The Ballad of Ol' Thumper

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Basslicks

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Dry Ridge, KY
Ram Year
2001
Engine
5.2 Magnum
Figured I'd go ahead and create a thread to track my progress. Don't know if I'd necessarily call it a "build" thread because I don't intend on doing anything wild and crazy with it... nothing to the level of my old Cherokee which I converted to 4wd, lifted 3.5", added some 33's, and lots of other custom touches to make it a decent trail Jeep and crawler.

No, my plans are pretty simple. Little bit of a resto-mod. My dad had a '99 Ram QC Laramie with this same motor and transmission back in '00 and always loved it. I moved away in '02 and by the time I moved back in '03, he had traded it in on an '02. So I was a little bummed.

Flash-forward a good number of years and I was in need of a pickup truck. The aforementioned Jeep Cherokee was great... easy to work on, fun, got me from a-b, dependable for a 25+ year old vehicle.. but it was lacking a few things. A bed, payload capacity, towing capacity, cargo room.... yeah I really needed a pickup truck. I had a little 4x8 trailer, but hooking and unhooking from that thing all the time is a PITA... and what if you're somewhere and spontaneously need to haul something... gotta run home and get the trailer.

Anyway.... I sold the Jeep after buying my wife a Tahoe and started driving her car around. Figured I'd just drive it until I found a good deal on a truck. As luck would have it, a friend of mine at work had this 2001 Ram QC. He and his wife were expecting their 2nd child and there would be no room for another baby seat in the truck.

I asked him if he'd be interested in trading me straight up for my car and he was very interested. He talked it over with his wife, I talked things over with mine (which, her response was classically "honey, it's your vehicle... I'm not gonna tell you no" - love her to death) and a week later, we swapped titles.

My car was a '00 Chrysler 300m. Luxurious, roomy, comfy, cold AC and hot heat. Perfect family car. I picked it up a few years ago for 900 bucks and fixed just about everything wrong with it. Really good lookin' car by the time we parted ways.

The truck.... wellllll.......

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Aside from the broken and missing dash, the rest of the interior is actually in really good shape.

But the outside... yeah... years of neglect have caused the clear coat to burn off. Paint is wearing through to the primer in some places... to bare metal in others. The passenger side has damage from one of the other previous owners turning too sharply and side-swiping a metal pole. You can see the shoddy body repair attempt in the pictures. The rear bumper has been hit as well and is sagging and has a dent in it... it was apparently pushed into the bed because there's a dent in the lower bed quarter from it. On the driver's side bed quarter, you can see where someone snagged something because that panel is pulled out a little. The plastics are faded and sun-damaged, the tail lights are perfect, amazingly, the headlights are fogged up, cracked, and yellowed, and the chrome is peeling off the grille.

The truck smokes like a chimney, runs so rich it will choke you out, has dual exhaust with no muffler or cat, no heat, no ac (which to add insult to that injury - manual windows), none of the factory speakers work (so the guy I got it from put computer and surround sound speakers sitting unsecured in various places), and the deck just flops around on the dash, and the window tint on the front two windows are bubbled up and faded.... almost like whoever tinted it didn't know a thing about applying tint and instead of having it re-done, just left it that way.

Aside from that - the frame and underside of the truck is rust-free. The transmission shifts smooth and the motor fires on all 8 and idles pretty decently for the amount of oil it consumes (about a quart every fillup).The exhaust sounds great with the windows up... but sounds like a trashy redneck truck with the windows down. Other than the trouble areas I had mentioned before, the rest of the body is pretty straight. Few dents and dings... nothing a little massaging and body filler can't handle. And hey, it came with nerf bars and a fiberglass bed cover with good gas struts.

5.2 liter, automatic trans, 203k miles on both.

Like I said, my plans are resto-mod. I want to restore the body and interior to its former glory, but with a few custom touches. Nothing crazy. RAM has come a long with since the 2nd gen body style. There's a few changes that they made that I want to incorporate into this build.

Yeah.... follow along, 'cause I got my work cut out for me.
 
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Basslicks

Basslicks

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Hot mess aside, I was in love. It was nice to have a truck in the driveway.

But uh... yeah it needed a wash really bad. Truck was literally growing algae. Guess they parked it under trees a lot.


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Doesn't clean up all that great... but it looks good wet. And hey, no more algae!
 
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Basslicks

Basslicks

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First thing I noticed was that those headlights were nearly useless. Didn't have money for new housings and most of the sun damage was taking place on the inside of the lens.... so restoration was futile.

