Dodge D-50 4X4 looked at it today

So I got a chance to go and look at that Dodge truck a guy called me about. D-50 4 cylinder carb engine 1976 or 78. Built in Aug of 1976 so could be either one. 5 speed transmission. Has not been on the road as in licensed since 2005 so been parked for 10 years. Engine is not locked up and the tires are in good shape and are 235-75R15s. Utility bed all locks work but the lower boxes some are rusted out. Going to do a trade with him so now have to get my old Chev back on the road to go pick it up

Check the frame close for rust, those old Asian frames like to rot bad. That is a Mitsubishi product, I would be worried about parts availability. Sitting 10 years would have me worried about the carb, Mitsubishi liked to use some weird setups that were expensive to service when new. Last one of those I had in the shop went to the scrapper. Rust free and ran decent, but had a bad fuel injector and leaked oil like a sieve. If you are doing ok on the trade, probably make a decent wood hauler, if it runs.

I had a couple of those. Were 1984 and 1985. I moved to Chicago when I got out of the Army and lived on the north side lake shore, and there was little or no parking, so I bought one. It could make the turn in the alley into the garage, had a cap on the bed, and was about as much pickup as would fit in Chicago. I will never forget the very second that it hit 50,000 on the odometer, the "service engine soon" light came on, but it ran real well. I couldn't figure it out, so I read through the owners manual and found something that said "...the timing belt should be changed at 50,000 miles..." and so as a reminder, the "service engine soon" light would come on, and did. Hmm? I crawled under the dash and found a little toggle switch on the back of the speedometer, turned it off, and off went the idiot light. Hmm? Ok, I figured that they were looking to pull a fast one to get me into the shop to change a perfectly good timing belt, so I didn't do it. The idiot light was off, the truck ran fine, what else could I want? I was driving the little guy and just about at 50,100 miles it died and I coasted off to the side, and a tow truck towed me to a friends shop on one of the coldest Fridays of that year, before a holiday weekend. I didn't get it back until Monday. The problem? Timing belt shredded and came apart...like clock work. Mitsubishi couldn't have timed it better. They said change it at 50,000, I didn't, and it broke 100 miles later. At least I didn't slap a valve with a piston when it broke. No damage done, sold it to a friend, bought another, sold it after I left Chicago. Back then a rebuilt carb for one cost over $400 from a parts store. Keep the little hinges on the tailgate good and greased. If they dry, they flex and break off. As I recall, bolted to the bed, welded to the tailgate. You don't want to break one. I did.

Good luck.

Mark

After market utility bed on it so the tail gate is no problem. The speedometer reads 220,XXX mile on it. Not the first one I have had sort of like it but instead of the Dodge one I had the Mit

Yep know about the frame rust problems and yes it has some but not super bad yet. At least with a carb I can work on that the fuel injection type I can do very little with. As for what I will have in it is around $200 so even if I scrapped it I should come out ahead

FIL had an 86 that he bought new, and we traded back and forth about every 50K. He wound up trading it off at about 170K. Never had any issues and I'd probably still have the little guy if it had A/C....

Unless it's one of the old Mikuni carbs. If so, then good luck with finding parts because you're probably going to need it. Either way, it sounds like a good deal...