Well, my buddy solved my weird tail light issue.
Turns out the turn signal switch on the steering column was making my brake lights wonky. I had been testing tail light harnesses, chasing wires...So that was nice quick fix once the actual problem was pinned down.

While we where bumping the timing on the VE pump we noticed a leak on the high pressure head. This turned a small job into a pulll the pump and reseal it sort of job.
"While I am here, I should" struck and I found myself pulling the tappet cover and resealing that since I had such great access.
I had noticed it had some white smoke at idle and wanted to check the timing. It was low so we ended up bumping it to just over the stock # after the reseal when we installed it.

 

Other things that have been done this spring to get ready for the trip to Carlisle.

When the pump was getting resealed seemed like the perfect time to add a 366 Gov. spring along with a stiffer AFC spring. I have not had a lot of road time yet, but it seems to be tuned pretty decently.

While going through the tail lights getting them all to work, I realized my reverse light did not work. Traced it down to the reverse light switch in the 'rag was bad. Swapped in a switch I had on a cracked Getrag top cover I keep for pieces and the lights are now working.

The tailgate got a refresh too. The latch was jacked up, so it was disassembled only to find some bent metal towards the latches. After cleaning things up, swapping out a few plastic clips, lubing things to work smoothly and a little metal tweaking the tailgate opens and closes like it is supposed to. After the latch was fixed seemed like a good time to install a '92/'93 LE tailgate panel which has been missing from its tailgate for 10 years. I located a good one in my collection and installed it to church it up a bit.

I checked to see if the A/C still works well after filling it up last summer. Seems to be pushing cold air out the vents.

 

Been driving this all over getting in my years worth of road trips over the summer. I will be stuck here filling the wood stove soon enough.
The truck did great on the 1000 mile round trip to Carlisle where my daughter and I camped out of it for 5 days. The show was a great time and we got to see a bunch of our Dodge brothers.

Then last week I drove over to the Thousand Islands area and did some fishing with my buddy who has a place over there on the water. Caught my first walleye which was awesome. Put another 500 miles and a couple more days of camping out of it.

With the 4.10 gears it prefers the backroad type road trips better than the 75 mile an hour blasts on the highway, even with the 37s. Runs cooler, gets better mileage and the A/C runs better when your not turning 2100-2300 RPMs down the road.

 

Sounds like the shakedown run has been long surpassed and was successful!

I think the sweet spot for a stock B is like 1,800 rpm or so right?

Camp on down to Bowling Green next month, that's only another 2,000 mi round trip...

 

Ordered a new passenger seat hinge for the floor that is being reproduced now.
Geno's has them in stock but Rob the guy with the white crew cab dually I see at the Carlisle show, and in the TDR magazine, makes them.
There are actual Mopar reproductions parts.

Saves me from trying to weld, cobble and fix up a wobbly and loose 30 + year old hinge.

 

1stgenindustries? I have a bunch of his stuff on my xmas/bday list...

 

Yeah that is his company.

He showed up at the Carlisle show this year with about 7 other 1st gen trucks and guys from Canada.

 

Cool, his talents are pretty impressive - and OCD.

I've seen his white 4 door dualie and his grey W250 with the multiple gearing at the turbo diesel rally's and the Cummins reunions in Columbus. Really nice work.

I'll make it to Carlisle yet...

 

He is down to earth kinda guy to talk to. His addiction to the 1st Gen trucks is crazy. He got Mopar to back a lot of the reproduction pieces he is selling. I saw he now offers the plastic interior trim for at least the single cab trucks.

 

The seat bracket hinge on the passenger side was swapped out the other night for the new one. The old one had a broken weld, was cracking and bent.

I also took the time to swap out the driver's side outer door handle. The thumb depressor button broke off the first day at last years Carlisle show. A spare from the vendor section was thrown on so I could open the door easily from outside during the 5 day trip. It was off a car or something and was not a perfect match, even though it bolted on....Now it is back to perfect.
While I had the door panel off I sprayed down the inside of the door with some Fluid Film.

 

Fluid Film is good stuff. I wish I had started using it a lot sooner...

 

After spending 4 days over the past 10 days working on our '69 Cuda with my daughter, we have the motor and 4 speed pulled. Now to swap all the car style accessories on to the old truck. 360 motor that came out of my '85 crew cab when I swapped it to Cummins power in 2012. This is a build for her, so we will work on it when she has the time off work. The Cuda has been off the road since I last drove it on '02! Most of those year it has been in the heated shop so it looked pretty solid on the shop lift for the first time.

Now that the lift is free again, I want to pull the 5 speed on Project Covid and fix it. It pops out of 1st gear regularly and has since it was rebuilt. The rebuilder said if I pulled it and got it to him, he would fix it on the house.
Sounds simple enough. Now all I need to do is pull some driveshafts, a crossmember, a couple shifter boots and...Should keep me busy enough.

 

I tell myself the exact same thing every dang time i start on something......and the next thing I know is there is Dodge scattered across my shop.

 

Come on Oliver, get some pictures taken of the Cuda and have your friend post them for us to see!!

 

I'll take a couple and send them to you, if you would like to post them.