99 Dodge Dakota Project Truck

With the garage cleaned up somewhat I could resume painting the engine bay components. Here's the drinker's side fender and hood hinge:

And reinstalled:

I had to do it this way because I didn't have enough walk-around room for both fenders, so next up was the captains side fender & hinge:

And the radiator support pieces:

I also shot the remaining portion of the firewall that was not accessible with the fender still installed:

And its all back together:

At this point its mostly reassembly, though I was waiting for the ECM. Through my research I knew the stock V-6 ECM was a no-go. Evidently the internals are set up to read the firing impulses (I think?) for a 6 cylinder and can't be reprogrammed for a V-8. Good news was that any V-8 ECM should work as long as it's the same year model. I found one from a 99 Ram but made a tactical error - I sent it off for a VIN change and a tune before trying it out and that didn't work out well .

Next up, running and driving!

Cheers,

Mark

As I was reassembling everything I found a used ECM from a 99 Ram pickup that should do the trick so I sent it off for reprogramming. Tactical error on my part . My research had shown that any ECM from any V-8 as long as it was the same year would run the Dakota, though I would have a Check Engine light for VIN mismatch. So what I did was send the ECM to a programmer to recode the VIN and do one of his stock tunes. Cost me $400.

ECM arrives, check

Everything reinstalled, check

All relevant sensors transferred from the old engine, check

Wiring harness plugged in and doublechecked, check

All fluids topped off, check

Fingers crossed, check

Time for the first start. Hold breath and turn the key, she fires right up and purrs like a kitten! Score! After a little warmup and leak check, time for the test drive. I made it down the street and around the corner before coming back to adjust the TV cable. A few more jaunts down the street for fine tuning and she's shifting normally. Time for a longer test drive! Now things go slightly south - when I could finally get above 30 mph (where I live it's 3 miles of 30 before getting to a road with a higher speed) 1st, 2nd and 3rd shifts are normal but I'm not getting OD or converter lockup. Hmmmm. Had it before but not now. Sidenote - this era Dodge transmissions shift hydraulically through 3rd gear and electronically into OD and TCC lockup.

Back to the garage to recheck all the wiring and reset the trans harness. Back for another test drive, no change. But on a good note the new junkyard engine is singing sweetly! Time for some research. Since I was still using the 42RE trans I thought maybe there was a difference in the inputs and the tune was for a 46RE. But for now I'm not too worried, the answer will eventually turn up.

Fast forward a few weeks, no answer! Still no OD or Converter lockup. No a big deal in town but zipping along at 3000+ RPM at highway speeds gets annoying. I had not found any onboard faults and had done some troubleshooting, checking voltages, etc., at the trans connector, still no dice. Next step, call the tuner. This is where even now my heart rate goes ballistic. When I sent the ECM in I filled out the tuning sheet he provides and on it I had noted that I was going to use the 42RE until I acquired a 46RE. When I called him to try to find some help and told him what was going on, he basically blamed me for not putting the 46 in right away. Whaa?? Essentially I got no answer from him. Double Hmmmm. 

I found a local guy who, though could not tune the ECM, he could hook up his scanner and check things out. We went for several test drives and discovered that basically, the transmission was doing it's thing correctly but was getting no signals from the ECM. Still not fixed but slowly the boxes  are filling in. I tried several more times to connect with the tuner but got nowhere several more times . Then I had a brainstorm - on the next salvage yard expedition, pick up another ECM and try it!

New ECM hooked up, all transmission functions normal! Yay! Except I have a bum ECM that I spent lots of money on. Now it's time to investigate that. I had found on the interwebs some writeups describing my very problem - seems it is a fairly common failure point on this era Dodge ECMs. Maybe I sent him a bad ECM and he either didn't function check it or can't function check it. So I call him - again - and get the runaround - again! Triple Hmmmm.

Step 4 (or 5 or 11 at this point). My local guy recommended another semi-local shop who could do ECM tuning, so I stopped in there and asked if they could put the bad ECM on the bench and check it out for me, which they did. Guess what they found? The ECM is fine but the tune was for a manual trans! He had written out (or not included) any AT functions! So another call - and he flatly denies it, says it's my fault and I should be running a 46RE since there is no tune for a 42RE, Has no answer when I confront him about there being no AT function in his tune. Then he hangs up on me. Guess who will not be getting any more business from me, nor any referrals, plus a bad reference to anybody looking for this kind of work. Sadly, not much else I can do.

But now I have a fabulous running Dakota! And my salvage yard expedition yielded many more goodies, but that's for the next installment.

