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

[The_War_Wagon]

Well, if Obama has taught us ANYTHING, it's that, "HOPE"... is NOT a plan...

Guess what happens when you RE-gear, and your driveline angle is bad? Torque and driveshaft yokes are NOT your friends.


I LITERALLY got it home, when it dropped the driveshaft in the parking lot.

It drove GREAT getting home - had a blast tooling around in it - looks GREAT with the spare tire finally mounted.

I'm just too disappointed to say any more.

I called Dave & told him what happened - we knew it was binding, but didn't realize it was THAT bad. I'm sending it back to him on Monday - we're gonna drop the rear springs, rotate and shim the axle, and get that straightened out. Stay tuned for more details...

[The_War_Wagon]

Ok... Dave came by Saturday night and put some heavier duty straps on the yoke. It'll hold... for now... I have a custom built slip yoke eliminator coming from AZ this week, and my local driveshaft man is gonna build me a double cardon driveshaft, utilizing a Ford 1350 yoke to connect the double cardon to the new flange. It'll buy us MORE time, until we can plasma off the rear shock towers, & rotate & shim the rear axle like it needs to be.

Played with the RC yesterday, as Monday's are my day off. ATTEMPTED to mate an old WJ 318 dual K&N filter intake to it... and Advance Auto ain't GOT enough Spectre elbows to make it fit JUST yet! Trust me... I bought several...

After giving up on that for the day, I grabbed a fistful of $20's, and decided to fill up! Added 12oz. of Lucas Oil fuel treatment, since it was in the shop for 11mos.! My barely functioning tank float refuses to read anything above a half-a-tank; to be safe, I figured it was getting 5mpg. The needle had drifted down to 1/4 tank, and it had 116 miles on the trip odometer since the previous fillup, so I thought it a good time to fill up, treat what gas was left, clean the injectors, and see if another fillup would bust the float loose.

$72.50 later @ $3.79/gal., I calculate that it's actually getting a smidgeon over 6mpg - almost all city driving - so my guesswork on that was just about spot on!

After THAT, I went over to see a friend of mine from church. John had a stroke when he was 47 (my age now) and is paralyzed on his left side. He fights the good fight, and gets about pretty well now some 20+ years later. Back in the day though, he was the crew chief for his best friend, who drove the NASCAR dirt circuit in western PA in the 1960's (Heidelberg, Pittsburgh Speedway, Lernerville, et.al.). John went on to become a mechanical engineer; Dave (the driver) went on to become a bigwig in Chrysler/MOPAR's parts division in the northeast. The three of us have gotten together a couple of times over the years, to go catch some Friday night races at Lernerville (late model modifieds - dirt track racing), whenever Dave is passing through between his summer home in ME, and winter home in FL. They're both OLD-SCHOOL MOPAR guys.

At any rate, I stopped in to see John today, and with some modicum of effort, we got him INTO the RC, went out for a spin, and terrorized his neighbors! As the truck has no stereo currently, we put the windows down, and just listened to the roar and crack of the glasspacks! After that bit of fun, we managed to get him BACK out of the RC, without killing he, I, or the truck!

Nothing special today really. Would like to have washed the truck, but they called for rain, so I fought that urge. Just had a good time playing with it, like I've been WANTING to do for almost 8 years now; even got to take a good friend out to enjoy it too (he's really the only gearhead at our church, and the RC belonged to our church secretary's late husband, so he's been following with keen interest how the progress is coming). After waiting almost 8 years just to GET it to this point, being able to enjoy the little things, is finally some great fun for ME!

[The_War_Wagon]

My flange yoke eliminator arrived Saturday; now to get it installed, and measure everything for the new driveshaft!

[The_War_Wagon]

So the driveshaft is an issue at this point, and we KNOW the rear axle needs rotating and shimmed. To TRY and buy a little time this summer, until DMG can tackle it after November, we're re-doing the factory 1310 driveline, in favor of a slip-yoke eliminating t-case flange, and 1350 Ford style double cardon driveshaft, plugged into a 7290 rear pinion yoke!

The flange above, was actually a for a Chebby 241. Probably a nice piece, too, but NOT for an old Dodge! Dave got on the blower with AZ Driveshaft, to get that straightened out. Here's what we got in return.

My buddy Eric, from STO got the t-case yoke off, and as he knows his way around the Timken oil seal PDF... all 204 pages of it... he found the right size replacement seal with little effort, and assembly was a snap.

Pittsburgh Driveshaft then worked up my driveshaft - the 12mm flange bolts came from Denny's (I ordered 8 - so as to have spares as needed, which turned out to be a VERY good move!), and the 7290 rear yoke came from Shaftmasters. Took a while to get it all together, but here is the finished product.






Popping out the old oil seal, and installing everything.





And these are the only pics I got, because I spent the other three hours under the truck, holding the driveshaft steady while Eric installed it!

