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So against better judgment I went out and bought this truck, safetied, for $2500 Canuck-bucks. Did I overpay? Yeah, probably. Do I regret it? Nah. I wasn't going to make a thread just for the truck, but then things got interesting.  It's got a full size bed (with tire holders!), a dana 44 rear with ~positraction~ and a 318 mated to a 4 speed. Coming from a series of i4s and a bagged v6 the v8 is fantastic...when it runs. Did I mention it's only got 46 000km on the odo? Apparently is just sat around for a long time. The PO said a lot of stuff that's starting to make sense now. He said the fuses and voltage regulator blew out regularly, the heater fan only ran sometimes and he'd just replaced every single bulb in the vehicle and the alternator was suspiciously new. I should have seen it coming, but instead I bought a spare voltage regulator like he'd advised and drove out of town to pick it up, swapped the battery terminals and put in a much smaller battery than what he'd had running (so it actually fits the tray now). It drove fine and had intermittent heat on the way home. At first I was mostly worried about body work    This is like the fourth car now I've bought that has ripped upholstery  The dash is in pretty good shape, and so is the inside of the cab   The parking brake cable just sort of hangs out under the truck, too. The PO didn't succeed in getting the dash light to go out with this setup  Anyway, everything was relatively fine until yesterday. I mean, sure I had to tape up some wires on the positive side of the battery before getting her home, but I thought (hoped) it was just local wear and tear .  So I was driving to the hardware store yesterday and midway there the dash lights started to go dim, the turn signals stopped working and then the motor just lost power entirely. After a short bus ride home I grabbed my work car and the spare voltage regulator and managed to boost it to life. When I returned with my girlfriend in her car about an hour after that it wouldn't start no matter what. There are frayed wires all over the place, like this one right by the voltage regulator  I'm convinced the problem is a short to ground somewhere, possibly multiple shorts/breaks, and I'm sure the loose alternator belt doesn't help. The electrical system in this truck doesn't seem too intense, I'm really thinking I'm just going to pull out all wiring with as few cuts as possible, and then just re-loom everything with new wire. It should probably solve my voltage regulator and heater fan issues, plus the whole popped fuses thing. Now, AI, is there any way to get color-coded wire or am I just going to have to rely on electrical tape color codes and labels? Also, would a Chiltons/Haynes manual have wiring diagrams that would help or should I look elsewhere?
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Feb 2, 2017 05:05
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A Haynes should have wiring diagrams in it. I am sure you can buy different coloured wire to redo the loom. Is finding a non lovely one at a scrap yard not a possibility?
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Feb 2, 2017 14:26
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Wooooo D-series! 
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Feb 2, 2017 14:39
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My first vehicle was a 92' D150 V6 2WD in almost verbatim the same shape your truck is in. At least once a day people would say "wow that's a really old truck!" and I'd have to explain the Dodge just didn't care for 30 some-odd years. Mine was a real basket case, but it was also before I had any mechanical aptitude (if you can call it that). I sometimes think about how if I had that truck now I could be alot kinder to it, but alas I can live vicariously through you. Good luck!
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Feb 2, 2017 18:16
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Ha! When I got the car towed home the other day the first thing the tow truck driver said when he got pulled up to my house was "I love antiques!" It's actually impressive how much more advanced my '85 s10 felt compared to the dodge. Re: wiring harness I suppose I could look around a pick n pull, but the harness is wrapped in cloth tape from factory and it really doesn't seem to age well. The wires are insulated with rubber, I think, because the coating on them is brittle and breaks easily. Everything in this climate will probably be in the same shape, if not worse, as they used to salt the roads pretty heavily. On the plus side I found wiring diagrams online. It looks pretty simple, the whole thing fits onto a single sheet of paper...except the turn signals. They have their own diagram. I'll see if I can make it to an electrical distributor but if not I'll probably just get whatever will work at Home Depot and color code with tape. A replacement harness is like $300+ USD so definitely not going that route.
