mopar440 said:
Pic of the other 'wheeler in the driveway...
'74 Ramcharger SE, 360/727/NP203(Milemarker-kitted)/6"Superlift/35"MudRovers...
Went from this:
To this:
The story of "The Pumpkin" goes kinda like this...
Jeff, a good friend of mine, had a '95 Dodge Ram 1/2-ton, 3" body lift and 36" buckshots... we wheeled the piss out of that thing for 3 years, before he ran into financial and woman trouble ( funny how those things go hand in hand so often, isn't it?)... had the truck repo'd... I bought a '93 YJ and he bought a '77 Plymouth Trailduster... we installed a Superlift 6" lift and a set of 35" Dunlop Mud Rovers on the 'Duster, along with a '76 440... 'wheeled it for a year or so, and got tired of breaking drivetrain parts due to a heavy right foot and lots of Big Block Chrysler torque... stripped the suspension and motor/trans from the 'Duster and put the stuff in my garage... and sold the rest...
Jump forward about a year or so... I spied a straight, stock '74 Ramcharger sitting next to a farm house off of Kuebler Rd. in So. Salem... looked at it a few times, never could catch the owners @ home... this was about 2002... tags had expired in '98... finally met the owner on a Saturday... he bought the 'Charger new in S. Dakota, drove it here in 1979, and put 87,000 miles on it by 1998, at which time he retired it to the side of his house in favor of a new Corolla... he said his wife wanted "that old orange eyesore" to go away... I asked him how much, he says make me an offer... I said 400.00, and he went inside to get the title!!!
Jeff ponied-up half... came back an hour later with a battery and a can of gas, poured some gas in the carb, and drove the thing home!
We decided to leave it stock for awhile, and just freshen-up the seals-belts, etc., after having sat for 4 years... interior was pretty trashed, but the engine and drivetrain were in really good shape...
Jump forward about a year or so... Jeff had "custody" of "The Pumpkin", as my kids started calling it... he was a large guy, 5'11" and around 300 lbs... not in the greatest shape, but you take people as they are... we met in high school and had been real good friends ever since...
Somehow, Jeff ended up with a '87 XJ, 2.8 auto, and we went wheeling one day up Niagra Heights Rd. with a couple other friends/rigs... had a hell of a good time, and were on our way out, Jeff in his Cherokee, me and another buddy in my YJ, and a couple more rigs behind us... well, all Jeff's drinking and partying and weight problems finally caught up to him, as he had a massive heart attack on the way down the mountain... we always 'wheel in 4-low... that's just the way we do things... he ended up in a real gentle rollover... probably going no more than 8-10 MPH... it happened around a corner, out of sight from me and my passenger... we stopped and ran to the XJ (which, by the way, held up nicely, ending up on it's top) and performed CPR for more than a half-hour, until Paramedics arrived and pronounced him... later, the coroner informed us that his heart literally exploded... he was dead before he even knew what happened...
So, to make a long story, well, long, his wife gave me the Pumpkin and a few other things she knew I'd appreciate... I will never sell the Pumpkin, I will drive it and 'wheel the snot out of it until I can no longer do so, or untill I wreck it so bad that it's unsalvagable, at which point I'll hang the fenders in my garage, or whatever...
After he died, I installed the lift and tires saved from the Trailduster, and kept right on 'wheelin' it... it's what he would've done, and who am I to argue the point!!!
