1999 Dodge Cummins 2500 4x4 Flatbed build

[OverlandTherapy]

Hello!

Long time lurker but I finally have a rig to throw into the mix. Our story starts with most, craigslist and inappropriate use of work time. When I was 9 years old my father bought a brand new 5 speed 1999 Dodge 2500 Cummins off the showroom floor. I remember riding home in it that night just blown away. As a 9 year old I had died and gone to heaven. I knew I had to have one from that moment. Over the years I always was a dollar short or 5 minutes late to making my dream become a reality.

Ah.... There we are we May, 25, 2017, scanning Craigslist at 8 am for "4x4 Cummins" In a state I am not even residing in. BAM. There she is... 1999 Cummins 4x4, 5 speed with a flat bed. 7500 bucks. One immediately placed phone call to St. George, UTAH and I had an over the phone handshake that the buyer would hold the truck for me until 10AM Saturday. AWESOME. Now.....where am I getting 6,000 dollars. List my own truck (2000 Tundra SR5) at 8:45am, sell it by noon... Call wife at 3pm to pick me up from work. "Truck broken?", she asks...

I felt like a kid going to disneyland for the first time! My Father in that original 99 Dodge Ram 2500...now with 400,000 on the clock drove me to mine!

Here she was the day I got here.

She had 312k miles on her and at the time I was a full time mechanic with certs from Cummins, GM and Ford for the major diesels. I wasnt scared and believe it or not from an engine standpoint I have had zero problems.

My real claim to fame was after driving the truck back home, my wife and I turned around the following Friday and took our first road trip to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon....ironically passing back through St. George on our way home that weekend.

So... Like all builds, this portion was simply saving money. It would be 4 months later that I would find a StarCraft Pine Mountain 800 Pop up Camper for sale in Yuma....and ON our wedding anniversary my wife and I went and grabbed it.

So out came the torch and grinder to make it fit.


UGLY AS SIN.... But mine.... I was Redneck happy.

Now with my mismatched turtle...it was time to focus on things that would help me take this ugly duckling off road. The joke has been with my dad that its much easier to upgrade a truck...when you have 2. So everything I started to do to my truck...he started to do to his. We got a wicked deal from a place called Logan Fab works out of PA on our bumpers....cause we ordered 2.

Tucked in a Keeper 17.5K Wireless winch.


TO be Continued..

 

[Explorerinil]

Nice set up! I fell in love with dodge cummins trucks when my uncle bought a brand new 1994 12v drw 4x4 quad cab with a manual trans. The first day I went for a ride in it he just put a 4 inch straight pipe exhaust and a jake brake kit on it.... sounded like a big rig but better, after that day I was hooked on cummins powered anything.

 

[chilliwak]

Thats an awesome looking rig Mr Overland. Have you thought of maybe putting some tool boxes under the camper so that you have easy access to recovery gear and other usefull items? Welcome to the site and lets see what you do with your fine rig. Keep us posted with lots og pics. Cheers, Chilli...

 

[OverlandTherapy]

So then.... it was time to get that puppy on.

Nothing like a little 3/4 ton rhinoplasty.


But then...after just telling the wife the truck was ready for expo and no need to spend money.....

I had a gnarly noise coming from the left front when turning....Chucked the truck up in a rack, pulled the wheel. Decided to take the axle and cotter pin off of the unit bearing and BAM.... special edition 2 piece unit bearing.... I checked the passenger side and.... found a very similar unit bearing on its last leg. 330K miles both original unit bearings... it was time.... BUT.... I mean why put it back to stock?

So.....

Since the Diff cover had to come off...might as well also through a Truetrac and 35 spline inner chromo shafts as well. I know for a fact that front axle is not leaving me in a ditch ANYWHERE.

 

[OverlandTherapy]

So Overland Expo 2018 started off on the wrong foot. Unfortunately there was a fatality on the 10 out by Desert Center and after sitting dead stopped for a hour and having a CHP officer tell us it was possibly going to be 6 hours to complete the investigation...it was time to find a way around...Luckily I have a Uncle who lives in Blythe and a cell phone that had reception. After talking with him for a few minutes he was able to tell me about an old access road that ran parallel with the freeway. I looked back behind us and spotted a E350 Sportsmobile. After asking if they were going to EXPO we were off as a pair, crossing the desert. Roughly 40 minutes off road and we were ahead of the crash and back on the highway.

 

[OverlandTherapy]

So...one big issue that presented itself after expo was the fact that with a new diff cover the truck was basically using the diff cover and track bar as giant metal bump stops. So Time for a budget lift. After looking around I settled in on the Thuren 2.75 springs for the 2nd gen trucks. I had installed several different springs for the 2nd gens and the thurens seemed to have the best customer responses and rode the best. I also had A LOT more to do on the truck so I decided to just go with the Fox 2.0 replacement shocks front and rear. I tied the whole thing up with the synergy track bar conversion.

 

[Explorerinil]

Very good progress! How do you like the Yukon free spin hubs?

 

[OverlandTherapy]

Very good progress! How do you like the Yukon free spin hubs?

