'75 Dodge Power Wagon W200 'Adventurer/Club Cab 3/4 ton

YOUR VERY OWN 'DOG'
I purchased 'THE DOG' from an old fisherman named Dan in Defiance, Missouri in 2005. The sale took place right down the street from where Daniel Boone lived. 'Uncle Dan' (as I now refer to him) said 'everything works' ! My girlfriend hates this truck. . .I love it. I keep telling her 'When the revolution comes we're going to need a four wheel drive truck to scrumble over the roads littered with abandoned wrecks'. I had intended to equip it with an electric motor which would have made it TRULY revolutionary but I couldn't quite pull that off. So, OK, the new parts started immediately in Defiance at the Sears auto place where I asked the mechanic 'what should I fix first?' He said 'the tires' so the 'Dog' got a new set of Michelins, a new battery and some lug nuts. It ran pretty good 'till I got back East to Ocean City and it started vibrating so I took it in to Fleet Maintenance there. Bucky said the drive lines need pulled and so the Dog got new 'U' joints, front propellor and rear. I realized at that point that keeping the Dog on the road was going to be expensive but I didn't give a sh_t . It's my Dog and I'm going to make him run. The parts list ran on and on all the way to the Panama Canal and back until the motor started kicking and it was decision time. . .do I junk it and loose thousands of dollars of new parts or do I spring for a rebuilt 360 and move on? Of course! The Dog gets a genuine Jaspur and we're up and running! That took place in 2009 (I have the papers) and since then I've put 32K on it, so you could say it's 'broke in'. The last upgrade I did was rebuilding the ignition from the key on out. Next scheduled work is new header and exhaust gaskets. After that comes the new starter motor that's been sitting around. It starts kinda sluggish and I attribute that annoying habit to the old starter motor which I've been threatening to replace for a couple years now. . .There's so many replacement parts on the DOG, I think the only parts that are original would be the body and the frame. . .It doesn't have the original radio which I regret. . .It would have cranked out Gene Autry campfire stuff yeah?tech. note: The '75's still had a mechanical distributor. . .but with a Hall switch and a solid state dwell unit which was the beginning of the proprietary ignition system plot. Suddenly, the tools that a back yard mechanic needed to work on a motor included specialized diagnostic electronic boxes which evolved into software driven systems. Me. . .I like to sit inside the spacious motor compartment and and wonder over this beautiful machine with a six pack on the bumper and my girlfriend offering encouragement from the safety of the cab. I liked having the feeling that I had some control over this ton of hurtling metal. The other vehicles on the road are pretty much at the mercy of the 'programmers' and the 'black box'. I'm sure there's a predictability curve on who's safer but I offer this. . .'have you ever known a computer to fail'? I think we were all safer with the back yard mechanic. At least his prime directive was 'let's keep her on the road'. Today it's 'my corporation, right or wrong'. Today machinery is built to 'die on time' not 'built to last'. What good is a perfectly designed internal combustion engine if the black box that controls it won't turn it loose? Sooo. . .get yourself an old truck and be in control of your transportation destiny! Get yourself a DOG!Reality check: watch out for rust around the brake lines!Also note: The only way to get this baby out of four wheel drive is to disconnect the front propeller shaft. . .I've done that on occasion to get better mileage. It's all connected up now and running in 'full time' four wheel drive mode. The tranny seems to be indestructible. . .God knows I've tried. END OF SPEECH