1957 Chevy 3100, meet 1994 Dodge Ram 1500

[Purcell69]

Originally Posted by mikebte

That looks like freaking great time. Love the video, I’m your first subscriber, so don’t forget to keep making videos.

Love custom builds like this, your not using a prefab chassis and engine and all the stuff other people use to make “basically” the same build. Yours is one off and tells a story about the owner.

Mike, I'm glad you like it. The truck is still a long way from being finished (which is why it isn't currently tagged and why I haven't taken it off the property). I fully intend to keep this updated as progress is made, with pics and video whenever I can. I'm toying with the idea of a compilation video that encompasses the entire build thus far, since Photobucket deactivated all of my pictures from the beginning.

I completely understand what you are saying about not going the prefab route. There are a lot of trucks out there with aftermarket frames or mid-1970s chassis swaps and most of them look great and their owners are happy. It is a win for them. I am fine with that, to each his own. I just didn't want to be one of them.

From the beginning, I wanted this truck to be different. When guys were cutting frames and doing IFS swaps, I wanted to keep the traditional "truck" look and tried to keep the stock frame. It wasn't practical for a daily driver and I caved and put in a Camaro clip. To be different, I ditched the carburetor in favor of Crossfire Fuel Injection from a 1983 Z28. It was different and worked okay, but it wasn't great, and I hated the lowrider look.

Around 2012, I started giving serious thought to swapping in the Dodge 1/2 ton 4wd chassis from a 1994+ truck, for the ride quality. The more I researched the dimensions of the Dodge frame compared to the Chevy, I realized they were similar enough that I could make it work. In 2013, the ball started rolling again.

My wife, Kim, gets credit for the engine choice. I found a 1994 Dodge 1500 about 2.5 hours away for $400 with a bad motor. I was going to use a 4.0L Jeep engine and AW-4 automatic from a rusted out XJ Cherokee that I had, eventually building the six banger into a stroker motor. Kim is the one who suggested keeping the 5.9L Magnum, since it came with the donor truck, going with "bigger is better". With that blessing, I parted out the Cherokee, doubled my money from it, and bought a running 5.9L Magnum on Craigslist for $400.

Five years of work so far and here we are! More to follow as time and money permits.

-Joe

[joedoh]

tell me more about this mazda.. its your project thread so OT is ok haha

[Purcell69]

Originally Posted by joedoh

tell me more about this mazda.. its your project thread so OT is ok haha

The Mazda was a 1991 B2200 that we had owned since new. At the time, it had 287,000 miles on it, looming in on 300k with the original drivetrain and was still a daily driver. The plan was to re-ring the engine and rebuild the head the next coming year, as it was starting to smoke on cold starts.

I was working Day shift at the time (in 2006) and had parked in the PD parking lot. Half way through the morning, a call of an injury accident in the PD parking lot was broadcast. My first thought was that someone had been walking in the parking lot and got hit by a car, which would have most likely been at low speed, but given the unusual nature, I headed back to the office in a hurry.

When I got there, it was absolute chaos. One car had plowed in to five parked cars, the Mazda included. The driver of the car had just left his doctor's office, which was right across the street from the PD. According to his wife, he had just received some very bad news regarding his health and was driving home after leaving the office. Moments later, he suffered an aneurysm that ruptured, and braced his foot on the gas pedal as he died while driving.

His wife had never driven a car in her entire life, (this was an old couple). She didn't know what to do, so she grabbed the steering wheel and made a hard right turn in to the police and fire parking lot at roughly 55 mph. The first vehicle she hit was the brand new F150 belonging to the Records clerk. She t-boned the F150 and shoved it in to the passenger side of my Mazda. At the same time, the F150 was pushed in to three other parked cars before the car being driven came to a stop.

The Mazda caught most of the damage in the passenger door, back to the bottom right corner of the front of the bed. The passenger window didn't break, but the cab corner was crushed to the point that the door could not be opened. The blow even buckled the inner wall of the cab, yet the frame was still straight.

