2nd Gen Non-Engine/Transmission Why the Cummins doesn't belong in a Dodge...

[JacobsD]

... The motor outlasts the truck!!! #@$%!



This is my '95. Ok its been worked, its been plowed with (but only for 2 seasons and parking lot jobs at that) and it's been in the salt and snow. But there still is no excuse for this.



The lower control arm bracked rusted off the axle:

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Also (and this rusted off a while ago and I was too lazy to weld it back on) The sway bar bracket:



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So now I'm pulling the axle out and building new brackets on it. Should be fun... ... ...





... . not really.

 

[wtfd6]

I have never seen rotting parts like that. maybe on a truck that is 20 years old and all it has ever done is plowed. that sucks man!

 

[csevers]

Dude !!



Soap and water is your friend. Maybe even a pressure washer. Plow trucks rust that is just the way it is, Even with good care. WOW that is bad!!!!



C

 

[Pavemen]

its not the truck in this case, its the owner and his lack of maintenance. i know the Dodge trucks don't last forever (I have enough problems myself) but this is totally preventable.

 

[AKaiser]

This is my '95. Ok its been worked, its been plowed with (but only for 2 seasons and parking lot jobs at that) and it's been in the salt and snow. But there still is no excuse for this.

Brother, you said it: Absolutely no excuse! Frankly, I don't know why you would embarrass yourself putting pictures up like this.



Two Words: Steam Washer. This didn't happen over night. I've worked with fertilizer spreaders and tenders. It doesn't matter what you're driving if you don't keep the salt off your equipment. It all rusts in heavy salt, and quick. When I ran a truck with any sort of fertilizer in it, it got washed off before I went home. That was ten years ago, and they're running some of the same trucks as they were in 97. Maintenance is your friend.

its not the truck in this case, its the owner and his lack of maintenance. i know the Dodge trucks don't last forever (I have enough problems myself) but this is totally preventable.

The pics of the steering linkage are a dead giveaway. That thing looks like it's never been washed. If he had a high pressure washer, preferrably a steam washer, that part would be somewhat clean, and free of its external coating of grease. Any halfway decent maintenance schedule will catch this stuff before it gets bad. If this guy was in my unit, he'd be paying for repairs for dereliction of duty. I'd be in trouble for not inspecting my Company equipment, so I'd probably lose a chunk of change as well as the maintenance sergeant for not catching it.

 

[NoSeeUm]

A garden hose also helps, I wash the underside of my truck regularly.



That sucks man, good luck to you in your repairs. :{



Jim

 

[bmoeller]

AK, I a totally agree.

 

[JacobsD]

Yeah thats the problem... . I wash my truck once a week, and I've owned it for about 6 months now. The guy who owned it before me used to take good care of it. The truck has been coming to my dad's garage for the past 3 years or so, and the prev. owner was good friends with my dad.



A 12 year old truck that was taken care of even half as well as this one shouldn't do this stuff. The truck was bought from the local dealership (Brewer Brothers in Canaan, CT) where a couple people who work there told me its the best maintained truck to leave that place.



This isn't from neglect at all.

 

[Bob V]

Yeah thats the problem... . I wash my truck once a week, and I've owned it for about 6 months now. The guy who owned it before me used to take good care of it. The truck has been coming to my dad's garage for the past 3 years or so, and the prev. owner was good friends with my dad.



A 12 year old truck that was taken care of even half as well as this one shouldn't do this stuff. The truck was bought from the local dealership (Brewer Brothers in Canaan, CT) where a couple people who work there told me its the best maintained truck to leave that place.



This isn't from neglect at all.

If rust gets that bad, it's from neglect. I had over 200,000 on my truck when I sold it and it was NOT like yours. Someone did NOT take care of a rust problem when they should have.

 

[blacksheep4x4]

That will happen to any truck that is in that type of enviroment and not maintained. You can't expect steel to last forever in salty or corrosive conditions if you don't spray it off after use.