Cheers,

Mark

With the truck running well it was time to continue working on the interior an start the bodywork (sort of). First up was removal of the headliner - not only because it was looking ratty but I needed access to the roof structure. More on that later.

I had never tackled a headliner replacement before but it turned out to be amazingly easy. Except for actually getting the headliner out of the truck! The old cloth (felt?) material peeled right off:

And attaching the new cloth (felt?) was as easy as spraying adhesive onto the liner and burnishing the new material on:

The other reason for removing the headliner was this:

The picture doesn't show it well but there was a sizeable dent in the roof right next to the rear brake light. PO said a tree fell on it - welcome to South Carolina! I needed access to the back side to try to knock the dent out but the rear support panel didn't have any holes with the proper angle I needed, so:

I did a little eyeball measuring and broke out the hole saw. Now I have a hole that I could get to the dent with and a few minutes with a hammer and an old extension and the dent was now ready for massaging from the outside:

I was worried that the roof would not return to it's original shape but by working the dent in the right direction from the inside it came right back. A few more minutes of hammer and dolly, bondo and some epoxy primer and the dent is ready for paint. 

About this time this spring I was buried in family related stuff so I wasn't ready yet for paint & body, but I did have the time to keep refreshing and reworking the interior. That's next!

Cheers,

Mark

Nice job so far. I really need to do the headliner in my '03. It's sagging bad. 

JeremyJ said:

Nice job so far. I really need to do the headliner in my '03. It's sagging bad. 

Go for it. I have always shied away from interior projects dealing with fabric mainly because I have never worked on/with fabrics. I dove into this one armed with Youtube videos and came out successful!

I'd have to dig up the receipt but if I remember correctly the headliner fabric only cost about $45 from Amazon plus 2 cans of spray adhesive.

One of the biggest issues with the interior refresh was the original seats. The driver's seat was in pretty poor shape - the cover was worn (though not torn), the foam cushion was crushed and generally destroyed in the high wear stress areas and the recline lever had broken off. This was made worse because the plastic end with the serrations was broken, which is part of the recline cylinder so just getting a new handle couldn't fix it. Vice grips worked temporarily but I needed a permanent fix. My many trips to the salvage yards helped enlighten me about seating!

It turns out that the recline cylinders are pretty firmly/permanently attached to the seat frames (at least on the Dakota). It also turns out that the average 20 year old Dakota in a salvage yard has a generally ragged-out driver's seat! I couldn't find a good seat/cushion and recline function combo anywhere, so time to get creative. My first thought was that normally the passenger seat gets 1/10th the wear so why not find and substitute a passenger seat bottom for my driver's seat? Fail, because the seat cushions are molded left and right! And they don't really interchange - I know because that was attempt #1. I did find a good seat frame with a good recline cylinder though, so that was added to the pile of replacement parts I usually came home with.

Next thought. I really, really liked the seats in my old Corvette. The C4 Vette seats just fit me! Why not find a set and mod them to fit the Dakota? Two problems popped up - one, finding a good set of C4 seats is very hit-or-miss, and if they need recovering, pretty expensive. Two, ergonomics. In my previous career as an airline pilot I learned the value of proper seat positioning - makes all the difference when you have to park your butt on that seat for hours upon hours at a time! The C4 seats just were not going to work due to the floor-to-cushion height difference between the Dak and the C4. Raising the C4 seat to the proper height for decent lower leg/thigh comfort made it too tall to sit comfortably in the truck.

Next thought. Aftermarket seats. Setting the cost aside for now, I found that finding seats for my club cab - which has different requirements for back seat access - was very difficult and options few. I didn't want to roll the dice on an untested seat that would need mods to fit only to find that the seat and my tushy were not compatible. Then there was the cost! So that thought was dismissed.

Next thought. After sitting in many Dakota seats in salvage yards (as well as my own passenger seat) I brought home a good seat/cushion to try. That failed! The right side seat, though I could make it fit the frame, was just shaped wrong and really uncomfortable. Next I finally found a good driver's side seat/cushion in the same color. Fixed for now but I didn't want to keep the gray interior color so I would have to dye the seat covers. 

Another fail! Seems the Dakota seat covers are glued to the cushions! And I couldn't get the covers off without destroying the foam. Next option, dying the covers on the foam. Here's that attempt:

I tried Ritt dye without much success. The dye is designed to be washed into the fabric with heat, and I couldn't do that properly so dying didn't work. I then tried the spray dyes and generally was not happy with the end result.

