Super Dually Part 1

Today. It's our third new project of the season will start the process of taking a modern Dodge cummins turbo diesel chassis and adding a classic 19 seventies for four door crew c

body to it for a modern tow rig with a vintage look. It's all today here on trucks.

Hey, welcome to trucks.

Well, I know that you guys have seen this tow rig before. This super duty has been used to pull around power block project vehicles for the better part of the last decade. Yeah, and this thing is taking us everywhere and gets worked pretty hard and frankly gets a little bit abused, gets used by Ian and Chris, the muscle car guys and Mike and Joe

and it's been a good truck, frankly seen better days.

Now this Triton V 10 makes good power, but by no means, is it a gas saver when pulling our open trailer? It does. All right. So when we hook to our end close and hit a few steep grades, well, we could use a little more torque

Tommy's right.

So we thought it was about time for a brand new tow rig and like you guys already know, for the ultimate in pulling power and long life. Well, you want a diesel rig. So that's what we're looking for today, but we're gonna do it with a little bit of style and on a budget.

So we made our way back to our friend Monty Lloyd's collection of classic Ford work trucks.

And if you remember he's the guy that supplied us with the body and frame for dust Gron.

And sure enough, Marty had exactly what we were looking for. This F 350 XL T Ranger four door cab with a short bed sitting on the long bed frame.

Now, it had faded paint and a little bit of surface rust, but this body was in solid condition, which is kind of rare for these trucks since they were used for work trucks.

Now, what minor detail, it didn't have an engine, but that's ok because this was a gas burner and we want a diesel. All the other systems were in fine shape

Southern truck.

Now, even the interior, although smelling a tad musty was in pretty good shape with everything there. Well, almost

and this four door cab is gonna be great for long trips where we go find other trucks, projects,

supports in good shape. The battery box isn't rusty.

Is there anything else in there?

Just mulch,

just mulch.

Next, we wanted to double check our research.

We've got about 100 and 10, 100 and 10.5

1 10.5,

we leave a couple inch gap for clearance,

1 54.5 ish right to the center of the hub.

Cool. Remember that? Yeah.

Now we are really seeing some potential with this carcass because you gotta realize this rust. Well, it's only on the surface. This is the original paint. This is a really solid foundation to start on. Now we know it's gonna be a bunch of hard work, but the fact that we found a mid seventies crew cab. Well, it should make a really unique tow rig.

Now, we know a lot of you guys out there are stuffing later model diesels down into these older trucks and we're gonna do something along those lines, but with a slight twist. So

we got one more stop to make.

So we have made our way down to certified auto recycling in Ardmore, Alabama. And if you remember the door that we put on the second chance Silverado, it came from Certified as well. Look, there's another one and today we're going to recycle a diesel drive train into our new tow rig.

Certified auto recycling has in stock. Almost every single part you could imagine for just about any late model vehicle on the road today.

Their sales staff knows their parts and as well as local deliveries, they also ship internationally.

We get a lot of customers that wanna save money

and use a used part uh on their vehicle because then a new one doesn't have to be produced that saves energy and it saves the customer a lot of money

in case you wonder who are all those parts come from. Well, they started out as complete vehicles that were total losses bought from an insurance company. Auction.

Each vehicle is methodically and carefully dismantled piece by piece.

As much as 90% of these vehicles are recycled.

And trust me, they don't sit around long. They become parts for your vehicle quick.

Now, these guys have hundreds and hundreds of clean and complete late model engines, foreign and domestic. And we've seen

Duramax and Cummins and power stroke diesels as well as almost any gas engine you can think of. Take a look at this 24 valve cummins we thought about going with some like this things clean, ready to crate and ship. It looks practically brand new. And when certified dismantles the vehicle, they take a lot of care with the multi

pin plugs and you start tearing stuff apart. They even cap the inlets and outlets of the water pump, the turbo and the oil lines. And that way when it ships nothing gets inside your engine.

Now, just like engines. These guys have transmissions in any flavor you want, front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, manual or automatic two or four wheel drive.

Take a look at this one. This is something similar to what we want to use. A heavy duty manual transmission for our new tow rig.

Now, even though these vehicles don't sit around very long, certified's inventory is updated on a daily basis with a wide variety of both foreign and domestic vehicles.

