Low-Buck Winner
Dear Fellow Cheap Truck Builders,
Finally, a contest my pile of crap can win!
It ain't no general Lee, but it is orange, and my name is Lee. Anyway I only paid $100 for this beaut of an '83 Ramcharger with just 186K on the ticker. It ran mint with a factory 318 four-barrel and NP435 tranny. It even had a few inches of lift and Rancho shocks. A few weeks after I bought it, I was scrounging through the local junkyards and scored a full Flowmaster exhaust for free. The dude who ran the place said "If you crawl under that pile of Dodge and cut it off, it's yours."
The next day I skipped out of school early and cut it off with a hacksaw. A couple months later I scored some 295/75R16 BFGoodrich All-Terrains for $100. The 31s that it came with it were getting pretty slick from the occasional smoke show. The only problem was that I couldn't find any 16-inch rims for five-lug axles in my price range of little to nothing. Then a little bit of good luck struck when I tripped over something and fell on my head in my friend's backyard. It was a set of 1-ton Dodge axles, complete with steel 16-inch wheels buried in the grass. Joking around I said, "I'll give you 100 bucks for those axles if you let me install them in your garage." He said, "Sure, I'll even give you a hand."
The next weekend I was flying high on my new axles and tires for a little over $200. Then disaster struck: I had hydrolocked the engine a few times and the smoke from the exhaust kept getting worse and worse. I guess these things weren't designed to be mired in the mud up to the headlights. My girlfriend agreed after I dropped her knee deep in the stuff while rescuing her from the sinking truck. However, one good thing about its oil consumption problem was that it kept the 'skeeters away when we were trying to get it unstuck.
Finally, on the way to school one day, the lower end decided it had stayed together long enough and blew a few essential components through the side of the block. It still made it home which was mostly downhill. When I got to school, my Spanish teacher bitched me out for being late again. I told him the dilemma and showed him some pictures of my floating truck. He told me he had an '82 Ramcharger, and his ex-wife wanted it out of her yard. He couldn't find the keys, but he gave me the title for $1 and told me to get it out of her yard. We hot-wired it the next day, but the fuel lines were too rotted to get gas to the carb. It had been sitting for years and smelled like a dead mouse. We drove it on carb cleaner to the end of her driveway, slapped my plate on it, then called AAA. The tow-truck driver looked at us kind of funny when the brake pedal went through the rotted floor, but he towed it home for me for free anyway.
A few days later, we ripped out the drivetrain, traded the 727 for a low-mile NP435, and threw it all in my truck. I even got a plow setup and spare driveshafts out of the deal, not to mention a pet mouse. (There were eight of them living in the hood alone!) I've got to admit that I did spend 20 or 30 bucks on new gaskets for the motor. I got a swap meet Edelbrock intake for $20 and a set of Mopar Performance headers from a friend for nothing.
The thing ran great when we got finished with it. Did I mention that it is my daily driver, so it went together quick? I've been driving it for about a year now the way it is. Except for the addition of some Warn hubs which I traded my spare transfer case for, and my newest addition, 315/75R16 Wild Spirit Mud Terrains which I took off a Super Duty at work because they rubbed the fenders. It's a lot more smashed, and somewhat primered now, but still runs fine for a little over 500 bucks. The price of U-joints and axleshafts really add up!
From A Cheap Truck Builder,
Lee Beaudry
South Grafton, MA