I Have The POWER! 1979 Dodge W150 Power Wagon Build/Maintenance Thread

With the brakes doing brake things, I turned my attention to other things. I've decided the next big thing is getting the new seats in the truck. While I still need to do the floor pans, the rust is ahead of the seats, and I can always pull them out when I need to do some welding. Plus, having them in the truck means they are out of my garage! 

So, how can I get these things in there? 

This thing...


Needs to bolt to these things...


I can't find much info about bolting a set of these seats into anything, but the general idea is that you use the factory bench seat floor mounts to get the correct pitch, bolt the seat mounting frame ro the floor mounts, and then the seats bolt to the frame. The problem is, the bench seat sliders are going to cause issues with that. I was originally hoping to just unbolt the seat from the floor mounts and bolt the frame on there, but it seems the sliders are riveted to the floor mounts. So everything will have to come out, get separated, mocked up, and then the new seat frame can be mounted to the floor mounts. Still doable, but more work than I was hoping. Still worth it for the end result. 

Ever start messing with a vehicle and make it worse? 

Yesterday, I decided to start mocking up the seats for installation. My wife has shown interest in driving the truck more, and I really wanted to get these out of the garage before they get damaged. First, I removed the bench. No drama: removed 4 nuts and out it came. 







The seat brackets and tracks are riveted together. The seat is then bolted to the tracks. Another 4 nuts and they are off. I had to grind the rivets to pull the tracks off, and worst case scenario I can bolt them back on. 



With the floor mounts and the tracks separated, here's where the fun began. The ladder part of the frame is what the new seats bolt to, and those legs bolt to the floor brackets. Width is slightly adjustable with slotted holes, and the frame fit on the brackets, although I will have to drill and trim it a but to fit better. When I measured things originally, I didn't account for how much "squish" the bench had. Overall height was similar, but it's like sitting on a couch, so you sink in a bit. The new seats aren't like that at all, and as a result, you sit much higher. 



As you can see, it's tight. The steering wheel sits on my lap, and since the seat backs go up higher, they don't go back as far. Ugh. I trimmed about an inch off of the seat frame legs, and while it's better, it's still a bit high for me. My short wife LOVES the height and doesn't want me to change a thing, so I'm not sure what I'll do here. 



Mocked up, they do look nice, but adjustments need to be made. The ladder frame needs to come forward, because the center seat hits the cab when folded up. The height is a hair too tall, and I feel less comfortable in the truck than before. But SWMBO loves it and told me that if I lower it more she will sell the truck on me. Ugh. 

So what can I do here to make it more comfortable? There are really only two options:

-Tilt columm: these are very, very hard to find for these trucks. There's one in really rough shape on Ebay for $500 and it needs a complete rebuild. I don't think there's anything aftermarket that will bolt in without major modification. 

-Smaller steering wheel: This seems to be the low hanging fruit. I have yet to measure the wheel in the truck, but it's huge. A smaller diameter wheel will help with getting in and out, but I'll have to run a spacer to make up for the dish/reach of the stocker, and that might end up making it too close, thus not helping matters. Going to have to measure all the things. 


So yeah, not sure what I will do here. What a mess I made for myself. 

Can a later Dodge tilt column be adapted without a tremendous amount of work? 

In reply to Tony Sestito :

Option 3:
Let her have the truck and find another one for yourself.  Win-Win

No, I'm not buying another truck.  

On the steering column thing, the biggest difference is where the transmission indicator is. On the 1972-80 trucks, it's on the column. On the 1981-93 trucks, it's in the cluster. Not sure how that would work out. Time to do some Googlin'. 

In other news, I realized that I needed to lower the seat frame anyway. The middle seat wouldn't lock into the upright position because the console lid was hitting the back of the cab. I slotted the mounting holes for the foot pedestals, and this was the result: 







It dropped the height about a half inch, and now I fit much better in there. As expected, SWMBO didn't even notice the difference. There are still a couple things I'd like to change:

-The steering wheel. The stocker is 14.75" in diameter and has a 4.75" distance from the collar to the end of the rim (guess this would be the dish). Something slightly smaller would help with getting in/out of the truck. I have this one in mind:


This is the Grant 860. It's 13.75" in diameter, so not too much smaller. It looks a lot like the Mopar Tuff Wheel that was optional on the Macho Power Wagon, Lil' Red Express, etc. With an adapter kit and a spacer, it should do the job. 