As a matter of fact, while we were there, a whole new shipment of trucks was arriving.

So we did some snooping around and waded through the sea of vehicles waiting to be dismantled. We found something that really caught our eye.

It's not this thing.

Well, it did catch our eye. It's just not what we're after

now, believe it or not, this 97 2500 series three quarter ton just came in off the truck. Nothing on it has been processed and everything that we saw that we liked on the inside. Well, it's all right here on one truck

and with this truck being a 97 that means it's got the old school 12 valve cummins. So that means it's got the mechanical injection set up, but with less electronics to deal with. Well, the swap is less complicated and a little bit more budget friendly. Now, these 12 valves or they make great power right out of the box, but they can easily be modified for more. Now, the radiator and the ac condenser all look to be in great shape. I think we got a good candidate here.

Now. This right here, this is why this truck totaled. There's some pretty serious sheet metal damage and 100 and 57,000 miles, which is nothing for this drive train. It's just getting broke in, but right here we've got severe suspension damage to the wheels stuffed into the cab, but it's still perfect for what we want for.

And we want to make a point right here and now the certified does not sell complete vehicles. They have been in the rules big time for us so we can take this back home as a unit and show you how much time and money that certified auto recycling can save you by dismantling right here on site

up next. We'll start tearing our trucks apart and later

with the body separated from the rest of the frame. Yo, yo, yo, I think we're at the point of no return. We'll get a truck on the new

truck.

Oh, wow.

Stay tuned.

Hey, welcome back to trucks when we drove our treasure back here to the shop and we can't wait to get started on our new project. And like we talked about before, there's plenty of guys that are putting the cummins turbo diesel into a Ford truck, old or new.

And we had decided right from the start that we wanted a diesel drive train in our tow rig just for the reliability of it as well as the extra foot pounds of torque. But like we told you guys, we wanted to do something a little bit different and it's an idea, I'm sure a lot of you guys have had it one time or another, taking a vintage body, plopping it down on a later model chassis. Let's face it. This 97 Dodge was benefited from 20 plus years of technology. In comparison to that old Ford, it's got a partially boxed frame, a good strong drive train as well as modern suspension and brakes, not to mention the aftermarket support in the form of upgrades.

So we thought we'd head down that road and see what it takes to drop that classic Ford body down on a newer Dodge frame. Now, like you guys already know every solid project starts with a good plan and a little bit of research tells us that this long bed extended cab dodge is 100 and 54 3 quarter inch wheel base. Now the club cab short bed Ford is 100 and 55 inches. They're almost identical and that is gonna make this body swap even easier.

Yeah, because we're gonna have enough work just to get everything in the cab functioning.

But by matching up the wheelbase, well, at least we don't have to deal with shortening or lengthening the frame, drive shaft, exhaust system, wiring harness or fuel lines and that will minimize the amount of time it takes to get this project up and running.

Our F 350 body is a 1979 the same year as Dus

Bronco,

but

that doesn't mean that you're stuck with this front end styling because the fact is these fenders are the same from 1973 right on up to 1979. So you've got lots of options if you wanna restyled the front end of your truck.

Now, despite the fact that our 30 year old Ford is a little rusty. We have no real issues with disassembling.

Now, we weren't just hacking things up to speed up the tear down process because we weren't sure what parts we were gonna need of either body or either chassis.

Now, even though it's just the cab left, it is still plenty heavy and you need to be careful with your left arm or jack placement,

so you don't bend anything or lose a toe.

Now, with the right front wheel being stuffed into the cab, we kind of had our suspicions about maybe a slight bit of frame damage. But despite all of that, this truck runs great and pulled itself under the lift. No problem.

Now, disassembling our dodge was a little bit easier because it's 20 years newer.

The removal of the bed was pretty straightforward

and we're also gonna reuse our diesel fuel lines because that is gonna save us money down the road.

At this point. We're not sure how much of the original Dodge wiring artist we're gonna keep.

So we're disconnecting

instead of cutting

up next, it's the right way to evacuate your ac system. And later we'll show you what our cool new tow rig is gonna look like stick around.

Welcome back to the shop.

