Its frickin' cold today! Anybody working on their truck?

[SixGun]

Oooh....I hate wiring.   

Hope you get it done. If you get it figured out, post up what you did. My 76 could benefit from this with all the butchered wiring.

Good luck and welcome !!   

[SixGun]

Did a search and found this. Maybe it will help.

http://www.dodgetalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=312089#/forumsite/20511.http://

www.madelectrical.com/electricaltech/amp-gauges.shtml

[crazzywolfie]

i like wiring. i just hate doing it in the cold . my 81 would be a electrical nightmare for a most but it is pretty rock solid reliable electrically. truck always starts even at -20. she is extremely miserable at -20 but she starts. i still got some electrical upgrades to do to it to make it more reliable and efficient but haven't got around to it yet. the ramcharger has been sucking up so much of my repair time and budget.

[ProjectPW]

New girl here, looks like a good place for a first post. Spoiled by CA weather here ... supposed to get up to 75 today. Good day to get back under my dash and chase wires. I've been reading posts on how to bypass the common ammeter fry the firewall connector problem. Need my beast up and running without starting a fire. Wish me luck!

Good Luck... Bypassing the ammeter is the first thing I do on these old beasts

http://www.madelectrical.com/electricaltech/amp-gauges.shtml

[ProjectM880]

Good Luck... Bypassing the ammeter is the first thing I do on these old beasts

http://www.madelectrical.com/electricaltech/amp-gauges.shtml

But Un-bypassed 70's Dodges are deemed un-fixable and can be bought for a song and dance 

[taz_man440]

But Un-bypassed 70's Dodges are deemed un-fixable and can be bought for a song and dance 

maybe where you are...  Around here the scrap iron grabbers have just about beat every bush turning old iron into new hybrids...

[motorcyclegurl]

Since electrical is not yet my forte the first thing I did was copied my wiring diagram and sharpened my colored pencils and traced every line so I had a lay of the land. Then I bought a new roll of electric tape and a silver sharpie and labelled all the wires starting with the dash. I now know my wiring like the back of my hand including all the changes made by previous owners (not impressed). Then I read all the threads here and printed the mad electrical instructions. I'm good to go if it will stop raining for a minute. The only thing hanging me up is that specs call for a 6ga wire (not easy to find but i did), but everything I'm reading calls for 10ga. I think I'm gonna go with 6 for the bypass and to replace what cprispfied from the firewall to the ammeter which I will now replace with a voltmeter. Come on California sunshine, I need my truck running in case the river floods. In the meantime I'm stomping puddles in my baja.

'74 Ramcharger

[ProjectM880]

Since electrical is not yet my forte the first thing I did was copied my wiring diagram and sharpened my colored pencils and traced every line so I had a lay of the land. Then I bought a new roll of electric tape and a silver sharpie and labelled all the wires starting with the dash. I now know my wiring like the back of my hand including all the changes made by previous owners (not impressed). Then I read all the threads here and printed the mad electrical instructions. I'm good to go if it will stop raining for a minute. The only thing hanging me up is that specs call for a 6ga wire (not easy to find but i did), but everything I'm reading calls for 10ga. I think I'm gonna go with 6 for the bypass and to replace what cprispfied from the firewall to the ammeter which I will now replace with a voltmeter. Come on California sunshine, I need my truck running in case the river floods. In the meantime I'm stomping puddles in my baja.

'74 Ramcharger

What are the Spec's on your 74' Ramcharger? Engine? Mods?

Post up a Build Thread In the Project forum so we can see some pictures of 

Welcome to the Site ! 

[crazzywolfie]

you could have used wire that was heavier than 6 gauge as long as you fuse it correctly. i would recommend just  running the alternator output straight to the battery and then just run a new wire from the battery into the cab. you could then probably use like a 10 gauge with a 14gauge fusible link from the battery to the voltage gauge in the cab where it could join the rest of the electrical system.

i would also advise that for any wiring you do under the hood you pick up some dual wall heat shrink tubing. the stuff works good for sealing up wires and protecting connections from weather and water.