Final thought. I had bypassed Durango seats for one issue - since a Durango is a 4-door, the front seats don't fold forward (which I need for rear access). I had found quite a few Durangos with leather seats but had walked past them for this reason. I took a new look at the Durango seats and found that I could make them work with a little parts swapping:

The Durango seat frame bottoms won't work due to the no-fold forward issue but the Durango seat cushions fit perfectly on the Dakota seat frame bottoms. The Durango seat backs were shorter than the Dakota so the Durango seat backs would not fit the Dakota seat back frames. Got all that? I fixed it by replacing the Dakota seat back frames with the Durango frames, kept the Dakota seat frame bottoms, slid all the covers/cushions on and, after a serious bleach treatment (the Durango seats had been exposed to the elements for a while!) in with the new seats (sorry for the blurry pic):

The new seats are gray but dark enough that I like them, and they are much, much more "seatable" than the old seats!

Next, finishing the interior.

Cheers,

Mark

To get the headliner out I had to remove pretty much all the interior - the side panels, the rear panel and the A pillar covers so while they were out they got cleaned, prepped and painted. I used the Duplicolor Vinyl and Plastic interior paint and I'm overall happy with it.

Since everything was out it was a perfect time to replace all the stereo components. Nothing too fancy, the factory speakers got replaced with Rockford Fosgate 6" all around and I wired up an amp which went under the rear seat. I ran all the wiring then reinstalled the headliner and all the interior pieces.

Next problem - finding a stereo. Chrysler in the 90s and early 00s stuck with their 1 1/2 DIN factory radios and it limits the options. I could install a single DIN with an adapter - never liked the look of that and I wasn't too happy with the choices in my price range. There are very few 1 1/2 DIN stereos out there. I could shoehorn a double DIN unit into the dash but after looking at several examples I was not impressed in the least! The solution - break out the fiberglass!

I had some 1/8" foam sheet left over from an airplane repair I had done a few months ago so I fabbed up a sheet of glass/foam composite, took some measurements and made this:

I mounted the stereo at the base of the dash forward of the center console and that is the cover for it:

While everything was out I finished up painting the rest of the interior components, the dash and the door panels and the interior is complete - for now:

I am still looking for a center console that I might be able to integrate into the dash better but that's on the back burner for now - every time I go hunting in the salvage yards I peek into various cars to see if there is something I can adapt. I'm toying with the idea of converting to a floor shifter so that is part of the search.

For now I'm pleased with how the interior turned out - looks much nicer than the original, I think.

Next up, time for some bodywork!

Cheers,

Mark

Take a look at neon console 

Man, I feel old.  The last time I messed with a Dodge, the distributor was in the front.

Dusterbd13-michael said:

Take a look at neon console 

Either Neons weren't very popular around here, or they don't last in the salvage yards long before getting crushed because I haven't seen any here. I have stayed away from the later Dakota/Durango consoles only because I like the wider armrest that mine has. I'm not averse to crossing brands though so I generally peek inside just about everything to see what might fit and look/work well.

maj75 (Forum Supporter) said:

Man, I feel old.  The last time I messed with a Dodge, the distributor was in the front.

I didn't have much exposure to working on Dodges in my youth but I still vividly remember one of my first encounters with a 70s Fury with a 440 (cop car). It came in the shop running rough and needing lots of catch-up maintenance. 

First order of business was to change the plugs. My level and volume of cussing increased with every plug until reaching the driver rear side where I blew out my vocal chords. Couldn't get to it, reach it, see it, nothing! I had the bright idea that if I removed the exhaust manifold things would be accessible. That lasted long enough to spew anti-freeze everywhere - I didn't know that on the Dodge big blocks the exhaust bolts penetrate the water jackets. I was saved by one of the other mechanics who came over with his hole saw - he eyeballed and cut a hole in the fenderwell and - voila! - spark plug access. It looked like it had never been changed (wonder why?).

Changing the motor mounts was also on the work order. More cussing, and I eventually had to remove the oil pump to change the left mount. Buttoned it back up, took off on a test drive and a ways down the road clattered to a stop with no oil pressure. Again, I had no idea that these engines were prone to the oil pump  losing prime. Again saved by the other mechanic by R&Ring the pump and packing it with grease this time.

I don't know how much life I shaved off that cop car that day (though the cop was a jerk so none of us felt too bad) but I did shy away from Chrysler products for a long time after that!

