Long, long, ago, in a Ford far, far, away...

Before the Jeep Commander was even a glimmer on the horizon, I inherited this beast, with the intention of making IT, our trail rig/BoV/Cub Scout War Wagon. Over the last couple of months, it is slowly, but surely, coming BACK to life. After sitting in a shed for the better part of 7 years, I've finally gotten the help and resources needed to at least try and get it to pass state inspection!

Here's what I inherited back in the fall of '06 - and it had mostly been sitting for a year & a half at THAT point, after being a daily driver for most of its life.
A nice, but tired, 1992 Dodge Ramcharger LE150 - 318 V-8, MPFI, 727 Torqueflite, NP241 Transfer case, 9 1/4 rear end - indeterminate front axle at this point (I'll post the vin code and data plates on here for Dodge experts to chime in on), and 135,000 miles - not a few of which were Pittsburgh-to-west-Texas road trips, where the original owner was from.





It was ALWAYS going to be a trail rig, as the factory 11mpg city/13mpg highway was a bit much for a daily driver... so last year, I promptly bought my Jeep Commander for a daily driver, that gets 10.5 mpg city...




THAT said, my local mechanic offered to work on it as a side project at his house, as he knew my children were Autistic, and he wanted to help. I bought the parts, and he did the labor for free. That worked well... for a while... until he took a job in the Marcellus shale fields a few years ago. So my truck just sat in his shed for a few more years.

I'd already bought a complete 4 1/2 Rough Country lift kit for it from Top Gun Customz down in TN, as well as five (5) Courser M/T 36" tires for it, and five (5) 15x10 Pacer custom wheels (wanted the matching full-size spare, obviously), and those were still sitting in the garage of my local Goodyear dealer. I'd also bought from Kennesaw Mountain Products in GA (now Tactical Armor Group) a custom rear bumper, with an INTEGRAL swing-out tire gate, built to spec to haul a 36x15x10 spare around on (also has a Jerry can holder, hi-lift jackstorage, cb antenna mount, license plate frame, and D shackles. That was a cool $750, and it was still shrink-wrapped to the pallet it was shipped on - sitting in an empty classroom of my church for the past 5 years!

Nonetheless, I didn't see a lotta future for the old gal, and was thinking of either scrapping or selling it as recently as this May, but a new member at my church offered to help, after we got to talking about cars one day. He owns a custom shop in Carnegie (near Pittsburgh), and does all manner of metal fabrication there. I told him I had all the parts - mostly just need the lift kit installed, and I'd take care of the rest, but he decided he wanted to do more - including bodywork, sanding, primering, painting, and even building a custom front bumper and new exhaust system for it!