In the end, I sealed the gap between the door frame and the cab with expanding foam. The insurance company totaled the truck, but let us keep it. It pulled farm duty for a while and I used it to teach our daughter how to drive. She learned how to work a manual transmission while driving it in the pasture. I couldn't think of a better way to start her off since the truck had already been wrecked.

In the end, I sold it to a guy in Texas that wanted the motor and transmission for his truck. I guess he had ignored the 60k mile timing belt maintenance on his and bent some valves.

The widow survived the crash with minor injuries and when her insurance company settled out, they wrote me a check for $3500 for that old Mazda, and I got to keep the truck. To be fair, it didn't look like it had 300k on it. The interior was almost perfect and the exterior had some fading in the decal stripes, but was otherwise clean and shiny.

That's my Mazda truck story Joe.

-Joe

[americanmusc1e]

Hey man I don't mean to keep jacking your thread, but does the Ram JTEC PCM not have any anti-theft function? I just finally got mine running standalone after I added a hacked up BCM and connected it to the CCD bus. Without the BCM it will start and run for 3 seconds only.

If the dodge doesn't have any anti-theft features I should have just used the Ram JTEC

[Purcell69]

Originally Posted by americanmusc1e

Hey man I don't mean to keep jacking your thread, but does the Ram JTEC PCM not have any anti-theft function? I just finally got mine running standalone after I added a hacked up BCM and connected it to the CCD bus. Without the BCM it will start and run for 3 seconds only.

If the dodge doesn't have any anti-theft features I should have just used the Ram JTEC

No worries at all Josh.

No, the 1998 PCM that I have doesn't have any of the anti-theft functions. The truck starts, runs and drives like it should. It could stand some fine tuning, but beyond that and a squeaky serpentine belt, it runs good.

I don't have a gauge cluster installed, so I am sure the is a Check Engine Light that I can't see, at least for the transmission, since I'm using the non-computer controlled 46RH, but other than that, I think I'm in good shape.

I still need to add a temperature gauge so I can see what the engine is running at and I need to take it to the shop to get the fuel sync dialed in so it will be 100%. I'm happy with it though, even as it is right now.

-Joe

[joedoh]

I will be honest I thought you were a minitrucker haha. arizona, 2002, that was the hotbed. I had a few mazda minitrucks, just a few. maybe 12. hahaha

[lower50's]

Congrats on getting it moving and front back together. It is a huge motivator. That's a wild Mazda story, thanks for sharing.

[Purcell69]

Originally Posted by joedoh

I will be honest I thought you were a minitrucker haha. arizona, 2002, that was the hotbed. I had a few mazda minitrucks, just a few. maybe 12. hahaha

Lol! I never got in to the whole mini truck scene. Somewhere on a hard drive, I have pictures of the truck before and after the collision, but I'll be damned if i can find them. I've got to give credit to that little truck. There had been several times I had used it to go to the steel supply yard down the road from us to get materials for the barn I was building. It was not uncommon to have my 16' flatbed on the back, loaded with 20' sticks of 3" C purlin or 2" square tube. The steel yard is about 2.5 miles from the house and mostly farm roads, so I never got up to highway speeds. Even still that little truck had no problem moving the load, at least up through 4th gear. I never hit 5th though and stopping was another story. Lol.



I really screwed the pooch Monday. I set about to thinning out the in-cab wire harness, removing all of the terminal connectors that would not be used, such as the SRS system, climate control wiring, and sound system. In my zeal, I took the short cut and neglected to test start after removing each piece. Now I am paying the price. No start when I turn the key again.

I knew better, but I still did it. Kicking myself now...

-Joe

[joedoh]

yeah man, those mazdas were insanely reliable, for 86 hp haha. I found a magnum head online about 15 years ago, and put CBR 600F4i throttle bodies on it with a custom built EFI and EDIS controller. sounded like an angry angry hamster.

had a lot, still look at them on craigslist if I am honest.

sorry about your (cut) wiring trouble. look up the story about "muntzing"

[Purcell69]

Originally Posted by joedoh

yeah man, those mazdas were insanely reliable, for 86 hp haha. I found a magnum head online about 15 years ago, and put CBR 600F4i throttle bodies on it with a custom built EFI and EDIS controller. sounded like an angry angry hamster.

had a lot, still look at them on craigslist if I am honest.

sorry about your (cut) wiring trouble. look up the story about "muntzing"

My wife was so impressed with the little B2200 that when an opportunity came to get a B2600 4wd cheap, she jumped at the chance. I found one on C/L bout 10 years back that had a bad transfer case. Other than that, the truck was solid and pretty straight. I still had the B2200 wreck at the time and figured if worse came to worse, I could salvage needed parts to fix up the B2600. They were even the same color.

