Building a 1985/1990 4x4 CTD Crew Cab Long bed
 

Hey guys!
I'm Erska from Finland. Just an average joe with imaginative mind! :D

I had shipped a mint condition Intense Blue Pearl 1998.5 Dodge Ram quad cab 3500 fully loaded twin turbo dually (TOM June 2009) from Florida back in 2006 to Finland. I built it like crazy for 4 years and sold it after 5 years in 2011.
https://www.dieseltruckresource.com/...winner-244251/

Two days after I sold the big blue beast I bought a 1990 W-250 reg cab 5.9 CTD 5 spd rust bucket.

I want to go to the opposite direction with nothing fancy and nothing to worry about. No need to shine and polish it all the time(at all :D ) . I just wanted to drive with my truck.

Oh well I did some decent maintance to it.

First I bought a reman NP205, installed 2.5" skyjacker leaf springs on the front and add a leafs on the rear.
Changed all the bushings, installed borgeson shaft and after that, intercooler, 4" straight stainless steel exhaust, HX35 from my previous 98.5.
After that sand blasted the rear section of the frame, installed 3" body lift and 325/85 R16 Michelin XMLs on widened 10" stock wheels.
And after that I wanted a round light grille from 1972-1980 era. I fitted a Trailduster grille in to it(freebie!!) . It's basicly the same than 72-73 grille.

Anyway, my truck served my harsh driving perfectly for 4 years.
But the well advanced state of the corrosion got worse.
My cab is allmost falling off the frame, both bed sides are rusted off from the floor near the tailgatge and wiggle like crazy.

Anyway fast forward to 2015 I spotted a VERY RARE sight in here. A 1985 Dodge D-350 Crew Cab long bed dually for sale!
Price was 4900euros.
It was originally a 318 Export model with A/C and cruise control.
Maybe electric windows and central locking system. I thought all 1985 duallys were 360??

Did the crew cab come with 4 door central locking system from the factory? Hard to tell because of the wiring is self made after the doors.

At least some one has poorly butchered them in to the truck. And it has 6.2 diesel with 700TH transmission!!! UGH!!

Anyway, I went to look at the truck and it was horrible. The body itself was pretty much rust free but the condition of the truck was bad... I didn't buy it because it was THAT bad.

After a month ort so, it came up for a sale again 200km's in other direction. I called the guy and he told me he bought it trough an auction site without seeing it. I initally told everything about the truck that he did not know... I managed to get it for 2900euros! Score!

Basicly everything was wrong on the truck. Only gauge that worked was the gas gauge. And some markers lamps... Oh and the heater fan.

I bought the truck in late march and used it for a few days to haul 1.5 tons of concrete and some building blocks for my new terrace project.

Somewhere in May I yanked the engine and tranny out of the truck because I managed to get a buyer for them. I got 1300euros out of them.

So my insanely rare crew cab in here costs only 1600 euros at the moment. For your knowledge, shipping from usa costs about 2500euros alone. And 34% tax in top of the trucks price and shipping.[duhhh].

My plan is to take EVERYTHING from my 1990 W-250 to the crew. And I mean everything. Axles, whole wiring, dash, front doors,heaters, radiator support and hood. Frame, cab and bed stays, except I'm making it a SRW bed.

Everything is all messed up the crew. It even had and electrical fire somewhere near the fuse box in the past. And I had 4 years worth of time to fix all the electrical gremlins out of the W-250 and mechanical too.

Basically it's going to look like my reg cab, except with four doors. And it's going to be all black with some red stripes. I'm going to use 2nd gen Ram front and rear seats.

Here's some pictures:

First time I saw it:

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Sales ad pic:
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Reality:
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And more to come when I'll have time to upload the pics!

:)

6.2!!!
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The bed....
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"Concrete truck"
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These two will be one!
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Taking it apart!
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Bye Bye 6.2!
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Inside at my garage. Passenger car scissor lift is too short :D

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Useless trim...

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Bed off:
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Captain Chair? :D [duhhh][coffee]
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Ugh!. Can you say short cut?

