(Yet another) '21 Ram 5500 Build

[shortbus4x4]

I was heading down to Humboldt County CA to pickup my daughter from my mom's where I had let her stay for three weeks because I had gone down over the July 4th weekend with her. My wife and I left Thursday evening to head down, my youngest son and family was an hour or so a head of us while my oldest son and family were about an hour behind us. I had rooms reserved in Madras for the night. Around midnight on 97 southbound just 25 minutes north of Madras OR deer season opened for me. I struck a nice 6 point buck doing about 70 mph in my 01 Dodge 2500 Cummins/6 speed with a 140k miles on it. Wrapped the radiator around the fan so I lost all my coolant and the fan was locked up. I had my 18' car trailer behind me, my Snapon road box full of tools, air compressor, job box full of stuff, in addition to camp gear. I had some work to do at my mom's and bring some stuff back. I assessed the damage, said a few bad words and drove the half mile back to the rest stop before all my coolant drained out. Called my oldest son who stopped and took my wife to the hotel while I stayed with the truck.

Getting a tow sucked and I finally ended up renting a '21 Dodge 2500 Cummins in Bend and putting my wrecked Dodge on my trailer and towing it myself to the body shop. Finally dropped it off at 5 pm Friday and spent the night in Bend. Took the rental truck down to my mom's and got there Saturday afternoon instead of Friday afternoon but at least we got there. After looking at the damage in the daylight I figured there was a pretty good chance it would be totaled so I kind of started truck shopping. Left my mom's at 0630 this morning in the rental truck because it had to be back in Bend today for a fire crew to pick it up on Tuesday. Here's some pictures of my wreck. I'll post up some more tomorrow as I just checked into a hotel in La Pine and am going to go get in the pool.

 

[shortbus4x4]

I spent Sunday looking off and on for trucks online. Decided I wanted a class 4/5 truck with a 84" CA. I'm a mobile mechanic for an International dealer in Spokane and have worked for a telecom construction company as a shop foreman so had a pretty good idea of what I wanted in a truck. My perfect truck would be a Dodge cab on an International CV running gear with a Cummins hooked to an Allison hooked to the International CV transfercase, unfortunately it doesn't exist. I'm not a fan of Ford as I've worked on too many of them. The other thing was that right now commercial trucks manufacturing is slow and the market for them is hot so finding one on the lot is difficult. I could have ordered a CV or 5500 but am not waiting 5+ months to get it.

After renting the Dodge 2500 my wife really liked it compared to my 01 as did I so we decided on a Dodge. Found one at Dave Smith which is only about 45 minutes or so from where I live that checked all the boxes but when I called on it was told it was damaged in transit and was going back to Chrysler. Kept looking and found one at Lithia in Bend which checked enough of the boxes for options that it had to have that I made an appointment to look at it Monday afternoon on the way home through Bend. Got there about 3, looked at it, test drove it and a couple hours later had all our stuff out of the rental loaded onto my new 5500.?

If anyone is looking at getting a new FCA product I have to recommend Ashley Huber at Lithia of Bend. She went above and beyond even after the sale was done and we had left. She actually held the truck until we got there since we were coming such a distance. She had one inquiry Monday morning and told him that he would have to call back that afternoon as she had someone else coming to look at it. She returned our rental truck for us and I had forgotten to fill up our rental truck before we got to the dealer and remembered after we were gone and it was late. I called her and asked if she could do it and I would pay for it, she filled it up and didn't charge us at all. I've worked at dealerships before and that is old school service which is hard to find anymore. I highly recommend her.

Here's some pictures in the lot right after it's all loaded and ready to head back to the hotel.

 

[shortbus4x4]

Got up early Tuesday morning and started the process to wake the wife and daughter. Went and ate breakfast and then went outside and aired my rear tires down from 95 psi to 70 psi because that will help with the ride.?
Got to the High Desert Museum just south of Bend at 9 when they opened and spent 3.5 hours there with the family and my two boys and their families. Highly recommend it, especially watching the otters. My two year old grandson was hungry by then so we continued our journey north to the Black Bear Diner in Bend for lunch. Got done at two and the wife and kids said they wanted to hit up the outlets in Bend. Me on the other hand wanted to take a detour to Prineville and get there by 3 to look at some manly truck stuff.?

The wife and daughter got in with my boys and I took off on my own with plans to meet up in Madras for the drive home. Got to Prineville and spent about 45 minutes there looking at and talking manly truck stuff. Took off and headed for Madras and we all arrived there within 10 minutes of each other. Wife got back in with me while my daughter rode with my oldest son to entertain his two year old.

Got home last night at 1030, my truck had 25 miles when I bought it and now has 530 miles. MPGs according to the dash is 15mpg but doing 70 the engine is at 2300 rpm so it should get better when I figure out how to lower my engine rpms. Hmmm, big tires?? It rides like a truck much to my wife's displeasure, I told her it's supposed too and if she didn't like it she can walk because it's my truck. Fortunately she has short arms and the cab is fairly wide, I made sure when we stopped I kept the truck keys on my person so I would not be the one walking.?

Going to add some side steps for the vertically challenged, floor mats, seat covers, tow hitch and some temporary rear fenders/mud flaps before I do much else. Will probably start to order some stuff this Friday and weekend.

 

[Tex68w]

Congrats! These 5500 builds are spreading like wildfire around here lately, it's awesome.

 

[shortbus4x4]

Hmmm...it's too bad you don't have designated "deer crossing" areas like we do in Pennsylvania which are clearly marked by signs. Still not sure how the deer read them though...

Congratulations on the new beast of a 5500! What are your plans?

I want a camper on it but I also need it to do truck stuff so need a bed too. Probably do the bed first and then a slide in camper.
I ordered a Curt class V hitch for it last night. Next is floor mats and seat covers. Going to fuel it up this weekend and take it across the CAT scales at the truck stop to get before weights.