GatorDoc’s 3rd gen Cummins Dodge

[TheAlmightySam]

Keep us appraised on how those Treadwrights do - I've been eyeballing those exact ones for my '92 whenever my Coopers wear out. You should be fine with 4.10s, IMO. I have 3.55s on 315/75/16s with a Getrag, so in top gear, our road speed is nearly identical for a given RPM. My truck (and thus, your truck) does 75 at 2000 RPM, right where the torque begins to peak on the Cummins. Mine seems very happy cruising at 2000 for hours and hours, and I suspect you'll find the same performance out of yours.

I'd do gauges as one of my first mods. The peace of mind of being able to keep a better eye on the engine is worth so much to me. If you're unfamiliar with them, Isspro offers a set of gauges that will match your factory gauges, and they're made right here in Portland.

Looking forward to watching your truck come together!

 

[Gatordoc]

Heres my .02 being I have an 07.

Fuel filtering. Just because it says FASS or Airdog does not mean better filtering. Most of the filters than come are 5 micron..You have to search to get a true 2 micron filter. What I think the best and most affordable way to do this is with the Glacier Diesel Performnace 2 mc filter kit. This goes between the stock housing and injection pump. Use a Baldwin in the stock housing for a true 5 micron filter and use a Cat 2 micron on the GDP filter base. You can get the whole kit for $200. The cat filters are about $13.

Ball Joints...just spend the cash and get good ones. Moogs have proven to be junk and the XRF have had problems too. I am planning on getting a nice set and a couple rebuild kits to keep on hand. I plan on keeping the truck for a while anyway.
The rest is up to you. These are the things I have done and know about.

The above are next on the to-do list, along with replacing/upgrading the factory lift pump. The truck has 12x,xxx on it now and from what I have been reading I am getting close to the point where the common rail Cummins engines start to have problems with the stock fuel system. I'm also past-due for ball joints by most folks estimation, though the factory ones checked out fine when I did the rest of the front end, so I'm going to start saving for the upgrade so I'll hopefully be ready when the time comes.

Keep us appraised on how those Treadwrights do - I've been eyeballing those exact ones for my '92 whenever my Coopers wear out. You should be fine with 4.10s, IMO. I have 3.55s on 315/75/16s with a Getrag, so in top gear, our road speed is nearly identical for a given RPM. My truck (and thus, your truck) does 75 at 2000 RPM, right where the torque begins to peak on the Cummins. Mine seems very happy cruising at 2000 for hours and hours, and I suspect you'll find the same performance out of yours.

I'd do gauges as one of my first mods. The peace of mind of being able to keep a better eye on the engine is worth so much to me. If you're unfamiliar with them, Isspro offers a set of gauges that will match your factory gauges, and they're made right here in Portland.

Looking forward to watching your truck come together!

I've got nearly 5k on the tires now and no complaints. They hold air perfectly, haven't affected handling adversely and while I did take a MPG hit in hilly city driving in CA they didn't hurt bad in my drive cross country from CA to MI. I'll rotate at my next oil change, but my plan is to order a 5th tire soon so I can have a matching spare. Pretty happy so far!

Speaking of my trip, I've just completed ~2300 miles the past 2.5 days moving from Camp Pendleton, CA back home to West Michigan. Nearly nine years in the Corps and no regrets, but it's time to spend more time with the family. That being said, updates may be few and far between for a while since I am currently unemployed and will likely be on a college student budget for the next year or two, but it'll be worth it in the long run.

I did manage to get the services done on the transmission, transfer, and rear diff before the trip; new trans filter, adjusted the bands (not hard at all, don't be scared!) and added ~7 quarts of fresh full-synthetic ATF+4. Relatively quick and easy, but I'm going to start saving for a kit to rebuild the transmission as the bands took substantial adjustment. Transfer was just a matter of changing the fluid, as was the rear diff. MUCH happier truck now, though the automatic is still an automatic. Too bad the electronics make it so difficult or I'd just swap in a NV4500 and be done with it.

 

[federalfighter]

Semper fi

 

[EXP-T100]

Thank you for your service!!:beer:
the truck look good with the 35's i just i was about to order some of there 315 for my 05 but wanted to stick with E's so i just got the 285.

 

[chilliwak]

The truck is looking real nice Gator! Now all we need is some pics of that beauty off-road!:Wow1:

 

[Inline6]

Interesting thread. Good stuff. Thought I would add...

FWIW, I went with Dynatrac ball joints about a year ago Carli was out of stock and changing the design or something. The truck had 80K on it and all the tests had the ball joints fine, but the tires were wearing uneven. No one thought it was the ball joints. So I just decided to do them, good thing. They were beyond shot and put me though a set of tires sooner than I should of. So don't wait and ruin good tires if you think they are gone. I will say I was running 37s for most of the life of the 04.5, with some Lorenz suspension stuff. Not sure if the tires had anything to due with premature ball joint wear.

So far so good with the new joints, but I don't think I have put 5000 miles on the truck since I changed them out.

 

[Gatordoc]

Soooooooooo it's been a good while since my last update here; still have the Dodge & she's still running strong with about 160k on the clock.

Moved home in February of 2012 as planned, working full time and back to college left little time and money to work on the truck, or get out and use her. Lots of highway & DD miles racked up in 4.5 years. New set of tires; new brakes, rotors, calipers all 'round; some other maintenance odds and ends, but nothing major until this happened over the weekend:



New ball joints and front universals, in the grass next to the driveway as I still don't have a garage.

Going pretty smooth, considering. Copious amounts of anti-seize slathered all over the hub flange and knuckle mounting surfaces when I changed the hubs a few years back helped a lot in this respect.

Manual ball joint press is a pain in the back, but it works and gets the job done.

Next project is the 08+ steering upgrade, but that's going to have to wait a couple of weeks until my bank account recovers a bit from this hit.

Also picked up a used ARE DCU shell and swapped it for the fiberglass tonneau cover. It's a bit rough, and not color matched, and doesn't quite fit the truck right as it wasn't built for a Dodge, but the price was right, and this is my proof of concept trial / stepping stone to a slide in or (better yet) flatbed camper hopefully next year. I'll post up some pics once I get it cleaned up a bit and mounted properly. No huge plans for it yet, just a sleeping platform, some storage, and a simple aux electrical system for lighting and charging stuff and ventilation.

I started a new job about a year ago that's starting to take off, so hopefully I'll finally be able to get out and do some things!

Primary mission right now is preventative maintenance and getting it ready to be slept in so I can use it this winter for a couple of snowboarding trips.

 

[larrynsr]

Have you ever heard about regreasing the unit bearing hubs on these? I do mine every other oil change. Remove the brake rotor to access the abs sensor. Remove the sensor and pump grease in there while spinning the hub. I stop when I feel resistance when spinning the hub.

 

[Gatordoc]

Have you ever heard about regreasing the unit bearing hubs on these? I do mine every other oil change. Remove the brake rotor to access the abs sensor. Remove the sensor and pump grease in there while spinning the hub. I stop when I feel resistance when spinning the hub.

I've seen it mentioned a couple of times in passing, but without context or instructions. I suppose it can't hurt, provided you're using the correct grease and taking care not to introduce contaminates into the hub assembly along with the fresh grease.

 

[Gatordoc]

So I did a thing...



More to come, but the Dodge is likely going to be up for sale soon. She's been a great truck, but it's time for something that suits my current needs a little better.