What I've been wasting my time with lately (Ramcharger rebuild) Pt.1

[The_War_Wagon]

Woot-woot!

My RC is BACK from it's LATEST stop @ the shop this week - front axle grease seals are replaced, shock setup is slightly re-worked (and straightened out), and my CAD has been replaced with a new mechanical locking/engagement gizmo, which I'm REALLY looking forward to trying out on the trails

But mainly - after inheriting it 8 years ago THIS month - it will... FINALLY... be off-road READY!!!

I'm ACTUALLY looking forward to freezing my @$$ off on SOME sorta trail run either this month or next - just to splash a little mud on it - before the end of the year. And I will be looking forward to this coming spring, like no other in almost a DECADE!!!

MORE pics to come...

[The_War_Wagon]

Closeup of the Posi-Lok gizmo that Dave installed on my D-44 - no more vacuum CAD to fail or gum up with axle grease!!!





Had some time this morning, so I went out, fired it up, and let it run for about 20 minutes, given all the cold weather we've had of late. That's when I finally noticed he'd added the sticker to my collection!




And as we ALL know, a sticker's always worth another 5 hp!

[The_War_Wagon]

No pics on this one, but a decent story.


A MOPAR guy, and Gen.1 builder no less, chimed in on POR a few weeks ago. After looking over my build, & a some of the pics more closely, he said - 'I think I found your death wobble issue - your front spring packs are in backward!'

Sure enough, Dave agreed. We'd been working on so many OTHER things, we never noticed (Dave did NOT put those in - my first mechanic and I did that some 8 years ago - because it only traveled 1 mile for the first 7 of those years, we never really noticed, until we started DRIVING it!)!

So Dave agreed to straighten them out (swap them) for me; we also installed new poly bushings throughout the front end (it NEEDED them!!), and install my Hughes plenum fix (a needed fix for early Dodge Magnum engines. The original was this steel/aluminum combo, that heated un-evenly and eventually warped. This would suck in the gasket, & then you'd start sucking in air, which made for a leaner burn, and - eventually - burned pistons!). And driving it home yesterday, I'd swear it feels just a BIT peppier even!

And of course, it FINALLY steers better! Thing with a death wobble at 35mph is, it's gonna be just as imprecise at 3.5mph, crawling along a tricky switchback. And when your spotter says, 'turn right,' and you TURN the steering wheels, but the FRONT wheels DON'T turn, THAT'S when you're into a boulder... or a tree stump... or a creek... or off a ledge...

Problem has been, that in addition to being imprecise, it was also occasionally 'grabby/darty' in turns. You'd be in the middle of a turn, and all of a sudden it would wanna dart sharper through the turn. Not a problem at a couple of miles an hour from a stoplight, but a BIG potential problem at highway speeds, en route to dirt! So the precision is BACK in the steering, and feels pretty good now.

Now to find some mud....