So I bought a pair of LED bulbs that were much brighter than the halogens and threw 'em in.... helped quite a bit. At least I can see at night now.

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Almost forgot... the LED bulbs are Hikari's that I got off of Amazon at a pretty decent price.

Shame that they won't work with my new housings, but I'm going to hang onto them in case I go a different route.
 
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Basslicks

Basslicks

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Now... time to take care of those faded out, sun-damaged plastics. Everyone talks about "Wipe New" like it's the messiah of plastic restoration.... well, I figured I'd give it a shot.

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Well... I wouldn't go changing religions or anything... but I was definitely impressed with the results. MUCH better!
 
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Basslicks

Basslicks

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Hurricane season came along and we had a couple of pretty big whoppers last season. I loaded up the back seat of the truck with all my ready gear and prepared for a few days worth of being locked in the comm center (I'm a 9-1-1 dispatcher, btw).

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Basslicks

Basslicks

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Didn't take me too much looking around online before I discovered the plenum pan gasket issue. Figured it would be best to take care of that right away. The truck smokes, so chances are it would be a good idea to change it out. Turns out there was a decent amount of oil in the pan... but nothing too alarming. Oh well... it's got a brand new fel-pro gasket with new shortened bolts to keep a more consistent gasket compression and not break apart from vibration now.

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Had to take a pic during beer:30.

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I replaced the AC compressor while I had everything apart, drove it to a shop and had him suck it down, then filled her up with some r134a. Ice cold AC finally!

Oh by the way... at this point, the truck still smokes like a chimney.
 
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Basslicks

Basslicks

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So this tonneau cover thing.... uuuhh.... yeah... fiberglass.. eeeehhhhhh.... if some of you like it... well... good for you... not a fan.

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Sure it's probably handy for some things. Definitely keeps things dry. If you don't use your bed a whole lot or don't haul large objects... I could see where people would really want one. But uh... yeah I just didn't like the look of it on the truck, and I needed a toolbox more than I needed to keep things dry. Figured if I want to keep something dry, I'll just fold up the rear seat and throw it in the back... or tarp it like I used to do with my old trucks.

I had a tonneau cover on my '03 Dakota, but it was a LiteRider Roll up cover and that thing was GREAT. Kept things dry, looke good, didn't stretch, shrink, or distort, and would fold completely out of the way allowing full access to the bed when you needed it... but it is also expensive... about 3 or 400 bucks depending on the model. So I just nixed the idea of a bed cover altogether for now. Just don't need it.

Listed the tonneau cover for sale for about 150 bucks and sold it a week later.
 
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Basslicks

Basslicks

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So I was fartin' around on Facebook one day and I came across a listing for a truck toolbox. Forgot all about the facebook marketplace, so I started searching for more toolboxes. Found a guy nearby selling a Tractor Supply (re-branded delta) toolbox with good struts and keys included for a hundred bucks. Couldn't pass it up...

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The toolbox had a mount on it for a CB antenna, so I through my antenna on that had my foreverwave flag mounted to it....

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Basslicks

Basslicks

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Took some "glamour" shots for the FRTC facebook group. Used a little camera trickery to make it look like it was in better condition than it was.

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Basslicks

Basslicks

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Got a set of 17" wheels with tires and center caps on FB marketplace for 60 bucks. Gonna unmount the tires, clean up the wheels and paint 'em black, then have the tires mounted back on with the whites out (I like the classic look).

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Basslicks

Basslicks

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One of the FRTC members posted up a pic of his truck wanting to see if anyone was interested in a sport grille and 4th gen bumper. Said all he wanted in trade was a stock chrome grille and bumper in good condition.... well I had just the thing for him!

So I drove 2 hours down to Orlando after work and we swapped everything out real quick.

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And I mean REAL quick... didn't even bother to align everything. Just slapped everything on and torqued it down so I could get home and get to sleep for work that night.

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A few days later, I noticed the passenger side looked like it had been snagged on something. So I pulled out a block of wood and my 3 lb hammer and went to town. Can barely tell anything is wrong now.

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I was gonna start in on this too, but I ran out of energy.
 
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Basslicks

Basslicks

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I'm not a metal scrapper by any means, but we're moving to Kentucky in July and we have a bunch of junk around the house... well... by "we" I mean "I".... so I gathered together anything that was metal and tossed it in the bed of the truck (and the cab of the truck) and headed to CMC....

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Didn't do too bad. Hauled over a thousand lbs in her without much notice. Man I love this truck!

