Viewer Ride: This 12 Valve Cummins Is Hiding Something Inside!

Here's how you combine a reliable old powertrain with modern comfort.

12-valve Cummins trucks may be getting old, but they still carry a cult following. Thanks to features like a Bosch P7100 mechanical fuel pump and a gear driven camshaft they tend to be reliable trucks even at high mileage. Paired to an NV4500 manual transmission like the truck pictured here, they’re even more dependable.

The interior, however, was never this truck’s high point. Though it may have been good back in 1994, it does little for most truck buyers today. (That being said I still love my own 12 valve‘s interior.) One of our viewers, Michael, put in the work to improve the interior on his truck in a couple of key ways.

Check out the whole story below in Michael’s own words.

Hi guys,

First off, thanks for all the great content as I really find it a lot of fun to follow y’all…

And thank you for the interest in my truck. In brief, I mentioned what I was doing in passing because I thought others might find it interesting/new information that some pretty modern tech was actually able to be retrofit into older trucks – and work well!

The backstory is this: I’ve driven a truck most of my adult life and like to do/need to do truck things with it. Largely, it was an older truck that I bought new and kept for a long while. I decided about 2 years ago to buy a brand-new truck. (Very similar to your RAM that you’re building into an overlander). The only problems were that I was mortified of scratching it. As soon as it stopped being “new” (i.e. the next best things were coming along), it really seemed to lose it “specialness”. Which BTW it is insane how short of an interval this is now. Cars and trucks really are more like computers now in this regard!

Therefore, being a lover of old trucks for a myriad of reasons, I decided that instead of paying a TON of money in payments for a truck I wasn’t in love with, I would buy a bucket list old-truck that would always be special to me no matter how long I had it, and no matter what the next best thing on the horizon was…

The idea then became to try and customize that truck to suit my needs and preferences. Including with the modern tech items I specifically wanted (without any of the random stuff I didn’t). After some research, I found it was possible to add quite a bit of modern tech. I’m actually quite happy with how it’s turned out. And what’s wonderful (to me at least), is that I can change that tech over time as it evolves. The “platform” can always be my super solid, super simple older powertrain.

Here are the specifics:

The truck is a 1996 Dodge Ram 2500. Club cab long bed. 5.9 12-valve Cummins 6BT. Manual transmission NV4500. Bought it with 101K miles; has 114K today.

Only thing left to brief on is what I found there weren’t great solutions for… First thing was parking sensors. According to the very reputable shop I worked with (they did the receiver, cameras, crash warning, and remote start for me — I did the rest on my own), there isn’t a great solution for aftermarket parking sensors that work well in metal bumpers. I have no idea how valid this is, but that’s at least what they told me that kept me from trying some.”

They did a great job overall, and seemed VERY knowledgeable. I’m at least taking their word for it (AMS in Madison, WI). Second was blind spot indication. The same shop told me that these aftermarket products also don’t work great in metal bumpers. Unless you can find one that replaces a taillight housing (which there didn’t seem to be one for my truck they had experience with), you’re better off not going down that road either.hanks again for the opportunity to present this story to y’all. I hope at least some of it has been an interesting read. I’m sure some purists will see this as adulteration of an old truck’s simplicity/more stuff to break. For me it makes it a more functional/pleasant daily driver ride. It’s also something that makes me happy that I’m in more than 20K less (after all of the above and more) than a new truck. ☺