Darndest thing though - the t-case flange had four smooth holes, and four tapped holes. And so we're TRYING to install the the bolts THROUGH the tapped holes. FIRST off, the collar wasn't seating QUITE flush, so out came the Dremel tool, to shave what must of been just thousandth's off the cardon, before it finally seated flush. But then, we could NEVER get the 4th hole to line up true!!!

Eric was VERY careful & thorough at this - & those EIGHT bolts from Denny's DID come in handy. Once he hit resistance, he'd back the bolt out, inspect everything, and try and see where we were going wrong. No matter what we tried, three bolts going in true, would always pull the cardon off-center of the flange by maybe just the tiniest fraction, to keep a fourth bolt from going in true. And brudda, we played with this, from before 5pm, until 8pm!!!

FINALLY... we tried what is often done with these flanges - put the bolts through the BACK of the flange through the smoothbore holes, and bolt into the tapped cardon holes that way.


And we were done in 30 seconds.


Wotta day.


I'd also spent the first part of the day - since 9am - working on the stereo and CB installation, so it had been a long day already. It all got done though, so I'm mobile, but barely so. I've driven it twice now... for 2 1/2 miles total... and it's making a whole NEW & DIFFERENT set of noises.

There's a definite new & high RPM vibration that is the new driveshaft - it's mild, but noticeable. I've inspected the bolts & straps after each drive - everything is still tight and in place. I'm not sure if it bothers me because it's new & different, or new, and portends trouble. REGARDLESS what The Beach Boys say, I'm still convinced, there are NO "good" vibrations in a Ramcharger...

I'm becoming more convinced, this thing is basically un-streetable (to say nothing of trailworthy!), UNTIL we get that rear axle rotated and shimmed into place. I'm glad the CAD, and to a lesser extent, the grease seals, in the front axle, are an 'easy' fix (BRAND new grease seals are blown, and the CAD gummed up - time to PULL the CAD, lock the axle, re-install the CAD and PLUG the vacuum lines!), but there ain't a helluva lot you can do with a truck that needs new U-joints every 200 miles, though...

[The_War_Wagon]

Since it SAT for about a month with no driveshaft, that gave me some time to work on the interior mods - notably, adding powerports, stereo install, and CB install.

At any rate, I had a fusebox full of 22 year old fuses, and I HAD popped the 20amp fuse for the running lights, while fiddling with a parking lamp. I basically went through and replaced ALL the fuses, save for that 3 & 5 amp fuse (gotta go back and buy those separately, it appears). Got my cabin lights working again (had to replace the rear bulb).


Bigger problem though - I had water getting into my doors when it's standing still! Had a lotta rain in early June, and I found water coming into the bottom of my doors and draining out onto the sill plate! I'm guessing the dry-rotted window molding is allowing that in, so I reckon that'll hafta addressed long-term eventually... or find a garage/tent for it!


I did pull the door panels off, and start the process to install some speakers. As we're all familiar with dinky little '80's & '90's panel hangers, most of mine have lost the black rubber spacer on the panel side, and the spacers that are there have dried out. So I took some Liquid Nails, to affix the hangers back onto the panel, and hopefully help them stick a little better.





And speaking of electric brake controllers, I pulled the one the previous owner had installed to pull his boat with many moons ago. It HAD been affixed to the ashtray.


Unless somebody needs one, I'll probably toss it. I think he pulled a little johnboat with the RC back in the day.


This let's me reclaim the ashtray, so there's not a big ugly, empty spot in the lower dash. I think I'll attach my scanner where the brake controller was.

Got the inside bottom of the driver's side door bondo'd. Used the metallic grid/adhesive patch on both sides, and slathered it down (I sanded it down first) on both sides. Painted the bottom once everything dried, and THEN used some spray-on undercoat on the inside of the door. I also put some 3M soundproofing in the door while I was at it.


Dremeled out the thick edge of this panel, so the speaker grill will sit flush. Oh the fun we have (and smoke we make! ) with power tools!

[The_War_Wagon]

If you saw my CB install thread in my Commander, you know I like my CB's, and take them seriously. Since the XK is still a, DD, I have the better scanner in it. The Pittsburgh PD run an 850mhz trunking radio system, which the Bearcat Trunktracker III can read. Since the REST of Allegheny Co. - and for that matter, the rest of western PA - is still analog, a Uniden B355C will do nicely in the RC.

UPS been veddy, veddy, good to me lately!





18' of RG8X, 102" whip, and various & assundry other pieces have finally found their way here, along with the Galaxy 949, at last. What follows, is an OLD school truck install.

Of course, 25 years ago, this would've been an ENTIRELY UN-necessary thread. CB's went in one of two places; the BIG rig, or the pickup truck. Yeah, there WAS the occasional Smokey & the Bandit Trans-Am that had one, or the occasional Jeeper... but otherwise, they went in your TRUCK. 25 years ago, I was running this combo, in my old '79 Ford Bronco.

