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Hacksters Crew Cab first gen Cummins

232K views 353 replies 82 participants last post by  Adamants 
#1 ·
So my tow rig for the last three years has been a 1993 w250 that has racked up 249,000 miles on it. It has been hands downt the most dependable, hadest working truck I have ever owned by a long shot....even better than the 07 cummins I bought off the lot brand new in late 06.

Truck is all turned up with timing bump, denny t fuel pin wh1c with 14 cm housing, leveling kit and 35's with 2" dom tube bumpers. Its a standard cab long bed and I love it.

Here is the dirty old girl in all her glory, doing what she usually does, towing the car trailer around with some project on the trailer.



Well, have sold off a few cool cars in the past few months in order to build the rig that I have wanted for the last few years. A crew cab short bed cummins 5 speed with some one tons under it.

So the search began for the right truck......well more like trucks right? After lots of searching I found a 1993 extra cab long bed w250 with a cummins and a 5 speed 4 wheel drive. The truck had was in an accident but I really was not interested in much of the body. Not to mention I got it for a good price. So I loaded up the trailer and headed up into the sticks to pick it up.

Two first gens...happy times.







Not much to look at but good running gear with pod's denny t fuel pin kdp fixed and a rebuit getrag.

So this will be the donor drivetrain...

I brought it home on Friday afternon and could not get the tools out fast enough.



Had a little help from a friend but we made pretty quik work, the cab was entirely stripped of everything, harness was all unplugged and removed in one piece, it was in great shape with just a little bit of hackery to clean up but nothing too bad.







Cut out a bunch of the firewall so that I would hopefully be able to weld in the right opening for the heater box and the firewall harness plug.
 
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#83 ·
Depends on what you intend to do with the truck. If you were going to wheel it, I would go with a tubular bed, but then again I think wheeling a Crew Cab is a bit pointless. If you are going to just drive and enjoy it, I'd go with a stock bed. If you are going to tow a 4th wheel with it or something of that nature, a normal steel flatbed may be the better way to go.
 
#84 ·
Also here in Cal if you have a flat bed (a tool box/service body, or delivery box) you are now considered a "truck". And would have to obey all the "truck" rules. I know your not in Cal but it would be worth a looking into. There are roads that have signs that say "No trucks" all around. It just depends on how much of a dick the cop wants to be that day. Shit the street I live on says no vehicles over 6000 lbs. My dodge weights 6300 lbs. Just don't give the man a reason to pull you over if you can avoid it, is what I'm saying in my babbling.
 
#86 ·
Good quality flatbed all the way! Mabey even a premade aluminum one if you could swing it. They are just to useful not to put on a truck that is/was ment to be a work truck. Make sure that it has stake pockets on the sides and end of the bed though..
 
#88 ·
Thanks Scott!!

I can run a regular 6' bed on it....But, when I envision something along the lines of the last two toyotas I think it would look pretty cool, just trying not to kill the daily driver portion of the truck, I still need to be able to hop in and haul a bunch of crap to the dump or drive it to work every once in a while.

Here are a couple pics of the last flatbeds I built.

Sean

First one




Second











 
#91 ·
See the problem with that is I will have to do all the bodywork and paint on the truck right now.

As it sits I would be able to do the work on the front fenders build a flatbed and a bumper and drive it.

I dont know if I want to go through the fun process of doing all the body work and paint on the truck right away, not to mention the cost of it.

I kind of need this thing on the road soonish so I can start to figure out what else I need to do drivetrain wise before the spring gets here. If I do the paint thing, I am stuck on someone else's timeframe, and that is usually at a snails pace.

Sean
 
#92 · (Edited)
That's a tough call, but sounds like a standard bed would serve you better. You could always start with that and build a flatbed later if you change your mind, but it could be tough to go the other way.

Edit-Maybe you can build a flatbed that has short, vertical sides and a gate that will allow you to haul stuff when needed. Something like that first Toyota with panels on the sides and a removable gate.
 
#93 ·
If you need it now and can't handle having a mismatched stock bed, I'd just build a bed and run it. If you think you might want a stock bed once you go full tilt on the body/paint, pick the one up from the wrecker and stash it away until the time comes.
Travis..
 
#94 ·
What if you cut up an original bed and make removable bedsides for a flatbed? A modified version of the bed I have on my Ram where the inner structure for the bedsides come off not just the fender. A receiver hitch in each corner would let 2x2 box slide down and you can run a hitch pin to hold it in. Then you can have it both ways...

Best pics I have but I think they will get the idea across
Obviously it would be a shallow bed if you build the floor above the tires, but then you might be able to incorporate some under the floor storage compartments


 
#95 ·
That bed looks great with the bedsides on it. Nice work!!

If I go with a flatbed, part of the reason would be so that I dont have to worry about the bedsides.

I think I am just going to build the flatbed, if for some reason down the road I want to put a bed on it, well then I will put a bed on it. Its not like I am backhalving it.

That is the good news. The bad news is that the truck is still at the frame shop....they still have not even looked at it and said that they will not be able to even get it on the rack until early next week at the earliest.

This is why I cannot stand taking my rig somewhere to get work done on it. Its on someone else's timeframe and well they get to it when they want to get to it.

I hear good things about his work, but man two weeks of the truck just sitting there is killing me.

