New post about the Dodge truck

content/gemlog/old_dodge_truck.gmi

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+Meta(
+    title: "Old Dodge truck",
+    summary: Some("I bought a 1990 Dodge D150 pickup truck, and I\'m loving it"),
+    published: None,
+    tags: [
+        "trucks",
+        "projects",
+        "simplicity",
+    ],
+)
+---
+My previous vehicle was a 2008 Ford F150. At the time I bought it two years ago, it was about as new and in about as nice condition as I could afford. It was the newest vehicle I've ever owned actually. At first, I loved it. We lived in the country, and having 4wd was really nice bordering on a necessity. It had a reasonably roomy back seat and I could get all the kids plus myself and the dog around in relative comfort. I did have to do some tuneup work to it right after buying it, as the number 5 cylinder was misfiring and it was running quite rough with little power. That turned out to be a fouled spark plug and a bad coil pack. It was also my first indication of things to come.
+
+The bolts holding in the coil packs on a Ford Triton engine have a 7mm hex hed on them. This is tiny. It was obvious that someone had taken them all off at some point and stripped some of the heads pretty badly. Of course instead of replacing them they put the damaged bolts back in. When I replaced the rest of the coil packs, one of them had to come out in pieces courtesy of a hammer and cold chisel due to the bolt being damaged beyond repair.
+
+The truck ran ok for about six months, then began misfiring again. Number 5 again. Fouled plug. Looked like engine coolant, but I couldn't see where it was coming from. I replaced it and warily kept driving the truck. Then the starter died on me. The solonoid had died, leaving the starter engaged full time against the engine flywheel. This not only destroyed the starter motor but the battery as well. I managed to fix everything, although I'll never own a Ford again based on the position of one of the starter bolts. Inaccessible doesn't begin to describe it.
+
+A little over a year in the real problems began. I definitely had a coolant leak, but could not for the life of me figure out where it was coming from. Coolant was running down the back side of the engine and dripping down off the bell housing between the engine and transmission. The drip was getting worse by the day. I finally found out that the heater supply hose runs under the intake, in the valley between the cylinders. Holy shit, that's a bad design. Thinking that was my problem, I started taking the intake off. Then things got worse. Five of the eight mounting bolts for the intake snapped rather than coming loose, leaving their corroded remnants in the cylinder heads. I found the heater hose all right, but it turns out that wasn't the problem. The problem is that Ford designed this engine with a crossover tube for the engine coolant on the front side of the engine. Rather than ending the plastic intak manifold short of where that crossover tube is and securely bolting the tube to each cylinder head, they extended the plastic composite of the manifold forward and bolted the tube to the manifold from the underside. It's a known source of leaks, and they recalled a number of these engines for that reason. Mine was leaking there. What's worse, the previous owner must have experienced a leak because part of it had been put back together and sealed with epoxy. Would have been great if they had payed the money to replace the intake properly but no. Would have been even better if they'd used new mounting bolts but again, no. So it was a perfect storm of worn out steel bolts going into aluminum heads (a perfect recipe for corrosion - two dissimilar metals joined) and then engine coolant leaking all over them, weakening them further. Bad design coupled with even worse maintainance.
+
+I'm done with modern cars.
+
+## My new truck
+My new to me truck is a 33 year old Dodge D150. Dodge were a little bit slower with "modernization" than either Ford or GM, so this truck has the old "square body" styling. Dodge had this basic body style from 1972 all the way through 1992. The engine is an old LA 318 V8. Every major part of it, heads and intake included, is solid steel. In fact there's almost no aluminum on this truck anywhere. That means fasteners have only suffered the normal types of corrosion one would expect, not corrosion due to electrolysis. The engine does have fuel injection, but it's the primitive throttle body injection with one injector for each cylinder bank. It's a system that is fairly easily understood and maintained. It's 2wd, but we no longer live so far in the boonies. Manual shift.
+
+Buying a 33 year old truck to replace a 15 year old truck at first glance sounds irresponsible. The thing is, in a few years I expect this truck to not only still be running but to have actually increased in value. The fifteen year old truck is bordering on being ready for the scrap yard already. It's also a pleasure to work on in comparison. I figured, in my price range I'm going to be working on it no matter what. I might as well work on something that's going to be fun, as opposed to something that makes me hate my life.
+
+### The good
+For it's age and Northeastern Ohio, this truck has a surprisingly good body. There's some rust on the bottom of the passenger door and some rust around the wheel wells in the bed. There is surface rust in the drip ring around the cab roof. All of it is at a stage where it's repairable.
+
+The engine is strong and there's no oil leaks. The suspension all feels tight, with maybe some bushings needing replaced due to age but nothing pressing. Brakes are good. I'll bleed them of course, but they're fine as is. The bed has had a tonneu cover for most of it's life so it's in great shape. And after a few passes with a carpet scrubber the interior has cleaned up nicely. The idle was a little high and there were some stalling issues when you took your foot off the gas coming to a stop, so I replaced the idle air control. That fixed those issues completely.
