From Build To Adventuring... A 1950 Dodge B2B Pickup Story

[GoldiesGarage]

Looking at the dash was just depressing, so something had to be done. Adding a pop of color will do the trick. Keeping with the blueish theme of the truck some type of Blue metallic spray can paint was chosen as the accent with regular spray can black as the main. I did spray some gloss clear out of my spray gun, you know overachiever over here. It was quite enlightening being in such a small space with a spray gun. This whole painting the dash ordeal took me four days. I can live with the results since it's not my truck.
I also painted the windshield molding and the upper cab area to match. While I'm there might as well put in new glass and seals for the windshield.










I really dug the Roadrunner on the glove box. So, I taped it off and gave it a type of fade.

 

[ITTOG]

Wow, great improvement.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

 

[shortbus4x4]

I hope you left a little bit of room between the bed floor and bed walls for expansion on each side when the wood gets wet. You probably don't see a ton of rain down there but it doesn't take much for that wood to swell up. Coming along nicely.

 

[GoldiesGarage]

Wow, great improvement.

Thanks

I hope you left a little bit of room between the bed floor and bed walls for expansion on each side when the wood gets wet. You probably don't see a ton of rain down there but it doesn't take much for that wood to swell up. Coming along nicely.

I did not think of that. The metal is thick and there are somewhere around 64 bolts holding it together. Hopefully all of that will keep it together. Funny, water fell out of the sky today.

 

[GoldiesGarage]

Ish came back for his deployment and decided he needed lockers and a regear. Pricing out lockers & regear was going to be around $3000. Doing some research, we found out that a Power Wagon was re-introduced in 2005. From the factory it had 4.56 gears, front and rear E locker, M12 warn winch, Electronic disconnecting sway bar, taller and softer front & rear springs and skid plates. Ish is always meandering through CoPart. He found a 2005 Dodge Power Wagon with 181,000 miles. It had power but did not start. The 5.7 Hemi didn't matter to since *Cough* the LS is a better engine *Cough* and all we wanted were the axles. The down side to this Power Wagon was it was involved in some type of roll over. We knew from the photos that there was frame damage (bent) but we were unsure if there was any axle damage. Ish put a bid in anyways and won. I was supposed to drive the 8+ hours one way to pick it up in Northern California but work got in the way and we had to ship it to So Cal. This axle swap will be a bolt in swap. ?

This is what arrived to the house.

 

[GoldiesGarage]

I got ahead of my self last post.

Before I continue, now is a good time to sum up a list the mods on this truck. I'll call this Version 2.

1950 Dodge B2B Body
1950 Dodge B2B Bed - Extended LxWxH
2006 Dodge 2500 4x4 Chassis (Sectioned)
AAM 9.25 Front Axle 4.10 Ratio
AAM 11.5 Rear Axle 4.10 Ratio
Zone 6 inch Lift
TCG Upper & Lower Control arms (Factory Length)
Fox Shocks Front & Rear
General Tire X3 - 35 inch
LQ4 Chevy Engine
SpearTech Standalone Wiring Harness
Custom Intake w/ K&N Cone Filter
Flowtech headers straight pipe to Humvee Stacks
Gplus Oil Cooler
4L80e 2wd Transmission
Derale Transmission Cooler w/Fan
NP205 Divorced Transfer Case
JB fab transfer case Shifters
Custom Drive Shafts
1960s Ford Front Bumper (Sectioned)
Summit Racing Steering Column
Red head Steering Box
Steering Box Brace
Mopar HD Drag Link & Tie Rod
Summit Racing LS conversion Radiator
15 Inch Spal E-Fan
Vlair Twin Air Compressors & 2 Gallon tank
2006 Chevy Front Seats
Autometer Gauges With GPS Speedo
Bob's Auto Glass - Glass Kit & Gaskets
H4 Headlights
Bus Tail Lights - LED Mod
Universal Body Harness (Ebay)
And a few man hours.

So far most of this stuff is doing well. But as our knowledge about off-roading grows. We see some items we want to readdress/having issues with or want to try something completely new.
#1 ride quality - This thing rides like a rock.

Ish has plans to take this truck to the next level... Version 3

 

[Buddha.]

Now you need an old timey truck camper on it.

 

[GoldiesGarage]

Now you need an old timey truck camper on it.

You think so? I don't know if this LQ4 Can take it. This thing is HEAVY. Over 6000 pounds and getting heavier. We are still having some cooling problems (a right now problem) when under load. Like going up a mountain road. Drives fine on the road. Maybe once we get the cooling under control, Ish can throw more gear on this old Dodge. I still have so much to post on this build to get it current and I don't want it to get out of order.

