. I was going to need a lower cab corner and the cab was going to have to be removed from the frame to make proper repairs. If I had to remove the cab, it made more sense to me to just replace, and if I was going to replace the cab, why not go with a bigger cab? So off I went in search of a quad cab. After a few weeks, I managed to find a rust free one in junk yard.
To be continued…
Ed