 

[Signal73]

Look at the control arms compared to the bracket they were mounted to on the axle. Rust vs. some paint and mostly clean. Im sure those are the original control arms also. Goes to show you how some parts get undercoating good from the parts supplier, and some dont. I can let my truck sit all winter and only drive it on sunny days in the winter and it will still rust. Hell the nuts on my ARP headstuds rust. Its a combo of new england, and the salt water in the air from being near the ocean. Back off the orig poster a little, Dodge has as much fault in this as someone who dosent get under there truck and detail it with a toothbrush. Ever see the door panels and wheelwells rot out on a 5 y/o truck? I have and its dodges cheapness and how pathetic some of there cost cutting measures are.

 

[Joe G.]

I don't think that is the ocean air unless the Atlantic is saltier than the Pacific. I live about five miles from the ocean. The prevailing wind blows from the northwest around here so our air should be worse than the Atlantic coast. It's the crap they put on the roads that does what you see on that truck. It's still there on sunny days so you get salty dust on the bottom of the truck even then. A good wash down as others have said above will slow down the rust. We have quite a few old cars from the 50s and 60s still doing their duty here. Beat up and all that, but not very rusty. I'm sure most of them have not had a bath or any other cleaning for a long time. My '95 is rust free except for some light rust on the drive shaft and other bare metal parts. This area is NOT like southern CA at all. Very cool moist climate. Still no rust unless it's parked where salt spray can get on it.

 

[rweis]

Easy way to wash the bottom of your truck.



get a sprinkler that is not the oscillating type, but the type that puts out a round or square pattern.



put sprinkler at the end of your driveway toward the road with the hose running parallel in the middle of your driveway.



drive over the sprinkler so the sprinkler and hose is centered under your truck, drive far enough forward so the sprinkler is more toward the street than the end of your truck.



turn on the sprinkler and s l o w l e y pull the sprinkler toward you so the sprinkler washes the entire bottom of the truck.



do this once a week.



Bob Weis

 

[AKaiser]

Like I said, drove fertilizer tender trucks when I graduated from college. Spent two years doing it. We washed those rigs down nightly unless it was too cold. Salt, which is what fertilizer is (potassium chloride and nitrate salts) absolutely kills metal, and it hits the thinnest parts, complex parts, angles, places where dust and salt can collect. Weekly doesn't cut it when you're dealing with salt, and KCl is more corrosive than NaCl. I don't see how you can say this happened before you could catch it. Did you get under your truck and lube it? I know my 99 required me to actually get underneath the truck to do it, so if I did that, it would put me down where I could catch something like this before it got to this point. I stand by my assessment: operator negligence. They make paint for painting over rust. We used it all the time on fertilizer trucks.

 

[Mhannink]

had a 95 myslef and my cousin has a 94 mine was in virgina and then colorado the 94 was in montana neither one had any rust on them at all though i cant say what the care was on them. i think it was neglect salt is a very strong catylist in this situation

 

[Signal73]

we need sacrificial annodes to bolt to the side of our trucks so this dosent happen anymore:-laf

 

[Rattlin_Ram]

Road salt and Dodges don't mix well... I take care of my Dodge the same as I have my Ford PU's in the past. My Dodge has door rust, none of my previous 4 PU's have ever had rust. Well with the exception of my '87 Toyota... . Had to have my door rust fixed on my Dodge. Any little paint chip rusts on this thing.



Seems to depend on the truck too. Friend of mine out in CO put a dent in his '98 12v and the paint chipped off and didn't rust after about 4 months. My lil rock chip in the hood rusted in about a week.

 

[EricBu12]

This is why I paint the underside of the truck and keep it up all the time. . Because even though I paint all the time, rust still happens... . I live in Salt Lake City and we use SALT here...

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My truck is 7. 5 yrs old and all parts are great.
You see in the picture below that I keep the rear axle painted because it is visible and such. .

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[JoelMartin]

EricBu12, I like your mudflaps. Did you make those yourself?

 

[JacobsD]

Either way, this is not a lack of maintanance issue. Its a thin metal combined with New England's salty roads issue. This isn't the first one that's done it, last week we had a Jeep with the same issue at the shop I work at.



Ok, so maybe this could have been saved earlier.



I just scored a 60 out of a 98 for a good deal, so after the frame is painted and the axle is painted I'll be back on the road again.