 

[GoldiesGarage]

Getting back on track for Version 3

Beefier Axles, Front & Rear E-Lockers, 4.56 Gears and just a bolt on swap... Yes, please.



The Biggest problem we had was in the roll over the Control arm brackets got bent. No worries -1 cherry picker, two trucks, 2 ratchet straps and 1 big hammer will fix this.





Ish made a switch panel to control the front locker - rear locker - reverse lights - open




Everything seems to be working

 

[GoldiesGarage]

Ish needed to hold a spare tire. 35 inch tires are not the easiest to fit on an old truck with off throwing the Vintage Vibe. Old trucks have the perfect spot behind the cab and in front of the rear fenders. We also just bought a tube bender, so we are going to wing it. We use 1-3/4 x .120 wall tubing. we used an old hub from my D-Max and made a mounting system for it. One thing we wanted was for the wheel to be able to rotate which the hub provided but the spare tire wouldn't rotate while driving?. This is how it turned out.


This is a 37 inch tire that came off of the burnt Jeep for the KB2-R. We used it because it was the biggest tire we had. In the end we made enough space to hold a 40 inch tire.

 

[GoldiesGarage]

With Version 3 off with a good start. We started looking more into of the self recovery portion. Which brought us to installing a winch. We went with the Harbor Freight Apex 12k winch. Reasons Got 20% off coupon (out the door was $579) and seems like it is a copy of a Warn winch. I wouldn't be surprised since Warn VR series are made in China. I would prefer to buy American but for 2-3 times the price we couldn't do it.

From the past post/pictures you can see we had the Front Bumper as close as possible to the body. We pushed the front bumper out about 5ish inches. We welded a Harbor Freight winch plate to the back of the bumper. At the same time we added gussets to tie in the winch plate to the bumper. Also, we reinforced the front bumper mounting flanges.

Every once in a while, it snows in the California desert. Just happened to be the day we are install this winch.




Snow doesn't stay as snow very long out here.


Final product. The front fairlead said "badlands" on it so we removed it in favor the the clean look.

 

[GoldiesGarage]

The next big step of Version 2, Custom front Triangulated-ish 3 Link suspension. Designed and built by Ish and I. We are on the hunt to reduce the harshness of the front suspension, which lead us down this road. We tried Zone springs and Synergy "progressive" Springs both were like rocks. Adding this suspension is going to force changes in many different areas we were not planning to change. So here we go.
**Disclaimer We are NOT suspension guys** I also believe "If it humanly possible, I can do it." Since there are people on the Internet doing it we went for it. We just applied some common sense, and a lot of winging it. We would ask ourselves is it going to break...? Yes = remake it. No = Cool, let keep it moving.

We bought most of the big parts from Barn4wd, Filty Mortorsports & SummitRacing.
10 ° Offset Enduro Joint 2 5/8 Inch Mounting Width 9/16
Thicc Heim Joints
Dom Tubing - 2"x 1/4 wall x 4ft
King Coilovers with 18" travel
Kings 4 inch Bump Stops

What we started with.

Full Droop


Over 4 feet long Lower Control arms

These Fox shocks are for a 6 Inch lift Dodge Truck

We did this in sections. Removed the lower control arm and build/replace them with our new super long ones.
We built and welded in a new crossmember so the LCA can mount somewhere.
Found some old Dodge motor mounts and welded them on the bottom. Turns out they were the right size for the joints. We used the factory lower control arm mounts on the axle.


Once that was LCA where good enough, we removed the UCA and started fabricating the 3rd link.
On top of the new cross member next to the front output shaft is where the 3rd link mount found it's home.


The transmission crossmember was in the way of of the 3rd link so we had to remove it. You can see in the picture above the transmission is held up with a ratchet strap. We couldn't have that so Ish made a new trans crossmember that was tighter and sits higher.

...

 

[GoldiesGarage]

Looks vintage and classy!!

Thanks, that is the look we are going for.

 

[Betarocker]

For a street driven truck, radius arms and panhard/trac bar will be more enjoyable. Triangulated 3 or 4 link with draglink will have all sorts of feedback through the steering wheel.

 

[GoldiesGarage]

For a street driven truck, radius arms and panhard/trac bar will be more enjoyable. Triangulated 3 or 4 link with draglink will have all sorts of feedback through the steering wheel.

Work still needs to be done on the Track bar height and length compared to the drag link. Factory drag link with a dropped pitman arm & factory track bar with a chassis drop bracket. As of now it goes 70 MPH fine. We should get an alignment, one day we will get around to it.