We're tearing down a wrecked dodge diesel and we got to deal with the AC system before we go any further. That requires some specialized equipment. We just don't have

now since we obviously couldn't drive our wreck truck to the service center. Jason Sanders from our local Ford dealer was kind enough to bring his reclaimer by and properly evacuate the 134 a refrigerant from our truck system since we've got to separate the cab from the rest of the drive train. And believe me, an hour's worth of labor, it's definitely worth what that costs to properly do this. So not just release it into the atmosphere that way the Penguins, they stay cold.

The system is hooked up to the high and low side service valves. Then the refrigerant is withdrawn from our system filtered and placed into a storage tank. That way it can be recycled later on into another vehicle

build on a budget truck projects that save you time and money.

Now, obviously, we've got a pretty big job ahead of us with our tow rig body swap project. And we have noticed that with our cummins turbo diesel engine. Well, every time we leave it sitting in one certain spot for any amount of time, it kind of marks the floor. Now, what's leaking is the rear main seal. But with all the work that we still need to do in this project. We're gonna have to postpone to getting that fixed.

Now, the seal itself, it's not gonna cost you that much, but the 6 to 8 hours that it's gonna take to replace that seal. Well, that's what's gonna bite you. So, if you've got a similar leak in your vehicle and you don't have that 6 to 8 hours or you don't have that several $100 that a shop is going to charge you to replace that seal. Well, here's an option.

Now,

all know bars leaks for stopping radiator leaks, but now they make this additive that will condition seals and according to them will stop a rear main seal from seeping. It's designed to be used with all types of seals including rope, two piece and one piece seals and bars leak says it works by simply adding it every time you change your oil.

When it comes in contact with the seal, it expands it, restoring its sealing capability. It's non foaming, non

corrosive and non clogging and compatible with every different oil type including synthetic. So depending on your oil leak, rear main seal repair may just be the easiest and most cost effective seal repair available.

All right,

this is ridiculous.

We dropped bills on them.

Hey, welcome back to trucks. Now with the body separated from the rest of the frame. Yo, yo, yo, I think we're at the point of no return. We get a truck on the new

truck.

We are officially the whitest people on the planet.

I

always wanted to do that with a fish eye lens though.

Family. Now

we

blond

to see that.

You thought I couldn't stand my brain. That's a huge loss. They wish

they

green.

I'm floating

the whole

all right now, back to reality and quick now we wanted to take a minute and show you guys what we had envisioned in our minds. When we dreamed up this project, we wanna take our 97 Dodge chassis

at

our Ford short bed,

the cool looking four door crew cab and

top it off with that classic for

front end

and of course,

bathe it in a slick coat of paint, but keep the factory two tone that we think looks pretty good on the truck. Maybe change it to a blue and white.

And since it's a two wheel drive, I lower it down a little bit.

Now, that was easy enough. But

now you actually have to do the work might be a little easier with a 20 pounds of bling. I

think so. I think it's time to go.

Hey, if you're looking for some extra range out of your late model truck, well, check this out. This is the Titan fuel tank for 99 to 07 Ford F 250

F 350 diesel trucks. This one's their 67 gallon tank. And believe it or not,

this actually fits in the original location.

Titan tanks are made from a super strong cross link polyethylene material that seamless,

which means that there's no weak spots in the molding process. As a matter of fact, these tanks are five times as strong as the original equipment tanks, polyethylene material won't corrode. So it's compatible with biodiesel and ethanol. The US department of defense uses the same process to manufacture fuel tanks for combat ready vehicles. So strength is not an issue and just in case you thought it was going to be too heavy. Well, look at this

titan tanks are available for just about any truck out there.

Now, you may have noticed that behind that big Cummins turbo diesel is a five speed, believe it or not, the five speed version of this truck is actually rated at 35 more horsepower and 20 more pound feet of torque. So the five speed is staying, we think it's going to be a little more durable for towing too.

But the NV 4500 series transmission has some fifth gear issues and we'll address that later on

and we're not scrapping the rest of this cab, either these seats, they're comfortable and there's nothing wrong with them. Center console is nice too. We're gonna use the gauge pod for engine communication and who knows, we might even try to stuff this whole dash in our vintage Ford truck because this truck came with something, our Ford truck never did. And that

is good cup holders.

Now, if you've got any questions about this thing or anything else you saw on today's show, go to Power Block tv.com. Hey guys, thanks for watching trucks. See you next week.