+
+### Work that needs done
+I'm still cleaning the interior. I may reupholster the bench seat due to two cigarette burns. If not for those two small holes I would keep it because it's cleaning up nicely. I have to replace the headliner though, because like all cars from that era the cloth headliner material had separated from it's backing and began sagging down on your head. For now, I've taken the entire panel out and just have a metal roof, which looks surpisingly nice as is.
+
+One of the bigger issues I need to tackle before winter is the wiper situation. My wiper motor seems fine after testing, but it isn't getting turned on by the column switch. For the winter I plan to wire in a temporary universal switch and mount it to the dash on a metal plate, which will be stuck on with heavy duty double stick tape. Next spring I'll pull the stearing wheel and troubleshoot the column. The hard part is that if it's the switch, that part isn't made anymore. I'll have to source one from a junk yard.
+
+The biggest overall issue is the transmission right now. It's drivable and not likely to get any worse with my driving, but there are several issues. I need to at the very least bleed the hydraulic clutch, because the pedal is soft and you have to go completely to the floor to get it into gear, and even then there is some resistance. I may just replace both clutch cylinders. Even after sorting the clutch, however, this transmission is definitely due for a rebuild. I have no reverse gear at all, and the synchronizer for second gear is completely shot. You can't downshift from third to second at all unless you rev the engine to match speeds. I used to have a commercial truck license and was used to this type of shifting, so it's something I can live with for the time being. The shift linkage also feels horribly loose and sloppy, and finding first gear in the first place makes you feel like a pathetic teenager on prom night.
+
+The thing is, this is all stuff I can do. I know what every single part under the hood does on this truck without having to do any research. And the old A833 transmission is not that difficult a rebuild. Just the cleaning I've done, combined with fixing the idle and stalling issues, have already added a couple thousand to the price I could ask for this truck.
+
+## The elephant in the room - emissions
+I drive about five miles to work every day. For my daily commute, a pickup truck is overkill to begin with of course. I am not insensitive to this and I do have a plan. I'm not going to feel bad about owning a larger vehicle because I get my use out of it hauling scrap, lumber and other tasks, but I don't plan to continue using it as my daily driver any longerr than I have to either because that would be woefully irresponsible.
+
+I have a couple thousand set aside still for my motorcycle fund. I haven't pulled the trigger just yet but the plan is to get an older Honda CB series bike as my daily warm weather vehicle. Preferably, I'm looking for a CB550. That's enough engine that I'll be able to keep up with traffic and even pull away quickly if needed, while still being small enough to drastically reduce the amount of fuel required to move me around.
+
+### What about electric?
+I'm also looking at electric bikes. I might at some point enter this arena as well, but if I do I'm a lot more likely to piece something together from old parts than I am to buy something ready to ride. For one thing, I don't want to spend $1500 on a bicycle. For another thing, there are lots of old frames to be had in town, often sitting on a curb. I could see starting with a junker, slapping on an electric rim and hooking up one of my brother in law's custom made battery packs. That sort of rig would be fun, easy to understand since I'd have built it myself, and would likely come in well under $500.
+
+What I can't see doing any time soon is buying an electric car. In principle I have no problem with the concept. In practice, today's electric vehicles suffer from all of the same issues as their gasoline powered counterparts, namely ridiculous complexity and poor longevity due to being poorly constructed to begin with, along with a whole host of electric specific problems. They are also so far beyond what I can spend that it's almost laughable. What automakers and legislators alike need to realize is that a $60k car is ten to twenty times as expensive as what your average blue collar worker can afford. Then, when they hit the used market, those cars are likely to all need battery packs, which are going to price them right out of the range for those same buyers even if the used price were something they could afford.
+
+Add to that the infrastructure just not being there. I can see charging an e-bike overnight and using it for a short commute to and from work. For longer trips I'd want a car. If I were to attempt to drive one of today's EV's to see my father, who lives way out in the middle of nowhere, I'm not sure I could make it back even if I stayed the night to charge it at his house.
+
+### We are, of course, too reliant on cars
+This is the bigger issue of course. Now, I've been riding the bus a lot this year. It's not terrible, but it's not great either. The bus runs hourly in my town, so you wind up leaving a lot earlier than you would if you drove yourself. The last bus for the night leaves a little after 8PM. They don't run at all on Sundays. It's possible, but not easy, to live without a car and just take the bus.
+
+My plan to use a motorcycle and possibly an e-bike takes care of things in nice weather. But I am not going to be doing either of those things in the middle of winter. Ohio's winters are mild compared with some places I've been, but in this case mild still involves lots of snow, slush and ice. There are times when the roads are nigh on impassible with a car, and there's no way I'd even try to go five miles in those conditions on two wheels. Of course we're all still expected to show up for work.
+
+That said, we should all be taking steps to drive less. For most people I don't think it even registers. And this whole back to the office thing that's happening in Tech and other sectors, jobs where it actually makes sense to work remotely, that mindset has to go.