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

[RSchwarzli]

After a few days of cooling off, it was time to get back at it. So I continued with the headliner.




First was to create now the shape in the front headliner for the gauge cluster.


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And to finish the console off, I added the rear seat heater switches.




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Final paint disassembly then took place:




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Last stop for the headliner was the 3M spray, and material:




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Now if you look closely, you can see the headliner seams. I am not pleased with this and I didn’t come all this way to see that **** there. So you will have to see what I ended up doing to remedy this little issue. I am not Ok with this look.

 

[RSchwarzli]

4WD Shifters


Next up was getting the shifters done for the NP205. I will be running 2WD low, so I will require two shifters so as to enable both shift rails on their own. One shifter will engage the 4wd, the other will be 2 hi and 2 low. As I also will not be modifying the factory shift hole in the floor, I will need to get a bit creative how I do this.


I will make my own shifters as the factory shifters have two parts: the upper, and lower. The place where they bolt together, is just above the floor line. While not an issue when only one shifter is going through the floor, it is a huge issue when you need two shifters going through there. As two shifters are snug to begin with, never mind two sets of nuts/bolt heads sticking out, I will make them longer so as the angle of fabrication allows them to be bolted higher up where there is more space. I used two factory shifters on the 90 and while it works, I can snag the other shifter in certain conditions.




So I started with the drawing of what I wanted on a 3/8” steel plate.


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Next I began the tedious task of cutting it.




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That gave me shifter 1:




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Repeat procedure and you have shifter 2:




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Now this is the factory bracket that allows the fulcrum of the shifter to pull the rod that goes into the NP205. This will have to be modified as first off, it doesn’t bolt to a NV5600. Secondly, well it doesn’t meet the twin stick needs. You can see the chop off line drawn in gold. This is the only part of the factory setup that will be used.




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And with my buddy Andy feeling itchy to weld something, he took on bracket fabrication. So we took the bracket template I made up a few years ago, chopped it too, did some welding, and this is what we got:




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Now to clean it up to be nice and parallel, I threw it into the mill to make all perfectly align:



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While playing in the mill, I also cut the center pivot holes for the shifters:




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Next up was to cut some bushings for the pivot point on the shifter. The specialty nylon will act as a bearing as well as an isolator against vibration and noise.




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That resulted in this pile-o-parts:




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And sticking it all together, it looked like this:




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And in the truck, it looks like this:




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[RSchwarzli]

Shifter Brackets Part 2




With the brackets done, we can now make the shift rods. For this, I used the original factory rod as the factory bend and pin hole were a great start. I then will need to extend the rods, build ends for them, and then weld them all together. They will also need to be formed so as to both fit where one once did, bend around the transmission tailstock, avoid contact with the driveshaft, and be solid enough to shift independently.




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So I took the rod, chopped it, thus giving me a left and right as both factory ends are bent. These will serve as the front half of both rods. I then took a sheet of steel and cut out the end that would slide right into the fork on the shift rail. These will end up being welded to the rods once they are extended.


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Next was to cut the missing length of rod from some donor material….




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And then some welding and you get the back half of the rod:



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That gives a front and a back that just needs correct length measured:




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With these new shifters, I made the bottom lobes much longer than the factory ones as I want a shorter shift throw. So these got holes mounted on the bottom end to give me a short throw shifter:




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Now hanging it in the truck, I can see what I am dealing with. You can see I have also started on the nigh/low rod as well.




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For the high low rod, I have several different connection points so that I don’t have to re drill after painting. This allows me to change the shift rod position thus changing the show angle and distance for best drivers feel.




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A little more forming for the hi/low rod to get around the hump and give me the perfect angle…




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And that gives me two rods, both working.




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This is what the final assembly looked like before paint:




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And for the sake of keeping things together even though this wasn’t exactly the order, this is the after paint look:




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[Simplysmn]

Robert I know we all pick on you about this Truck But I hope you know .You have 1 Heck of a Beautiful Master Piece of a Truck .You have done some Amazing work .Keep up the Great work you will get it done and driving Soon. My Hat's off to you Man you are 1 Hell of a Craftsman .

 

[RSchwarzli]

REAR END




Next up is getting the rear end sorted out. I had two things that needed tending to:


1 – Dually seals
2 – Axle alignment




When I did the truck many years ago, I used VW bug fender seals as my budget didn’t allow me to use Dodge dually seals. Issue was, that left a gap between the fender and the dually fender as the bead was actually too small. A few years ago I became a bit agitated about this gap and started looking into new Dodge seals. Figures, no longer available. But a TDR friend had a set that he sold me out of his private stash (Thank you, you know who you are!!), so it ended up in my hands and it was now time to put it in. So we removed both fenders and changed the seals. The fit is much better.




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Then for alignment, this turned into a huge issue. Due to the 4 link system I have, I have 4 trailing bars that need to be adjusted to align both the pinion angle, as well as the left to right yaw angle, as well as centering to the wheel well. Issue is, the bars were about 1.5” too long to get the axle centered in the wheel wells! As Kelderman did their best to make a 2nd gen system, fit a first gen body, then on a 1980 frame, they weren’t far off their guestimate. But they were a bit long so they had to be removed and shortened.


