With the price of fuel climbing ever higher and my recent marriage and move to my wife's house which is 40 miles one way to work each day, I quickly discovered that driving my Hemi Ram back and forth was going to be a bank account drainer. I also don't want to continue to put hundreds of miles a week on my other nice and somewhat rare/collector cars (Okay so this is a stretch. They are somewhat desirable to others here on this Forum.) After seeing all the super sweet L Body trucks that you guys have put together here and hearing that future plans for Chrysler include replacing the current Dakota with a possible unibody FWD or AWD "Lifestyle" truck (based on the minivans???) the idea was forged into my mind...
A search of various places to find a suitable trucklet was on. I knew of a neglected '82 Rampage with a topper locally but despite several attempts to talk the owner out of it for what I thought it was worth, it wasn't to be. It is still setting in the same spot now for at least 6 years...
One day, I was searching on-line and I came across a guy selling an '83 Scamp. The price was descent too. Now there was a reason the price was good and he was willing to part with it. It had suffered a pretty bad engine fire (rubber fuel lines strike again!) and toasted everything under the hood and the nose well beyond an easy fix. I made the trip to check it out, looked it over, and decided to make it happen.
Here's what it looked like when I loaded it up to haul it home:
As you can see it was quite fried under the hood.
Lucky for me, there isn't much in there that I was planning on using anyway. After parting out several vehicles over the past few years, I've managed to have a nice collection of parts ready for this project. A rusted beyond any other usefulness '89 Caravan Turbo with a knocking rod gave up a rebuildable Common Block 2.5L Turbo engine. I've traded parts for some cash to pick up a nice '90 A523 with a 3.50 Final Drive from a non-turbo Dodge Shadow so it shouldn't need much to freshen it up. I got in a on a group buy for an OBX so I have the transmission covered. I even picked up a 1st Gen Neon shifter and cables to use. Reeves and I parted out a couple GLH Turbo Omnis and they gave up wiring harnesses and 5 lug hubs.
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Originally Posted by Reeves
Dave Tekampe
? Respect to the guys who know how to save that trucklett, good on you Jim and John
