When was the last time you saw a mid-’80s
Dodge pickup with a story behind it like Jim Brown’s?
We were tipped off to this righteous Ram
100 at the Chryslers at Carlisle show by the folks at Muscle Motors, who built
its 523-inch stroker RB. “It was originally a Slant Six truck,” says Jim, who
bought it from a friend after its Leaning Tower of Power blew up. “His wife’s
parents were moving, and she drove it from Chattanooga, Tennessee, toward
Nashville, and did not realize that she had the truck in Second instead of
Drive,” says Jim. “That truck made it from Chattanooga to the top of Monteagle
Mountain before that Slant Six blew. I’ve been a Mopar guy all my life, and
I’ve never heard of anybody ever being able to destroy a Slant Six!”
Super
square-body
Jim hauled it home and then got busy. “I
put another engine in, and it was my farm truck that I used to haul hay,” he
recalls.
Eventually, Jim got a hankering to do
something different with his “Square body” Dodge. “You go to car shows, and
there are Challengers and Chargers everywhere,” says Jim, who’s also got a
numbers-matching black ’70 Charger R/T. “You see the same stuff, so I decided
to do something different.”
He also didn’t want to do what other ’80s
Dodge pickup builders did. “They would take off all the trim and fill the
holes, paint the bumpers, and take the ram head (hood ornament) off,” Jim says.
“I wanted mine to maintain its look and integrity as a mid-’80s, period-correct
Square-body. That’s what I did, but it’s a ground-pounding beast.”
That ground-pounding nature is thanks to a
440 that Muscle Motors punched out to 523 cubic inches. “It’s got two fours on
it,” notes Jim. “At 40 miles an hour, you can stab it and it’ll get broadside
in the middle of the street. It’s exactly what I wanted.”
There’s
plenty of room for the Muscle Motors–built RB and the Edel brock 2x4-barrel
intake inside the smoothed-out engine bay.
Putting that power on the ground is a built
727 and a narrowed Dana 60. To get the big Mickey Thompsons to fit inside the
stock bed’s quarters, Jim says he didn’t need to narrow the frame. “We took the
original wheel wells, cut them open, then extended them.”
Ahead of the rear wheels, Jim’s got a set
of Pypes exhaust tips downstream of Flow master 44 mufflers and dual 3-inch
exhaust pipes, inspired by the look—and sound—of a classic. “A friend, Jim
Pugh, had a Challenger T/A, and I always like the way the exhausts turned out
in front of the back tires. So, I ordered those tips from Pypes,” he says.
The exterior also got its share of
attention. “There’s a roll pan on the back where the bumper used to be,” says
Jim. “You can buy a roll pan for a Blue Oval or a Bowtie, but you can’t buy one
for a Dodge. I had it made by Joe Booker in Dickson, Tennessee.” Jim did that,
the bodywork, and paint prep before he sprayed on the PPG Deltron Viper Blue.
There were a few bumps along the way, like
when he sought out Weld wheels for the front that matched the ones in back.
“They told me if I wanted to get the correct bolt pattern, I’d have to find
something from a mid-to-late ’70s Dodge truck,” Jim says. The solution: a set
of front disc brake rotors and wheel hubs from a D-100 Club Cab that he used a
Weed Eater to get to, before unbolting the needed parts.
Simpson
safety belts hold Jim on the stock ’86 bench seat, which gained an embroidered
Ram logo, thanks to FST Restorations.
The result is a truck that scored a First
Place in Carlisle’s Modified Truck class, and lots of looks from show goers.
Jim says it goes even better than it looks, both in terms of handling and
acceleration.
Jim’s got another Dodge truck project in
the works—a low-mileage ’67 D-100 Utiline whose step-sided bed will stay, but
whose Slant Six is destined for replacement by a steel-crank ’70 440.
Though they didn’t sell in huge numbers,
Square-bodies made for dependable work trucks back then, and—if you can find
one, and the original parts you may need—they make great ground pounders.