These are the rear trailing bars:




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And this is it getting a haircut in the lathe as well as then needing to be rethreaded now deeper as the threat section of the bar was now too short to thread into the couplings:




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Then the challenge was to pre adjust the axle before putting the rods back in to save time. As the axle was out by a good 2” to the rear, we used a ratchet strap around the axle and the trans cross member to pull the axle forward so the body wouldn’t slide with it.




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Then to final threading adjustments:




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And then back in with a good alignment. This now sits center to the wheel well and pinion angle is set. The only thing that has to be adjusted now is axle track and that will have to be set once I do my front end alignment on a 4 wheel alignment rack.




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This picture is just for ****s and giggles. I wondered what this truck would look like lowered. With the bars removed, you can sure see the general idea the back end gets. Lol




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7 Pin


Also while playing in the back end, we added the in bed 7 pin connector so I don’t have to rub paint on the tailgate when towing the gooseneck.


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A little trimming with the hole saw…




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And voila!


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[RSchwarzli]

Robert I know we all pick on you about this Truck But I hope you know .You have 1 Heck of a Beautiful Master Piece of a Truck .You have done some Amazing work .Keep up the Great work you will get it done and driving Soon. My Hat's off to you Man you are 1 Hell of a Craftsman .

That's what family does. We rib each other and poke where we can. In the end, thats what makes us family vs strangers.

Thanks for the compliments. Its getting there. Cant wait for you to be able to see it in person some day.

 

[RSchwarzli]

Front Hubs




First task was tending to the front hubs. The factory wheel studs are actually too short for 19.5 aluminum wheels. The only way many get around this is to use tapered nuts and that is why you don’t often see real semi truck style caps used and most times it’s the long skinny nuts. But I am not a fan of that look so I will make some changes…




First off was to remove the hub to see what I was dealing with:




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While off, I was sure to note my original Chrysler disk brake and hub part numbers. These are often referenced when getting aftermarket brake components and they are for your part numbers:




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Remove bearings… thankfully, they were greased over their life and left my spindle in good condition:




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So that left me with some bare hubs once the disks were removed. Now the fun could begin:




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Random picture award goes to….




The rear axle bars were out at this point too, so with no front hubs, and no rear axle bars, here is my low rider.




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So I pressed out a stud and spent some extensive time seeing what was available on the aftermarket. The big issue is the knurl size that allows the stud to stay stuck in the hub and not turn when you torque your wheel nuts or worse, when loosening them. So my challenge was to find a .712” knurl like the factory has. After several days of no luck, I looked into custom bolts. That also turned unfruitful mostly due to the cost involved. So my next best option was to see what was close. And although Dodge size doesn’t have much offerings, the nearest cousin was a Chevy stud. It was 3” long giving me the length I needed, but it was only a .686 knurl. I can put it in the hole and it is semi snug. That wont work for what I need to do. So it was time to get the welder out again for this one.

Here you can see the differences of the stud length.




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Out came the studs…minus 3…left in a triangular pattern for alignment purposes.




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The spare tire being steel, was then used for the template to ensure the bots would line up. I left those three studs in so when I did lay it on this wheel, it would automatically align the hub. That allowed the tacking to take place, and then they could be pressed out, and the other 5 would hold shape while the last 3 were tacked.




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Once welded, all was double checked back on the wheel again to make sure they were where they needed to be.




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Somehow I don’t think these studs will move now…




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And the final test fit on the aluminum wheel showing how much thread we actually have to work with now.




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[RSchwarzli]

Front End – Passengers Side




Next up was the front Dana 60. Although it was a low mileage unit with 60,000 miles that I got 10 years ago from an Oregon scrap yard, I felt it was best to do a front end rebuild so as to avoid any potential issues. Never know what abuse the axle went through prior to being installed into my truck.
This was also the time of my last hurrah at ordering parts for this truck as I made the commitment to get this truck done this year. So I started ordering everything I needed to finish the truck. So within a few days, I had a bit pile of parts in the garage and a very empty bank account:




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You may also recognize a few parts I have already shown you. Gives you and idea of where in the timeline this was. The unique part of being able to watch via my posts, is I try to ground each subject together so you can see a chronological progression even though for me, 10 jobs are normally happening at once all in different stages of completion. That is also why sometimes I don’t post updates here for a bit. Without start to finish progression, it doesn’t really always make sense.


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So with all the parts needed, and the front hubs still off, I tackled the front end. The first thing I noticed while removing the calipers was the remains of someone’s old house. Maybe this axle did sit in the yard for a while….




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So I started by removing the spindle and axle…


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New bearings went into the spindle. These are often the most neglected bearings on the truck as you have to remove the spindle to re grease them. Did you know these are to actually be greased every 12,000 miles or yearly? I bet most never see that….



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The axle was then tended to with new U joints.



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The hub was also cleaned out….




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Parts were painted….