I snagged the C/L truck for a few hundred bucks, then found a guy in North Texas with a wealth of spare parts, including the transmission/transfer case assembly. He had gotten out of the Mazda game and I bought all the spare parts he had for $300. Once the transfer case was swapped, I took the bench seat and tailgate from the B2200 and installed them on the B2600. The wife used this truck as her daily driver to college in OKC. The bigger 2.6l engine wasn't as thrifty as the B2200, but it had EFI and was a solid runner. I ended up selling it a few years back and used the money to by my daughter an XJ Cherokee for a school vehicle her senior year. She ended up driving it to college as well.

The B2600 was a great little truck, but it just wasn't practical for my daughter to use. She was the school mascot and there was no room in the cab to keep her gear and the bed wasn't a secure place. The Jeep fit her needs better.

It sounds like you had a pretty insane build on your Mazda back in the day. I imagine once you had it dialed in, it was a hoot to drive.

I found the pictures of the B2600 while looking for the others.

-Joe

[joedoh]

it was fun to goof around with, they all were. I had a couple 2600i trucks in there, they were common to crack the head or the caps in the computer. the 4x4 sheetmetal was worth gold in the 90s!

I looked for some pictures of my EFI experiment truck but didnt find them right off, I did find another of my trucks that was on the minitruckin magazine subscription card

[Purcell69]

Originally Posted by joedoh

it was fun to goof around with, they all were. I had a couple 2600i trucks in there, they were common to crack the head or the caps in the computer. the 4x4 sheetmetal was worth gold in the 90s!

I looked for some pictures of my EFI experiment truck but didnt find them right off, I did find another of my trucks that was on the minitruckin magazine subscription card

That's cool that you've got a piece of automotive history!

You're right about the 2600i heads. I cracked ours while fording a snowdrift after getting our tractor stuck. Fortunately, I realized what had happened and didn't do additional damage. In the end, I bought a rebuilt head and got things fixed right up again. It ran like a top with the new head.

In other news, I've sorted the no-start issue I created. I had low amperage 12v going to the Starter Relay in the Power Distribution Center, but I had inadvertently eliminated the high amperage feed that goes across the relay to the starter solenoid. Until I get that issue completely resolved, I have a momentary switch installed to engage the starter solenoid. It still requires the ignition key and lock to make the truck run and drive.

I have before and after (so far) pictures of the technicolor spaghetti that I have been working on thinning out. I still have more circuits to delete, but I will be more cautious as I continue.

I also scored a set of 2000 Chevrolet Silverado seats with power bases to use instead of the Grand Cherokee seats that I wanted to use. From a practical standpoint, using the Grand Cherokee seats isn't the best answer. Mounting a shoulder belt would be a pain in the ass to do properly. I really like the comfort of the Grand Cherokee seats though. They are in excellent condition and were from the 1993 five speed ZJ we owned since new. When I sold the Jeep, I kept those seats.

The Silverado seats have the shoulder belt incorporated into the seat. The top of the shoulder isn't adjustable for height, but the position isn't horrible or uncomfortable. Both seats could stand some love, as the covers have some minor cigarette burns (I'm a non-smoker) and the edge of the driver's cushion is worn. Also, I will need to replace the driver's seatbelt, since it is worn and fraying. Still, for $40, I'm not complaining. Compared to the XJ seats that I had mounted in the cab of the truck, these things are like a pair of Lazy Boys.

-Joe

[Rickysnickers]

Yeah, I'm looking for some similar seats for my '57 as well. I will be interested to see how you mount them.

[Purcell69]

Originally Posted by Rickysnickers

Yeah, I'm looking for some similar seats for my '57 as well. I will be interested to see how you mount them.

If you pull the trigger on some, get the 2003-2007 seats with power bases. There seems to be a common failure of the retractor in the 1999-2000 seats that will cause the belt to jam. There are plenty of repair businesses for that issue and the cost is about $70, but you have to disassemble the seat to get to it.

The power bases will make all the difference. The tracks mount flat to the floor. I've been fitting mine tonight and made a template to drill my holes. The front two feet will go on the factory rib used for the original Chevy seat. The rears will go to the floor, ahead of the back rib, though I think I will use a 1" pedestal to keep the tracks flat.

It looks like the seats mounted to studs protruding from the donor truck floor, as the tracks have recesses for the mounting nuts. Once I get my holes drilled, I'll make new anchor plates to go under the 1957 floor pan, weld nuts to the plates and install studs to mount the seats. The last anchor plates I made were from 3/16" plate steel, with the edges bent away from the floor pan to keep from cutting the floor steel in the case of a collision. The studs can't be too long or they will protrude from recess and interfere with the tracks. I tack the anchor plates to the underside of the floor pan, so installing or removing the seats is a one person operation.

The seats get power through two wires, a 14ga orange wire is the + and a 14ga black wire is the - . I added some leads to these and hooked up to my battery charger to move the tracks back and forth.

I'll take pictures as I do it and post them as I go. I used a piece of white foam poster board from Walmart to make my template. I laid the driver's seat on its back and clamped the board to the tracks while I traced the footprint of the tracks with my Sharpie marker and marked the location of the mounting holes.

I would assume the passenger side is a mirror image of the driver's side, but the foam board is less than $3 per sheet, so if it is different, it isn't a huge expense to make a separate template.

-Joe

[Purcell69]

The past few days have been incredibly hot and humid at our place with the heat index pushing 108*. Normally this doesn't bother me much after all the years I lived in AZ, but the humidity and no breeze has made for an ugly combination of conditions. It also seems that every afternoon as I head out to tinker with the seats after work, thunder storms start to blossom up around us. I welcome the rains here in August, i really do, and the storms put out a nice cool breeze as they pass by, but it is a little unsettling working under the trees with all that lightning nearby.

In spite of all this, I did manage to make two seat base mounting templates to mark my hole locations and orientation. I say two because after making the template for the driver's side, I placed it up to the bottom of the passenger side seat base and found the mounting hole locations are different from side to side, not a mirror image of the driver's side, like I was hoping for. In all, it just took a few extra minutes to make the second template, and I had the materials on hand to do it.

The white foam-filled poster board is easy stuff to work with and is rigid enough to make good templates. It is also cheap enough that if you make a mistake bad enough to have to start over from scratch, it isn't a huge expense. I started with one full board clamped to the bottom of the driver's seat base and used a Sharpie marker to mark the locations of the four foot pads for the seat base. Once they were marked, I cut the board down to size and began to make more accurate markings on the poster board for the mounting hole locations.

Three of the four mounting points for the seat tracks are wells for the hardware, under the tracks. As a result, If you are going to use studs to mount the seats, rather than bolts, you need to be sure the length of the protruding stud isn't so long that it will interfere with the seat tracks. The nice thing about the wells is GM has small holes in the sides of the wells that correspond with the center of the mounting holes in the bottom of the wells. This makes it easier to locate your centers when you transfer them to your floors or templates. This is only viewed from the side axis, but looking down the tracks you can eyeball the center of the front/rear axis.

When it came time to make the holes in the templates, I cheated and used a Dremel tool to grind through the poster board that was clamped to the bottom of the seat base. This gave me the hole locations and orientation, then I used the poster board to mark the cab floor for the new holes. The marking that I made previously, on the poster board, helped to ensure the punch was centered when I marked the spots to be drilled.

Once the holes were drilled, the seats were set in place. Everything fits as it should and now all I need to do is make my anchor plates with studs to mount the seats. Since these are power bases, I have been using a 12v battery charger to move the seat tracks back and forth for access to the wells for the mounting hardware.

Since I still have the fuse panel and wiring from the Ron Francis wire harness kit I bought years ago, I will mount it as a sub-panel for my electric accessories rather than try to tap in to the Dodge wire harness. I had already planned on mounting this panel in the right rear corner of the cab, so I will not need to run wires across the front of the cab floor to the seats.

-Joe

[Purcell69]

Looking at the two templates for the passenger side and the driver's side underneath it, you can see the holes don't align. Each side will be slightly different and do not mirror each other. If all goes right this afternoon, I can get my anchor plates and studs assembled and welded to the underside of the cab floor and the seats can be mounted.

I still need to weld shut the old holes from the Jeep seats and paint the cab floor before I finally mount them in. They are not as easy to mount as the Jeep seats were, due to the power bases, but once I have the wiring set up, getting them in and out shouldn't take much more time.

-Joe

[Purcell69]

Well, I have the seats temporarily bolted in place now. I haven't made anchor plates yet, but at least I can get a feel for how things will be. These seats are huge and take up a lot of real estate due to the masts for the shoulder belts. The mast is all the way against the rear wall of the cab with the seatback straight up and down. With this position, leg room for me isn't bad, but it isn't comfortable being folded at a right-angle.

In order to lay the seat back a few degrees for comfort, the seat has to move forward a few inches, giving up leg room. Fortunately, I'm only 5'11. The Jeep seats had a lot more room behind them before the were against the rear wall, which is leg room on the front side.

The power bases help, but it is a trade off to have the shoulder belts built in. The other option is to cut in to the rear wall and install anchor points for the shoulder, which I really don't want to do. I'm going to get these seats rebuilt and try them out for a while. If I find I hate them, I'll get power bases for my Grand Cherokee seats and put anchors in the rear cab wall.

-Joe

[Purcell69]

I'm still not 100% sold on the new seats. They seem to be more of a compromise than I am looking for when it comes to comfort. I'll let Kim make the final call. If she likes them, they'll stay, otherwise, I'll put my Jeep seats in and make anchors for the shoulder harness in the cab wall.

In a perfect world, I'd get my hands on some power Grand Cherokee seat bases, either six or eight way, from a 1993-1998 ZJ that someone doesn't need for not a lot of cash. That would give me my leg room back and I'd just put seatbelt anchors in the cab walls and be done with it.











-Joe

[mikebte]

Originally Posted by Purcell69

I'm still not 100% sold on the new seats. They seem to be more of a compromise than I am looking for when it comes to comfort. I'll let Kim make the final call. If she likes them, they'll stay, otherwise, I'll put my Jeep seats in and make anchors for the shoulder harness in the cab wall.

In a perfect world, I'd get my hands on some power Grand Cherokee seat bases, either six or eight way, from a 1993-1998 ZJ that someone doesn't need for not a lot of cash. That would give me my leg room back and I'd just put seatbelt anchors in the cab walls and be done with it.
-Joe

I understand your frustration, I had buckets and ended up pulling them and going with a bench. Its hard to tell just what you will like until your driving it.

[joedoh]

Originally Posted by Purcell69

I'll let Kim make the final call. If she likes them, they'll stay

ladies and gentleman, there is a man who really knows the score.

[lower50's]

They look like good seats tho, if they don't fit right then it doesn't matter. You have to find what works for you. I used s-10 buckets fit amazing so comfy.

[Purcell69]

Well I got a bit more done today and in spite of my efforts today, I think these Chevy seats will go back on the market. The bucket seats that were in the truck were from an XJ Cherokee, which aren't too bad, but I think the Grand Cherokee seats will be about as perfect as I can get for comfort, especially if I can get my hands on some power bases.

About the time I started wiring things up today, Kim decided some of the horses needed to be in the west pasture, which meant I needed to fix the hot wire to ensure they stay on the property. In all, I spent about 20 minutes digging a trench and reconnecting the hot wire to the fence charger before getting started on the truck again.