-The seatbelts. The receivers that are in the truck right now are meant for the bench seat. With the added height of the new seats, I can't get the belt on. I may get some seatbelt extenders for now, but I will go junkyard hunting for some receivers out of a van that are much longer. 

Oh, and another thing: I was having trouble finding what to do with the rear 6x9 speaker boxes. They didn't fit well behind the seats anymore, so I was looking into DIY brackets. Then, I thought to myself, would the existing boxes fit above the seatbelt retractors? Aren't they designed to do just that? And yup, they did. So I did this: 





Command strips worked perfectly here. The speakers aren't moving at all, and the sound is much better as a result. Let's see if they stay up there. 

While I was doing the seats, I noticed that the floors are a bit worse than I thought they were. That's gonna be a blast to fix. I have floor pans for both sides now, so it's fixable. 

So back to my last post... Is it worse than before? No, it's not. The seats are nice, and there's no springs poking me in the rear anymore. And with some tweaks, I think things will be a lot better. 

Following up on the seat install...

I don't like the idea of using seatbelt extenders, but it is a temporary solution that's better than not wearing one at all. While I didn't trust the cheapo Amazon ones I had been seeing, I found out that Ford used to make them from the factory as a parts counter option. 



I found a pair for cheap on Ebay, so I ordered them up. These should help until I get longer receivers. 

Another item I want to tackle soon is the steering wheel. While I can use the truck as-is, a smaller diameter wheel would definitely help ingress/egress. And it would go a long way to spruce up the interior a bit. While I don't mind the stock wheel, the woodgrain on the horn cap is mostly gone and the rim has that weird stickiness that old steering wheels can have that I just can't clean off. So, I measured some things. In addition to the 14.75" diameter and 4.75" dish, I measured the distance between the rim and the shifter and turn signal stalks. 




Roughly 2.25" on either side. 

Then, I measured the height from the seat to the rim:


Roughly 4.75" there. 

I've been looking at aftermarket wheels, mostly by Grant due to availability and affordability. I've sort of narrowed it down to three choices:

Grant Challenger 414



This one reminds me of the Dodge Sport Wheel they had as an option in the 80's trucks, but smaller at 13.5" diameter. That said, I'm not the biggest fan of the two-layer spoke design, and they kinda remind me of all the cheap, hacky Camaros and G-Bodies I used to see back in high school. Dish is 3". 

Grant Challenger 870 (or 860 with silver spokes)


This one looks a lot like the Mopar Tuff Wheel that was offered on 70's Mopar stuff, including certain versions of my truck. They come in all black or black with silver spokes, and the diameter is 13.75". Dish is 2.25". 

Grant Metal Flake 8456

This one is the Wild Card of the bunch. While I LOVE metal flake paint and vinyl, I'm not quite sure it fits the vibe of the truck. But then again, it is pretty cool! This one is also 13.5" in diameter. It's much more dished than the other two with a dish of 3.5". 

I need to be careful of how far the new wheel will stick out as to not interfere with the shifter and turn signal stalk. Pretty much all of these will require a spacer and the install adapter kit. The top two wheels should be good with a 2" spacer, but the fancy metal flake wheel may stick out too far with that. Grant sells a 2" spacer, and I see that there are a ton of companies that sell spacers as well, but I'm not sure if they are compatible with the Grant wheels. 

Any thoughts, suggestons, or comments? 

Metal flake. 

Challenger 860 with the silver spokes. The Challenger 414 seems to be the wheel of choice for janky old Novas and second gen Camaros and the metal flake rim would be better suited to something older imo

In reply to Racingsnake :

I think this one is my frontrunner as well. It really does look like the Tuff Wheel, which I like. This is a Lil' Red Express with the Tuff Wheel:


And here's the 860:


It's slightly smaller in diameter (Tuff Wheel is 14") which is what I'm looking for. I'll need the 2" spacer to make it work.

