Firstgenfanatic,
I'm not very far along on my project. The crew is down to a rolling frame and stripped cab with rear doors. I just got a '90 shortbed from pick-n-pull. There's lots of cross-member swapping to do, like all the front ones and adding rear ones for a Ramcharger second tank. Tons of minor dents to pull and major front floor rust repair. Last summer I posted some pics but not any since then. Just post your questions, there's quite a few guys on here that have built crews. It would help to have a '81-'85, but I don't think there is anything insurmountable, it will just be more of a challenge!

You don't happen to know Steve Lopes, He's a blacksmith and I think he lives in Port Orchard?

 

going thru the same thing with my 77 right now, to use the 92 front clip, you need the doors, and the cowl cover to match the cab lines up right, thats where the blend is to the old stuff.

 

Hhhmmm, the name doesn't sound familiar to me. Is this a friend of yours?

 

This is basically what I hope to achieve.............

Sorry for the poor quality pics.

 

I can get you some pics on saturday from two cabs I have sitting around. One is an 80s crew that will have the same hvac hole in the firewall as your donor. The other is a 1977 crew that has an hvac hole to match your 79 crew.

You also will need to modify the wire harness hole in the firewall to accept the cummins truck wiring harness.

If you don't want to micky-fart around use the doors, fenders, cowel, hood, core support, inner fenders, etc. from the cummins truck. Also, use the dash, steering column, dash wiring, engine bay wiring from the cummins truck.

If you swap all that, your biggest headache, other than modding the firewall, will be keeping track of what goes where.

If you swap the front doors and fenders and want it to look "right" you will need to find a bed from 80-93. The body line that goes through the front fenders and dies in the door by the door lock is picked up again in the bed. Also, the body lines around the wheel opennings will be different. My rc in the pic has 89 fron sheet metal and 77 rear sheet metal. non-dodge folks don't see the differences.



Check out my blogspot links in my sig. the ramcharger blog has a ton of info that would lend to your questions.

PM me if you want me to do the swap for you.

 

I think maybe I confused you and other readers...........

I have a 1993 W250 4X4 club cab & now a 1980 Dodge Crew Cab 2wd.

 

Now that I understand that you are thinking on stretching the 93 club, it makes more sense to me. The offer for the pics would be to compare the two firewalls so you could see what you were up against there.

 

Hehe, sorry for the confusion! Yes, I would be really interested in seeing the difference in firewalls between the 72-80 and 81-85.

 

Here is the 80s/90s firewall from the engine side.

Here is the 70s version.

Here is a schematic of the 80s/90s.

And the older one.