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Feb 3, 2017 04:45
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I bet you could find the service manual on eBay. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1986-Dodge-...gRWu5Xv&vxp=mtr Here is one for a 1986, for example. More expensive than I would have guessed, but it is 30 years old. The factory service manuals are almost always superior to a Haynes or Chiltons. edit: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1985-Dodge-...uFWu5CN&vxp=mtr Right one? Kia Soul Enthusias fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Feb 3, 2017 |
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Feb 3, 2017 08:39
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Wish I could buy something like this or a bronco without 120009800030988% Australian hipster tax applied
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Feb 3, 2017 09:09
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That's a wicked find, but daaamn that's more than I can spend right now on the manual. If my attempt at redoing the harness using the wiring diagrams I found goes to pot I''ll have no choice. If shipping wasn't so killer it would be a pretty good investment... I totally get the hipster tax comment. I had to drive like, 25 minutes out of town to get it. Any time an old truck gets taken into town some old guy declares it a "project" and the motor goes missing, body panels vanish along with the rockers, the wheels get sold and then it gets put up for sale after a decade of sitting outside but the guy wants to sell it for as much as it would be worth all done up.
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Feb 4, 2017 03:39
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What's up, D100 buddy! I have an old rusty '68 D100 sweptline that was a housewarming gift when we moved onto our property in 2010. It's blue and rust, got a 225 slant 6, three on the tree, and lumber racks on the bed. It's probably the most reliable vehicle in our fleet. One of these days I want to figure out how to retrofit disc brakes on the front. I love old Dodge trucks. Congratulations!
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Feb 4, 2017 04:25
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I almost bought one of these (well, a 1990) a week ago, but the seller flaked at the last second because someone offered more then backed out. I still laugh that he came back to me. Screw you, I drove an hour out of my way last time, don't treat buyers like crap kid. Well that's my story, have fun with the truck. I'm gonna live vicariously through this thread till I get my own project.
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Feb 4, 2017 19:03
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Just FYI, those 1/2- ton pickups never came with a Dana 44 diff - only corporate Mopar units. If it's got 10 bolts on the cover, it's an 8-1/4, 12 bolts means it's a 9-1/4. Most of them are 9-1/4's. The 9-1/4 is a good unit, the smaller 8-1/4 is.....a bit undersized for the full-sized truck.
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Feb 4, 2017 19:34
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I'll check the bolt count next time I'm outside. Thanks for the info, I'm only parroting what the seller told me, I don't know poo poo about Chrysler. As Nero Danced posted:I almost bought one of these (well, a 1990) a week ago, but the seller flaked at the last second because someone offered more then backed out. I still laugh that he came back to me. Screw you, I drove an hour out of my way last time, don't treat buyers like crap kid. That's super lovely! I hope you low balled him hard and asked for delivery.
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Feb 5, 2017 19:08
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Replace the 6 gauge (or whatever) wire from the alternator to the battery. Replace the sense wire to the alternator from the regulator as well as the 12 volt switched wire to the regulator. Make sure the regulator case is grounded to the firewall.
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Feb 5, 2017 19:51
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Thanks for the tips, I'm planning on replacing pretty much every piece of wire in the truck. I was hoping to leave the bigger ones, but if you think they should go then I'll replace them too. Anyway I was out shovelling snow today and I counted 12 bolts on the diff cover, so it's a 9 1/4 axle after all.
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Feb 8, 2017 03:54
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So I'm going to be using these wiring diagrams I found online, hopefully they're accurate.   There was a break in the weather so I'm just about to head out and start pulling some wires out. Stopped in at the Home Depot this morning to get 100m of stranded wire, and all kinds of electrical tape. I mean, I could spend the money on different colored wire but I'm just gonna do the idiot thing and make my own tape color code. I reckon if I move slow and careful enough while rebuilding the harness I should be okay.  The plan is to pull and label all the connectors, bring the whole deal inside and then run new wire. I wasn't planning on dropping the dash, but I've got all day and the wire are probably all poo poo...
