Dodge D150 Goes South

Hi guys,

I recently purchased a 1984 Dodge D150 out of Arizona. I had been looking for one of these for quite some time, over a year on and off. Originally, I had my heart set on a mid-70’s D100 but all that I saw were either too expensive or quite rusted. Plus, I wanted a stepside, which kind of limited the pool of what was available.

I ended up settling on the ’84 as mentioned. It was far from mint condition but seemed to have potential. The owner told me it had been repainted and was previously painted grey (now powder blue). I forgot to mention, I live in a rural town in Australia, about 2 hours north of Sydney so I was doing everything remotely. The truck was located in Tucson, so I did a bit of a search of people I knew in Arizona, which was very few but I did know a guy in Mesa who was happy to help out. I purchased the truck in January and had it stored at a friend’s place for a couple of months till I had a few repairs done. I had to ensure there were no components containing asbestos before I shipped it, so off to the local brake station it went for a pad and shoe slap.

Eventually, in April, I organised for a shipper to come pick it up and transport it to Long Beach for loading onto a container ship. It finally arrived in Brisbane on the 5th of June and I had it floated to home on Friday the 7th of June.

I got it sitting in the driveway now and considering what to do next. Turns out it’s in a little poorer condition than I first imagined, as is often the case. So, I will be doing some restoration work over the next year or so. Luckily, being in Arizona all its life, there is very little rust so that’s one big bonus.

Anyway, lots of work ahead for me. Hate to say I do have a bad habit of starting projects but not quite finishing them so I hope I can keep focused on this one.