The garage is still somewhat crowded with Dakota parts waiting their turn and boat parts also waiting their turn so I had to do the painting in steps. Since I'm doing a color change and all the noticeable areas have to get new paint I worked on various ends separately. I had a few days free so I got the rest of the under-hood done. First up was to clean the dickens out of everything:

Here's half the hood cleaned. The Dak came with an underhood heat blanket/pad which I had not removed up to this point so upon seeing the partially painted hood it was apparent that the hood (and the left front fender) had been replaced at some point. Odd that it didn't show up on the Carfax!?!?

Got the hood and cowl area cleaned and primed:

Base coat and clear coat on and ready for reassembly:

Next up, more pre-paint painting!

Cheers,

Mark

I carved out a few weeks to do bodywork and paint. I have an aversion to driving patch-primered vehicles around for long stretches of time so I wanted to finish the bodywork and be ready right after for paint. One big selling point of the Dakota was that it had a mostly straight body - just one problem area on the passenger side and surprisingly few small dings & dents. The only other issue I was dreading was the bed coating applied by the PO. Now, I applaud anybody and everybody jumping in and doing their own work, but please, please try to do a good job! Not like the mess this guy did! I question the wisdom of the Auto Zone style roll-on liner products (I do like Rhino and other professionally applied liners) because, well, it looked like s**t. When I bought the Dak one of the first things I did was find a factory drop-in bed liner at the salvage yard - $35 - versus $150+ for the Auto Zone route. 

I was pondering an effective way to remove the PO applied liner but before that I started on fixing the passenger side, which included the bed side. My guess is someone side-swiped a gas station pump guard. A spot on the lower bed side was showing cracks through the paint which can be a sign of too-thick Bondo application. Sure enough, that was the culprit but the too-thick bondo covered a much bigger area than I expected:

All I can say is - Help Me Understand!!??!! 

I started out with the grinder and ended by chipping out the bondo with a hammer and chisel, then gave up! In some areas the bondo was more than 1/2" thick. Here's the pile of bondo chips for your enjoyment:

I'm not the best body guy out there by a longshot but I do know two basic things: 1, glopping bondo on with a trowel is not a good idea for a lasting repair,  and 2, a little work with a body hammer before bondo will yield good rewards.

I stopped working on the bed to reassess my options, since the ultra-thick bondo seemed to go on forever. I just don't get it - the entire side bed panel is accessible from the back side so there's no excuse to not try to bang out the dent, maybe even a little, to reduce the volume of putty. I moved on to the cab corner, which was a continuation of the excess putty party. Here I did the right thing, pulled the interior panel and started working the dent out. I didn't have very good access and couldn't get the angle(s) I needed, so a quick trip to Harbor Freight and I'm the proud owner of a stud gun:

First time ever using it but it beats the heck out of drill-pull, drill-pull, drill-pull! I might have gone a bit overboard on the studs:

But it did the trick:

The straight edge showed that a skim coat would smooth it out. With this fix moving along it was time to adress the problem with the bed. I hit the easy button:

Found a completely straight, no rust, no dents, no bondo, no yucky bed liner goo to have to remove replacement bed for $200! Worth every penny considering the amount of work I would have had to do to straighten the old bed. And as a bonus the yard let me swap the beds right there! 

Next up, prepping for paint!

Cheers,

Mark

Nice score on the bed. The truck is coming along nicely. 

JeremyJ said:

Nice score on the bed. The truck is coming along nicely. 

Pretty lucky down here, no rust zone and lots of Dodge pickups - well, lots of pickups period. The truck I got the bed from had Georgia state gov plates so my guess was that it spent it's life doing light duty like golf course maintenance or something.

I had been acquiring the parts and pieces I needed (culminating with the new bed) for a while and finally reached the point where I had the time to get serious and go full in on paint. One last thing left though - door jambs. So off with the doors:

While I had the doors off I spent a little bit of time fixing a common issue - worn out hinge pins. The first try was a complete failure! Dorman makes a repair kit for the Dakota (like they do for most vehicles) but I found out quickly that their pins and bushings weren't even close! Hmmm. Every site lists the same part number and they are the only game in town except through the dealership who lists a brand new hinge - which though listed is not available. I called Dorman and had a lengthy conversation with a really nice tech who was aware of the problem, but Dorman had no solution in the works. So, plan B: my passenger side hinges were ok (common) but both driver's side were worn. Dodge lists the lower hinge as common to both sides but lists different part numbers for the upper hinge. The door check/spring mount is left/right handed. Solution: I measured the mounting pads for the upper hinges and found that the only difference side to side was where the door check was located, so the upper passenger hinge can be mounted on the driver's side, just upside down. I grabbed an upper and lower passenger side hinge from a Dakota in the yard, bolted them up, realigned the driver's side door and pressed on!

