2003 Ram

bigwaylon

bigwaylon

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2005
Location
Charlotte
bought my "new" DD...and guess I could haul/tow when needed...:)

2003 Dodge Ram 1500 Quad Cab Sport Laramie 4x4
heated leather seats, heated side view mirrors, 20" chrome, 6-disc in dash changer...all the "necessities" for a pickup...:D

only had 44,000 miles on it...fairly low for 4-5 years old...

a couple of the pics the guy had in the AutoTrader ad:

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I immediately had a short list of things that had to be done...

1. remove rear window decal (he took it off before I showed up)
2. tint front windows
3. vent visors
4. remove badging
5. Gibson exhaust
6. find some factory tail lights to put back in

a couple shots after I got it home:

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in the meantime...decided on a couple other things to do:

1. get the ARE cap painted to match (it was a generic white, and was a couple shades off, noticable to anybody who actually looked)
2. ditch the chrome stick-on door handle accents

the chrome came off real easy...and I decided to try and paint them white to match...

first attempted the tailgate handle, since it was the only one "by itself" so if it didn't work out, I wasn't in too bad of shape...decided to try to just mask it off and paint it on the truck first:

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didn't turn out too bad...but could've been better...

Greg
 
got the chrome door handles off...and decided to move along with painting all four handles (and re-doing the tailgate handle)...

with the factory black handles...also, notice the badging is now gone, as well as front windows tinted to match, and vent visors installed:

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got the handles off pretty quick:

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...as well as the tailgate handle:

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the paint dried really fast on the plastic...so in about 6 hours, I put a two coats of plastic primer (after using a Scotchbrite pad), 10-12 coats of white, and 6-8 coats of clear:

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put 'em back on the next morning:

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got the guy I bought it from to ship me the factory tail lights, which were on by these pics...plus the Gibson Dual Sport exhaust:

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(thinking about adjust those a little to tuck 'em under a bit more)

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overall...very pleased...

the handles turned out nice...as did the ARE cap...

Gary at Corley Body Works painted the cap...and I also had him paint the brackets the hold the bars. I had to remove the bars/rack to fit it into the parking deck at work.

Only other thing I've had to do was get the tires balanced. They'd only been on the truck for 2-3 months...but it had a pretty bad vibe at any speed over 45MPH. Three of the tires were at 35PSI, and one was at 15PSI. Evening them out didn't fix the vibe, so I had CMD in Charlotte rebalance them. The person who did them before must've either had a machine out of balance, or just didn't know what they were doing. One of them was 10oz off when we pulled it off the truck and tested it. One was 4.5oz, one 6oz and one 2.5oz. Once we pulled off all the weights, started over, and got them to balance back to 0, all the vibes were gone.

I think removing the badging and painting the handles made a huge difference in the appearance.

Thanks.
Greg
 
Nice. I like the painted handles. If you want an inexpensive interior mod, you can get the SRT driver's handle with the gauge pod. I added a tranny gauge with similar lettering, background color, and lighting. It looks like a factory installation. Again, not bad for a Hemi. ;)
 
NC_Mog said:
Nice. I like the painted handles. If you want an inexpensive interior mod, you can get the SRT driver's handle with the gauge pod. I added a tranny gauge with similar lettering, background color, and lighting. It looks like a factory installation. Again, not bad for a Hemi. ;)
Click to expand...

I had an '02 with the 5.9L. Supercharged it, along with a LOT of other work.

baseline dyno of 208RWHP/290RWTQ...sold it 18 months later with a best of 413RWHP/486RWTQ. I had Autometer Air/Fuel and Vac/Boost on a gauge pod...really liked it. Looked very factory...

I'll have to see if I can dig up some pics...

Greg
 
Tacoma747 said:
I like the de-badging and painted handles. Makes me wonder if that would look good on my F-250. Doubt I want to take the time to do it, but I hate the little black streaks that drain off the badges...
Did you just use a heat gun to remove the badges?
Click to expand...


nope...never used heat on any of the three of my vehicles I've done it to...

I find heat just makes everything gummy...the easiest one I ever did was in the middle of winter, when everything just peeled off...

you can run a razor blade or fishing line between the badges and the body, then just work on removing the double-sided tape that's left...

plenty of products on the market to melt the adhesive...

only concern is if you will have holes behind the badges...I know my two Dodges didn't, neither did the Honda...but I think either Ford or Chevy have them...

Greg
 
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