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Feb 18, 2017 16:53
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Breakfast Feud posted:So I'm going to be using these wiring diagrams I found online, hopefully they're accurate. Your that p.o. just make sure to put the colored tape in multiple spots. Also some paint pens in the color of the tapes would help. That was you can also put a little dab of paint every so often through the wires. All to ease in the end goal of reinstallation. Edit: you can substitute paint pen for wife's old nail polish.
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Feb 18, 2017 18:12
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clam ache posted:Your that p.o. just make sure to put the colored tape in multiple spots. Also some paint pens in the color of the tapes would help. That was you can also put a little dab of paint every so often through the wires. All to ease in the end goal of reinstallation. D'ya think I'm rockefeller here or something? Also, gonna have a laminated color legend taped in the glove box/under the hood or something. Thankfully there are only a handful of colors under the hood, so I'll be able to use tape to stripe the wires along their lengths. Pics of what I found incoming shortly
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Feb 18, 2017 20:24
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Here's more pics than anyone needs or wants! That little tube at the back goes to the bottom of the intake, pictured here  It's my first time working on a v8, I'm like a little babby. I like how all the gubbins are between the heads. A+ would motor again.  Here's a connector, I took a pic so I know what cable sits where. Don't worry, I labelled everything before I started drinking today  The pics I took are terrible, but I'm 99% sure I have two horns. There's one on the driver's side and one on the passenger's. Neither work right now. Here's a good pic of the labels, but I took this picture to note that the harness went under both those steel bits.  Another connector where it's important to note which wire goes where  Boring alternator bullshit  Yellow wire goes here  That little screw end is where a rubber electrical connector lives  Oily bullshit and connectors I'm pretty sure were never connected  I'm really doing my best to abide by "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" so I don't end up replacing everything I touch. This part of the harness goes to a bunch of stuff right up against the firewall and apart from a tear in the outer wrap it looks like it's in good shape. I'll leave it for now as there are no frayed wires like in the bigger harness, and if it causes problems later I'll get to it then.  Chooched regulator and where the 'good' harness disappears to  That about wraps it up for inside the engine bay. It was pretty straightforward, and the PO hadn't done too many garbage splices. It was pretty early in the day so I decided to have a look in the cab. We start off strong with an L bracket and a ground attached to plastic near the fusebox  I removed the L bracket and oops  This tab went to a lovely sound effects thing   The fan control switch is broken off of the rest of the controls. Duct taped back in place, but it looks like it could be glued.  This braided steel probably connected to the factory deck, the other end is screwed into the metal frame under the dash. PO taped the new deck ground to it.  The deck and the sound fx thing were tapped off this power wire,  There was a green wire going from the aftermarket tach on the dash to the ground of the coil, I'm guessing the pulses of the coil determined the tach's gauge position?  Found some weird black wires when I was taking apart all the tape + twist wiring the PO did, pulled them out through the cavernous dash and found they went up along the door seal and out the top of the cab. I'm pretty sure they're for the hood thing with lights on it, "the hat", but I'll find out for sure later.  this is where the wires terminated  Put them on the visor, we'll deal with that when the electrical isn't super hosed  Also, what in tarnation is this steel nub on the floor? Buddy seems to think it's for the high beams  In closing, this is probably the factory radio connector. Two wires are MIA the other two were feeding the kenwood.
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Feb 19, 2017 00:53
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Breakfast Feud posted:Also, what in tarnation is this steel nub on the floor? Buddy seems to think it's for the high beams Correct. Generally called the "dimmer switch." Headlight power goes into the switch, and it exits either to the low beam filaments or the high beam filaments, depending on whether you have stomped the switch or not.
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Feb 19, 2017 01:08
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Yeah, foot-operated dipswitches used to be really common. Surprised at one being on an 80s vehicle though.
