1982 Dodge Rampage

Dodge

Rampage

1982

0

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Mods

Massive Weight Reduction

Custom rewiring job by professional mice

Cupholder from an 89 Omni

Maybe a usb port or something

New radio to replace mouse piss soaked old radio

Build story

I'm an individual of taste and style - so when old reliable threw a CEL, I decided to do the right thing and bought a 40 year old project while elbow deep fixing a timing chain.

I'm one of those people that picks up trash on the side of the highway and turns it into stuff, and my head is as hard and rough as an uncut diamond, so I needed a ride that really told people what I was about before they met me. That way they can flee the scene before I walk in the door for that job interview.

This was parked five years ago after the transmission linkage broke – which for those wondering at home, that linkage is the same as the wiper linkage and was fixed for $7. The previous owner was lodged in the dash above the glove box and fell out completely petrified in a nest of mouse turds. The owner before that used it as a little Sunday car to go golfing in.

When I first saw it in person, two states over, thirty generations of mice had moved in, out, rearranged the furniture to their liking, and eaten every wire. It was sat under a lean-to for about five years facing a field, so it was covered in that government control gas they spray on the corn in the Midwest. It would probably be better off shipped to a collector with a large amount of money and nothing to spend it on.

So of course I winched it onto my trailer and took it home.

This mouse motel smelled so bad you couldn't stand 6 feet from it, doors closed. People were breaking out in hives just touching it, as if an Egyptian plague had been dropped in the driveway. But the engine is there, the bed is galvanized, and the frame is just a little scaly. Also, there's no floor, no electric, a leaking sunroof, dead mice falling out of every crack and crevice, the door handles are broken, the rear bumper ain't right, the bed won't open and fills up like a swimming pool, and I make $10 an hour teaching ingrates how to draw so this project is moving at breakneck speeds.

Does it run? No idea.

Is it fixable? Yes.

Did the decayed mouse dust give me a sinus infection? Also yes.

Do I have the petrified mouse corpse of the previous owner in borax to cast in resin and hang from the rearview like some disturbing tribute to this rig? Oh yeah.

I call this beautiful time warp the Mousoleum, and maybe someday it won’t smell faintly of mice.

If you want to watch it suffer under my misled DIY:

https://www.tiktok.com/@reckedrampage/video/6939520787657346310?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v2

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