Well my names Jacob and i have been surfing the site for a bout a couple weeks looking at all the awesome builds you guys have done! I have been waiting a 4x4 truck for a while now and owning a 2 wheel drive dodge diesel i knew i wanted it to be a dodge and gas, seeing as the diesel is auto i also wanted a stick (I like to be diffrent  ). I had thrown in the air about getting a ram charger i had had my eye on for 3 years the guy told be $1500 and i thought that it was way over priced (which it wasnt), so i said that i would come back.
Well getting into the diesel world i made new buddys and happen to go to school with one of the nicest guys ive ever met, needless to say he needed some diesel help so i went to his house (In temple for you texans ) and i noticed a dodge single cab short bed 4x4 sittin in his driveway, it was love at first site! I asked whos it was and etc...well his mom didnt want to sell it right now, i said ok and never pushed it, well last week i was determined to get either the ramcharger or the 150. I visit the guy with the ram charger and decide id ask colbys mom again i offered $1500 cash on the spot for it...she told me bring a trailor.
Well i did and brought her home!!!! 
She is going to be mostly used to pull friends out of the mud when they call me (tired of using dads truck) and for me to play a little!
Heres the specs and pics!
318
single barrel carb
4 speed with a granny gear
d44 up front (I assume) crystler 9.25 out back
very little rust (thank god for texas )
front grille guard and headache rack
104,--- miles
new clutch and alt!

The plans...
Re Gear to 4.11's
Clean up and paint the grill guard and truck
 (tractor paint ( new holland blue) and black bed liner on bottom with black guards)
4" sky jacker lift with all new leaf springs
36 iroks
stero, subs
lights
thats about it...any suggestions?





old goverment writing says: Department of agriculture Soil Conservation

I was hoping not to but if i have to do a little trimming i will.

6" is what youll need unless like stated in post above "fender trimming" but that leads to more stuff,like new pitman arm ,or drag link, or maybe a crossover steering, but if your on a budget you can also throw a cheap 2" body lift with the 4" spring lift......good luck and your on the rite site for help.....chris1

Stackeddodge.
  Ask all the questions you want, that's what were all here for, and out of all the people on this site someone will be able to give you an answer.     On the drivelines, with the 6 inch lift, you will have to do some driveline mods.  I will tell you this though, i did a 4 inch on my RC, and took my front shaft out to have the splines and slip yoke replaced. The place who's doing mine wanted all my measurements, and when they got them they decided about an inch and a half could be added to mine. Now you dont have to do that, but it will cover up the splines like it was factory.  On crossover steering, right now your draglink attaches to your drivers side knuckle. On crossover, it comes off our steering arm, shoots across and attaches to your passanger side knuckle. If you do a search on here, you can find out more info, since i just gave you a brief and prolly uninformative explanation. LOL
Chris

I myself have never really heard bad things about rough country. This isn't my first one, i used to mud race and had a rough country on my Chevy, plus most of the guys i knew ran them. The only real problem i had was the rear u-bolts were bigger and wouldn't fit through the spring plates. A drill press took care of that in minutes. Everything else went smooth with the install. I haven't done much real testing yet, but in the back 40 of the shop it works well and seems to flex well.
Chris

I have a rough country all spring lift on my 87 and it was easy to install and works great, as a matter of fact I'm moving it over to the 82 when it stops raining here.

Good to know  i was trying to avoid a body lift but ill go with one if i have to. thistruck will see hardly ANY flex..not much here to felx on LOL

I have rough country 4" springs on the front of my rig with 285/75 16's (aka 33x11.5's) I disconnected my sway bar for maximum flex. With 33's, it flexed enough to require trimming both the front and rear edges of the front fenders, so at full flex, I can steer. If i had left my sway bar installed, I might have gotten away with very little trimming to fit 35's maybe even none. The back is a custom build. Since I tow alot, I didn't want a soft ride in the back, so I flipped the shackles and added a 2" add a leaf that was originally on the front. This netted me about 5". I would highly recommend 4:56 gearing for 35-36" tires. Are you planning on traction aids? They really help when pulling people out. 

I ordered my shocks from a 4wd products store when they ran a special on pro comps. i think it was 4 for $120 with your choice of color boots. just remember to order shocks for the amount of lift you have.

Are you wanting a complete custom dash build? If so, go to the RC pics section of this site and look for NACHO, end of an era by Mad Max. He has an index on the first page. Look for the dash fab/instruments/wiring pages. You will drool If you want to keep your current dash and just build a guage panel, do a search of this site, or look thru the tech articles. I made my insert from 1/4" pvc and placed it in my dash. I don't like it tho,  I'm looking to do another insert sometime.

