And vacation is OVER!

 Well, my vacation from work is over, but I got a LOT of the last items on the Dakota finished.

We pulled the full 40/20/20 bucket seat out so I could go over the passenger seat, make sure the factory seat upholstery was all secure, and then figure out what is up with the jump seat/console area



On the drivers seat, we noticed that the outside edge was still pretty pushed down, so I added an inch of high density upholstery foam to bring it back up. Once this was done, we reconnected all the cover attachment points, and it looks as good as new.

On the center console, I found that the previous owner had attempted to remove the console, and cut the back of the seat cover and had loosened a bunch of bolts. I retightened everything up, and then created an upholstery patch from a doubled up layer of black burlap and attached this with spray adhesive.




We reassembled the seat, and put it back in after a good vacuuming. The seats are about as good as new as I can get them. They are clean, comfortable, and look nice.

I went to fire up the Dak, and it just got the dreaded single click, and all accessories were still on. So we either had a sub-par battery or a bad starter.....Or both.



It was both. The battery was dated from 2020, and would only take a 60% charge. The starter was factory, so off to Autozone for new battery and starter. In all, I got to show the kid how to "bench" test a starter, both good and bad, and it took all of an hour, including driving to get the part, to get both those areas addressed.

Now that the truck could be started again, he and I got to work on pulling the "floating" head unit, as we were needing to look at the vacuum lines on the HVAC controls. I got good vacuum on all of those, so the control module is bad. I can get a new one for $500 or get a junkyard part for $50. We will get one from an online junkyard as they offer tested known good working parts.

It was a lot of work to put a double din head unit into this truck, but the Metra kit made it simple process. Mark it up, cut out the extra plastic, wire it, install it and it looks nice and clean! As this is an older vehicle with only a single 12v accessory plug, I installed a 12v accessory bar with voltmeter, dual USB plugs and additional 12v accessory port. These were wired to battery hot along with the stereo wiring and switched power along with the radio. 

More to come tomorrow when I get updated pics of the last of the exterior updates we have done:

Bug/rock shield

Splash Guards

Bedrail caps 

After this, we are done, just awaiting transmission shop appointment to address the 3-4 shift, downshift and reverse lights issue.

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