Personally, I LOVE them. I got a solid 1 mpg increase. The steering does feel lighter. The real selling point for me is just the fact they are much more robust than the unit bearings. Plus having 2LO is kinda fun.

 

[ExpoMike]

So Overland Expo 2018 started off on the wrong foot. Unfortunately there was a fatality on the 10 out by Desert Center and after sitting dead stopped for a hour and having a CHP officer tell us it was possibly going to be 6 hours to complete the investigation...it was time to find a way around...Luckily I have a Uncle who lives in Blythe and a cell phone that had reception. After talking with him for a few minutes he was able to tell me about an old access road that ran parallel with the freeway. I looked back behind us and spotted a E350 Sportsmobile. After asking if they were going to EXPO we were off as a pair, crossing the desert. Roughly 40 minutes off road and we were ahead of the crash and back on the highway.
View attachment 511204
View attachment 511205

Funny, I did something similar driving back from Bradshaw trail. Accident on the 10 westbound. Cut across the median back to a off ramp and took the dirt road that paralleled the freeway. Bypassed about a 2 hour wait.

 

[OverlandTherapy]

So after recapping from Overland Expo one thing became very apparent for the wife and I. We actually were not huge fans of the slide in pop up camper life. Sure the heater was nice, the fridge was cool. But for us the "camping" feel was almost entirely removed. Plus, the camper limited where we could go BY A LOT. Plus, I had misjudged the upkeep of a camper and how going on adventures was not as easy as just "sliding it on." For us, the camper was not going to work, (BTW, it will be forsale after EXPO 19.)

So with the camper out of the long term picture I turned towards storage. I picked a flatbed specifically for the modular capability and being able to utilize the space better than a regular bed. After close to 5 months of checking craigslist simi-hourly.... I SCORED a set of DEEZEE Topper Boxes with a perfect length of 96 inches....ooooh so good

Just a little trimming here and there.....

Oh......yes.......

wait for it.......

Needless to say....I was starting to feel pretty good about myself. The boxes were freaking perfect... 20 inches high, 18 inches deep, 96 inches long. I had never thought I was really going to be able to afford them as the boxes are damn near 900 bucks a piece....Craigslist discount..... 400 dollars for both boxes....

 

[chilliwak]

Overland your truck looks wicked. Cheers, Chili...?

 

[Copperhead14]

That thing looks great.

 

[RichardSkinner]

Love it!

Flat bed and boxes is on my horizon for my 1st Gen.

 

[OverlandTherapy]

So... The wife and I had had a terrible experience in GLAMIS Fall, 2018. We had a dune buggy of ours break down and we tried to retrieve it from some flat sandy terrain. The ole' trail pig sunk like a rock. While having the wife drive and me push.... SERIOUSLY. I noticed my rear axle was only spinning one wheel. I dreaded the thought of my factory Power-lock being bad but ehhh its just clutches.

BUT TO MY HORROR.... I opened the diff when we got home to find...an OPEN DIFF. AH CRAP. I did not have the funds for a whole new Diff nor the time. by the time I had found my problem I had a trip planned to death valley with BloodyWest from here. So....what to do... Dana 80 LSD or Lockers were all way up on the price scale, plus that meant needing to do at least carrier bearings and I knew I was going to have to deal with the pinion stack and pinion bearing... so 1000 dollars minimum to solve my problem. However at SEMA 2018, I had bumped into a shop owner with a Lock-Right Locker for a Dana 80 sitting on a shelf... One phone call later and I scored the unit for 280 bucks.

I have installed these units in Jeeps, but the idea of sticking one of these in a 8,000 pound, high torque application had not really been documented, so I figured I would be a guinea pig to the masses lol. Here is the pro-tip, The kit does not come with a new roll pin which locks the pinion shaft into the carrier. For 2 bucks....you can save yourself a CRAP TON OF WORK. In pushing my roll pin out, there was a bur left in my carrier when machined. This bur caused the roll pin to balloon and BAM.... 4 hours of press work, cussing and lighting multiple prayer candles.

Alright...so 8 hours into my 4 hour afternoon project I get the sucker stabbed back in.


And.....Craigslist steal of the week.... Dynatrac Cover.


I have 15,000 miles on the unit so far and I absolutely love it, driving manners fit a typical locker, it is surprising as you learn to drive with it, you can make turns as smooth as you want or you can Tokyo Drift at your hearts content. Off-Road it was night and day with the locker. I can spent a large part of my off road driving in 2wd and I actually have found that my wheel hop is not necessarily the same as it was in the past, I could swear.... its less as abusive.

 

[OverlandTherapy]

So.... I scored some 285/70R17's on GEN 3 rims and then realized I did not have any spares in that size... With a sizable trip upcoming through death valley... I thought I might need to fix that spare situation... So to craigslist I went and from craigslist I found 2 spares and 2 procomp steel wheels. Now it was time to find a way to mount them in the truck that look appealing.

I have always loved how this setup looks so now to find away to secure it.

I had 4 of these Keeper weld on D-Rings and figured I could use these with some FAT ratchet straps to keep everything happy.
But after getting everything burned in. I still didnt like how much play the tires had even when strapped down "Ludicrous Tight." So out came the hand bender...



Needless to say.... I WAS STOKED how they came out.