Dakota Forumz banner

My Dakota build with pics.

19K views 42 replies 4 participants last post by  02GenHandMeDown 
#1 ·
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
 
See less See more
#29 ·
One of the inspirations of my build, is the classic or vintage military style Dodge Power Wagons. I built my custom bed to emulate the look and feel of those old trucks. But I was never really satisfied with the fenders I used. When I first built the bed, I purchased a pair of "Jeep Style" trailer fenders. They worked great, but it wasn't the look I was after. Indeed the fenders did look like those used on the old Gladiator Jeeps or the old FW Jeeps, but I wanted something that shouted out "Power Wagon" They had to be rounded instead being "squared off". But I couldn't find a round fender that had the right radius and reproduction PW fenders weren't exactly cheap.

But I found a unique solution in the world of big rigs. Many big trucks use large rounded fenders made out of a variety of materials and in a wide range of prices. I found a pair of poly fenders and they had just the right radius, but they did need to be narrowed down.



^ To mount the new fenders, a new set of supporting brackets had to be fabb'ed up.




^ Bottom-up view with fender installed




^ Completed look




^ Overall view

To be continued

Ed
 
#31 ·
At this stage of the build, it was finally time to start the engine. The last time this engine ran was back in the summer of 2002 when I first bought it, and it had been sitting the whole time ever since. But now that it was installed in the Dakota, the moment of truth finally arrived to start this pig…. But the news was not what I had hoped for. One day, I got a phone call from the shop. They told me that after several attempts to start the engine, the engine simply wouldn't run. I decided to go in person to see the engine and figure out why it wouldn't run. When I arrived the mechanics managed to get the engine to run. It ran, and that was good news, but it was a bittersweet victory because to make the engine run, they had to spray ether at it. So long as the spray was picked up by the turbo, it ran. But once the spray stopped, the engine stopped too. It was determined that for some reason, the injector pump wasn't doing it's thing. I knew that it ran back in 2002 because I was able to drive the truck which the engine came from, but after that, the engine did sit for 15 yrs.

After some discussion, I agreed to sending the injector pump out for a rebuild. About two weeks later, I received a text video on my phone. When I played it, there was a grey Cummins turbo diesel running, this time completely on diesel fuel. I would personally visit the shop to see it for myself, and run it did. I was happy. For the first time in this build, I can see the light at the end of this long tunnel. From here many details have to be completed before it can move on it's own.



^ Sadly, you can't see it, but this engine is running. Eventually I will have to open up a youtube account to show vids of this truck running

Ed
 
#32 ·
At this stage of the build, it was finally time to start the engine. The last time this engine ran was back in the summer of 2002 when I first bought it, and it had been sitting the whole time ever since. But now that it was installed in the Dakota, the moment of truth finally arrived to start this pig…. But the news was not what I had hoped for. One day, I got a phone call from the shop. They told me that after several attempts to start the engine, the engine simply wouldn't run. I decided to go in person to see the engine and figure out why it wouldn't run. When I arrived the mechanics managed to get the engine to run. It ran, and that was good news, but it was a bittersweet victory because to make the engine run, they had to spray ether at it. So long as the spray was picked up by the turbo, it ran. But once the spray stopped, the engine stopped too. It was determined that for some reason, the injector pump wasn't doing it's thing. I knew that it ran back in 2002 because I was able to drive the truck which the engine came from, but after that, the engine did sit for 15 yrs.

After some discussion, I agreed to sending the injector pump out for a rebuild. About two weeks later, I received a text video on my phone. When I played it, there was a grey Cummins turbo diesel running, this time completely on diesel fuel. I would personally visit the shop to see it for myself, and run it did. I was happy. For the first time in this build, I can see the light at the end of this long tunnel. From here many details have to be completed before it can move on it's own.



^ Sadly, you can't see it, but this engine is running. Eventually I will have to open up a youtube account to show vids of this truck running

Ed
I know this is an old thread, but what is the state of this build now?
 
#33 ·
Yes it is getting old!! Actually I got fed up. First, Photobucket decided to cut all the picture links and I wasn't going to redo all the pics, all over again with another photo hosting site. Then this forum changed and I didn't like the way it worked, so I just left... Turns out, several of my favorite forums are now using the same forum format and I had to just learn how to deal with it

But enough of that! Yes, this build is still in progress and I've driven it a few times before parking it for more work.... I'll go ahead and start updating this thread again by this weekend...

Thanks Ed
 
#37 ·
OK so as promised, here is a continuation of my build. In my last build post some three years ago, I had mentioned that I could see the light at the end of the tunnel....But it took a lot longer to reach a point where the truck would run under it's own power. But between that time, I had to do so much more.

There were several things to address. For one, I chose to add a set of Autometer gauges to keep tabs on the motor. I chose the 6300 series which are LED readouts instead of traditional needle sweep gauges, heres what they looked like;

2875
2876



Ed
 
#39 ·
With all the work I couldn't perform behind me, I would do much of my own wrenching from this point on and the Dakota finally came home. This is it at our new home;

2879
2880


Ed
 
#40 ·
Next detail to deal with was a new shifter. Rather than use the factory column, I decided to install a B&M Ratchet floor shifter. But before that could happen, I stripped out all the rotted carpet and removed the center console. In it's place, I fabbed up a flat platform out of aluminum diamond plate, which was installed using the console mounting brackets. Then the shifter was installed on the platform;

2881
2882
2883


Ed
 
#41 ·
It's been my intention to paint this Dakota OD green from the beginning and now with it home, I could work on the paint and body. The body work was kept to a minimum. I simply cleaned off the surface rust on the hood and roof, and prepped the truck for paint. First part was painting the chassis. I'm not a huge fan of flat black for the chassis. I like everything to be "tactical", so everything below bumper level was painted OD green, rims, frame, axles...all of it got greened out;

2884


Ed
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top