W350 Crew Cab - The ultimate first gen - Pics and history

[RSchwarzli]

LOL Yes making progress for sure! My hammer is through the floor! I will work on pics soon... .

 

[HHhuntitall]

I'll let pics slide this time, especially as I hope to see it in person in June!!! WOOHOO!!!! Oo.

 

[AEdelheit]

You should just tow the trailer and tow vehicle with this truck, if there's a problem swap it around but good way to test the truck!

 

[RSchwarzli]

That thought has crossed my mind as well! If I do have 1-2000 miles on it by then, yes I will consider that! Believe me, I am itching to drive the bugger!

 

[Shadrach]

And we are all itching to see it Shad

 

[RSchwarzli]

And we are all itching to see it Shad

LOL Welcome to the club!!

 

[RSchwarzli]

OK. I apologize for the delay in getting the pics up. Just been working on the truck more than hanging out online. Its winter in Canada again. Over the course of the Christmas holidays I started back into the truck again. With 2013, I have made it one of my goals for the year to finish the truck. On December 24th I hit the 6 year anniversary of starting this project, so I felt with work not needing me as much right now, I would focus on the completion. So far between Dec 24 and Jan 20th there has been close to 130 hours logged on the truck. Some excellent progress has been made but I have been trying to do more working and less typing so I have not updated this in a while! As I am again sitting on a plane, I have several hours to kill. May as well do an update!

First off, you will notice I added a new tool to the assistance of completion on the truck. Over the course of the summer and fall, I worked many extra hours and with not buying any truck parts, it allowed me to save for a lift. After having tried to balance it on the 2 post last year and knowing it will still take several months to complete, I saved what I could and kept an eye out for a used lift. This one was found a few hours from home and with some time, muscle, and the trusty W250; it came home. Although I did lose some time prepping for the install and all, the ease of working by way of standing has already made up for the lost time.

But back to the truck….

The first item tackled was the mounting of the rear bumper:



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Next item I tackled was to get the tailgate out for paint. As the original was bowed (read back a few pages), I had picked up the second tailgate. So the measurements were taken for the stripes and the gate was sent out for paint.




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The gates came back a week later in beautiful condition! Once how, the assembly began! Observe masking tape covered line puller so it would not scratch the paint!



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[RSchwarzli]

Now, as with all projects that take this long, you forget some small details like what side you stuck the tailgate wiring connector. Guess what side it is not. So disassembly began… Aaaaaand, then in a matter of a split second, my day went downhill. While removing one of the model 19 lenses, I slipped with the flat blade and took a chunk of my paint out! Son of a &*%$#@!!!!! Well after a little drive I cooled down and came back to inspect. Yup, right through the fresh clean and paint. Soooooo, the entire gate was stripped and it will go back to the painter (different one by the way from the one that painted the truck!!) for touch up/repaint.



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Next on my mental list is to finish the underside of the truck. Underneath the truck has several things that are still outstanding. They include:
Compressor - The air compressor needs to be tucked up under the body behind the frame rail to keep it out of the weather. So a custom bracket was made.




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Water pump - The water pump for the on board water tank needed to also be mounted in a area it would stay clean. So a bracket for that was made as well.


E brake cable - The e brake cable was replaced about 1500 miles before the truck came off the road 6 years ago so it was still good to reuse after a quick clean up. Found the ebrake cable (took me 2 hours to find it!!) and went to unstall it but found an issue. Remember the FASS pump?



Well guess what line it sits in? Yup. Directly in line with the E brake cable. And as I am not really fond of the pumps location due to being in a rock pining zone, I decided to relocate it to location number three! Now removing is not simple. Due to its location it actually required the removal of the fuel tank so I could access the bolts!! What a dumb location I installed it! If I ever had it fail and needed to do a side of the road pump swap that would have been near impossible! So I proceeded to remove it and during its removal I had lowered the truck to allow for reaching up to the top of the tank area for bolt loosening (as the front tank had to drop) and I managed to smack my head off the main air tank elbow (that is now of course much lower than it was 10 minutes ago!) Well this resulted in a mild concussion, whiplash, and a lot of blood. One could say this put a damper on my efforts for the next few days. But enough of my whining…. .



