At least 300 salaried Delphi retirees from across Ohio and Indiana rallied in Dayton Thursday, seizing on what they see as new momentum in their three-year fight to have their full pensions restored.

With a federal lawsuit pending, congressional and legal probes underway and growing public awareness, retirees believe victory is within reach.

“We’re going to win this thing,” Washington Twp. resident Tom Rose told fellow retirees from the bed of a Ford pickup truck in the weed-littered parking lot of a empty former Delphi plant just east of South Upland Avenue.

In July 2009, a then-bankrupt Delphi surrendered its pension obligations to the federally backed Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., resulting in pension payments that were 30 to 70 percent lower than the retirees expected. Months earlier, the company also cut health and life insurance benefits for salaried retirees.

Nationally, about 21,000 Delphi salaried workers and retirees were affected by the cuts, including about 700 who live in the Dayton area.

Pensions for retirees represented by the United Auto Workers were protected. Salaried retirees say their hourly counterparts earned their pensions, but so did they. And the salaried retirees say the process that allowed a reconstituted, post-bankruptcy General Motors to “top off” UAW pensions was illegal and wrong. They believe the Treasury Department and the former federal Automotive Task Force decided who would and would not enjoy their full pensions.

“President Obama decided to let his henchmen exclude from justice those who weren’t politically connected to him,” said Washington Twp. resident Mary Miller.

The Obama administration has said it played no part in the decision to cut the retirees’ pensions.

Rose, who lost 40 percent of his pension, said his fellow retirees are seeing a “significant change of attitude” by the U.S. Treasury Department. Rose said there will be announcements on that change in “a couple of weeks,” but he declined to elaborate Thursday.

The retirees are encouraged that the PBGC is turning over documents in the discovery process of a federal lawsuit they filed against the PBGC in federal court in Detroit. They expected a new tranche of documents due Thursday to U.S. Rep. Dave Camp, chairman of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee.

In 2010, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program and the Government Accountability Office agreed to look into why only salaried pensions were cut while UAW pensions were bolstered by GM. Speakers at the rally reminded listeners that the inspector — dubbed “SIGTARP” — wrote U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, and other congressmen in May 2012 saying he believed that the former Automotive Task Force — which guided the Obama administration on decisions regarding the U.S. auto industry — did play a role in deciding how pensions were dealt with.

Shortly after the rally, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said he will introduce a bill that would restore the retirees’ pensions.

Brown’s bill would move proceeds from the sale of government-owned GM stock to a U.S. Treasury fund to supplement pension payments to Delphi retirees. Brown believes his bill will not interfere with the retirees’ lawsuit.

Bruce Gump, a Warren, Ohio resident, said the retirees’ goal was not simply to win in court, which he said the retirees’ attorneys believe they can do. A court victory would simply lead to an appeal by the PBGC, and a new chapter in an already too-lengthy legal process, he said.

“The right answer for everybody is to settle — just settle,” Gump said.

Let Freedom Ring, which describes itself as a non-profit, non-partisan organization, this week announced a $7 million online advertising campaign in support of the retirees. The ads have been purchased to run online from Oct. 22 to Nov. 6 in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, the organization said.