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My 1988 W-150 to W-350 - Misc.

69K views 197 replies 31 participants last post by  dodgeboyz 
#1 ·
I've been putting off a project thread until I really had some work progressing.

But right up-front I want to acknowledge and thank those members that I've directly purchased parts from and those that have supplied me (and others) with invaluable information.

In no particular order:

Jungle (Jim): http://ramchargercentral.com/jungleshddodgecomponents/
Front Spring Bushings:
Cross-over steering plates
Shackle Flip brackets
Windshield Shelf
U-bolt flip brackets

Dodgeboys (Dean): http://ramchargercentral.com/dodgeboysfactoryservicemanuals/
1988 & 1990 FSM's
1990 360, A518, NP205 transfer case

EY8S (Eric)
Judge Front and Rear Bumpers
Tailgate
Cab
Sheet of ÂĽ" steel

Scoots
Rear D60HD

4x4 440
D60 Internal style front hubs

Tide Water Offroad -Chris http://ramchargercentral.com/tidewater-off-road/
Rear Springs
Soon - Shocks

73DodgeW200SnoFiter
Front D60

Information Vendors: these folks I've either asked directly for information or via searching found info they provided to others that answered my questions.

MadMax, Elwenil, KTaxton, mrpeal, joe s, and others

I hope I haven't forgotten anyone.

Ok onto my project

Here she is; my 1988 W-150 I purchased in April 2010 from a member of the local Mopar club.

She had 304,000 miles on the 318\727\241 combo. At some point someone had installed 4.56's with 35's and the PO I purchased it from installed new BFG tires and repainted it. It had 4" lift springs on the front and double stacked blocks in the rear.



 
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#2 ·
After buying it and joining here I started to pick up the various parts to upgrade her with D60's and my original intent was to build a 408 to replace the very tired 318. The truck was mainly going to be a toy at first...

First I found a D60HD here on RCC


Then drove to PA a couple months later to pick up a D60 front from another member


I spent a good deal of time cleaning up the D60's and even picked up a rear disk brake kit from http://www.tsmmfg.com/







Here is the initial mock-up on the rear




Since they had different gears I was going to rebuild and re-gear the rear axle to 4.10 to match the front.
 
#3 ·
I needed a 360 for my 408 project and I also wanted a A518 trans and NP205 transfer case and Dodgeboys happened to have one for sale so my son and I drove to MA to meet Dean and buy the drive-train out of a parts truck he had. While on that trip we made a detour and went over and met Jungle (Jim) and picked up a number of his products as well.

Besides a new Alpine stereo and Infinity 6*9 speakers in all 4 locations the first little project I did to the truck was take out the worn and saggy front bench seat and install a set of buckets from an RC.





Now that I think about it I got the console from Jungle while picking up the other parts.
 
#4 ·
After I got the drive-train home I tore down the engine in preparation for building the 408 but my daily driver, a 1997 Jeep ZJ was totaled when a texting teen driver pulled out in front of my wife. No one was hurt save for my Jeep.



So I had to start driving the truck 65 miles round trip everyday. That worked well until the 318 decided it had had enough and blew a head gasket and I found a cracked head.

So I found a 1990 360 on www.car-part.com with only 51,000 miles from a Dodge Van in MD and my son and I set about swapping it in. While at it we rebuilt the trans, transfer case, and did some re-wiring.

New\old 360


Dis-assembly, clean-up, reseal




 
#5 ·
While I was prepping the engine I ordered a bunch of new parts with the proceeds from the totaled Jeep funds. I also ordered a set of Headman Elite truck headers and the B&M flex-plate necessary for the swap from 318-360.

















 
#6 ·
Well now that I had the parts and the engine cleaned up and resealed I needed to get the truck apart. I had wanted to get the A518 rebuilt and installed but didn't want to have drive shafts built twice (once for the A518\205 then again when I installed the D60's) so instead we rebuilt the 727.







Trans ready for rebuild, my son works at the local Ford Dealer and he took it into work and rebuilt it





The 241 was a greasy mess leaking from every orifice so I took it to the car wash, cleaned it up, then tore it down replaced the chain a couple bearings, and re-sealed it.





Now I got the engine and trans back together and ready for install










 
#7 ·
Now that it was in the hole time to hook things up:

I replaced all the AC lines, condenser, compressor, and dryer since the old compressor had come apart internally.







As we all know one of the most important things to keeping a trans alive is cooling. I installed a Hughes Towing converter which holds an additional 2 quarts of fluid, the Dearle pan +4 quarts, and a B&M plate type cooler.







One of my concerns with the headers was the location of the fuel filter so I made a heat shield and covered it with reflective fabric.







 
#8 ·
Upcoming...
 
#9 ·
{cool}
 
#11 ·
Thanks

While I had the nose all tore off I decided to fix up some of the wiring as at some point in the trucks past someone decided to do some "*******" electrical work with lamp-cords and wire-nuts.

I also wanted to install relays and circuit breakers for a number of circuits, upgrade the lighting, and install dual batteries.

Here is the bracket I made to hold the new fuse panel, junctions, relay's, etc:









Since I don't have any "real" metal working tools I had to get creative







Some black paint and a vacuum hose I cut in half







And here it is mounted. On the front you can see I mounted the solenoid for the batteries



And an overhead shot. I don't have any pictures of it but I did "beef" up the stock battery box mount's.



I still have some work to finish with it and then I'll tidy up the wiring. I did crimp, solder, and shrink tube all connections.
 
