Local Legend 4x4? Long bed? Diesel? Linked? You got it.

[Gearmonkey23]

Never really did a complete "build thread" on this truck, why start now?
Bought the truck 12ish years ago bone stock, swore ide never drink or eat in it. 01' Ram 2500 Laramie, and she was cherry. Fast forward 6 years later, and let's cut the everything apart. Kind of a Swiss army knife. 4x4, functional 8' bed, great fuel range, good power, 4.0s and 40's. Heated seats and cup holders. It's like the biggest, coolest, Swiss army knife. But also incredibly impractical for a offroad build. Perfect.
The beginning of the link stages started out with some hack job in Simi Valley, TT motorsports or something. (Jk....?)
Tommy built the bed cage, mounted the links and rear shocks, and stretched the bedsides until the tore to clear 40s. I ran the truck for a year or so, until I realized that the truck did pretty fucking good...good enough that it needed a cage. So naturally, buy huge shocks, seats, harnesses, fuel cell, etc. Cut interior apart, slap one or two tubes In to start the cage, then let truck sit for 5 years. To marinade. Finally got In a position where I could get it finished, and I took it to Nick at NV Fab. He absolutely killed it. They finished the cage, mounted the front shocks, fuel cell, etc. Even leather wrapped a center consol to match the seat colors. Enough writing. It's super cool, it's almost sold like twice, and it's still here. Just need more trips to get it out.
Photo dump!!

 

[UR_Mawm69]

holy mother of sweet sweet dreams that i jizz myself in.
seriously.

i fucking love you for building this. love you even more for posting pictures that ji can visually see.
always a dreamm to do a full kill build on a legitimate fullsize diesel.

still jizzing my panties.
i love you and i love this vehicle.

 

[UR_Mawm69]

01' so......... im not good with fuckking diiiiiiiiiiiiisels. is it the 12 valve ornah????? it might be in your post but i cant pay attention long enough to read more than a sentence at a time. hah

 

[theycallmeWALLY]

I just saw this truck for sail on RD... I thought you were asking too little FYI.

Wish I had the cash for it though.

 

[UR_Mawm69]

I just saw this truck for sail on RD... I thought you were asking too little FYI.

Wish I had the cash for it though.

HOW MUCH?!?!? I WOULD GIVE AWAY ALL THE MAWMACITAS I'VE BANGED FOR THIS TRUCK. jesus

 

[Gearmonkey23]

01' so......... im not good with fuckking diiiiiiiiiiiiisels. is it the 12 valve ornah????? it might be in your post but i cant pay attention long enough to read more than a sentence at a time. hah

It's a 24v. 12v trucks are cool and all, but electronic tuning is life.

 

[Gearmonkey23]

HOW MUCH?!?!? I WOULD GIVE AWAY ALL THE MAWMACITAS I'VE BANGED FOR THIS TRUCK. jesus

55k bud. It pains me to even list it, but I need 4 seats!

 

[Gearmonkey23]

holy mother of sweet sweet dreams that i jizz myself in.
seriously.

i fucking love you for building this. love you even more for posting pictures that ji can visually see.
always a dreamm to do a full kill build on a legitimate fullsize diesel.

still jizzing my panties.
i love you and i love this vehicle.

Haha thanks man!

 

[theycallmeWALLY]

So are you dead set on selling it or going to take it out on more trips until she goes?

 

[Gearmonkey23]

So are you dead set on selling it or going to take it out on more trips until she goes?

Got a trip planned? Im in. Its listed, but by no means am I rushing to sell it. It can be listed for ever for all I care. Its a blast to pass prerunners in the big stuff in a 7300lb tractor.

 

[UR_Mawm69]

pass prerunners in the big stuff in a 7300lb tractor.

if i could somehow acquire that kind of fucking money, id buy this thing in a heartbeat JUST for this reason. haha. and itd prolly be more of a pussygetter than my current truck actually LABELED as pussygetter. hahaha

 

[dwphoto]

Hopefully ya didn't sail this beauty! where are you located ?

 

[Gearmonkey23]

Hopefully ya didn't sail this beauty! where are you located ?

Never sailed it off.

 

[Gearmonkey23]

So, after the longest four sail ad I've ever ran (3ish years...) it never sailed. So, dump more money into it!
It always had a front end tick/clunk over small chatter, big hits, errrrthang. It had a distinctive thunk that I could never figure out, so we decided to cut the thing apart and rebuild the front end. Getting rid of the synergy T style steering and synergy track bar. With the 4.0s, the front axle swung side to side just enough to make the coils rub the shock body at full bump and full droop. I was never fully satisfied with that, and finally decided to fix it. 14" 4.0 shock up front and I was limited to 12" of travel because of the swing. From full bump to full droop, it had just over 2.2" of side to side movement, which kinda sucked, even though the thing worked great. Going to full cross over steering and custom track bar setup, and now it will cycle the full 14", with ~.86" of side to side movement (on the computer, anyways). Basically no bumpsteer for a shitty dodge. They offered bump steer as an option for all 2nd gens from factory. So between that, and Thuren working me up some new ninja valving specs, front end is getting dialed in...
Now for the rear saga...
Ever since the truck got caged, it's had a HORRID growl/howl that reverbs into the cab. You could drive the shit out of it, and the diff would never get hot. Put 2k miles on it, pulled the cover, perfect clean gear oil. No material. Some people said it's the nature of 4.56 gears, but, those people are shit birds, Randy. Ran the pattern, looks perfect on coast side, can't get a reading on drive side, BUTTFUCKIT. Pinion backlash is 5 thou, a TAD on the tight side, but I've never felt anything tight so what do I know.
Swapped some old U joints, carrier bearing, and then the question of fluid came up... I was running Lucas 75w90 full syn... A buddy from yukon said NOPE. So grabbed some 90w140 SAE and 3 jugs of friction modifier. 2 for the diff, 1 for the night stand. We will see what that does. Waiting for my new edge tuner to show up today. (Wooo for fueling to 3200rpm now!) I'll pull it off the rack, and get it up to a buddies shop to get the steering shit finalized. Hopefully no more noise. My 4.56 gears were installed in 2016 I believe... couple days ago, I noticed some etching on the ring gear... no fucking idea how that got there. See media attached.
Side note: The front driveshaft absolutely starts to bind at 14" full droop. That should remedy itself.

Pics and stuff!

 

[Gearmonkey23]

What's the max vid length we can post here? Have the only cool vid of my truck ever, but it's 22 seconds and says it's too big...

 

[theycallmeWALLY]

Not sure... Can you post it to youtube or you can post the link you have made on INstagram if you did it that way.

 

[Gearmonkey23]

Not sure... Can you post it to youtube or you can post the link you have made on INstagram if you did it that way.

 

[SaltyMethods]

Don't sail it. Send it!!

 

[UR_Mawm69]

 

[Gearmonkey23]

I wanna get out for a trip with you guys. I'm super super good at drinking beer and bullshitting around a trail side bbq.