I'm looking to expand my herd (of one! lol) to include a 1976 Dodge Ram pickup. The body isn't in too bad a shape (considering what I've seen some of them like). It's got a very tired 4 speed manual and a slant six that's probably running on 4 cylinders now. Assuming that it's not a stuck valve or some other serious thing, is this a decent truck? When I drove it, I had to floor it and rev the hell out of it just to shift, otherwise it would bog, and the tranny is looser than a 70 year old working girl, but overall, it seemed to be in decent mechanical shape (minus the excessive need of a tuneup). I know nothing about these motors, trucks or transmissions, and it's probably got 150,000 miles on it or so. If I got it, how much longer do you think I'd be able to keep it, and how are these slant sixes as a general commuting motor? It'd be on the highway a lot (2 hr commute between home and school), and would do some pretty heavy loads every once in a while (I'm thinking 5-600 lbs of stuff that I'd like to bring to norwalk).
One of my Uncle's and a high school friend both had Dodge's with the slant 6. From what I recall, they were unable to kill them. Of course, the weren't driving two hours a day in a 25 year old vehicle either.
It's not doing 4 hours on the road every day, but I'm seeing at least once every other month or so, and highway driving at least on the weekends (think 30 minutes a week at 60+). I just thought I'd mention that because when I first got the Delta, I wouldn't have taken that to the next town, much less 2 hours away.