Lots of cleanup, sanding, prepping and taping, and primer:

Same prep on the inner doors:

And paint applied:

I put the door latches back in but left the windows and weatherstrip off and reinstalled and realigned the doors. Next up I pulled the new bed so I could start on sanding and prepping the back of the cab. A little cleaning was in order for the rear frame first, though:

Next up, final prep and paint.

Cheers,

Mark

Great progress! Following along...

In reply to B757Captain :

Cool I may follow your lead to repair the saggy headliner in my 4th gen Camaro.  What adhesive did you use and where did you get the material (cloth)?

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to B757Captain :

Cool I may follow your lead to repair the saggy headliner in my 4th gen Camaro.  What adhesive did you use and where did you get the material (cloth)?

Go for it - the hardest part will probably be removing the headliner. I got the material in a roll from Amazon. I think I just searched for "Headliner fabric". The adhesive came from my paint shop - all the videos I watched said to use high temp adhesive but the paint guys didn't carry any that specified that, I took what they recommended - it's what all the local shops use and we get some hot temps here and no problems so far. I did run out of the special adhesive and finished up with 3M spray adhesive with no problems. There are several videos on Youtube that I watched beforehand that helped alot with the process.

In reply to B757Captain :

Cool thanks for the reply.  Your body work and paint work is pretty inspring.  I've always wanted to try my hand at that.  I have a big enough compressor to pull it off.  And there is a $4000 2nd gen F body near me calling out to me (it's not rusty either). 

In reply to B757Captain :

Nice work on this sir.  My Dad bought his ‘03 extended cab 4x4 new and still has it.  It might have 50K on it now (LOL) and it’s pretty much in showroom condition 18 years later.  The main reason it’s rust free is he’s been retired since 2000 and spent most of the winter months in Florida prior to 2020 with the Dakota snoozing in his garage.  Most others up here in the northeast have long since headed to the scrapyard.  

11GTCS said:

In reply to B757Captain :

Nice work on this sir.  My Dad bought his ‘03 extended cab 4x4 new and still has it.  It might have 50K on it now (LOL) and it’s pretty much in showroom condition 18 years later.  The main reason it’s rust free is he’s been retired since 2000 and spent most of the winter months in Florida prior to 2020 with the Dakota snoozing in his garage.  Most others up here in the northeast have long since headed to the scrapyard.  

Yep! I subscribe to a few Youtube channels about rebuilds and restorations and the vehicles from up north rot pretty quickly. It spans across all makes and it seems no manufacturer has found the secret to protect from the brine slurry used nowadays. Nice to be here in rust-free country, not only for that but also because I hate cold, snow & ice!

As anyone who has painted a modern(ish!) vehicle knows, the old days of taping off various parts and spraying away doesn't cut it anymore. The plethora of plastic bumpers, mirrors, flares, trim pieces, etc., really should be removed to do a thorough job and the Dakota was no exception, which makes painting all the parts in one go only feasible if you have a really big shop to spread out in. I don't have that so I would have to split up the paint process into several phases.

Phase one, the cab: I had already stripped the doors inside and out but for the final bodywork and sanding of the cab I needed to do some serious disassembly. The lights, bumper and rear quarter windows came out (or off) - since I'm changing colors I wanted to get inside and behind everything I could. With that done, time for long-boarding (lots of it!) and final prep:

I had to turn the garage into a decent paint booth but early on I had a problem - the Dakota fits in the garage with exactly 1 inch to spare front and back! So, no go for closing the garage door if the truck stays in one piece! No problem since the bed was going to be painted separately but I still had to find a way to seal off the garage door. After the bed came off, I centered the truck in the garage and closed the door onto the frame. I then measured the height of the door to the floor and made a trip the hardware store and came back with a pile of house HVAC filters sized to fit. Then taped them together and to the door and floor (and the truck frame), leaving an opening on the far side for my shop fan, which I pointed to blow outward. I set my roll-around air conditioner up so it would not blow directly towards the truck.

Seemed to work pretty well so time for primer to test the setup. Worked like a champ! With that done, a final sand, clean and wipedown and  - paint & clearcoat on:

Let that sit overnight then I moved the truck outside and started on the accessories. On one of my salvage yard excursions I had found a one piece bumper (the original was two piece chrome and plastic lower, which I didn't like) and a painted grill to replace the original chrome grill. Painted:

And installed:

I started reinstalling some of the accessories and trim to keep the parts pile under control. When this was done I moved the truck outside to start on Painting, Phase 2: the bed.

Cheers,

Mark

Nice paint work!

Very cool!