AN ALUMINUM DASH!!!? kewl! Again, check out the posts bout dash removal and building. And bout the traction aids, i was meaning lockers and limited slips

Im going to keep the stock dash till winter...ill replace the bulbs with leds and hope it helps...i grinded down the grill guard yesterday still got alot to do to it. Also got my air sander  sooo things are going slow but coming along...o and can someone say rubber?? (see below)

36x13.50x17 before some people jump my case on the choice of tire...heres the story behind them.
My 96 2500 has a habbit of having breakable ac dials, so i went to pick n pull to hopefully find some more, not to mention i like looking! My parents were with me and we walked to the "special pricing area" and saw a jacked up 06 dodge 1500 with 3 huge tires in front of it, well my dad has a 4x4 ford, so he asked the guys inside how much since theres only 3 and what happened to the fourth. The fourth (tire and rim) were destroyed when it was hit head on towards the passenger side then rolled, the guy said $150 for all. Needless to say after some convencing we bought them. The guy marks them runs my moms credit card, and right as were walking out the door the manager looks at the parts guy and screams those were 150 a piece!!!
       Me and my dad are outside loading them up, my mom looks at the manager and says "sorry", then walked out to the truck. There mistake, turned a great deal for me. The rims wont fit our 06 fordand it would need new rims and lift, etc, i tryed selling them but no one took. So there mine for this project. Took them to discount tire to find some info on them, there irok radials, about 200 miles on them, and the rims are discountinuted and one company still makes that style but discount doesnt deal with them...so any info on how to get 2 more rims like that cheap let me know...i dont even know if they will fit my dodge yet. I want to find some rims like the spare tire rims off 3rd gen dodges.

I don't know about a wiring harness...

But it looks like those wheels will fit your truck.  Good luck finding matching wheels though, probably a lot easier to pick up some steel wheels for it.  I think Cragar soft 8s in a 17 are only 60-70 dollars a piece. (might not even be that much)  The tires to round out 4 plus a spare are going to cost more than replacement wheels...what are they, about $200 each?

What kind of bedliner are you going to use?

summit has some cragar 7 spoke wagon wheels for 43 a piece...just a heads up... and you can get them in 8 lug 15's...

Awesome! i saw dupicolors car project and liked it.

Your current dana 44 is 5 lug. You can swap it for either an 8 lug dana 44 that is common in 3/4 tons. Or you could swap the 8 lug stuff on to your current front axle to match. You're going to need new rims for 8 lug though.

But yes if your front and rear are geared the same it doesn't matter what axles you have under it

I was cruising through co84rc's thread and saw the awesome flex he got with the chevy springs.
Would it be possible to do chevy springs on my rig to get flex or should i just stick with the rough country lift kit? 

ah ok so we'll keep it simple for now 

Thanks for the info and advice Sam!
I drive a 3/4 ton now so the ride isnt a big deal LOL, but i will give it a try!
Update: got the floor primed friday, 2 coats of bed liner saturday, then got the grill guard and tow bar off.
Today im going to go strip more paint off the grill guard(I think i need to invest in a sand blaster!)and put two more coats on the floor.

Dad dug out his "gun" today and it will work! It is a sand blasting gun doesnt look like a harbor frieght one so well see! now i gotta get sand! Anyone know where? 

Took the gauge cluster apart today, was going to replace all the lights with LEDs. Well once i replaced them all, only 2 lights worked... I thought maybe the little ballast things are bad...so i went and got 4 new ones (all o riellys had) to see if they would make them work. Well it didnt...so options are either put a new gauge cluster, fix this one somehow, or buy aftermarket gauges and wire them in. Which would you guys suggest? On a good note the leds turn the stock green glow to blue 

I'd totally go aftermarket. if you shop on ebay or surf the net you might be able to find a decent set of gauges for a reasonable price. i'm currently thinking about putting aftermarket gauges in my 82 once i finally get some time and money to work on it.

There are several threads showing the outcomes of Jim's great parts. I;d read through them to see exactly what you want. As far as the 56" rears, it depends how you set those up too. co84rc runs these with the overload and another spring taken out and they flex amazingly well. I Would read through his thread to see what all he's done with chevy springs. Mad Max has done experimenting as well if I recall. Read through some of the longer build ups and you'll find everything you're looking for. I am going to be running 56" 4" lift springs in the rear with shackle flip and dodge 4" lift springs up front with dana 60 (taller spring perches). With some tweaking it should set pretty level and comes out to around 6" over stock.