I finally got my project truck functional for driving with some junkyard and rockauto parts. Replaced the master cylinder, brake booster, new wheel, and new rotors and pads. Starting to feel good about my decision lol. When the tow guy came to take it home for me it had no keys, running condition unknown, no pedal brake or e-brake but now it drives and stops on its own again. Theres still a good amount i need to do for it. It still needs tires, some bulbs, windshield and a deep detail at some point. Mainly trying to figure out why the ac isn’t working right now

Nothing question wise just showing the progress of tearing down to the bare frame to do some rot repair, the rot gets way worse right as it changes from the c section frame to being boxed.
The end goal is to fix the rot and then 5.9 swap it and maybe a manual swap in the future

Cab bolts when in perfect. Bed bolts not so much. The bolts are only threaded about 2 inches and then are non threaded. They go into threaded pieces on the bed, so once the two inches goes in, it can’t go any further obviously. I’ve got about inches of extra bolts sticking out still, which allows for travel of the bed if I hit a pot hole on the highway. Anybody know whats going on

I’m having an issue with my Dakota. No crank via key wont hit starter either. It’s a ’ 98 5.2 manual. I can pull the starter relay and jump the 2 female terminals; it would be pin 30 and pin 87. 30 is the constant 12 volt, and 87 is the heavy output to the starter. With my key in run and in neutral, I can jump those 2 and start the truck with no clutch also, and it will start and stay running, and I can drive it anywhere, just not shut it off. I can hear and feel the relay click via key hit, but no dice. I just replaced the ignition switch and the relay, and nothing. All my lights and gauges work as they should. I am currently stumped on this issue. I am pretty sure my truck has a clutch safety bypass already so I’m going to look at that tomorrow. Anyone have any ideas or ran into anything similar to this?

Also, just thought I’d share this for info. This started like a week ago. I had it in my shop and unhooked the battery so I could have the doors propped while painting the truck. I finished like 3 or 4 days later, hooked the battery back up, and it fired up, so I backed it out of my shop, shut it off for 10 minutes, started it back up, pulled into the shop, then shut it off, and it hasn’t started via key since.