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Vehicle Description
THE DALI-RAMA: A 1990 DIESEL DODGE POWER RAM 250 3/4 TON 4x4 PICKUP
with a 5.9L 6 cyl. Cummins turbo diesel engine, an
A747 automatic transmission, cruise Control,
tilt wheel, and tow package!
Hello Folks: This is an awesome rig, already equipped to haul a fifth wheel! The drivetrain is sweet--running as solidly as it always does, with no leaks at all, engine or transmission.
We are the second owners of this awesome rig. We purchased the Dali Rama at the dealership in Newport, two years ago, when we had first caught the biodiesel fever--however, I have never filled the Dali Rama with biodiesel: I wanted to make my own in modest quantities of 300gallons/week, with the "fool proof method," hopefully reducing cost to 55/gallon. However, it has been two years and I still don't have my reactors complete. And we have sold one of our horses, and will probably sell the others, so we no longer need a 3/4 ton truck to haul horses around with. In these tough times, our 75 chevy luv can still haul the firewood. So it is with regret, that we offer up the Dali Rama to a fine new home.
THE DALI RAMA!!! We live 45 minutes from the nearest fuel stations (either Alsea, or Waldport), way up towards the end of Five Rivers, and though if you call ahead, you are welcome to visit for a test drive, we are going to try our best to give you a thorough photo tour and walk- around, since we live so remotely.
If you keep going past our house, eventually you lose pavement and end up in a maze of logging roads where TIRES are important, so the Dali Rama has awesome COOPER DISCOVERER traction tires with the anti-chip option (all four together were over $1K, and they are half-way used up). If you haven't tried Cooper tires, you won't know the difference, but I have never had to change a flat on the Dali Rama, even regularly driving a logging road that the neighbor calls "flat tire ridge":) It has a spair under the bed, and tools to lower it clip into the engine compartment.
BODY
Although the drivetrain is solid, there are a few cosmetic blemishes and dings that should be reported. In fact, the body is only in fair condition--by no means is this a shiny foo foo rig: the minor wear and tear marks are too numerous to list, but we will mention the areas that prevent it from being in the awesome and pristine body category for its year:
The worst is that the paint has thinned on the sides of the bed. Even though we never successfully made biodiesel, we did begin to collect waste oil from restaurants,
and transported it in 55gal drums in the back of the truck... all was good until winter, when the waste vegetable oil thickened into crisco, and wouldn't transfer through our pump; so we started transferring it by hand, which was a messy process, and the spilt vegetable oil actually thinned the paint on the sides and bottom of the bed--not too badly, but worth mentioning. Oops: eventually I bumped a dumptruck into the tank holding my 300 gallons of collected frenchfry grease, causing a rupture, subsequent loss of oil, and demise of my biodiesel fever.
Tailgate is still functional: you have to hold the handle in when closing it is all.
The tailgate was already bent. The original owners equipped it for a fifth wheel, and I don't know much about fifth wheels, but apparently if you don't disconnect something and try and take off too soon, it bends the tailgate, and this is common amongst fifth wheel owners.
There maybe more to towing a fifth wheel than I know about, so when I say it is equipped, I mean it has these two railroad looking things mounted in the bed,
and it has a heavy duty tow bar with multiple types of electrical hook-ups.
INTERIOR
After 18 years of service, the interior is still in farily good condition! The worst is a small hole in the boot around the 4wd shift lever: some folks might go to a junkyard and find a used boot, some might actually pay the dealer for a new one, but it looks like something some wide black tape would cover up fairly easy, and I will leave this minor detail to the new owner. Here are some pics of the interior:
We like music, and drowning out the sound of the diesel engine and the sound of air-rushing around the triangle windows, requires good speakers: two pioneers in the rear, and two premium (we think they were called Boost) speakers in the door. The original 1990 radio didn't even have cd or cassette so we removed it, and replaced it with a sony radio/cdplayer that is equipped with ipod (aux) plug in the front, and is also equipped for sattellite radio, though we didn't use that feature--nor it's remote control. The new radio with more features takes up way less space though, and so we filled the extra space of the radio cavity with custom cut foam--we believe that the cushioniness of the foam takes a little of the shock in the bumps and helps prevent the cd-player from skipping, but it does leave a little whitefoam visible around the radio, since we didn't have any fake wood to match the original, and the ground cable needs to be tucked in (that is what the wire dangling beneath the radio in the photo is). The polycasing to the fusebox has a crack in it and so it sometimes vibrates loose, and has to be reclipped.