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Feb 19, 2017 01:10
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Ford used them all the way through the end of the 1991 model year on the F series pickups, and until the mid 90s on some E series vans. Pretty sure Dodge used them until the 90s as well.Breakfast Feud posted:There was a green wire going from the aftermarket tach on the dash to the ground of the coil, I'm guessing the pulses of the coil determined the tach's gauge position? Nailed it. If you look on the back of the tach, you'll probably find a knob or some kind of switch to select how many cylinders the engine has. Change it to 6 and it'll read 50% higher, change it to 4 and it'll show double.
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Feb 19, 2017 15:12
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Breakfast Feud posted:Found some weird black wires when I was taking apart all the tape + twist wiring the PO did, pulled them out through the cavernous dash and found they went up along the door seal and out the top of the cab. I'm pretty sure they're for the hood thing with lights on it, "the hat", but I'll find out for sure later. My god its a post from the future/next owner! 
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Feb 19, 2017 18:15
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cakesmith handyman posted:My god its a post from the future/next owner! I like to think of myself as providing a valuable truck hospice service for trucks nearing the end of their life.
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Feb 19, 2017 18:23
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Please please please at least buy a few different colors of wire. You also want automotive SXL or GXL grade wire, nothing from home depot belongs in a wiring harness on a car IMO. Most of those connectors appear to be Packard 56 series or similar. Where multiple pins are involved, try to use original or original style housings so you can actually get all the wires back on the right pin if you have to swap the part, otherwise you or the next owner are going to be hosed. Also, try https://www.bbbind.com/free_tsb.html for wiring diagrams. Just hit the big red wiring diagram button and enter your info.
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Feb 23, 2017 23:37
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kastein posted:Please please please at least buy a few different colors of wire. You also want automotive SXL or GXL grade wire, nothing from home depot belongs in a wiring harness on a car IMO. I came here to post exactly this. I got shivers up my spine seeing THHN.
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Feb 23, 2017 23:52
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kastein posted:Please please please at least buy a few different colors of wire. You also want automotive SXL or GXL grade wire, nothing from home depot belongs in a wiring harness on a car IMO. Clicking your link takes me to a page for Rio carnival tickets. Somethin's fucky.
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Feb 24, 2017 01:46
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LOL I totally forgot wire temperate ratings exist. Ordered a spool of GXL, money's tight so it's one colour unfortunately. I'm planning to leave like 3" off every connector and western union join + solder the new wire on before shrink wrapping, hopefully preserving some of the factory colour code and also reuse the connectors.
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Feb 24, 2017 02:39
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Finally had some time to dick around with the harness.  This was what it looked like when I started. Thankfully it wasn't as bad as it had looked, with the Red wires being the most damaged. I peeled off all the wrapping and inspected every wire. Found wear in the casings of the red ones, and one other wire. Everything that wasn't visibly broken I left alone.   Red wires were cracked like this in a lot of places, but other places the casing seemed to have remained malleable. I did as little replacing as I could.  This was right by where the positive battery terminal would have been. Probably a big source of my issues.  I got Tucker do double check my work. So, after a few hours of work I think I've got this harness fixed. I also took the time to change the way it was wrapped. Originally everything ran in a central trunk but that's not really ideal for troubleshooting. I decided to try and keep wires going to particular connectors in their own groups. It makes the harness look more intimidating but I think it'll be handy for troubleshooting if I get cracking again. Every branch can be unwrapped individually so I might be able to do some diagnostics outside in the truck instead of having to remove the whole harness. We'll see if it goes like I want, though. 
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Mar 26, 2017 02:48
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update: against all odds I plugged in the harness, charged the battery, squirted some carb cleaner into the carb and it fired right up. All the weird gremlins have disappeared. Lights work, heater/fan work, battery even charges. Drove it to the dump and back with no issues. Next up: tires, brakes, exhaust
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Apr 9, 2017 16:07
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Not truck related, but ended up picking up a moped today! 1980 Puch Maxi
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Apr 24, 2017 03:22
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Breakfast Feud posted:wiring woes I have an 1986 d150 2bbl 318 with a torqueflight and even though I can fix it with a few pieces of chewed gum and some toothpicks I would highly recommend taking CharlesM's advice at your earliest convenience and getting the FSM. It has already saved my rear end twice by making it trivial to chase degraded wiring as well as offering good information for mucking around in the dash as well. Does your d100 have the same ECM that takes a dump and causes the car not to run when the solenoid shorts? That was multimeter fun boy let me tell you 
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Apr 24, 2017 19:56
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Was going to buy the FSM but instead I opted to use the money to replace the front brakes. Everything is so god damned rusty. I have calipers and hoses on order and I'm either going to source some pre-bent OEM hard line or bend it myself. Hopefully I'll be able to source some flare nuts locally instead of having to wait. I sort of want to be back on the road in a timely fashion.
