New Diesel build

[TrueCowboy426]

Have officially started my next build. I've been planning to build up a diesel truck for a few years now just as a fun DD and farm truck. I've always wanted a diesel for what I do, but I can't afford (justify) a decent one without selling one of my toys (most likely the PW) so my next best option is to build what I want. A good friend of mine had this old truck that he had bought a few years ago and I worked for him the past couple days on my holidays, and he gave the truck to me as payment. Not bad for a couple days work, considering the motor is worth $1500. It is a '98 2500, 24V. The body is absolutely rotted away but the rest of the truck is in pretty good shape and it only has 165k miles on it so the motor is in very good shape. I know the trans needs rebuilt and I'm sure there is much more that I will have to upgrade. For the body I have bought another truck (2001 1/2 ton) that the body is rust free that I will put on this chassis once I get it prepped. No plans for power mods yet besides a programmer, but I can't leave anything alone

[Cactus Red]

Great project rig!

5" single exhaust w/ no muffler let's the turbo whine out quite nicely. Uprated turbo, injectors, and a tuner will wake up the motor, and since the tranny needs to be done, might as well make it stout enough to take the extra torque. Should be able to get 600 HP outta that motor.

Sent via gigawatt laser...

[FirerescuePW]

Ooooooooooooo... Extended cab short bed diesel 2nd gen. Near the top of my list for best looking truck. I'll be watching!

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

[06wagon]

P-pump swap!!!! Lol

[TrueCowboy426]

P-pump swap!!!! Lol

When the VP gives up, P-pump is definitely on my mind.... Close to the same cost for a new VP as it is to do the swap.

[cruz]

A Dana 80 in the rear and a 70 for the front, both with air lockers.
And a little bit of Bondo.

[TrueCowboy426]

Got the motor fired up finally and it runs nice with no smoke or oil leaks. Now have the truck tore down to a rolling chassis so I can build up the chassis and drivetrain before I put the other body on it. As bad as the truck looks I have got every bolt out so far without having issues except the 2 lower inner fender bolts. Frame is rusty/scaly but not rotten at all. Looks like I can save it.

[Cactus Red]

Guess that's why AZ vehicles are so popular on the used market...

Sent via gigawatt laser...

[06wagon]

Here's a link to a build that a good friend of mine did.

http://www.competitiondiesel.com/forums ... p?t=162636

[fyrfytr704]

Subscribed and keeping an eye on where this goes. If I ever blow up the hemi in my truck, I am going to be really tempted to swap in a diesel and the truck that you've got would be a perfect candidate for something like that, especially if it still runs and drives fine.

[04Ram2500Hemi]

Subscribing to follow the build.

[TrueCowboy426]

Sorry I haven't been keeping this build updated, but I've gotten a little further on this build. No pictures unfortunately but I will try to get some this weekend when at my farm to work on it. I finished stripping the frame down to a rolling chassis and started to pound some of the rust off it. I used a needle scaler, 4" wire brush cup, and good old 2lb hammer and all told I took off ~4 - 5gal pails of rust off the frame, and ~1/2 a pail off the motor. Everything was extremely crusty from being a plow truck but fortunately almost every bolt came out without breaking off, and once I got the rust beat off, the frame and motor are in really good shape. Now the chassis and motor are painted and everything is almost ready to start assembling again. I think I have almost all the parts/upgrades I want to do to this truck off the get go now here (or soon to be here) so it's getting close. Next I have to get my donor body at my place and start stripping it for paint and the transplant. I'm still torn to what colour to paint it, but I'm leaning towards going a really dark purple. I know some of you will think well that's gay, but I'm pretty sure I can pull it off and have the truck look good. Plus how often do you see a purple truck? And I'm all about being different.

List of parts that I've had to buy so far (Totals about $5000 CAD; so much for a budget build ):
All new brakes (rotors, drums, wheel cyls, calipers, all new lines, parking brake cables)
Shocks all around
New steering shaft
Power Steering pump
Few new injector pump lines (damn these are expensive)
Magnaflow 4" turbo back straight pipe exhaust
Heavy duty trans cooler
Transgo shift kit
Triple gauge (boost, pyro, trans) pillar pod and sensors
Airdog lift pump, fuel filter/air separator
Transgo shift kit
Rev Max trans 47RE rebuild kit (High perf rebuild kit w/ Alto red clutches, billet 2nd gear servo, billet accumalator housing, apply lever, billet band anchor, billet band strut, billet low/reverse servo).

