New to the site but not the ram 50

[StarquestMan]

Hi everyone! iv'e owned an 87 Dodge Ram 50 since 2008. I bought it for 300 bucks when i was 14 for a future first truck for high school. however me being very curious to learn how things worked and wanting everything under the hood spotless I ended up pulling the vacuum lines to clean them and never was able to put them back on right and one thing led to another and I ended up chasing problems that shouldn't have been there. things got so confusing that even the head got pulled because we wondered if somehow a hole got burned in one of the pistons but anyway i ended up giving up on the truck for years and it sat until recently when i finally put it back together properly. now its been running alright (seems to have an intermittent fuel starvation issue on acceleration) and i have been slowly been undoing all the damage 14 year old me did to the thing like the hacked wiring work and just putting everything back to stock. heck i even found a nice factory radio/cassette player for it and with some new belts and high quality speakers it doesn't sound bad. i ended up with two factory air conditioners (two different styles) for the thing and will hopefully be able to get one up and running.

[geezer101]

Hi and welcome to mightyram. You created you own learning curve by pulling the truck apart - mind you this is the best way to get to know your truck even if you did screw up along the way. The vacuum lines in these trucks are just as tricky to work on as the Mikuni carb and cause all sorts of chaos if you go in blind or have bought a truck that 'wasn't running right'. Your acceleration flat spot may be due to the carb needing a rebuild. There is an accelerator enrichment pump on the side of the carb (it has a fuel line going in and out of it) - if the diaphragm in it is dead it won't add the shot of fuel it needs for off the mark throttle or option #2 the enrichment jet is blocked. You can see if it's functioning with the engine off by pushing the choke butterfly out of the way with your finger and turning the throttle quickly by hand. If you don't see a small stream of fuel come from the side of the venturi then the accelerator pump has a fault. As with all the noobs, post pics and ask questions! :thumbup: