I bought a 1996 Dodge 2500 with a 5 speed manual. Mileage is only 123k with a completely stock, unmolested motor. The truck has a salvage title due to a minor fender bender. The guy I bought it from drove it daily as a farm truck. I paid $5500 for the truck because I wanted the low mileage stock motor and the manual tranny. Not sure if I paid too much but I used to race Toyota Supras and have done several motor swaps. I know that having a complete vehicle makes doing motor swaps much easier so I bought the whole truck. If I paid too much, it is what it is. It was worth it to be able to drive and verify the motor/mileage instead of buying a motor by itself to only find out it has been dogged out or on it's last leg.

This truck could be brought back to life with some paint and interior work but I really dont want to sink a lot of money into a salvage title vehicle. Most importantly, I also have kids and need rear doors, either full doors or the mini doors like my Titan has.

What is the ideal candidate/swap vehicle for my drivetrain? I am open to both Suburban/Bronco and truck platforms. This is a hunting, fishing, and camping/survival platform. I will do the swap myself so I would prefer a vehicle that has the most aftermarket support and requires the least amount of custom work. I also dont want to sink a ton of money into the transplant vehicle. I know the Ford 250/350 gas motor trucks from 94 to 2001 go for dirt cheap. I also want to reuse as many parts as possible off the Dodge i.e. transmission. Can someone lend some good advice for me?

Chris

 

OBS Ford crew cab

---AutoMerged DoublePost---

Or even a NBS Superduty crew cab

 

I'm all for OBS Fords with Cummins power...so that goes without saying.

However, in your case, why not look for a later 2nd Gen Dodge club cab short bed? The 2000+ models had the "3rd door" on the extended cab, iirc, and you already have most of the hard parts for the diesel swap. Granted, I'm no Dodge guy so I have no idea what it would entail, but it sounds like it would be a clean swap and give you that "holy grail Dodge" everyone raves about: cc sb 12v 5speed.

A Ramcharger or Bronco would be sweet too...

 

im about to drop a 12v in my 03 superduty with a nv4500 trans behind it!! superdutys are my favorite truck ever but i dont care for the motors!

 

i found an 04 superduty with an exploded 6.0 for 3 grand and sold 2 grand worth of engine parts from it!!! took awhile to find though

 

Being a Chevy guy I say chevy but also because Chevy uses the nv4500 manual somewhat similar to the dodge version . Tips every one says this project is upwards of a 3-4 grand I'm in to my conversion at most 15oo bux I before I sell my extra parts . I had a huge head start already having the nv450o 5 speed in my Chevy

 

I don't see how anyone can say how much it will cost you, they can say how much it cost them but not everyone finds the same deals on parts.

 

put it in a DODGE-dodge started this whole thing anyway-

[ i got MOPAR tattooed on me for 20 years -so i wud say that-]

 

That is true but I know a couple companies like de stroked and ford cummins offer kits . Hell even auto world Montana offers kit plus motor with option form thm to install