If you're going for 80's dirtball (and there's nothing wrong with that!) the four-spoke Grant's have that vibe locked up.  Otherwise, yeah, the silver three-spoke seems pretty good.

The 4-spoke looks sorta like the rare "Sport" wheel you could get in the 80's Rams:



But yeah, the Grant Challenger 4-spoke wheels always remind me of trashy 80's builds. When I worked at Autozone back in my college days, those were the wheels of choice for every methed-up whack job rolling up to the store in their wheezy, rotted 1984 Monte SS or Camaro Berlinetta. 

Another quick update: the Ford belt extenders showed up yesterday. Although the buckles are the older style, and they look really close to the Chrysler ones, the male ends were a little too fat to fit the belts. I had to massage them slightly to fit. I traced the factory belt end and trimmed them down slightly until they made a positive lock. 





They work perfectly now. Not the most ideal solution, but this is a temporary fix so I can drive the truck again. With the belt on, you're not going anywhere. 

Tony Sestito said:

When I worked at Autozone back in my college days, those were the wheels of choice for every methed-up whack job rolling up to the store in their wheezy, rotted 1984 Monte SS or Camaro Berlinetta. 

(Northeast-like typing detected)

I bet they had cheap imitation Cragar or Center Line rims too.

Definitely had a flashback to 1989 there. 

Ugh. Thanks for the memories. I think.

In reply to RandolphCarter :

They were almost always wearing a set of one of these wheels:






My friends and I still call them "Weymouth Wheels" after Weymouth, MA, where these rolling scrap heaps could be found in their natural habitat. The Autozone I used to work at was also located there, and was ground zero for these cars. I can smell the mix of burning oil, Little Trees Black Ice air freshener, and reefer smoke from here... 

I was a few miles north and west (Northboro) and the only difference was the variety of air freshener.

Little trees vanillaroma. It smells great with an overflowing ashtray.

But, back on subject - the truck is looking much better with the smurfskin seats.

Tony Sestito said:

Alright, maybe this says something unflattering about me, but on the right car, I really like the Champ 500 style here.

Enkei sawblades, though - hard pass. We had a set on an '87 Astro when I was in high school, and the memories aren't good.

Should clarify that I've never been to the northeast. West coast all my life. That stuff was everywhere. 

In reply to DarkMonohue :

Not throwing any shade on these wheels at all, just correlating that those cars ALWAYS had them! It was weird. And they were almost always on Camaros, Firebirds, and G-Bodies. Never Ford/Chrysler stuff. 

 

Some quick notes from a parts run I did in the truck today:

-First time out with the seats installed. Definitely more cramped in there, but I will get used to it. Once you get in there, it's comfortable enough. I may try to lower them further if I can. The only "problem" I have is that the seats need to shift to the driver's side about an inch, as they are slightly off-center. The velour makes the interior smell like a 1984 Delta 88 in the best possible way. 

-Unfortunately, the rear brakes still aren't right. They feel spongy, and I think they are hanging up and rubbing against the drums. I have no idea why this is happening, and it's beyond annoying. Again, drum brakes are the worst. 

In reply to Tony Sestito :

Everybody who's ever seen a PAW catalog knows that Chevy stuff is always the cheapest.

You could remove the seat cover and cut the foam down a little bit to make room. 
 

on the rear brakes, the shoes ride on probably 3 pads on the backing plate.  They can get grooved and you have to fill the groove up with weld and the. Grind and file flat and smooth.  
 

usually it keeps the shoes from extending easily but it could be a problem that is contributing to your issue. 

It's possible the seat is centered in the cab and the instrument cluster and column are not centered with the drivers seat. It may just be more apparent with the new seats, since they influence where you sit more than the bench. 

GM and others have offset things in the past, I believe the gmt 400 and 800 series pickup had instrument clusters and columns that were not centered with the drivers seat. 

