my first dodge story

Alright sorry about the Houdini act there but I am back. I got frustrated a little with only updating on my phone because my computer is as old as my truck and takes 4 days to warm up. I fired it up to type a lengthy entry into my dodge journal.

SO I disconnected a lot more, EGR and all its friends, and left a pigtail from a VSV loose and it fired my igintion wire all the way from the distributor to the key, got that replaced in a day. A few weeks after hooking it all back together, I was noticing a very bad smell once the truck warmed up. I could only describe it as burning death. It was a very pungent bad smell, hot like some one dropped a four day old skunk on the exhaust. NO idea ... until I found that the bad was making noise and boiling and making steam and this amazing smell. Well, in my limited knowledge of my truck and basic mechanics and trial by fire learning, I did not reconnect the voltage regulator. Thus, frying my battery, my 6 month old battery. Ahhh, now being broke, and in between paychecks, I thought I was screwed. Well, I work for a local large name brand dealership, I will not say what kind, but put it this way, we sell all those hybrids on the road. :) I went back to the store where I got my battery and was able to straight exchange it and charged to my work account a new VR. Replaced and running well.

Then, driving to work one morning, and 2 miles from home, bad vibration, similar to a driveline vibration. Felt those before. SO could only safely go 50 mph. Got to work, got my truck in the air on my lunch break and found that the transmission tailshaft mount where it mounts to the crossmember worked itself loose and a bolt escaped its rusty grip. Found said bolt. Then had to go back to work, with my truck still in the air and not able to work on it until I was done my shift. Well as my shift was winding down, come to find out, my boss asked our lead tech and an intern to fix it and replace my ujoints. I had already bought them thinking that was the issue. Got finished with my shift and my truck was fixed, new ujoints and they even put my tools away. I was so thankful. No more vibration, up to 80 mph and no problem.

Yesterday, as i was on my way to pick my kids up from the baby sitters, I hit a few bumps in the road. Literally and then the truck jumped and died and sputtered and ran and died. Instantly confused, I coasted to a stop off the road. Remembering my first issue with this, I checked the starter cable, previously this was rubbing on the frame/brake proportioning valve(?) and had rubbed a hole in the cable. Quick fix, black tape and plastic sheathing. Well, I thought i did it again. Nope because when I wiggled the positive terminal it was loose. Got that tight and drove to the sitters, once there it died again. I got out my new terminal and tools from the glove box and installed the new one. (Always prepared :) Well on my way home happened again, same way too. Grrr. Got it to work today, barely, inspected it, it was the cable, all corroded on the inside and loose at both ends pl;us the previously found rub spot, replaced it for $8 and good to go right? Wrong! Got to my ex's house to pick up the kids again and it dies! Grrrr, well found it to be a bad ground. The same bad ground that was a fixed in one of my other posts, well a master tech at my dealership fixed this before. So on the fly, grabbed tools and managed to make a better ground out of the eyelet from the old starter cable and the same nice 6 gauge ground. Fixed runs great again.

No other updates. HEI is in and runs perfect. Again, PERFECT! Love it. No accelarator pump on my carb, have to crank it for ever to get it started when its cold. Have not gotten my ball joints for the new LCAS. Too much life going on the afford them. But possibly soon. Painted my gauge cluster white and dash black, looks awesome. Was in our first car show back in June, that was Awesome. And that is about it. Thanks for taking the interest in my thread.

PS. I am considering becoming an automotive journalist/photographer/blogger/whatever very soon. This thread is kind of a test run of some of it. I want to get a laptop and I will try to become that. May I please have as much creative criticism as possible. NOT quitting my day job, just thinking.