Ram truck SLT to SRT in 329 easy steps!

[Kern Dog]

This project moves slower than road construction.
You know what I mean....why is it that the repaving, widening and other road projects always seem to go on forever?
I worked framing construction for 36 years. We had deadlines to meet but these road crews seem to have delays, shutdowns and who knows what else.
Back on point....
A couple months back, I saw an SRT 10 in the wild....

The paint was rough from sitting outside all the time. I snapped some shots just to have to use for aligning the cladding panels on my own truck.

 

[Kern Dog]

To recap....
I bought two plain black plastic grill housings and painted them both this Inferno Red color. One will get the red slats, the other will get the chrome-ish slats the stock grille has:

I started mocking up the cladding on the left side to see what I will need to do to make it all fit and look right.

The cladding sits above the crease in the body and actually uses that crease to establish a placement.

I just held it in place with packing tape. All these panels have just 3 thin coats of paint. I need to lay on another 2 coats of paint then the clear. I haven't decided if I'll install them then paint and clear in place or do the paint and clear off the truck.
The left corner piece extends past the body and bumper. Original SRT-10s had a plastic cover that went over the bumper. I didn't want that for two reasons. The SRT-10 had just that single hump for exhaust pipes...

 

[Kern Dog]

Good day. I went to the Dodge dealer for some plastic clips to mount a couple of pieces of this cladding and while they had nothing for the SRT-10 models, the man found that some Jeep Wranglers used similar clips, so I bought those.
I bought some aluminum strips to use as spacers so the rear bumper can me moved off of the body to fit better. See here how the cladding leaves gaps between the bumper and the panels:

I measured 7/8" of gap.

Despite the gap of nearly an inch, I thought I'd first try the 1/2" spacers I made....

This left a gap that I didn't like.

 

[Kern Dog]

I also had some spacers that did measure 7/8"

Here they are installed.

That looks close enough. I like that. The left side though?

It didn't sit flush. something was stopping it from fitting right.

Okay, now with a flash light.

There is a glob of the epoxy glue on the inside that I used to repair the tear that was in this left side corner piece:

It looks like a sloppy job but hey....That stuff really hardened fast! I barely had time to spread the epoxy and get that metal cage in there to hold it all together. I'm going to have to grind down the nubs to get the panel to sit right.

 

[Bighouse]

A friend of my brother bought the standard Cab SRT viper engine/6speed when they came out and I got to take it for a ride. That truck went faster than you could change gears. It was absolutely awesome.

 

[Kern Dog]

If I had the chance today to buy a genuine SRT-10 I’m not sure if I would. Yeah, they would surely be fast but I’ve never cared for the sound of that V-10 engine. Maybe the performance would make me change my mind?

Back on point. I took the corner panel off.

Then took this:

To this;

This corner is so much stronger than it would have been without the steel reinforcement. I hope nobody tries to step on it to get into the truck bed but if they did, it might support a skinny person before deforming.

I only ground down where this panel will touch the bumper

No need to grind away above the bumper. Too much removal could compromise the strength of the bond. It sure fits better now.

Up near the taillight lense, it could be a little tighter. I have to make a support bracket to hold it in tight, a larger version of something like this:

 

[Kern Dog]

The Dodge dealer has no part number for the original brackets that were used there. This is on a junkyard truck:

I can make something like that. Guys with saws, welders and thin wallets can figure ways to do things cheap!

Kidding, of course. I may run by that junkyard and see if they would sell those pieces at a fair price. If not, out of principle, I’ll just make them here.

 

[Kern Dog]

The manager at the truck junkyard has been cool to me. I’ll return tomorrow to get those brackets. These here on the side…

… are actually riveted on. I’ll have to cut the heads off with a grinder. They fit like this:

The rear corners are the only panels that mount without two sided tape. These panels snap into place, they get two screws in the wheel opening and the one next to the bumper and tailgate.

I figured that it made sense to do all this mocking up and fitment before the final paint and clear. If these were finished and I scratched stuff during this trial fitting, I’d have to repair that.

 

[ckessel]

Sometimes brackets and other pieces are not serviced separately. They only come assembled/part of the bigger item. Improvising and DIY rocks!

 

[ZDECKICH]

Looking good so far.

 

[Kern Dog]

After several days of doing other things, I am back to it.
On Friday I did go back to the “junkyard” (Recycle facility for the PC crowd). The man let me grab the brackets I needed.