So the pump was originally here:



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And now it will inside the frame rail where it is more protected (And not in the way of the e brake cable!). So a bracket was made to hold it in a location that was considered OK by the fuel lines.



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Next up was finish the front passenger side air lines as they had once been installed but removed so the exhaust would fit there. But as I have determined I will route the exhaust differently, it allows them to go back in.


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I also had a trip to the sandblast room so I could sand blast the small components for the E brake system.


Horns: Next on the list is the train horns. These buggers are big. I spent close to 3 hours trying to find a spot they would be protected, out of the weather, yet they also fit! It was determined they would go up under the drivers box fender. So brackets were made….


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And in the end after making the brackets, we just couldn't get it to fit in there. So the horns will have to wait for now. I am thinking I will run them in the e brake cable area once it is in as well as the running boards.


Air jack: I also added a line to feed an external air line. I routed this from the tank to the rear end of the truck.


NP205: The t case was still sitting there unpainted as it was quickly stuffed back into the truck a year and a bit ago as I needed it off the 2 post for another job (the 1990 broke) so I thought it was time to fix that. So out came the masking tape and away I went! Here are the before and after shots:



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Now, while all this was going on, dad was playing wiring. The custom dash gauges were still left in a semi completed state from a few years ago when his electrical genius started on the project. So he had to re study all his hand made diagrams and finish it. So where it sits now the factory dash wiring has been spliced and new connectors were made. In the dash insert I have allowances for turn signals, high beams, alarm light, and fuel levels (both run live) so all these supplied by factory wires had to be redone. This took close to 12 hours to finish on its own! Much of the time was taken up by the factory fuel pump and level sensor in the Ramcharger tank that I am using to still feed data to the dash. The issue is the level sensor power is actually fed through the gauge and THEN to the tank. So basically the factory gauge measures the amount of current passing through it! So with now the Autometer gauges, we had to ensure it was all wired correctly!




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Also started on the rear seat frame to hold the two bucket seats and console.



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So that brings me up to current. All the brackets are back from powder tailgate is out again. Once back all the underbody stuff can be mounted and I can move onto the engine compartment! Time to get that sealed up!

 

[Simplysmn]

Wow you just Might finish that Beauty this year Great work Bob you will have THE Best Looking Well Built Crewcab when your done Awesome Work Man Just Plain AWESOME

 

[DVolk]

What is the reason for the FASS pump ? Is that because of the power your running ?
I just want to make shure i dont need one with my 94 engine ?

 

[RSchwarzli]

Wow you just Might finish that Beauty this year Great work Bob you will have THE Best Looking Well Built Crewcab when your done Awesome Work Man Just Plain AWESOME

Thanks man! One can only hope!

DV

Three fold:

1 - I like the extra filtration and air separation
2 - Easier to get at for the water drain intervals
3 - I want to make sure I do have enough fuel to feed the compounds.

 

[Shadrach]

When I was planning to do a crew conversion a few years back I bought an AirDog for reasons 1 & 2 above. I have one on my 03 and think it is great.



Robert What do you do in your spare time? Shad

 

[RSchwarzli]

Robert What do you do in your spare time? Shad

I work on the 1990 W250. :-laf

 

[HHhuntitall]

I work on the 1990 W250. :-laf

... . and not necessarily because it needs it... .



BSchwarzli, just a suggestion, have you seen these? http://www.hornblasters.com/products/details.php?i=shocker-4-train-horn

They're handy in that they can be tucked in several different places. I've installed them in several trucks, and usually in the front bumper. On the 2nd gen trucks, two go inside the frame, behind the bumper or winch, and one goes on each side on the bumper support brackets or outer pipe..... They sound good and also would work great to go just about anywhere you need 'em..... I haven't had anybody not like them!! (well, that drove the truck. I've gotten more than one cussing from a wife or neighbor... . )



The inside of that frame is starting to look like my KW!!! :-laf

 

[DVolk]

I was thinking a classic Road Runner horn might be cute

 

[RSchwarzli]

... . and not necessarily because it needs it... .