#12 ·
#13 ·
Next - the gauge cluster

 
#14 ·
:eek:
 
#18 ·
Thanks guys, Thanks Eric...

The one other thing I hope folks can take away from this is that this can all be done with no garage, shop, or special tools.  Although, it would be nice to at least have a paved driveway  :)

The dash work I did with a jig saw, a dremel tool, a drill and hole saw so to this point those are about the only "special" tools.
 
#19 ·
I wanted better gauges and didn't want to add gauge pods all over so I found an extra gauge bezel at the local pick-a-part that had the wood insert to use as a template to cut out the panel.



I cut out the template with a jig saw and dremel tool



I had initially used a piece of cardboard to figure out how I wanted to lay-out the gauges and verify that they would fit and I tried several different layouts.







This is what I finally ended up with but still might add switches near the dual battery panel but I'll probably move them to the console. The one switch I might put there is the OD switch if I go with the a518.



I then added the small 3 switch panel next to the radio. These switches now are for the driving lights, cargo light, and the rock lights I've added.



Now the back side:
I crimped and soldered all of the connections and used weather-pack connectors to connect them to the existing wiring or new wiring I added.







I used bus-bars for ground, 12v +, and the dash lights.





I'm going to be pulling the cluster back out and installing LED bulbs, replace the oil pressure gauge with an electric gauge, and re-wiring the blower fan and doing the high-speed relay upgrade.

http://wiki.dieseltruckresource.com/wiki/Blower_Motor_Fix
 
#20 ·
As most of us have found out these things tend to build up a good bit of heat under the hood. I know I need a bigger radiator but didn't want to mess with it until I find a new style rad support & grill in the truck. So I started looking at either fender gills or a hood scoop.

I know a couple folks on here have added fender vents or holes and I gave serious thought to using a set of Cuda fender gills but didn't want to spend the money on one of the repo-kits to find out it wouldn't work.

So I started thinking about a scoop mounted on the hood in reverse. I've always liked the Hemi-cuda scoops and my son bought me a SC-1023 from http://www.up22.com/scoopw1.htm

So here are a couple pics when I was trying to figure out how to mount it:

This way would require the least cutting of the scoop...





But this is how I wanted it:







...and while looking out the windshield



So after taking measurements, then taking them again, I pulled out an extra hood I had to give it a try. I laid-out the measurements on the extra hood, trimmed the center of the scoop to fit over the ridge in the hood and sprayed some primer to use as a template for later.

From the under-side of the hood I drilled the corners of the factory openings and scribd the cut lines for the opening.



Away I went with the jig-saw



I don't have allot of pictures of the install but I basically set the scoop on as shown and drilled up from the bottom and used the hardware that came with the scoop to mount it to the hood.





In this image you can see the cut-out in the front of the scoop to fit the ridge in the hood.



This hood had hail damage so it took a while to get smoothed out and I just used whatever cheap paint I had at first to fill, sand, etc. When I have the Truck repainted I plan on mounting a scoop on my "good" hood since this one was also bent at the hinge point but worked great for my first attempt at hood scoop install.

After feathering in the edges I primered the hood and put it on.



It was an instant 20 degree temp drop when sitting in I-95 bumper-to-bumper traffic! Anyone from NOVA knows what I'm talking about!
 
#21 ·
DANG! That more wiring then I would want to do.........  :eek:

Nice work, I like the reverse scoop much better.  ;)
 
#22 ·
so, when do you want to stop by and redo my dash and wiring? that is a lot of tedious work that looks darn delicious.
 
#23 ·
Mike Barf said:
so, when do you want to stop by and redo my dash and wiring? that is a lot of tedious work that looks darn delicious.
Ha Ha! Yeah I'll be dropping an 89 Cummins in my 78 Crewcab and will need wiring work too........ :p
 
#24 ·
I actually enjoy the wiring...I admit I still have to finish mine.  I left extra wiring hanging out because I knew I would be adding accessories and moving things around.

I am willing to work out some trade\barter...I'm going to need some body work.  My roof is rusted at the windshield and over the rear wheel wells.  I have another roof panel (and a cab just in case) as well as the replacement panels. 

Mike you might be a bit far off but I could help you out with a dash...
 
#25 ·
Well I always keep and eye on Craigslist and have an app on my Android Phone and was watching for W-250\350's hoping a diesel might pop-up I could afford or a club-cab which I really want.

Well this past spring this mess showed up:
1993 W-350 a guy in Northern VA bought up in NJ to make his D250 diesel into 4wd but got cold feet and I bought it for $1,300. It only had 86k on it but what wasn't rusted was dented. The 5.9 Magnum ran fantastic but only had 1 forward gear. The D60's had 4.10's, A518 and an NP205 x-fer case.

So after cash changed hands and a little white lie to AAA I had it towed home.















So now I had a matching set of axles and other "spare" parts
 
#26 ·
So began the tear down...

While the cab roof was perfect, the rest of the cab was shot:


This was the floor pan I pulled out:




So I kept the roof:



It was so rusted I didn't even have to unbolt the rest:





I had considered putting my body onto this chassis but it was cracked and rusted in numerous spots



...and a little sawzall magic:







and it then fit into the back of my truck for the trip to the metal recycle'r (in 2 trips)



I ended up selling the engine for $500 and got another $350 for the scrap.

Here are a couple pictures of the cowl cracks:






Both doors has numerous stress cracks as did the fenders at the mounting bolts and the radiator support had a couple.
 
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