Project Vinnie
 

It's time to start a thread for our project Vinnie. My girlfriend at the time named the $500 93 Dodge D250 "Vinnie". I bought the truck from a guy whom i was living with during my internship last year. The truck sat there with a busted rotor and cracked calilper and lots of character

Truck Specs:
Extended cab
Long box
12v cummins
5 spd getrag (recently rebuilt)
Lots of rust
Approximately 160k miles

After lots of brake work, soldering some holes in the radiator, and a 3 hour ride with a busted belt in the front tire, I got the truck home.

Attachment 27959

Fixin her up a little
 

It was a big accomplishment getting the truck home. Now I started to get the truck to a drive able condition so that I could sell the s10 I was currently driving.

New parts list/homemade repairs:
Ball joints (not fun once they've been welded in)
Tie rod ends
Drag link
Steering gear box (major improvement)
Custom tailgate hinges

I managed to pop out a lot of major dents with a pry bar, 2x4, and a sledge hammer. I pulled off the ugly running boards. And I threw in an old aluminum tool box we had laying around.

The truck actually started to look at least a little bit respectable (at least by my standards). :jump:

Attachment 27961

So I made the jump and started driving it back and forth from school to home 3 hours each way. I still had the same girlfriend that named the truck Vinnie so she would ride with me every weekend we went home.

The plan became to work out all of the issues with the truck before we were going down to Tennessee for the internship I accepted.

Well, the plan worked. Only once did it really leave me stranded. We were on our 3 hour trip home pulling my gf's caliber on a trailer. The tensioner pulley threw the belt and the truck started getting hot. After some investigating I freed up the pulley, lubed it up, and gave it a shot. While putting my tools away the belt flew off, got caught in the fan and proceeded to rip off my CPS. :rocking: Hmm that didn't work.

My next thought was to abandon the truck and just take the caliber off the trailer and drive home for the night. After getting the chains and binders off the car this thought pops into my head "do I have keys for the car?" Ha of course not, I left me back at the apartment.

Time for Plan C. I called Oreillys to find out if they had the pulley and a belt. Good thing they did and good thing they were willing to deliver at 9pm to a truck on the side of the interstate.

So finally, I have all of the parts on the truck but of course the alternator won't charge us the CPS is ripped off. I drove the truck thirty miles to a Walgreens parking lot and at least had some light so I could rig the sensor back on. Good thing for zip ties.

Needless to say we made it home about 4 hours later than usual and had a sour taste in my mouth for the truck lol.

The good news is that I already had the new radiator waiting at home because I already planned on fixing it. And autozone had their deal of every $100 you spend you get a $25 gift card. I ended up with a $75 gift card out of it :c:.

The last thing that broke before our trip to Tennessee was slightly catastrophic.

Attachment 27964

A giant rust patch fell off of my frame rail and the leaf spring mount got bent enough to let the spring almost the the bed. This was all after hauling a 4 ton load of scrap out. With no other options I did some major fab work to the frame. After plating almost the entire frame rail I decided that was good enough to get me through the summer.

The truck made the trip to Tennessee just fine. And this where good things happened. A guy at work had a 91 d350 dually with a flat bed, a cummins and a 5 spd.

I asked him how much he would want for it. If I helped him pull the motor, trans, and front clip that I could have the rest of the truck :tu: after a long Saturday in his backyard we had the truck ready to go back to Michigan.

We had a wedding over July 4th weekend and decided to try and haul the truck back home

Attachment 27966

This is what I've ended up with. I've got a solid d350 frame with a dally axle and 4:10 gears. I've got most of the body parts I need to put together a good body. I've got a flatbed that needs a little work. I've got my 12v with a rebuilt 5 spd. And I've got a big smile on my face.

So now when I get back to Michigan in the fall after my internship is done I have a lot of work to do.

looks good. gotta love rust eh.

sounds like a good project keep the info coming:c:

Awesome keep us updated on the progress! Glad to see your saving the old girl

Rust is my enemy. I'm thinking I will get that new D350 all cleaned up and plaster some undercoating on it. My Jeep frame that I under coated has held up quite well.

I saw his truck today and really like the look of the flatbed.
Attachment 27981

It'll take some TLC to make mine look like this but it'll be worth it.