BC Canadian 1992 D250 Pics + Vid

[23027]

Hey everyone. Jeff from White Rock BC Canada. Here's my first gen. 220k original km's, one owner. I would eat off the engine bay it's so clean... Every original sticker that could have been there still is. No leaks, 2WD, auto (daily driver), captains chairs, mint grey/black interior, AC (big bonus for my long trips up the Coquihalla all summer long) Power locks, windows, mirrors. So clean... Paint is heat scored/sunburned on top of hood and that spot where wiper arms come out, going to look into a few paint restoration places to see if it can be brought back.. If not then it's going to be re-sprayed. Could use new red pinstripes too I suppose. Not so into pink pinstriping.. Will also be hunting around for a tail gate to have painted to match some time. If anyone has a use for a 5th wheel tail gate shoot me a PM.

Took this to Haley's Dodge to have their oldest and most experienced Cummins diesel tech give it a break down. They told me they were all amazed how clean this truck was and that everybody in the shop was oooo'ing and aaa'ing over it. They found practically nothing wrong with anything mechanical wise, only suggestion was a radiator in a years time or so. They said whoever owned it prior had kept it to the 9's.

I've gone through so many cars to get to this. Been waiting for a 12 valve for so long. Went to look at a 4x4 first gen in Mission for 8995 but that is a straight up whAt? with farm truck, certainly out to lunch on their asking price considering it doesn't have any power options, red interior and a bench seat. I almost pulled the trigger on a beauty emerald green 95 with 270k's but didn't get to it in time. But in a lot of ways I'm happier with a first gen. Will be shortly attending KDP, having a proper hitch installed and that might be all for a little while. Not sure if I want to lift it, looks pretty good as it sits IMO... But I think I will deep down inside always want to have it jacked up just a tad & leveled. Not to mention there are no real level kits for this gen 2wd... Not a lot of resources either. Apparently these are somewhat difficult to do without destroying ride quality unless something is custom fabbed up. I wouldn't mind spending some dough to have a proper lift done sometime down the road though. Mostly will want to be spending money on paint & cosmetics and get it looking new again.

Sitting dirty in the lot


Removed the old man hood deflector to reveal a nice green moustache



After a lot of scrubbing



Sexy clean engine bay



Spent a bunch of time washing the caked on brown mud circle off each tire and removing more old man things. Nice & clean.





Just spent a hundred bucks ordering a ton of little things for this truck to personalize it to more my liking. Subtle things. Having the damnest time trying to find a new cargo light lens (where 3rd brake light is on newer trucks) If anyone has resources let me know

After straight piping. Good guy Dwayne at Blue Top Auto located at 24th & King George. This guy does awesome work, pays very close attention to small details and so forth, good work and good prices. Family owned and operated this guy has done 3 or 4 cars for me and my family. Highly recommended if you don't already have a good exhaust guy. Had him weld on a nice 4" (I think) polished tip with a flat edge tip instead of a rolled tip. I see every single newer Cummins with rolled tips, and I think a flat edge tip suits the older look of the truck too. Here's how the tip looks and the piping done underneath.




Here's my before & after exhaust vid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxgvSoG70Hw

[BC847]

Dang. I wish mine washed up that good.

Nice ride. And Welcome to our forums.

[dazedandconfused]

Welcome to the site and nice truck. I had the exact same truck but in much worst shape that became the donor for my half ton. Wish it would gave been that clean.

[CumminsPower59]

Welcome! Very nice ride!

[Tacoclaw]

I had the exact same truck but in much worst shape that became the donor for my half ton. Wish it would gave been that clean.

You all read it here, Dazed hates clean 1stgens and wishes he could use them as donors.


Nice ride, man. I wish my truck cleaned up that nice. Not that I would clean it up, but it would be nice to know I could.

[dazedandconfused]

At least it went into another Dodge if the same body style. If it would have been that nice I would be driving it and would have used the early 91 as a donor instead.

[tampabayBill]

Welcome ! Nice score.

[23027]

Thanks guys! I hit the jackpot stumbling onto this gem. So very few first gens are still in good shape anymore, it's such a shame.. This truck from here on out will be taken care of and restored properly, I have no plans to do any real exterior changes.

Update:

I did some more work on the rig, converted some crummy incandescent bulbs to LED's. Cargo light with a couple bright suckers, my rear license plate lamps, and my dash lights. Bought enough to do my interior dome and map lights but they're a really old school type of lamp so I'll have to maybe convert it or something if I feel the need to.