[SixGun]

   off for 2 days

Beautiful 80* and it would l be nice to get Carter wrapped up but nooooo.
My daughter in laws truck broke down literally in front of our house. She pulled in to drop my wife off and snap, it fell over to one side with a broken (snapped completely off) ball joint. Better here than on the freeway. We try to get the tire off that somebody torqued the shit out of and stripped the head of one lug nut. Spent a couple hours trying to cut it off with my new dremel tool from Christmas.   Decided after dark to reload with more cutting wheels and a bigger cold chisel.

My beautiful day off just turned into work on someone else's vehicle. 

[ProjectM880]

  off for 2 days

Beautiful 80* and it would l be nice to get Carter wrapped up but nooooo.
My daughter in laws truck broke down literally in front of our house. She pulled in to drop my wife off and snap, it fell over to one side with a broken (snapped completely off) ball joint. Better here than on the freeway. We try to get the tire off that somebody torqued the shit out of and stripped the head of one lug nut. Spent a couple hours trying to cut it off with my new dremel tool from Christmas.   Decided after dark to reload with more cutting wheels and a bigger cold chisel.

My beautiful day off just turned into work on someone else's vehicle. 

Bummer! That's defiantly no way to spend a day off. but at least you were there to help save her.

I hate Ball joints, I remember doing them on my Chevy with Noah at his parents house. All I remember is swinging a 8 Pound Sledge hammer for ever! Defiantly sucks to do with or with out the right tools.

[SixGun]

I've rebuilt 3 front ends within the last 3 years.  Gets a little easier with more experience and the right tools.  This one is a 94 Chevy C1500. I finally was able to drill and grind the lug nut and stud out. The lower pass side snapped but the uppers have torn grease caps. They must be factory since they have no grease zerks. Might as well change those too. Uppers are held in with 4 bolts. Looks easy enough. The lowers are pressed. Good thing I have a ball joint press.  The sway bar rubber is literally falling off, cracking and you can see daylight between the bar and rubber. The adjusting sleeve for the tie rods on the pass side must have hit when it snapped.  It is bent like a banana. I'm already calculating how many margaritas this will cost her.   

[ProjectM880]

I've rebuilt 3 front ends within the last 3 years.  Gets a little easier with more experience and the right tools.  This one is a 94 Chevy C1500. I finally was able to drill and grind the lug nut and stud out. The lower pass side snapped but the uppers have torn grease caps. They must be factory since they have no grease zerks. Might as well change those too. Uppers are held in with 4 bolts. Looks easy enough. The lowers are pressed. Good thing I have a ball joint press.  The sway bar rubber is literally falling off, cracking and you can see daylight between the bar and rubber. The adjusting sleeve for the tie rods on the pass side must have hit when it snapped.  It is bent like a banana. I'm already calculating how many margaritas this will cost her.   

Noah and I's friend Jake ( you met him at the shop) Has a 96-98 Gmc 1500 that he replaced ball joints a few times on. the last one literally fell out at a stop sign. The hole truck just fell over when he came to a stop. He ended up having to buy a new lower A arm I think. Im pretty sure it was the lower. Ask noah I think he helped jake out on those. he might Know a trick or two.

[crazzywolfie]

almost sounds like you need to finish Carter so that your daughter can have a nice reliable dodge to drive

[SixGun]

Eric, that's a crazy story. Basically the same thing, she was pulling in and stopped in front of the house and the truck just fell over.  Its funny that you mentioned the control arm because they sell them as a kit with complete arm, bushings, and ball joints at every place I checked. Must be a common problem.

Mat, as for Carter, I could never hand him over to someone that never does maintenance on their own vehicle. I just rescued this one so there is no way I'd throw it back into the junk pile.  Besides the DIL is a, ewww, Chevy girl. She has 2 of them falling apart. The other one is an S10.