I think that I am going to go get the truck either this afternoon or Tomorrow morning so that I can get started on the bed.

Ordered seats yesterday. Black on Black Mastercraft Baja RS with heavy duty sliders and internal adjustable lumbar supports. Pretty sure that I am going to use an ARB fridge for the center console if I can make it all fit.

I think I am giong with 2x5" sides for the bed with 1-3/4" tubing all around. Rear wheelwell openings will be tube bent to match the front fender opening and the back corners will be angled in at a 45. Not sure if I am going to try and put a tailgate on it or not. Might be kinda cool.

Sean
 
#98 ·
The Early "bird bath" style hood and cowl will clear the cummins radiator.

I am currently doing something similar. I had a 93 cummins that I bought with hopes of doing a 4 door converstion to. Then I bought a 4 door. Then, somehow I managed to end up with a 79 and an 80 Ramcharger and since I have a 4 door cummins already...decided to make the 79 RC a cummins. So I shortened the 93 frame ~43", and put the RC body on it. I just got it running last sunday (doesnt drive yet...still gotta do the fuel tank and what not). But I did try the bird bath hood (Had one from a 74 dodge) and cowl, fit fine.

I wanted to try to make mine work with a 72-73 or 74-76 grill, but I wound up being different and using the 93 grill. It doesnt fit perfect, but some fitment work will make it fit well. I will proabbly wind up line-xing it body color in the end anyhow.


Heres a vid and quick pics of my RC. I hope to have it driveable by this sunday so I can work out quirks, and then start modding it. I already have a lot of parts for it once I get it reliable. Mine is an Auto, and I put some custom EDM'ed Joe Donnelly/Don Morrison injectors in it, HX35/14cm wg, fuel pin, timed, gov spring, etc. I did all the work for the previous owner and it made 278 at the wheels without the gov spring and still had the stock turbo. Hoping for ~300-330 now.

Wow...I rambled. Long answer short...what interior parts do you want from my 93? All Im using in the RC is the dash, door panels and front seat. Let me know...

http://s509.beta.photobucket.com/use...46408292321033
There are some pictures here:
1 ton Cummins Ramcharger Pop-Top Build Thread...


--Jeff
 
#100 ·
I seriously looked for a service box in the 6' variety for the dodge but they are super expensive and I have heard that after the first time off road, nothing will be water tight and things start to go downhill from there..

Either way, its a done deal. I picked up 160' of metal yesterday and grabbed the dodge back from the frame shop.



Sides of the bed will be 2x5 120 wall with 1 3/4 fender bars. If this rain ever slows down I will get started this morning.

Scott, you wanna get the hydaulic setup mounted up on a bender? I tried to get that stuff from Troy yesterday but never made it over there...

If you do hit me up, I could use it this weekend.

Sean
 
#103 ·
Well it was quite the soggy weekend here in the PNW....that did not stop me from working in the shop though.

The wife and dog were out of town all weekend so it was go time. Got the Green Volvo finished up and actually drove it around town for the first time Friday night. Some low boost (15psi) runs put a smile on my face for at least a few minutes.

77 chev and my friend Asher came by for a good part of the weekend to help. Thanks again Guys, never could have gotten this much done without the help.

So picked up the truck on Friday, got it home and unloaded. Got to work on it about 2 on Saturday after cleaning up the shop and the mess from the green car.

Scott and I put together his bender in the driveway with his new fancy Hydro setup (I need to get one for my bender ASAP) The setup is from a local guy Troy from SWAG. It was awesome. The fact that we were bending tube out on the rain sucked, but the fact that we were bending tube in such a small area and it was super easy and quick was priceless.

Saturday got the majority of the frame laid out, center pieces and bent up one fender opening. Sunday morning I came out early and got the other side and back end cleaned up and ready to build on. Here is what the base of the bed looks like.







So with that all tacked up and where it should be, we grabbed some lunch. When we got back the rain had really moved in so we moved the old girl into the shop and got to work on the rest of the toob work.

This is my happy medium of a headache rack and rool bar. I could not get myself to make the stubs stick up any higher, but I wanted to give myself the ability to bolt on some extensions and use it as a latter/pipe rack. So the top of those tubes that look like devil horns will have a washer welded to the top of it with a nut on the bottom that I can bolt accessories to it.



I ended up making the bed a little bit shorter than I wanted to, I wish that I would have made the bed 6'6" instead of 6' straight up but hindsight is what it is. I left 48" between the down tubes so I will easily be able to fit a 4x8 sheet of wood or whatever in the bed.








Got the truck loaded back up on the trailer after we pulled off the bed and delivered it back up to the frame guys place about 10 pm last night.

Hope to be able to get the bed finished up this week and ready to go back on the cab when I get it back.

Now to figure out what to plate it with and what I want to do for a filler neck and an x behind the cab.

Sean
 
#107 ·
Got home and amazingly it was still dry out.....:rolleyes:

Got the bed on some rollers and pushed it outside swapped on a new spool of wire and got the weld on.

Welded out everything that was assembled, ground down the welds only on the angled 2x5 base frame and got it ready to build the fenders and supports tomorrow night.







Still needs the x behind the cab or at least a angled down bar.....dont know if I have enough tube for it. I guess Ill find out tomorrow when I go to put it all together.

Sean
 
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