Jeff Balazs

Sounds about as bad as a beast we have around here known as a Tarantula Hawk. Fortunately they don't occur in any great numbers. Nasty things though....actually a giant wasp about the size of a hummingbird. One good thing about them is you can actually hear them coming towards you for quite a distance. They hunt down tarantulas which they paralyze with their sting and then lay their eggs on the victim. The larvae then hatch and feed upon the still living tarantula. Nature has some pretty gruesome aspects to it. I've known a couple of folks that have been stung by these critters while out camping in the desert. One of the victims I knew had to go to Loma Linda Hospital for an extended stay. He said it felt like someone was holding a blowtorch on him for over 2 days. You could still see the affected area 6 weeks later! Jeff

Thanks Guy's; Barry it looks like your electrical harness was a bit more intact than mine. Thanks for the shots of the terminal blocks.......I had a feeling that they went in that area.....but it helps to have this confirmed. Jeff

I will be making my own harness for a 6 volt system. I have added a few things though....electric cooling fan & fuel pump and clearance lights as an example. With these additions I considering going to a 6V genernator conversion setup to keep up with the additional load. I realize that this is not strictly stock but I want this wiring to at least follow the original routing under the hood. Thanks, Jeff

If anyone has good photos of the underhood wiring arrangement on their trucks I would love to see them. I am going to start on the wiring soon and it would be great to see the proper routing and the correct location of harness clips and terminal blocks. The wiring in my truck was in terrible shape when I got it and I can't really trust the few photos I have of it. Thanks in advance, Jeff

That has got to make you feel great Mark. It's really wonderful to see a friend here achieve something like this. Jeff

Tim Thanks Man I am trying to do it right. I don't know about an A's sticker........how about Freddie Flypogger instead? Jeff

Hi Barry; My local auto parts guy can get it for me at the same price that I have found online.......and he delivers for free. I wish I had found it sooner on......it is really nice to work with. Only real drawback is the cost. But the good stuff almost always is. Jeff

Well I liked the way the Hushmat Ultra worked so well ............ I decided to go crazy and do the rest of the interior. What an amazing transformation. I am really impressed. I had already gone over everything with several coats of bedliner and had bonded rubber strips in in various locations. This seemed pretty effective in getting a lot of the tinny sound out of the roof and rear of the cab......but adding the Hushmat made a exponential difference. I can't imagine anything working better than this.....tapping on the roof now results in a dull thud like you would expect from a 2" thick plank of heavy lumber. And I don't even have a headliner in yet. All I can say is Wow! Jeff

Why? I suppose the simple answer is that I wanted a classic work truck. Something I could fix up and drive until I drop. No plastic and more importantly no electronics!!! And if it was a bit different then so much the better. As I looked through what was available and in my price range (cheap!) it became apparent pretty quickly where the real buys were. I didn't know a thing about the old Dodges but I could see that I could definitely get a lot more truck for my initial outlay. The more I looked it became obvious that these trucks had all the attributes I was looking for. And you just hardly ever see one. They are out there but not nearly in the kind of numbers you see GMs or Fords. What I began to notice is that they have a sort of an almost "stealthy" quality to them. By this I mean that while they are definitely a true classic truck design they generally go un-noticed by the masses. And that really appealed to me. Kind of like finding a gem hidden in a mountain of tailings. So here I am more than a year and half later. And my view of this truck has evolved a bit. Boy are they different!!! But very, very cool. And I have had to get an education on the Mopar way which I had no clue about to begin with. And of course ... We all know that bringing one of these back to life is a ton of work. And not nearly as simple as picking up a superstore catalog and placing an order. Has it been worth it so far? Absolutely. I wouldn't have missed it for anything.....and I haven't even had a proper drive in it yet. Jeff

I had a local radiator shop repair and line my tank. Cost was $200 which I feel was well worth it. Tank is in my opinion as good or better than new and fuel is clean. Hth, Jeff

Davin; That is a first class job you have done there.Aint nuthin getting past that! If you stop and think about it an absolutely huge volume of air passes through an engine every time you run it. This air flow is by far the primary source for contaminents and abrasive particles that cause wear and scoring in an engine. It stands to reason if you can keep the air entering the engine as clean as possible it is going to last much longer. Jeff

With all due respect a much better fix is to use a K&N oiled gauze filter made for a 3.8 liter Toyota inline 6. All the air that flows through one of these is well filtered and they are not nearly as restrictive as a paper filter. Oil bath filters actually allows quite a fair amount of dirt through because the most of the air entering your engine flows over the oil rather than through it. Do a test for yourself......run each one of these for 3 months and then clean them. You will be shocked by the amount of crud the K & N has caught.......and surprised by how clean the oil in the oil bath still is. If the oil bath worked anywhere near as well as the K & N it would be filthy too. When you clean the K & N go ahead an feel the grit that is released by the detergent......I promise you it is not something you want running through your engine. Filtering the abrasive stuff out of the air mixture entering your engine is probably the easiest thing you can do to improve it's lifespan. Jeff