Before dash photo. Burnt out bulbs, really crummy brightness. Poopy colors.


Started tearing apart dash



Put it all back together like an IDIOT without testing them before piecing it all back together. Assumed the LED's would work same as the incandescent in either direction... Nope. When I installed them the first time, I didn't get too thorough with removing the instrument cluster and figured if there was a colored rubber/plastic lens to give the lights color they'd be on the twist plugs I pull out but they weren't so I just left them in there. If I'm correct these LED's have a diode inside them so the electrical conduction canb only happen in one direction (polarity sensitive + & -) So the odds of putting these in randomly without any instruction to regard polarity for conduction is a 50/50 chance... 8 lights... I got 1. So this is with the colored lenses in, but with the 1 light working.


Back I go into the dash but this time to get the job done once and for all.


The reason for not completely removing the cluster before was this little guy... A small guage wire attached to the shifter column that just slides the needle that points at your "P R N D 2 1" selections to the appropriate one. Never really looked hard because it wasn't too difficult to source out how to remove this. Just a J style hook holding it on there.


Put the key in to unlock and shift down to D for some more working room


Cluster on my lap face down. Back of the circuit board you can see the twist plugs that the bulbs are in. The small groups of 3 are the signals, no seatbelt, high beam, oil light, and check engine light. The outer 3 are the illumination lights.


If you look close you can see the Torx bit screws holding the board onto the back. Just remove those and the board can be lifted off exposing the lamps and also the colored lenses.





Removed the blue colored plastic lenses


Sustained a little heavy duty damage


Decided to plug in just the board back to the dash to test the LED's before re-assembling everything once again


And voila... VERY satisfied with this. I really didn't like the blue tint on the first LED attempt, this is a much more satisfying look for me. The LED's are slightly dimmable, not a lot though before they just turn off (diode holding current is not low enough to dim these to a lower level)

Full brightness, has some glare


Lowest brightness, I think is perfect and has minimal glare. Photo shows more than there really is


I also changed the high beam and turn signal bulbs to LED's.. I love it when a car's blue high beam light is really bright. Now mine is too And the signals are nicely lit, less glare than the photo shows.


So yeah, pretty psyched about this little nerd mod. Huge improvement and worth doing imo. Here's a side by side:



For informative purposes.. The Cummins badge lights with wait to start, e-brake, water in fuel etc, cargo light, license plate and dash lamps are all T10 wedge type lamps. I changed the Cummins plate lamps to LED's but they were acting funny (wouldn't turn on and off when they should) so I just said to hell with it and put them back as incandescents. I actually thought the LED's were too spotty on there too, the incandescents have a nicer fill area for that spot because where the light is physically located is actually off to one side of the words so the intense LED's actually made it pretty obvious.

Yup!

[cmann250]

Welcome. Nice truck and nice work on the improvements.

I had to look at your speedometer twice, seeing it read 180. I then realized it read km/hr

[rockbuggy4x4]

welcome

[soupyjuices]

The gauge cluster on your '92 looks great! I've been asking around about the LED conversion and I haven't had too much success. I was told to use 6 point LED's for the bigger gauges and 4 point for the turn signals, brights, seatbelt, etc. However, the bulbs you used look different than the bulbs I was told to use. Where did you find those LED bulbs?

[93ramrod]

hey jeff. nice lookin truck. i have a 93 d250, same as yours, (not AS clean but im working on it) but mines a 5 speed. I see your from white rock...im from guildford. just off 152nd. anyways, where did you get your led dash lights from ...i love that it looks awesome. mine are old and dim and some are burnt out, the way you did it look soo good. cheers

[DMan1198]

hey jeff. nice lookin truck. i have a 93 d250, same as yours, (not AS clean but im working on it) but mines a 5 speed. I see your from white rock...im from guildford. just off 152nd. anyways, where did you get your led dash lights from ...i love that it looks awesome. mine are old and dim and some are burnt out, the way you did it look soo good. cheers

The ones I got for mine came from autometer, but you can get the right ones through carid.com or eBay. If it doesn't come up with t10 look for 194's (it's the same thing)

[93ramrod]

the other thing that ive been really wanting to do is LED signal lights and tail lights. any suggestions on good bright led's for those applications. there are a ton of different choices on ebay, no idea which are good bright ones.

[Fred Average]

WOW!!!...uh W O W!!!
What a nice example...I was lucky enough to just find a 1992,54K original mile,D250,360/Auto standard cab and have been cleaning it up for "duty" as well.
Congrats & Good Luck!
That's a KEEPER!