I'm sure there is a bunch of other parts that I am forgetting about, but that is the bulk of the money spent so far. Even with what this has cost, I'm pretty much going to have a fully gone thru low mileage diesel truck for under $8000 CAD when all said and done.

[TrueCowboy426]

Last of the big parts. Transmission rebuild parts came in, courtesy of RevMax Converters

[TrueCowboy426]

Pic of the frame cleaned up and painted. Also got the trans rebuilt (overdrive was tore up), so hopefully tomorrow can put the motor and trans back in the truck

[TrueCowboy426]

Motor back in the truck, and started the reassembly. Exhaust started to mock into place, and new Airdog lift pump in place (still need to route hose's once cab back on). Getting there!!

[TwinStick]

AWESOME BUILD !!!!

[TrueCowboy426]

Got my donor truck home. Won't be long now.

[JBM Power Wagon]

Very nice job on the build! $8000 is not bad at all for what you will end up with.

[TrueCowboy426]

Worked a little bit on the project this last Saturday. Got the rest of my diesel chassis prepped for putting the cab back on it and after lunch I started to tear down the gasser to swap over the cab. Got it tore down and got the cab moved over to my chassis. Now the build it going to go slow again, as I want to prep this cab good and get the jambs/firewall/underbody painted before I get much more of it assembled. Still not too sure on what colour to go, but I think a couple shades darker than the truck below is what I'm going to shoot for.


Gasser tore down to rolling chassis. Now I need 65 Dodge body for it!




Gassers cab on my diesel chassis:

[TrueCowboy426]

Truck is almost done! Run into a little trouble when I pulled the front end apart to put on the new calipers and rotors, in that I the unit bearings were wore enough that I had to replace them. Just more money that I had to spend, but to have a solid truck that I don't have to mess with is worth the little money and time delay that it caused. I also have spent the most part of 3 days trying to track down electrical problems. Originally I left the gasser wiring in the cab of the truck, and just changed the cluster over to the diesel. Well when I fired it back up, I had the idiot lights and tach, but no other gauges worked. I chased every ground and connection that I could (checked every connections for dirty and bent pins) and couldn't find anything. Finally I figured it was because I was using the gasser wiring so I swapped dash's last night (Saturday) and when I got the original diesel dash back in, and had absolutely no gauges. I went from have a tach to now nothing, talk about pissed off!! Finally this morning I went thru grounds again and finally found one of the main harness ground connectors that was high on resistance. Pulled it apart and cleaned the hell out of it and everything is good again.
Don't think I'm going to get the truck painted yet this fall, so the plan is to now just get it put back together and safety check on it and drive it for the winter. Also picked up a decent set of 3rd gen wheels and they really set the truck off. Didn't get any pics of it outside the shop as it was raining/snowing here all weekend.

[2wagons1driveway]

Wow cool looking truck ! I like it!
Your right wheels set it off not to crazy but extra back space looks mint!

Sent from somewhere your not

[ramit99]

Looks good Chris. Nice work.

[TrueCowboy426]

New truck is done (beside the paint job). Took it for the first drive and it is a pretty sweet ride. Will take some getting used to the little lagginess of an automatic diesel compared to my cammed manual PW, but will get up and move pretty good.

[TrueCowboy426]

Short little update on the progress of the diesel build. Truck went thru safety with flying colours and I have been daily driving it for the last couple weeks. Have a few small leaks (pinion seals and a fuel return line seeping) but truck is performing very good. Trans is acting a little funny at times as under heavy throttle or load, it will not shift out of second but I have diagnosed it to a bad governor pressure solenoid and transducer. They are known to go faulty and with the shift kit in the truck, it doesn't know how to handle the extra line pressure. Got the parts coming for that, and hopefully get it fixed up this weekend.

Now for the fun part. This is the first diesel truck that I have ever owned, and the truck while lots powerful enough just felt sluggish compared to the vehicles that I normally drive (cammed PW, big block Dakota), so I had to do something about that when I want to play. I ended up settling on a Edge comp box, as I didn't need the new Juice w/ Attitude as I already have all the gauges required. Got it tonight and installed tonight and holy crap is this thing a weapon now. Levels 1&2 are nice pickups over stock, but everything over that is hang on. I turned it all the way up to level 5 (120 hp and 350 lb-ft) and this thing will flat out haul ass. I haven't gotten into it all the way, but with a couple of light highway pulls I think it will out do all my other trucks for acceleration,and will blow the tires off from a stop as soon as it gets into boost. Boost is getting pretty high when I'm doing this (35psi +) and I'm just running stock head bolts so will have to take it easy. Very happy with doing this build especially for what I have invested!!!!

[stubiePW]

That's awesome!