my diesel

well ive always been around diesels. both my parents drove otr. thats what i wanted to do when i grew up. well that didnt happen so i became a diesel mechanic even though thats not what im currently doing.

i started out wanting to deck out the 98 ranger i had at the time before i got into diesel pickups. i wanted to do an angine swap on it, turn it into a show truck pretty much. i read truckin magazine as soon as it came in the mail from cover to cover. i realy liked readin the few articles that they had in them about diesels. then it got to where i thought it was retarded to have a 3/4 - 1 ton trucks with gas engines in them. thats when i knew i wanted a diesel pickup. id get mad if they didnt have at least one diesel in an issue. then the diesel power magazine first came out. i read that issue 3 times from cover to cover.

well at this time my two best friends had cummins and i knew i wanted one. i found one on ebay for $9,000 and was in my price range. well when the bidding was over i had one it for $11,600. i called the place the next day and they said it would be two hundred dollars more to clean the truck and all the processing fees. i had to come up with a way to get it from new jersey to akansas. well i figured it have it hauled here. got a company to bring it down. it took me three weeks to get the truck. so now i have a 99 dodge for $12,600.

hwen i got the truck it was real dirty on the inside (yes i had to pay to have it cleaned before they shipped it). the body had a few small spots that looked like it was starting to rust a little bit. the interior looked good besides being dirty (which still has never been detailed). the engine bay looked good besides for all the rust. i did find a bottle of stop leak under the hood though. i drove it for a week and it didnt use any coolant at all so i thought it was good. then after a month it started leaking a little but i couldnt find where it was leaking from. three months later i found a big welded spot on the passanger side of the block. gotta love the 53 blocks.

i got the truck in april and pulled in the local truck pull in may for my very first time. placed second with a stock truck. there was five, on got dq that beat me then a 3rd gen dodge and a duramax truck that were also stock as far as i know of. it was the biggest rush ive ever had. i have pulled twice since then and finished in the middle of the pack.

right after the 4th of july i was coming back from bakersfield mo. doing around 100mph and heard a loud pop. i thought i had blown a turbo boot off the truck. well i got out and checked and didnt see any boots off so i got back in and drove it back to the shop at ranger boats and got to look at it closely. i had cracked the stock exhaust manifold almost in two. so i ordered my very first bomb. it was an ats exhaust manifold. so now i was up to $13,100 dollars.

well i went to change the manifold and i couldnt get the bolts to break lose and they just rounded off with all the rust that was on them. so i figured i could just take the exhaust manifold off with the turbo still on it. rong. i rounded off three bolts on the bottom so i had to stop that to. well i asked the guys i worked with in the truck shop and we came to the conclusion just to cut the turbo off the manifold. that was stupid.

we got it all back together and tried to get it to start. nothing. tred again. noting. i tried for three months to get it started doing everything i could think of to do. i finaly had to take it to a guy who i figured could get it running in no time. well he tried for a couple months and still couldnt get it goind. so we finaly took it to a dealer and had them look at it. they done a blow by check on the truck and it had an excssive blow bye. come to find out when i cut the exhaust manifold, alot of the small pieces of slag from the plasma cutter got inside the pistons and ate the crap out of the cylinder walls.

so i went looking for a motor. found a motor put af an rv for $2,500. so now im up to $15,600 dollars for my truck. i had to go all the way to ocala florida to pick up the engine. the engine was a complete rebuilt motor by cummins it self. the only worry i had at the time was it had been setting in a climate controlled warehouse for 2 years. well i got it back home and got to tinkering around with it and finaly got it in the truck. it fired right up . i about pissed my self with excitement.

while it was being put back together i went ahead and bought a few more thins needed. the intercooler mounts were broke off the stock inter cooler so i bought a spearco intercooler. i went ahead and got an airdog 150 lift pump to help out with the fueling mods that would come in the future. i got a 4 inch straight pipe with a 6 inch tip. and also got a s&b intake to go along with everything. so now i have spent $17,900 dollars total on my truck.

i had it running for around two week when the tranny started acting up. well i dont know y. it could have been the burn outs i was doing but who knows. i called dave at georends and he said it was the torque converter so i bought one of his and put that in my truck. so with that im at $19,300 dollars.

this is where i am currently at. i am doing body work on it right now fixing some of the rust spots. i have a set of 150 injectors that i will be installing and i now have a a set of gauges i need to install. at this moment i have $19,800 dollars spent on my truck with alot more to come in the future. the next bombs will be a valve body, a new turbo then a smarty.

thanks for reading and god bless
Eddie Godat