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May 31, 2017 03:02
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Had a really productive morning. I've tracked down the exhaust leak problems and removed both front brake calipers, lines and hoses. So to get at the proportioning block/valve/brake antler I had to drop the starter...but to drop the starter I had to remove the intake. I was planning to replace all the gaskets so no big deal. Turns out the entire EGR/emissions system was swiss cheese and that's where my leaks were coming from. I loosened half the intake and the gasket just sort of fell out  This was looking upwards from by the oil filter. This pipe at some point had a connection but since the PO redid the exhaust it was deleted and the pipe was just kind of jammed between the manifold and the exhaust.  The only bolts I sheared off were the ones holding the EGR piping to the manifold. Not a huge issue. I've got some scrap steel plate and I'm probably going to RTV/JB weld this shut. Unless I can get a hold of my welder buddy...  The PO referred to this part as the AC compressor but it doesn't make any sense. I'm 99.9% sure this is an air pump. It connects to the exhaust system. Either way it's seized and the PO disconnected it.  This is pretty much why I'm pulling the brake lines out:  I was sort of regretting buying new calipers at first but after seeing these ones and also having the pads crumble apart in my hands, I have no regrets:  The rear brake lines look a lot better than the fronts, as do the lines leading up to the master cylinder. I'm leaving those until next year. The wheel bearings and the rotors are in great shape too, thankfully.
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Jun 3, 2017 22:06
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Today was kind of a wash. I had set aside the whole day to really knock out some work on the truck and brought home a sweet haul from the local NAPA.  Not pictured: the brake pads my buddy got me on sale + staff discount. $40 for a set of front pads! I got a pretty sweet deal on all the stuff I picked up today too because the computer system was down when I rolled up and I waited around like 20 minutes before it came back up. It took me about that long to find all the stuff I needed so it was great. They gave me a beer cooler backpack for spending X amount of dollars to boot. Napa's pretty good. They didn't have fittings for sale just loose so I bought the two shortest brake lines from which I'll take the fittings.  I got a 25ft spool of brake hose to fix my lines. My practice flare came out pretty dang alright and really, really close to spec.  I was pretty pumped when I went out to do some work...Then my dad called and he needed some trailer wiring done to his Equinox ASAP so I spent about 3 hours doing that before I got to even starting on the truck. Got the calipers, pads and hoses mounted without too much fuss  So my original plan was to bend the lines first then flare them and put fittings on. I got one line pretty much done, and it's reasonably close to the line that came off the truck  Then I ran into a bunch of issues. Because of the bends that put into the line the pipe flaring tool hosed up the flares and they were all at weirdo angles. Then the bends were too harsh for the fittings to slip over. Pretty much called it at that point, going to revisit that tomorrow. I think I'm going to do fittings + flares then bend the pipe.
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Jun 11, 2017 01:45
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Since you've got a NAPA nearby, do yourself a favor and buy a roll of Cunifer (Copper/nickel alloy) tubing. It flares like a dream, bends easily, and doesn't ever ever rust. DOT approved too.
