New A100 pickup owner here. Hello!

I have always been fascinated with the Dodge A100 pickups ever since I saw the videos of Bill Mavericks "Little Red Wagon". I finally got a chance to pick one up and with a little work I hope to have it back on the road soon. Its a '64 (according to the VIN) and has the venerable slant 6 with 3 speed manual behind it. The front axle was torched off some time in its stay in the junkyard I picked it up from and the rear axle was raped, but other than that it is a pretty solid, complete rig. I nabbed up a few of the missing parts from a Van they had in the same yard and am going to go tomorrow to get the axles out from under it to complete my Pickup.
From all my poking and prodding i have only found 4 rust spots, which arent big enough to worry about patching at the moment. My goal is to do a mechanical refresh and clean the thing up and drive it. Most of the paint is original and has a great patina to it. A few bumps and bruises that add to the character (I will bump out the huge ones some time).
Future plans are a 440 with auto, but that is waaaaaaay down the road (I have a '59 Power Wagon that I am doing a frame up resto-mod on right now).
A few pics (cell phone pics, sorry for the crappy quality)




Ben

Welcome to the site!!!!!

Forgot to mention, pulled it out of the junkyard with no knowledge of anything other than what I could see with it sitting on the ground.
Turns out the motor only needed a distributor to get running again. I didnt even have to tear into the carb! Cranked it with no spark to get oil pressure built up, dropped the fuel inlet into a gas can in the cab (fuel tank is out right now) and after 30 seconds or so of cranking she fired up. A quick twist of the distributor had it purring like a kitten. Aside from a little bit of valve tap there wasnt a noise to be heard from it. Guess I lucked out on that one!

Wow ,, nice score ! Like to see some of the 59 also ?

Here's the '59 as I got it, ready to be towed to the DMV for a VIN inspection:


Here it sits with the cab fitted up to the '97 Ram 2500 donor frame:

My bro just got his 59 on the road this year. Stock as he could make it.

Very hard to find parts for,, ya dont have a good steering box do ya?
Both look like fun projects !

I have the steering box. It is fairly tight, with minimal slop, but the splines on the steering wheel end of the steering shaft are pretty buggered up. If the shaft in his is good maybe he would want to put it into this box? It would be aweful large to ship with the shaft still attached, but I can try to get you a shipping quote on it if you like. I was thinking it should be worth about $50 or so?
email me at dartfreak68ATyahooDOTcom if you are interested.

Got it into roller form today

Great progress report today. It runs, drives AND stops!
Now I just need to finish working out a few electrical problems, finish mucking it out and get it put back together and she is ready for the road!

nice pickup

Welcome MoparFreak69!
Just take it one step at a time and it will slowly come together.

Dan

Well, I have lights, mostly.
I am still trying to get the front park lights to work all the time and dash lights dont want to work yet, but everything else seems to be functioning correctly. I had to replace the contacts in the tail lights as they were corroded and the spring plates were brittle and breaking, but other than that it was just a matter of cleaning connections up a bit and putting good bulbs into everything.
Anybody know of a good source for /6 motor mounts?
How close to bolt-in will B-series van buckets be?

auto zone has them 2235 for the left 2234 for the right

On order. Thanks for the info!

A buddy of mine has a pair of used 295 50r15's that he is willing to barter to me for some work. Looks like they are going to fit in the rear wheel wells quite nicely, and its going to look great when I lower it a couple of inches. Here are a couple pics with one of the tires just sitting about where I want it to fit and the ride height close to where my goal is.



Now just to find some steelie 15x7 or 15x8 that will retain my stock center caps to mount the tires to

I also decided to hit the paint with some scotch brite (to remove white haze and rust stains) and an orbital polisher.
I think it looks terrific!

Those 295/50's really like 10" rims, ya might wanna think more in the 265/275 range if you stick with 8's ?

Digz wrote:Those 295/50's really like 10" rims, ya might wanna think more in the 265/275 range if you stick with 8's ?

The car they came off of had 8" rims and that is where they sit relaxed now so I think 8 inchers will fill my bill. These specific tires are made for recommended rim widths between 7.5" and 9.5". I think 10" rims would square them out too much. If I cant find any used rims though I will probably go with Coker's 15x9's because they are $4 each more than 8's. Biggest thing I have to watch for is either 0 offset or get some wheels with negative offset so I can use spacers (not as desireable but it will get me there).

Well, a little more progress/changes occured yesterday and today.
I got the grill mostly fitted to the nose. It was tweaked horribly and the plastic nut-serts that clip into the body were toast, not to mention all the damage from an accident and bondo that got in the way. I ended up welding nuts to what was left of the lower holes so that I could get mounting hardware to cooperate with me.
I also decided that it was sitting too high. I removed 2 of the 7 leaves from the front spring packs. Its not as low as I want it but I will have to go with a dropped axle/spindles to get it the rest of the way there (unless I want to notch the frame a bit).


She's coming along nicely.

Today I got the fuel tank fully plumbed in and got the sender fixed up (still isnt reading right but whatya gonna do?) Also replaced the motor mounts (or what was left of them anyway). Since my rig has a later model motor I ended up using 2 of the driver's side mounts instead of the normal passenger side mount that is offset slightly. Dont know how it worked out that way but it sits straight and true how it is now so I'm gonna roll with it as-is.
Swept all the garbage out of the bed/cab floors to see what I am dealing with back there. NO RUST! so that is always a good thing. Just some typical surface rust which I am not in the least concerned with.

Getting close to time to head to the DMV and get this sucker road legal.

Sure makes you wonder why it was put onto a scrap yard if it was not that bad of shape. You got one great find there. Keep the pics and story comming.

Cool pickup and a great save MoparFreak

I fashioned up a throttle bracket today. It doesnt work too well with the 2 barrel carb though. The pin for the throttle cable is almost straight above the pivot of the throttle shaft, which means that getting the cable to pull it past that slight angle is a pain. It does nothing at all then WHAM snaps open and throttle feel is normal. Its just the initial trip that I have to work out of it. I may end up just taking the carb off and modifying the plate slightly to tweak it away from its stock position slightly, making it a better angle for my throttle cable.
This is all just temporary until I can find the funds/time to put a 273/904 into it.

When you are ready for a V8 I have a good 69 donor van with a good running 318/3speed in it. And I'm in Twin Falls. Don

Bought my steelies from Early Wheel Company... Built to my specs, in a timely manner, for a fair price.

I still have some odd and end parts on the parts truck, let me know if there are any parts that you can't find

doin great guys - for the fuel tank gague not reading goog=?? chech for a good groung wire from sender to body??