Thanks a lot guy's. Now with every little bit I get done I finally feel like I can see some daylight at the end of the tunnel. Can't wait to get it rambling on down the road. Jeff

Hank....Yes totally ..in fact If I show you I have to silence you. Well it is black and probably wouldn't photograph to well ...... but here is what the interior is looking like right now. I still have a lot I want to do but I am happy with how it is coming together. Excuse the last photo taken through dirty glass. Jeff

Ed; Yes.....but I still think there is still a good possibility of speeding up the wear and tear factor on the starter and ring gear. I don't know about how the access to this area is on the cars......but on my truck with the addition of the Grand Cherokee M/C I know I don't want to be working in that area any more than is absolutely necessary. It is probably the most "access restricted" area on the whole truck. I guess my philosophy here is pretty simple.......build it as bulletproof as possible so I don't have to revisit that "region" any time soon. Jeff

I am a truck only guy and hardly ever post on the car side. But I do follow some of the threads here as there is a fair amount of useful crossover information in them. Don has brought up something that I wondered about as well. I think he may have a very good point here. And perhaps something that has been overlooked in doing a conversion like this. I had thought about going to 12V on my truck and leaving the 6V starter in place. On the surface the faster starts sure has some appeal. But the more I thought about it the more I got to thinking that it might cause some reliability problems down the road. All too often we jump into a modification......particularly the so called "easy ones" without taking the time to consider what issues we might be creating by doing so. I decided to stick with a straight 6V system for this potential failure and some other associated reasons. I am not saying that this is a bad system.......but I do wonder how often running a 6V starter on 12V has resulted in similar problems? Jeff

I ended up using Hushmat Ultra on my firewall and cowl area. Great stuff to work with. Conforms well to all the irregular surfaces. I even managed to work it up around the cowl vent and defroster ducts. At $200 for the kit I got it is not cheap. But it made a job I was dreading fairly easy and in a way fun. I had plenty so I doubled it up in the area closest to the engine. With this and all the other insulation and sound deadening I have done I feel like this aspect of my build is about as good as it can get. Jeff

Damn Boy! That looks real good. I like it a lot, Jeff

Nice Mark.......you got yourself an excellent start on a real fine patina truck. I know it is not really your style.....but just think of what an awesome "sleeper" that you could make if you went down that path Jeff

Ed you were lucky.......I never seem to have that sort of luck. Keep up the good work....very interesting to see the earlier truck. Jeff

Welcome and Wow! That is in really nice shape. I am sure our man DesotoDav can shed some light on this truck. I would imagine he will see this post pretty quick. For what it is worth...... the trucks are a way cooler than the cars ...... so you did real good. Jeff

Have not seen that ...... but it sure looks like it would work just fine to me. Jeff

Neat videos Bob. Thanks very much for posting them. It would be cool to do an actual side by side comparison of similarly equipped & geared trucks in relatively stock condition. I suspect the area of biggest differences would be in how well they steer and in creature comforts. I know I have been impressed by the turning radius of my truck especially considering it has the 116" wheelbase. There are lot's of much newer trucks with what I consider to be crappy turning radius. Jeff

Really nice! Love the look of those 53 fenders. Jeff

bach4660 I think you should be glad that your m/c is not masking feedback of a problem to the pedal. If it did hide this you might not know you have a problem somewhere in the system until it is too late. Whether it is air in the system, a bad w/c or something else it is good to know immeadiately that you have a problem that needs to be addressed before you set out on a drive. When I did the initial installation of the 4 wheel disc bakes on my truck I used residual valves front and rear. As I began testing it became apparent right away that the residuals were holding too much pressure front and rear. I then removed these valves and the problem went away. I believe the Grand Cherokee MC I used already compensated for this condition making these valves unneccesary. I also used a Wilwood adjustable proportioning valve instead of messing about with the Cherokee unit. I have read where some folks actually modify a Cherokee valve by removing elements of it but feel that is just asking for problems. The Wilwood unit is a time proven adjustable device for attaining a proper front to rear balance. I am extremely happy with the brakes in my truck and I feel that it has the correct amount of pedal to driver feedback. I don't understand the purpose or real need of a pressure bleeder. With a helper you should be able to get all the air out of the system the old fashioned way in a few minutes and go arounds. If after 2 or 3 attempts to bleed the system you still have a spongy pedal but no leaks ......then something else is wrong. Since we are talking about a modified system here it could be a few things. A bad w/c or caliper, incorrect drum adjustments or even a malfunctioning m/c. When I did my brakes I used all new components and lines......if I was reworking a system with used components I would still want to start with a new or freshly rebuilt m/c and an unmolested proportioning valve. Hope this is of some help, Jeff