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Only floor rust is at the drivers floor:

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And here is the last video seeing that crew cab move on it's original form with not so original 6.2 Detroit Diesel

http://i835.photobucket.com/albums/z...psr8yjuqz2.mp4

Finding a solid Crew cab in the USA is hard enough!

Looks like a pretty nice solid crew to work with though.
Nicely done.

Welcome to the 1st gen side of things. And that is a pretty sweet find over in Europe for sure! Are you going to convert it to 4wd as well? Should be a sweet project!

I did the 2wd to 4wd conversion on my crew about 18 months ago...love it! As for electric door locks on a crewcab, I have never seen, or heard of a factory equipped one. Power windows...perhaps the front doors, but the rears never come with PW option.

Don't cut it upppppp ..[dummy][dummy][dummy] Just convert the Crew to 4x4 Very simple to do and then you will have a Super rare Truck a Crew cab long Bed Dually 4x4 . The window switch cover's almost look like 89 to 93 style . Please Post a Picture of the back door's Ide Love to see how they did the Power Rear window's .[guitar][guitar][guitar]

To be specific, only the front doors have power windows. But all the doors have electrical lock motors.
But I suspect that the front doors did not come with electric windows or door locks.

The switch is the same than 91-93 models I have seen with electric windows.



trashingcows: Nice to see you reading this! Actually your build with pictures confirmed me to buy this crew at the first place!

I was thinking about welding my W-250 but it had so extensive rust so this crew cab build is not that much harder to do!

But I do have few questions for you!

Are the front and rear sections of the frame rails the same in 1990 6" reg cab frame than the 8" ? 1991.5-1993 w-250 or my 8" 1985 D-350 crew?

And the second question. My 1990 W-250 has single piece rear driveshaft with 1410 U-joints but my Crew D-350 has a two piece with center bearing and 1310 U-joints!? I thought they used 1410 U-joints.

What should I do with my build? I guess adding 30+ inches to the single piece is not an option...

Here's the rear piece of the rear driveshaft.
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And RamGuy84:
Sorry to disapoint you :) But I already have new bedside panels for SRW bed.
I like SRW's more to drive in here. Everything is so narrow in here and I occasionally go to the trails too.
And beside that dually axle has open differential too.

I'm going to swap the rear axle and leaf springs too.

[guitar]

The frames are not the same. Please don't cut the frames and mismatch weld them together as someone recently did here in the states. It would be a bit hard to take seeing the strongest frames butchered into a weaker version all over the world. Take the time and do it right swap the 4x4 crossmembers, spring and shackle hangers onto the crewcab frame.

The rear two piece driveshaft with the smaller U-joints is what you get on the W-350 Crew cabs.
I have used '92-'93 Ex Cab long bed Cummins 2 piece driveshafts to replace my crew cabs lighter duty gasser D-shaft out, several times.
It work really slick as the wheelbase is the same.
Just swap out the yokes on the NP-205 and the Dana rear axle [unless you are using a Cummins rear axle with the bigger yoke already].

Do NOT make a massively long one piece D-shaft, it will whip around do to its length at speed.

Wow that is pretty cool...glad my build thread was helpful.:thumbsup:

I have to agree with Comotionman....swap the 4wd cross members and brackets onto the 2wd crewcab frame. Yes it it more work...but I think it's a better all around finished project. ;)

To Make it a SRW all you have to do is change axles not cut it up . and Please Post a picture of back door's I've never seen them with power lock's .

Nice looking truck! I'm in for the build!

Ah you got me all wrong. I'm not going to cut up the Crew Cab frame... I was just asking because I'm going to cut up my W-250 front frame rails to use them as a template like trashingcows. But he had 8" Extended Cab with 8" frame to hack wit I suppose? That's why I was asking are the front frame rails the same....

And I read that 91.5-> spring hanger bolts are bigger. That's not a problem at the front because I'm taking the crossmembers from the W-250 to the crew.

I'm starting to think that the power windows and power locks are someones poorly installed addition to this truck.

Here's a pic of the door lock motor inside the drivers door.
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And the switch.
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But have you seen this sticker before on the crew cabs C post? [laugh]

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And here's the ID sticker.

Is there something special/different to your domestic versions? Like weights?

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