My dad wanted a Dodge Lil' Red Express but could never afford one.
Now you history buffs might remember that the original 'Lil Red Express trucks came with 360ci Dodge small blocks and were the fastest production vehicles at one point in the peak of the smog years. What you may not know is that there were a few other style trucks made be Dodge or individual dealerships at the same time. The other one most people know about is the Warlock, which was a lot like the Express but could be ordered with more customization including colors and engine options.
One dealer prepped special version of the Warlock was essentially a black Express, but it came with a big block instead of the 360. The optional decal on the door of those said "Midnight Express".
So, I have a big block, a version of the same truck, and mine is blue. My little brother also has a vinyl cutter.
Mine is going to be a Warlock Midnight Express tribute, but we're going to call it the Overalls Express.
Man, who is chopping onions in here?!
Love this build concept, I'll be watching this one!
Looks cool just how it sits!
The engine going into this truck is an overbored and sleeved 440 block with a slightly offset ground forged 413 crank and @11.5:1 compression.
Im loving the plan of building the chassis and dropping the cab on.
My first "car" was an 81 d150 with a stepside; slant six-slant six w/Clifford injection and turbo-360-383-440-318 was the genesis. Kinda liked the 318 out of a diplomat police car. Followed it up with a LRT and two warlocks in black. I love the color on your truck, gonna look tough!
First step is getting rid of the burned up stuff and the aftermarket stuff it doesn't need to actually run, like the cruise, trailer brake controller, aftermarket gauges, and tachometer.
Meh. Looks like a normal mopar truck of the era.
Ive rewired a few with aftermarket street rod harnesses. I will reccomend it. Mopar wire gauges alwere stupid, along with stupid ground designs.
This reminds me of my grandpa. He proudly wore his overalls or his "Missouri tux" as he called them.
I was unaware of the midnight Express trucks. I dig your plans.
Another square Dodge. This is becoming a thing!
Awesome story, awesome truck. Can't wait to see more!
Stymied for a bit and waiting for a trip to town for some of the underhood stuff I decided to take out the seats dad put in, poorly, for no good reason.
One of the issues with these step side beds is that the tailgates are pretty flimsy and usually in bad shape. This truck is no exception. My dad always drove it around with a metal aftermarket air gate thing on it instead of the tailgate, but it wasn't really strong enough to be used as a tailgate so it mostly was just a thing you had to reach over to get to the bed.
I was planning on swapping on the best of the step side tailgates I had, but after a good look it's just not worth fixing up and painting. Frustrated, I started looking around at fleet side tailgates wondering how much work it would take to narrow one up. Looking around I had 3 choices, a 60s sweptline bed with a raised "Dodge" embossed across the back, a 70s with no lettering, and an 80s that says "Dodge Ram" across the back.
That started a pretty serious internal debate. The 70s has some weird contours and is just out, for some reason I don't really want "Dodge Ram" on the back, and the font on the 60s bed looks like something out of a cowboy movie wanted poster. With none of those as good options I decided to build a tailgate from scratch.
Then I found this:
That's a first gen Dakota tailgate, and after a little work this weekend hopefully it's going to be just the ticket.
Most people don't recall but in 1979 the fastest accelerating US made vehicle was a Dodge truck. I love it.
This is going to be good! I can't wait to see where this build is going.
Mopar or no car! These first gen Rams are my second favorite body style only to the 4th/5th gens that are available today. Never cared much for the 2nd gen (nor the prices people expect for a rusted E36 M3box because it has a 5.9 Cummins in it) and th 3rd gen was just an ugly turd to me.
I almost bought a '93 extended cab with a 12V for $6500 back in 2016, but it sold before I could get there!
I've always had a soft spot for these trucks. Not because someone in my family had one, but they always looked rugged and tough and you saw so few of them, even when I was a kid.
Really excited for this!
So the overall width of the Dakota tailgate is about an inch wider than the stepside. This in and of itself isn't really a problem, but what is a problem is that the part that insets between the latches on the Dakota gate is wider than the sides of the stepside box by @1.5". That means I need to narrow the gate.
Except that on the stepside bed the sides only extend an inch or so past the floor. That means I only need to narrow an inch of the gate, by about two inches; the rest will be sticking out beyond the back of the bed and only need an end cap to clean it up and hide the tailgate cables.
So, with some measuring and tape we got this:
Then with a little snippy snip we get this:
Which gets filled in with a piece of folded 10ga steel I had in the scrap pile like so:
Which gets trimmed and tacked in like this:
Tomorrow we work on hinges, latches, and the end caps
Dear Pep Boys forum,
No, my dad did not need these:
For these wheels:
But at least it now has air in all 4 tires
So, in the sunlight for the move to the actual shop and with a question:
Visor or not?