I was sure to measure the truck at the yard to be able to know the correct placement.

I got some other hardware too.

I decided to use a different front bumper design. My original was a plastic/vinyl top band over the steel chrome bumper. I replaced the chrome bumper in 2011 with a painted steel one to make the front all painted. It looked fine but no matter how good your prep is, 400,000 miles of commuting results in a lot of pain chips in a painted steel bumper.

 

[Kern Dog]

I didn’t like the stock SRT-10 front bumper cover that much. It did have a lower air dam which does add to the racy appearance but since I still use this as a street truck, I didn’t want a low hanging setup.
I once had a 2006 Dodge 1500 that was a SPORT model. Those had a nice front end including a molded one piece bumper cover that fits over the chrome or painted steel bumpers. These are still available new so last summer I bought one. It has been prepped, primed and has 2 coats of paint on it. I figured that I’d mount it up to free up some shop space. This dang thing fits in a 22” x 22” x 7 foot box the size of a casket.

I do still need to finish the paint and clear on it. You can see the color of the bumper is lighter than the truck.

The goal is to make the truck look like a model that could have been a factory option.

 

[Kern Dog]

These trucks have 10 pieces of cladding. 8 of them use two sided tape to attach to the body.

The door piece is the biggest of all and it has 16 feet of tape to scrape off.

The scraper is almost worthless. It can’t be put at a flat enough angle. It keeps wanting to cut into the plastic of the cladding.

The wire wheel does work but you have to be careful to not eat away at the plastic when clearing off the tape.

It took an hour and 15 minutes to do just the door. There is over 50 feet of tape to remove on the 8 panels.

 

[ckessel]

Before you permanently mount the cladding, wipe down the areas receiving tape with alcohol. Removes contaminants, won't bother the paint and leaves no residue. And get 3M or better on the tape.

 

[Kern Dog]

Good idea, Carl. Thank you.

Backing up a bit.....Front bumper:
Originally, this truck looked sort of like this:

I always has chrome slats in the grille but the rest looked the same. It had that painted plastic section on top of the Chrome bumper. I replaced the bumper with one that I painted body color.

Steel isn't as forgiving of road debris as the softer plastic areas.

I always liked the bumper cover that the "Sport" trucks came with:

 

[Kern Dog]

The rear bumper I had was fine, but it was chrome. I wanted the bumper to be body color like the SRT-10s have. They actually have a thin plastic cover that lays over the stock bumper. It looks smooth on top too:

I actually like the plastic cover that all other models have:

The SRT-10 rear bumper only has that one hump on the right side to clear the twin pipes that exit right of center.
Painting a stock bumper maintains the look that I wanted.

Remember, the bumper had to be spaced off the body 7/8" to fill the gaps at the corner cladding:

The same situation applied with the virtually identical painted bumper. It all will fit and look as if it were built this way in St Louis in 2007.

 

[Kern Dog]

The brackets that I got from the wrecking yard on Friday....

These needed a little reshaping. The undersides and edges of the corner cladding sections have those steel pieces embedded in place to reinforce the flexible plastic. This means that the shape of the top flap of these brackets had to be reworked.

I also plan to make another bracket to attach to the outer ears of the bumper. This will be shaped like so in blue:

That will provide additional support.
Yes, I plan to address that ugly scratch too.

 

[ckessel]

Scratch? Thats the least of the problem.

 

[Kern Dog]

Man it is hot here.

July was the hottest month that I can remember. August is usually hotter but this year, it barely cracked 100. Here we are in early September and the heat is back.

I bought some 2 sided tape.

Like everything else, this was expensive. It was almost a buck a foot.
To get a straight line, I temporarily mounted the rear corner…

Then the one furthest forward.

Then put a string line to establish a straight line, then I put tape on at the top edge.

This will ensure that the cladding gets mounted evenly.

 

[Kern Dog]

Using the measurements I took from a wrecked truck at the “Recycle Yard”, I test fitted the bracket and drilled the holes. Drilling into painted petal always makes me nervous.

The top nut was close to a bend in the top tang so I ground a flat spot in the washer.

It fits.

The right side went together the same.

It fits nice and tight.

Oddly, the battery went dead overnight. I didn’t have the lights on. The only thing electrical that I touched was in the rear bumper. The license plate lights and the trailer light plug was unplugged. How the heck could this drain a battery ??