1978 Dodge D-100 Pickup Truck Project "Coyote"

   Now that I'm retired, I need to stay active. I like to work on cars, I have a well equipped shop in my garage, but I need a way to haul things around. I need a pickup truck! It don't have to be "brand new" , just mechanically sound, and within my budget. Even my wife wants me to get it. Let's face it a pickup truck is really practical for hauling lumber and goods from Lowe's.

  I looked at many 80's and 90's trucks in the $2000.00 price range and they all looked pretty beat up to me. They use salt on the roads in my area, so most of these older trucks are rusted out real bad. I had to find something in decent shape, and  on my budget it did not look like it was going to happen. Then I finally decided I would take a look at  this old '78 Dodge pickup truck. It was parked a little bit from the road so I figured some guy just painted this with a spray can to make it look good from a distance. I drove past this thing for almost a month, but my wife finally encoraged me to have a closer look.

   It turned out to be a great find! The owner had already invested some $$ in it, a new paint job called Sub-Lime, a color they used on mopar muscle cars in 1970. A rebuilt 318 V8 engine, with headers, chrome valve covers, chrome air cleaner, brand new Edlebrock 4 barrel carb, aluminum intake, even new spark plug wires. It had great tires on it, and those old slotted mopar police steel rims, and caps. This was a Tennesee truck, that spent most of it's life down there! I found that info from a dealer courtesy card that was in the glovebox with the owner's manual. 

What's So Cool About Driving It...

   Even though this is a "driving project" and needs work, everywhere I go in this truck, I get comments on it! I'm sitting at the traffic light and this guy to my left in a 2007 Dodge Ram with a HEMI in it is hollering at me about what I nice truck I have...uh what can I say? The most popular question I get is "Hey what year is that"? and they might take a guess..and the most popular comment I get is always about the color of the truck. The cool thing about it is the attention you get with it. 

Coyote Project: My Theme

   Green is not my favorite color, I hate those cars that are forrest green metallic with green seats and interiors. (LOL, that's what this was) But this Sub-Lime green, I'm starting to really like it now. I like the idea of a hot-rod truck. Since I already have 1970 green muscle car paint and stripes, I'm gonna roll with that. I was thinking I would paint the hood flat black like they did with the T/A's and other muscle cars of that era. I don't know if I want to put those twin super bee scoops on or not but I'm thinking about it. Then just to add my own twist to this project, I'll adopt Wile E Coyote instead of the Road Runner for emblems, just so it's different! Get a hitch too, so I can haul with it.

What it needs:

   This truck is pretty solid. There was some rust on the floorpans from the inside, not outside. I noticed a clunk sound going into gear which I knew was the driveshaft U-Joints, an easy cheap fix. The brakes were weak and I noticed cracks in the flexible hoses on the front disk brakes. The seat has a tear. There is no radio, Some interior parts need replacement, it needs front shocks. The front windshield needs to be replaced. I will also need rubber kits for the doors. I want to put a hitch on it for hauling. I'll also need a tranny-cooler, and air shocks on the rear for load leveling.

What I've done so far:

   I'll update this as I go along with the project. This would not be practical for me to do if I could not do the work myself. I've saved major amounts of $$ over the years by doing it myself. Since I'm driving this as I fix it up, I need to prioritize and fix the most important things first.

Inspect and repair brakes, cost - $122.00  I saw those cracked brake hoses and figured all the rubber in the calipers was shot and probably the rubber in the rear wheel cyliders, and the master cylinder. The bleeder screws are useless. The front rotors and pads, and the rear drums and shoes are in great shape though. I replaced the front brake calipers, and the front brake lines, the rear wheel cylinders, and the master cylinder. The rest of the brake lines are in good shape. I also re-packed the grease in the front wheel bearings. I painted the calipers and rear drums red. Now she stops on a dime and gives ya nine cents change.

Paint steel rims, polish beauty rings, buy new baby moon chome caps cost - $49.00 While I'm doing the brakes, I'm poppin off the tires which makes it also a good time to do my wheel stuff. The wheel covers are rusting and I can't bring them back with polish. The police rims are black and I want the slots to stand out more. The closest green I can get in a can is Sassy-Grass green so I paint my black rims green. I got a brand new set of baby moon wheel covers from a nearby dealer, waxed em and put em on with the polished rings. I just love the way my wheels look now, don't you?

Replace locks and repair lockrods, cost -  $29.00 The door locks did not function properly and the door keys were lost. My ignition key did not open the door locks. I replaced the locks and replaced the plastic keepers on the lockrods. Now I can lock the truck up but I have one key for the ignition and one key for both doors, that's acceptable to me.

Replace front shocks, cost - $48.00  The truck was a little too bouncy in the front so I replaced the worn out units with brand new monroe gas charged shocks. Now the truck rides much better.

Replace U-joints, cost - $34.00 It was clunking going into gear and close inspection reveals grease thrown up on the floorpan from the front driveaxle U-joint. I replaced the front and rear U-joints, and wha-la, no more clunking.

Replace cooling fan, cost - $21.00 Since I wanna haul with this I want it too cool well. I can free up 2 or 3 horsepower, and save some fuel with this FLEX fan. I replaced the common 18" 4 blade heavy steel fan with a new lighter 18" 8 blade flex. A flex fan's blades flatten out at high rpms, and reduce fan drag on the engine. Water pumps last longer too.  

Install transmission oil cooler, cost - $63.00 If you're haulin you really need one of these. I purchased a medium to heavy duty unit, and installed a B&M transmission temperature guage into my dash on the left side.

Install tachometer, cost - $27.00 A hot rod truck better have a tachometer. I installed a sunpro mini tachometer in the dash on the right where some factory models were installed and it's looks great!

Paint dash bezel Sassy Grass, cost - $8.00 I saw a 78 dodge 4X4 on ebay a while back and the guy had painted it orange like the General Lee car. He had the 01 on the doors and a confederate flag on the hood!  Inside he had painted the dash bazel orange too, and I just reallly liked that idea. So I borrowed it lol.

Replace tail light lenses, cost - $24.00 The tailight lenses were faded some so I found new inexpensive replacements, and gaskets.

Replace front turn signal lenses, cost $10.00 The turn signal lenses had some cracks and chips, purchased original replacements on ebay.

Install new truck mirrors, $68.00 put slightly larger truck/sport black mirrors for better views when towing, while retaining a sporty look. These mirrors also fold in for tight spots.

Purchase floor-pans, $85.00 left and right side not installed yet, these were purchased to address some rusting from the inside out of the floorpan.

Purchase Tow Hitch, $150.00 install heavy duty trailer hitch rated up too 10,000 pounds for a large towing capacity, had to re-route my tailpipes to accomadate this hitch.

Purchase Gabriel HI-Jackers, $75.00 Rear shocks were old, and I needed a way to level loads on the truck, so I installed these air shocks.

Install new chrome air cleaner and valve covers, $55.00 The Edlebrock valve covers and air cleaner were OK but I wanted all new nameless chrome parts so I could customize them with decals. Replaced with new chrome nameless valve covers and air cleaner. Put in old school long winged bolts for the valve covers and old school chrome wire looms.

Replace ring and pinion gear, added positraction unit, $750.00 The 3.23 gear in this truck was not quite up to the task of heavy duty towing, kind of worn, so added new ring and pinion gear with 3.91 ratio and a positraction unit for traction and towing purposes.

Replace windshield, $159.00 install new windshield, old windshield was foggy around the edges and it had a small crack.