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Hey, 70 bucks I didn't have before and now I have room to move around in my garage! haha
 
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Basslicks

Basslicks

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So the more I looked at the front of my truck with that red grille on it, the more it reminded me of this:

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Yeah, that's gotta go. Rustoleum satin black to the rescue!

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I was a little worried at this stage. Was still pretty glossy.... way more glossy than I intended.

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Whew! Dried to satin... perfect. Bumper is next.... I'll probably do the lower rockers in gloss black to cover up that silver. The chrome nerf bars are getting the bedliner treatment eventually too.
 
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Basslicks

Basslicks

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This tint was REALLY bothering me.... and causing an obstruction. It was getting harder and harder to see out of, especially on mornings when there was dew on the window. Made it impossible to see out of.

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So while I was waiting for the paint to dry on the grille, I grabbed my wife's shark steamer and went to town. I had originally tried to sweat it off with the old trash bag and ammonia trick.... and the tint was so brittle, all it did was de-laminate it and take the top layer off... in some places.

The steam did the trick though!

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Mush mo betta!

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Basslicks

Basslicks

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Noticed when I was walking out to the truck one day that I was missing a corner lens. Crap... must've fallen off when I hit a bump or something. Good thing I had some extra money coming up in my paycheck. Ordered a set off of amazon with free one day shipping.... gotta love that Prime privilege!

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So here's what I started with.... super bright LED bulbs that didn't get much distance due to the milky lenses... funniest part is, the headlight lenses fell off on both sides when I was removing the housings... guess they were next to go!

One of the things I was wanting to do was paint the radiator support and evertyhing else behind that grille BLACK... because that white peaking out from behind everything was buggin' me. So, while I had everything off, I hit it was some flat black.

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Turned out pretty good.

Now for the headlights....

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Much better. And with all those components under the hood painted black, your eye doesn't automatically go to the glossy white paint peaking out from behind everything. I made sure I took the time to line up the bumper with everything while I was at it. The fit is MUCH better now. I still have to tweak the fit of the grille, but it's definitely not as noticeable as the bumper was.

continued.... (stupid 5 picture limit)
 
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Basslicks

Basslicks

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Here's the modes of the headlights. I wired the LEDs and the halo to the parking light circuit. I'll probably wire them to a separate switch later on, once I figure out what I want to do with them.

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Parking lights

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Low beams

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High beams.
 
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Basslicks

Basslicks

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Parking lights....

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Low beams....

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Above the cuttoff....

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Below the cutoff...

High beams

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Rather than repeating myself about what I think of these, I'll just leave the link and you can check out my review of the lights on amazon here

Long story short, I'm going to end up modifying these housings to better fit my needs.... to hell with their warranty.
 
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Basslicks

Basslicks

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Here's a high/low beam comparison between the headlight setups.

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Stock low beams w/ LED bulbs (un-aimed)

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Stock high beams w/ LED bulbs (un-aimed)

After about 6 months of useage, I can say with pretty good certainty that these are much better suited for use with MSR housings and not the stock diffuser housings... just an FYI.


Took these shots of the new housings before aiming the headlights. The "default" aim had the housings lined up with the body about perfectly... unfortunately once you aim them, there's tons of gaps and the housings are all cockeyed.... which you probably already were aware if you read my review of them.

Anyway.... low beams

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Aaaaand still low beams, but just a shot taken with the truck backed down the driveway about 15 or 20 feet.

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If anyone is interested, I can take another couple pics with the pattern after aiming them.

As far as the highbeams go... well... meh. They're really not impressive whatsoever.
 
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Basslicks

Basslicks

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They're definitely a cosmetic improvement to the front end though. No denying that.

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Speaking of cosmetic improvements... I was screwing around in an online photo editing web applet that I found and came up with a "concept" design of what I want to do paint-wise. I guess you could say the look I'm going for is kind of inspired by the Power Wagon and Ram Rebel.

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Keep in mind, it's a really rough image at this point... but it goes along with the idea that I have in my head. Also planning on a special gloss black treatment to the roof with a custom touch to the paint that I have planned... but that's still a secret right now.

And then here's some other designs I made with that same app....

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This should look familiar...

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This one is just for kicks. My "Brand logo" along with the truck's name.
 
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Basslicks

Basslicks

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Finally got around to changing out the valve stem seals and keep the smoke in. Inspected the spark plugs while I had 'em out.... yeah definitely time to change these buggers....

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I've certainly seen worse... but these were really bad. Plug number 4 and 5 would explain why my truck wasn't firing on all 8 cylinders on the way back from Daytona one weekend.

Brand new NGKs in it now. Cap, rotor, and wires are next, but they can wait a little bit.
 
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