BSchwarzli, just a suggestion, have you seen these? http://www.hornblasters.com/products/details.php?i=shocker-4-train-horn
They're handy in that they can be tucked in several different places. I've installed them in several trucks, and usually in the front bumper. On the 2nd gen trucks, two go inside the frame, behind the bumper or winch, and one goes on each side on the bumper support brackets or outer pipe..... They sound good and also would work great to go just about anywhere you need 'em..... I haven't had anybody not like them!! (well, that drove the truck. I've gotten more than one cussing from a wife or neighbor... . )

The inside of that frame is starting to look like my KW!!! :-laf

Yes! I know the horn blasters. I had looked at them when I first did horn research. Ended up with a locomotive horn. Sounds better.

http://www.airhornsoftexas.com/collections/train-air-horns

I was thinking a classic Road Runner horn might be cute

Actually I have one I picked up a while back before the train horn idea! LOL The truck was originally going to have one... .

 

[RSchwarzli]

OK. Lets see where we left off…. .

Seats….

So the first thing I really wanted to get done was the rear seat frame. In total it ended up with about 10 hours of fab into it.

Started like this:

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Test fit:


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Amp test fit. Holes pre drilled.



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Now brackets to support console:



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One more test fit now that the console is installed with real brackets:



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Now after all the welding, small problem. It warped. Grrr.
Me: Dad, thoughts?
Dad: Yup. Its tweaked nicely.
Me: No shi…poop (err, family friendly site)
Dad: Can't use it like that.
Me: Again, no poop.
So we tried to bend it after heating it with the torch. Not so much…… My reinforcements work well.

So, dad came up with a plan!!



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Yup! Drop the lift on it! So we slowly lowered it until we had her straight like an arrow again!

Final look before paint:



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[RSchwarzli]

Well, brackets arrived so all was installed:




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And with tailgate back (after oopsy repair) it finished its turn on the assembly bench:



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Now here is some more education. For those of you in the Mopar restoration world, you will follow what I am about to say. Those of you who are not use to restorations this will come to a surprise.
When vehicles go down the assembly line and get built, they use assembly line parts. When you buy parts from Mopar, they are same spec parts but different. Here is an example:



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The black gate latch is Mopar. The zinc dichromate is assembly line parts. When people do a full OEM resto, they look for assembly line parts as that is correct to how the vehicle was delivered. This is a cool example of how they are different.

And the final look!


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[RSchwarzli]

Next up was windows. The front windows ceased already as the regulators had not moved since I rebuilt them 4 years ago. Thanks to heavy rust they are basically junk. So new ones were ordered….


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Install is NOT simple!!! I will take more pics of this as it will need to be a detailed walk along and I don't have enough taken here to satisfy my write up.

Rear doors.

Rear doors were only available in manual. I like power windows so I can open them from the drivers seat and close them when I feel like it. So here we go….

I was lucky enough to find those two doors a few years ago for spare parts. Sadly, the skins are toast. Rust and denting have made them past useable. In actual fact, I found many parts to be useless as well. But that was perfect for a test door.



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So for ease of working…. .



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Now I ordered a power window motor off a 2009 Dodge Dakota. Front door. I found the measurements to be what I needed for my rear door so… I would also say I lost a good 10-12 hours learning the best way to install these for least amount of binding. As of this typing, my prototype is done. Just need to finish welding the bracket.


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Power door lock motor will sit here with my own made lock rods.


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And a few random pics. The head rests have now gone out for recovering…. don't want the SRT logos in this application.

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Plate wiring harness is now custom made.



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And lastly, 6 hours of mirrors installation and perfecting.



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[Shadrach]

Ahh Good old rusty Ontario parts :-laf Looking good Oo. Shad