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And then the lower ball joint/kingpin bearing was pressed out. I am glad I did go through this exercise in the end as what I found was the lower bearing had actually been taking on water and was not in the best looking condition. This would have been a future failure for sure.




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Now this is again where I hate to admit some things but I do to help others learn off my hard way learnt experiences. The axle tube. Now that I have a great clean new U jointed axle, I will have to slide it down this sand and grit filled axle tube. That is just stupid! So me in my brilliance, decided I would take the shop vac, and suck that crap out!!! Great in theory. Bad in actuality.

So I get the shop vac out, still the nozzle in there, and then I got a lesson in physics. A show vac is going to create a vacuum suction. That is how the dirt will be sucked up. BUT, if you don’t have a way for air to replace the air that is in there, it will do nothing. So in my brilliant wisdom, I left a gap at the top of the axle tube thus not sealing the axle tube and allowing me to suck air!! WRONG CHOICE!!!! The air did blow past the nozzle as it sucked into the diff to replace the air being sucked out, BUT, it took with it the sand and dirt I was trying to suck out and deposited it into the center of the diff carrier and into the ring gear!!! Son of a colorful; &%$#)(^ and stupid %&$# effing (*&%.... Yup. I may as well have put the air nozzle from the compressor there and blown it all in as that is exactly what happened. So much for keeping things clean….




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Into the diff now…




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Clean up….




Ready to go again…




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[RSchwarzli]

So I went back to working on the kingpin, I pressed in a new water seal and sealed it with RTV to keep the water out this time, and then in went the bearing and dust and water seal:




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Then assembly began…




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With all new seals, the spindle was remounted:




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New bearings went into the hubs:




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New slotted rotors went on…




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Then the hub went onto the truck…and new Warn locking hub caps went on.




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New calipers and EBC yellow pads went onto the truck for better stopping power….




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And that gave me a nice and clean fully rebuilt passenger front end. While quick in photos that is a multi hour job to do it right.




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Next went the wheel and the custom adapter I made to cover the tiny holes that were machined into the wheels by American Force for the use of their hubcaps, finishing off that side fully. The pictures make the cover look awkward but they do look much better in person.




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[RSchwarzli]

Driver Side Hub



Now that the passenger’s side is done, time for the repeat performance for the driver’s side. So I started disassembly and found a surprise. WTF is this kind of workmanship? Hidden behind the rotor, that I couldn’t see before, I found a bad bag alignment job from years ago when I installed it. And as that just doesn’t cut the mustard mister, I had to remove the bracket and bag, machine, and reinstall.




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Ahhhh. Much better.



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Now, where was I before I was so rudely interrupted by the effing air bag. Oh yes. Disassembly. As I don’t have one of those fancy Dodge removal tools, I use a C clamp and a really big socket to press the lower bearing race out.




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U joint replacement….




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Fast forward through new bearings and kingpins…




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Hub assembly….




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Hub install…brakes… brake flex hoses....




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New grease nipple install…




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And that completes the driver’s side! Yay!! Airbag looks good too.


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And as somehow Andy ended up at my place yet again (this guy is as hell bent as I am to get this thing done! Thanks Andy! You're one in a million!), he got the rear brakes done with new shoes and wheel cyls. Not that they needed them or anything.




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That allowed us to then bleed the brakes and after a few leaks found and repaired, to have a solid pedal and brakes that can now be used!

 

[RSchwarzli]

That more or less brings my updates up to speed. I have a bunch more that has been done but I have killed 5 hours today uploading so now it is wrenching time and I dont really want to show semi completed things as it wont always make sense.




Hope that satisfied everyones thirst....for the moment at least.




Robert

 

[DVolk]

Thus truck is a work of art if it does not get in a magazine then its a crime . I could get it submitted into the American Truck Historical Society , The Wheels of Time magazine

 

[RSchwarzli]

Thus truck is a work of art if it does not get in a magazine then its a crime . I could get it submitted into the American Truck Historical Society , The Wheels of Time magazine

I appreciate the compliment. Maybe if I am lucky, when it done, of those magazines may see it the same as you and maybe they will see it worthy of a article.

 

[SRay]

It's a crime to have a incomplete historical monument sitting in a shop in pieces.

 

[RSchwarzli]

It's a crime to have a incomplete historical monument sitting in a shop in pieces.

Don't you have some hay bail to be moving? :-laf

 

[SRay]

Ah yes. My farmer friends could use some barn space for their hay....

Could you please move your goats over? :-laf :-laf

 

[TJJEEPER]

Amazing truck and the details you're showing us are just unbelievable. You sir, are a true craftsman.
Thanks for sharing!

 

[RSchwarzli]

Amazing truck and the details you're showing us are just unbelievable. You sir, are a true craftsman.
Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the compliment. But I would more classify myself as country bumpkin with the ability to guess as how to do things.

 

[RWherley]

So will it make to Carlisle this year?

 

[DVolk]

Send me your contact info i might have the editor for the wheels of time contact you as you have the photographs already all theyd do then is the story