I also ran a 102" whip back in the day... until a low hanging power line in the midst of Hurricane Hugo ATE it! A quick stop at a trucker's plaza around Morganton, NC shortly thereafter, meant switching to a 3' Firestick for the rest of my CB'ing days in that truck...

Of course, since my RC is now an offroad toy, there was also this nice litte gutter mount hook for my whip included with the radio this morning! Since the whip will be mounted atop the multicarrier, it'll brush EVERY powerline between here and the woods if I DON'T tie it down!!!

For those of you with late-model trucks, packed full of modern avionics (like our Commanders!), try not be a hatah when you see all the space in which I have to run wire, and copious room to mount both scanner & CB. It's just how ALL trucks were built back in the day.

So in that sense, if you've NEVER cool breezed it in a truck built before the mid-'90's, enjoy this historical undertaking, and see how we did it when old school, was still just, "school." Oh - and we still have this little gizmo, to help me reach out and PUT "the touch" on someone...

[The_War_Wagon]

Here's the marine-grade fusing at the battery!





30 amp on the outside is for the stereo amp - 60 amp on the inside is for the mobile. Here it is mounted up.




Antenna mount, on top of the multicarrier.




Gotta Firestik QD mount on top of the barrel - the 102" whip would be the FIRST thing to disappear, if I left it on all the time. Nice thing about this mounting - the 35" M/T completely hides the mount, when the antenna is down. I've also got a gutter mount whip tiedown mounted, for driving on the streets OR in the woods with this setup.



CRAPPY cellphone pic alert!

As for the Uniden, a neat story on that; I got it off fleaby for $75, but with no power cord or mount. No biggie - It saved me some bucks, & I had those things laying around anyways. In fact, I had a couple of hangers for some crappy outdoor speakers laying around - just bent 'em into the right shape, and then screwed it to the dash where the electric trailer brake used to be.

Cool thing about that is, it's easily removeable for storage.

I just pull the whole ashtray out, and stick it in the center console!

Got a nice little magnetic antenna for it, and ended up running the wire for that through the firewall as well.

Yeah, my truck was dead w/o a driveshaft at that time, sitting under a blackberry vine encrusted Oak tree. Good thing that paint is IMPERVIOUS - it needed a wash like you wouldn't BELIEVE when I got it rolling again.

[The_War_Wagon]

At any rate, the little antenna stores easily enough under the hood, when not in use. Thank goodness for classic DEE-triot Iron!



Passes under the hinge, and away from anything essential, since there's sooooooooooooo much space under the hood!

I suddenly realized this evening, that my rear bench folds forward! Actually, I already knew that - but I suddenly remembered, I wanted to mount the Fatboy on the backside of the console... and wasn't sure there'd be enough clearance, when you flip the bench forward! I'm old enough now when camping, that I've EARNED my airmattress in the cabin, so I NEED the bench to fold down, and for everything to fit. Thankfully, it DOES!

With that GTG, I drilled holes for the mounting bracket, ran the ground wire, and then ran my coax! I'd forgotten how wonderfully crappy these OLD school 4x4's were built - loose carpet, loose interior panels - just PERFECT for running Mini-8 through the back of the truck! All tucked neatly away and out of sight - I even had a few feet to spare, even after running it all the way to multicarrier where I'm mounting the whip!


Thanks to Rolling Radios, my install got completed yesterday - my 4' jumper arrived, although the mailman decided to deliver it to the house instead - adding another 5 hrs of anxious waiting to the project.

The bracket was already mounted, the power run, the antenna and mobile set up - running the jumper was the last piece of the puzzle. The antenna mount needed minor adjusting, but thankfully, the steel wheel (spare tire) proved no obstacle to receiving OR transmitting... although my ancient electronic ignition DOES cause some interference.

Tuned to 38 USB... waiting for a reply...

636, mounted to the side of the radio and bracket.

SWR is AWESOME!!! The needle BARELY moves when broadcasting - with NO mobile, with pre-amp, on AM or SSB!

[The_War_Wagon]

MY power rating, when broadcastin'in!

Listening to "Double Trouble" out of VA. Made a contact in southern IN on 6 while I was testing everything.



Crappy cellphone pics make it look a lot more cluttered than it is, but the rolling radio shack is coming together nicely.



The Galaxy is by far, the nicest piece of kit I've ever owned OR operated - figuring out all the buttons and what they do was rather interesting. Discovering that the "mic gain" on a quality radio can actually affect the SWR was rather eye-opening. And I'm still trying to figure out what the "talkback" feature does!

Nonetheless, the setup is good, my SWR is GREAT, and while I wasn't reaching out much this afternoon (judging by the couple of responses I could only get on 6 at 4:30 EST), I think I have a GTG rig at this point! I'll try and post some video, and BETTER pics, shortly.

[Sal-XK]

Man this thing has come a long way! It's looking good can't wait to see some wheeling vids and pics of it.