As for the drum brakes, what condition are the parking brake cables? Do they have slack when the e-brake is released? If the e-brake is partially apllied it could lead to some odd feel in the pedal. 

If thise seats are what i think they are, try unhooking one or two of the tension springs underneath. Should look like a drum brake spring that goues to a wire grid. Lots of seats used the system,  and those look like 80s gm van cores which did. You can tailor the butt feel with the number and position of springs. 

Had some time to take another look at the rear brakes this morning. I popped the drums back off and this is what I saw:

Driver's side:


The E-brake cable popped off the cam. 

Passenger side:


Everything looked fine, until I looked at the drum:


Oh boy, what's going on with that gouge?



The self-adjuster arm was hitting the drum. Weird...

Then, I remembered I hadn't thrown out all the old brake stuff. So I checked for the old arm, and check this out: 



Yeah, that's a bit different. The arm in the self-adjuster kit was incorrect. No one in the area has drums in stock, so I have to order a pair. For now, I slapped it all back together (including putting the driver's side cable back on) and everything works as it should. Brakes still don't feel amazing, but they are a lot better than they have ever been. When you need it to stop, it does. That's about all you can ask for in a 43 year old truck!

And yes, all of the e-brake cables are frozen solid; none of that works. There are a bunch of cables, so I need to figure out which ones I need and order them all. 

On the seats, they were in fact off-center. I didn't take pics before, but they were skewed to the passenger side about a half inch. If you looked at the headrests against the back window, it was easy to see. I was able to adjust them today over to the driver's side more, which made a world of difference. I still want to replace the steering wheel, but I can make do with the current setup for a while. 

This weekend, there's an annual car show that I've been going to for years. Last year, I was planning on taking the truck to put in the show, but the timing chain debacle had just occurred and I had not fixed it yet. We attended anyway, and brought my 2 year old nephew, who had an absolute blast. He's been asking to go back to that car show since we left the parking lot, so we were planning on bringing him anyway. So, with the new engine, fancy seats, and working brakes, I'm leaning toward entering the truck again. 

While I like car shows and meets, I'm tired of the "Doo-Wop 50's American Graffiti Winga-Dinga" shows, and this is one of them. But they put all the trucks in a different area away from those guys, so I can at least tolerate it a bit easier. Plus, putting the truck in the show means I'll have an easier walk to the actual show! I wish I had a Go Pro camera to record people's reactions to the truck. I get lots of praise with it wherever I go, but next to shiny stuff and car snobs, I'm sure to get some funny reactions. 

With all that in mind, I ordered one of these:



In addition, I also ordered an install kit and a 2" spacer to make it work. I am also scheduled to go pick some parts off another truck tomorrow night if the person doesn't flake out. They have some stuff I've been looking for since day one that will definitely help in the looks department. Other than that, I'm going to have to actually clean the truck for the first time. It's going to be fun trying to wax around paint chips, Bondo, and primer. If I had more time, I'd work on cleaning up the bird's nest of wiring near the bulkhead, but I don't want to mess with that right now. 

Should be an interesting week!

So, today was an adventure.

First, my steering wheel showed up. Yeah, about that... 




Looks like someone handled it before the mold process was cured, leaving this messed up spot here. I called up the place I got it from, and they are getting me another one shipped overnight. The spacer isn't my favorite; it's really narrow compared to the Grant one that no one has in stock, but it will work for now. That said, I think the whole setup will do the job. 





The wheel itself is a good size. It's smaller, but not too small. Should be a big upgrade! 

Then, I hit the road. MOAR PARTS!



After 3+ years of searching, I FINALLY found the bed side trim that my truck has been missing since I brought it home! You know, the one that goes here: 


Guy about 1.5hrs away had a set, and I jumped on it. Even came with the little end pieces that I can't find anywhere. Also threw in a bed mat for the truck, which was on my list of things to get. That will be installed tomorrow. This has been driving me nuts since I bought the truck, so it will be nice to finally have a complete set!