There is a minor inconvenience with the sound system: about six weeks ago, it began intermittant volume changing... not sure why, but we bought the radio at Best Buy, about two years ago, and paid a little extra for a four-year service warranty... so it is still covered! We just haven't had time to go to Best Buy during the past six weeks. Perhaps Best Buy is a good place to meet to turn over possession of the Dali Rama to its new owner--if Best Buy doesn't honor their warranty for whatever reason (we don't know, we're not lawyers), then we'll just replace the head unit there. This truck is being sold as having an awesome working sound system! (Nobody should be without tunes:)
The windshield wipers were on our todo list. In addition to needing new blades, when you turn the wipers off, the wiper arms come to rest too high up on the windshield--not totally blocking drivers view--but enough to want to fix it.
Also on our todo list was the repair of the high beam indicator light. Although the high beams work just fine, the blue light that indicates when they are in use doesn't come on. This doesn't bother us too much in the country, where we can tell the difference between highs and dims, but it does require added awareness in the city to prevent highbeaming folks.
And that about covers the cosemetics of the body and interior, as well as the electronics. For an 18 year old truck there is bound to be some wear and tear, but other than what we have described above, the rest of the truck is praiseworthy.
The cruise control is aftermarket, and was installed by the orginal owners, but it sure keeps us from speeding too fast through the speed traps:)
A mechanic friend of ours who knows way more about trucks than we do praises the front-end suspension and says the suspension alone is worth $2k...
ENGINE
The engine is in great condition. We learned a little about it while we owned it. Everyone knows that it is supposed to be a nightmare if you run a diesel out of fuel. It is only a nightmare if you don't know what to do. It happened to us, and we had to figure it out, so we'll save you the headaches by showing you how easy it is here.
If you do happen to run out of fuel, you just refill the tank, and then bleed the air out of the lines: a small valve sticks out of the bottom of the white fuel filter, and if you push this valve up, while operating the thumb lever on the lift pump, it evacuates any air in the line between the tank and this valve.
With this knowledge sorely gained and freely shared, we never worried about running out of fuel since--and we haven't:)
The engine is the original series, "old school" 5.9L Cummins Turbo Diesel. We had it inspected on our test drive by the Auto Doctors in Newport, and it checked out--it got inspected again by Cummins NW,in Coberg, because I thought the oil pressure read towards the high side, but it checked out with their gauges--the dashboard ammeter's needle wavers, but PM Automotive's gauges didn't waver when they inspected the electrical system. In both cases we spent $70 to get told we had an awesome rig:)
The battery is new as of January, 2008. Apparently, lots of folks equip these with a second battery.
There is a regulator of some sort to connect a second battery to, however, Dali Rama only had one battery in it when we bought it, and one has been all we have needed, even through winter. If you live at higher elevations where the cold is more extreme, there is an ac plug that you can plug into your house to keep the engine warm through the night:)
Overall, the Dali Rama is an awesome rig, ready to haul. You don't see many of these for sale in the Northwest because people LOVE them, and we are very dissappointed that circumstances forces us to have to part. Please only bid if you promise to take the very best care: after all, it even still has the silver ram's head on the hood!
HAPPILY BID WITH CONFIDENCE: WE HAVE 100% POSITIVE FEEDBACK -- one of our transactions was even an Ebay Motors transaction, when we sold a prior awesome rig. You are protected to up to $50,000 (Learn How), so feel protected and bid $50K!
TERMS
PAYMENT: If you use BUY IT NOW and make the PayPal Deposit, you may pay the remaining balance with check or money order prior to delivery, or in cash upon delivery. If you do not use BUY IT NOW, then please send check or money order within 3 days of auction close... cash is not accepted without prior paypal deposit.
DELIVERY: WE WILL DELIVER THIS AWESOME RIG UP TO 111 MILES FOR FREE: use maps.google.com to get directions between your zipcode and our zipcode (97390), and if you are within 111 miles we will deliver to you for FREE. If you live within 888 miles, we will still deliver to you, however we will charge $2/mile, with the first 111 miles for free. If you live over 888 miles, you will have to make your own transport / shipping arrangements.
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Legal Disclaimer: We are not professionally trained as mechanics and though we have described the condition of the vehicle to the best of our ability, it is sold as is, with no warranty or guarantee, other than the remaining coverage on it's existing warranties: couple more years on the radio, and four more months on the transmission (there used to be a transmisson leak, last year, and this was repaired at AAMCO of Newport, on Jan. 19, 2008, and they guarantee their work for 1 year--so far, we haven't needed their guarantee, and we doubt you will either, as they do great work, and the Dali Rama has been running like a champ since!) We have kept all service receipts, which the new owner will find in the glove box, along with the owners manual. Teepee not included:)
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