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Jun 12, 2017 03:29
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Oh man! When I was there they were trying to sell it to me, and I would have bought it but they were out! Had a really productive day today. Sat down and flared both lines, took a bunch of tries to get the flares right but it was worth it. I'm not normally a perfectionist so it was super aggravating. Here's the flare with the fitting on it:  and both brake lines done:  As expected the shorter one was way more of a pain in the rear end to install because of all the tight curves. I made as accurate as a replica of the old line as I could and then sort of finagled it into place. The passenger side line was a lot easier, except for the first tight bend. After that I just kind of had to run it across the frame and over. It even mostly fits into the old clips.  Here's a shot of the proportioning block with the new lines in it:  And where the line meets the new hose:  After this I bled the front brakes, and the speed bleeders made my life super easy. After that was done I moved onto re-mounting all the poo poo I took off. First thing, though, is I had to cap off the now deleted air pump lines. I'm chancing it with some copper RTV, steel plate and JB weld. Yeah I know it's no the right way to do it, but this truck probably has like ~3 years left in it. Better than it was, anyway. I used the tiny gaskets that came with the kit as a guide and traced out the shape on some steel.  Then I cut out the plates with a jigsaw  Before I took this pic I used a grinder to clear the surface of any rust. I just sort of jammed a bunch of RTV in there to make as best a seal as I could.  Then I applied the JB weld and clamped the plate down.  It's looking pretty promising, honestly. The label says the JB weld is good for up to 4500PSI, so we'll see how true that really is. I don't think the exhaust pressure should be reaching that, though, but I don't know poo poo about motor pressures.  Getting the exhaust back together was a huge pain in the dick. Got it running without too much fuss after that, though, and the exhaust leak seems mostly gone! Bad news is the brake pedal has a ton of play in it now, and makes a sort of whooshing sound when I press it in. The good news is that once it's down about 3/4 of the way poo poo happens like it has never happened before. The truck actually stops instead of gently slowing to a stop. It's honestly a god damned miracle my fabricated lines worked, I've never done anything that precise before. I'm guessing that I got air in the rear part of the lines, and I'm going to have to bleed those? Or is it air in the master? I was hoping there would be some kind of voodoo in the system to keep air out of the rears since I left that whole system intact but I guess not? Thoughts?
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Jun 12, 2017 03:37
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Start by bleeding the farthest caliper from the master, probably pass. rear, then drivers rear, then pass front, then finally driver's front. You may have to bleed them a couple of times to get all the air, especially if you don't have a power bleeder or vacuum pump. I just put a piece of tygon tubing on the bleeder, and stick it in a can half full of brake fluid. That way, even if the timing is off between me and by brake-bleeding-buddy, there's no way air gets sucked back in.
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Jun 12, 2017 04:05
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That makes a lot of sense. I'm waiting on the rear speed bleeders to come in. The ones I ordered (which I referenced on the sizing chart) are actually too big. The only dodge bleeders that look anything like my rear drum bleed screws are the ones for the d50. It's not like they break the bank so I ordered that set. In the meantime I can finally start work on the moped. I had a good look at the electrical yesterday and thankfully it's even simpler than I remembered. Double thankfully the wiring for the brake light actually exists, it's just that the PO pigtailed the running light and the stop light together and deleted the switch lever. I've got a spare lever, but the stop bulb is blown. I had ordered a sweet LED brake light on ebay but it's MIA and I got a refund for it. It can't wait much longer so either I'm going to have to go to Canadian Tire and track down the next closest fit or just replace the rear brake innards with a trailer LED. I put in the rear turn signals today and figured out how I'm going to run them to the switch and relay.  Also when I was moving poo poo around this wire came loose, and I think it's a great place to splice in a kill switch like I was planning on doing. The PO had it at a super high idle so the clutch would always engage and to stop it he just slammed the rear wheel into the ground to stall the motor. The better method right now is to smother the carb but that gets old pretty quick. The picture is garbage, but the left is going towards the rear, you can kind of see the coil here. 
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Jun 16, 2017 12:13
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JB Weld disintegrates around 300degF fyi. Red RTV can do pretty high temperatures but really the best option was to have those parts brazed.
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Jun 17, 2017 04:15
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When they let loose I'll braze the next fix! I should be okay with MAP gas and brazing rod, or do I need anything special?
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Jun 17, 2017 14:56
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