I installed the Ron Francis fuse panel that was left over from the original wiring I installed on the truck around 1999-2000. When I began to swap everything over to the Dodge chassis, I pulled the entire Ron Francis kit back out of the truck and put it all in a storage tote, figuring I could come back and pick and chose what I needed when the time came. With the panel hooked up to battery feed only right now, it powers the seats without the key being "on". At some point, I will hook the panel through the ignition switch as well for keyed power when needed.

I built up a small harness system to connect power to both seats. I made these a little on the long side to allow for final routing and used blade connectors so I can reuse them on other seat bases when the time comes. After I was done, I took the truck for a short drive to the edge of the property, the first since I fixed my starting problem. As I was about to turn around, my throttle went dead and the truck would only idle. Needless to say, I was a bit freaked out. I hiked back to the house and got some spare gas that I kept for mowing, hoping that was the problem.

Another hike back and two gallons of gas later, I started the truck back up. It started, then died. I started it a second time and the idle came back up to normal, nice and happy. Such is life when the truck has no gas gauge.

With the truck running, I cleared my work space and set out my saw horses so I can start work on the bed floor. I expect I will have the steel for it within the week, so is seems to be the next logical step.

I did not take pictures today, but I did record some video clips that I will try to put together and post up on YouTube.

-Joe

[Purcell69]

Originally Posted by lower50's

They look like good seats tho, if they don't fit right then it doesn't matter. You have to find what works for you. I used s-10 buckets fit amazing so comfy.

Right you are. Comfort is key. Kim didn't like the way they fit the cab and neither did I. We were both on the same page, so I put them back on Marketplace and sold them a week to the day after I bought them, for what i paid for them.

Even though I haven't installed them yet, I think our old Grand Cherokee seats will be the winner. They are like new and are essentially the same size as the XJ seats that are in the truck now. If I can find power bases for them it should be a 100% win. I will just need to mount the shoulder belts.

Like I said the other day, I took a bunch of short video clips while working on installing the Silverado seats. Even though I am not going to use them, I'm putting the clips up here, for entertainment value if nothing else. Someday I will learn how to edit in YouTube and combine these little clips in to one video, but for now, here they are:

https://youtu.be/vJfBsA84TYs

https://youtu.be/0Zpx5iVChnQ

https://youtu.be/bgQbmLKGPDU

https://youtu.be/vAhDnNccC9s

https://youtu.be/acn3xTLJov4

https://youtu.be/QTrl9o-3_Bo

https://youtu.be/l5YBi9tSwfE

Enjoy!

-Joe

[joedoh]

I use imovie but I use mac's exclusively, its super easy to use. for a pc system microsoft had a program called moviemaker that I used in the past and it was just as easy. with the way pc's arent backwards compatible (with different OS versions) I dont know if they still offer one you can use but it was available for windows 10 last time I used a PC

[Purcell69]

Until I get a new laptop and decent internet service at the house, I'm not going to worry about it much. YouTube has some sort of editing software available and I would need to learn how to use it, but again, it is a back burner priority.

I've been shopping around for new bed floor material this week. Wood isn't a viable option for me here in Oklahoma. The climate is too damp and i don't have indoor parking at this time to keep the truck out of the weather. I'd really hate to see all my work rusting away from moisture being held in the lumber and winter time freezing.

Initially, I was going to use 3/16" steel plate to make the bed floor out of, but that stuff jumped $60 in price since last year. In reality, 3/16" is overkill anyway. I'm not using this truck as a farm truck or a welding rig, just a driver for me to enjoy. I had considered doing what Old57 did and reclaim some bed floor steel from a later GM truck and even found a donor trailer on Marketplace for $75 with the metal I would need. Still, I like the idea of using plate steel.

The local yard has a 5'x12' sheet of 10ga plate for $170 which will give me everything I need for the floor and extra plate for something else when the time comes. I'll have to cut it myself, but the cost savings is enough that I can by blades as needed.

I figure once I have the plate installed, I will bed line it and then add the bed strips as well. The bed strips will break up the look of a plain steel plate, add a bit of extra rigidity to the flat steel and will sit on top of the bed liner so larger items can still be slid back and forth when the are not strapped down.

-Joe