1976 Dodge Sportsman Help
Hello All, I came across an old post with oldtrucker63 and Lo Lo and I hope they or someone else that can help is still around. Here's the situation, yesterday I bought a 1976 Dodge Sportsman motor...
Forum Discussion
I had a 1977 van with the 318 V8. I converted it to a camper and we had lots of awesome trips in that old van. It was awesome. My wife and I still reminisce about the trips we took in that van. It was cold natured as all get out. The 440 has a good reputation. It's a big powerful engine. If I was in your shoes I would do a major tune up including a rebuild of that carburetor, new distributor cap and button, maybe new distributor parts as needed, new fuel pump (which is a mechanical on the block--cheap). I would change the fluid and filter in the transmission and the differential fluid. I think the MOPAR trucks of that era required an additive in the differential.
The Dodges of that era are great. The motorhomes from those years are great too. I see old Dodge chassis motorhomes in campgrounds all the time. People buy them and restore them. They were well built and have some options that I think were better than what's on the modern RV's, like a metal roof. That sucker is easy to seal and will last a very long time. And, you can use off the shelf products from Lowes or Home Depot to fix a metal RV roof. I wish I had one. Also, check your brake master cylinder. A rebuilt one from Advance or Auto Zone will probably be less than forty bucks after core exchange. Don't trust your life to a 35+ year old master cylinder. Switching that thing out is a super easy job. When I bought my 1990 model the first repair I made was a new remanufactured master cylinder. Now I have brakes as good as they can be on a GM P30 chassis. Old motorhomes aren't great stoppers anyway.
The Dodges of that era are great. The motorhomes from those years are great too. I see old Dodge chassis motorhomes in campgrounds all the time. People buy them and restore them. They were well built and have some options that I think were better than what's on the modern RV's, like a metal roof. That sucker is easy to seal and will last a very long time. And, you can use off the shelf products from Lowes or Home Depot to fix a metal RV roof. I wish I had one. Also, check your brake master cylinder. A rebuilt one from Advance or Auto Zone will probably be less than forty bucks after core exchange. Don't trust your life to a 35+ year old master cylinder. Switching that thing out is a super easy job. When I bought my 1990 model the first repair I made was a new remanufactured master cylinder. Now I have brakes as good as they can be on a GM P30 chassis. Old motorhomes aren't great stoppers anyway.
