Hey Guys,
We are working on dropping a 72' Suburban in mint condition onto a 97 Dodge Frame and running gear.

The rear end is being rebuilt, trans and case are getting treated and new clutch and flywheel are in the mail. Overall the dodge donor truck is in decent shape. The bed is off and front clip is removed with cab to folllow soon. We wanna keep it simple, so the 4wd will be ditching the vaccum activation and going back to cable.

Below is the donor burb



This thing is cherry and all original. It'll be sitting on 35's when done and should be a blast grabbing gears. We have a month to finish this thing and a 16 hour road trip to a competition to follow!

We will be removing the rear frame section rivets this weekend to slide the frame forward to fit the wheelbase of the burb. We have everything under control but I'm not entirely familiar with the cummins platform and need some of your brains to help me out or send me some links that will.

I understand these motors are stupid simply for wiring. I can read schematics, but I just don't know what the truck needs and I can't find decent information. It looks like I can run the PCM or ditch it, but I can't find information to support either route nor what is needed. It does appear if we want to run an aftermarket tuner we will need the pcm?

For the gasers, I just put a 01 tacoma motor in an 80 truck with a panel I built


I have the tools, just not the resources Can anyone send me in the right direction?

 

Well I can tell you that you won't be running a tuner, 12 valves are mechanically injected. I'm not sure on the pcm being a 5 speed truck, you might need it for the cruise or somthing. Lookin forward to keepin tabs on your project.

 

Welcome to DB!

Gotta love the old 3 door Burbs!

 

I forgot to add, I drive an 05 myself and am a huge dodge fan now!

Thanks for the reply. Looks like so far my findings are correct. However with the long road trips this truck will see cruise control would be a nice touch. Looks like the PCM would need to stay to accomplish this. Finding out what the PCM needs to retain it is another story . Any others got some helpful tips?

I'll update this thread this weekend once we he deeper into the project.

 

For those who are interested we are getting closer!

We took almost 25" out from the rear of the frame. Blew out the rivets and cut off the old body mounts then moved the rear section forward to match what we needed.

The fun part was the motor. The wheelbase was correct, but the motor sat 8" forward so we did some serious surgery and now were in business. Wiring is figured out and we got a few more weeks before her maiden voyage.

 

Loving that project.

 

Well we are getting closer! Below are
Some pictures of the engine moved back and the new frame notch.



We used the pieces we cut out and some we added to make it look as factory as possible.

For the body mounts and bumper mounts we cut all the brackets off the old frame and reused them for as close to factory as we could get.



The cab, hood and wheel wells were coated with lizard skin and a ceramic coating to reduce heat and sound.



We had a local radiator shop add a built in regulator and tach wire to the factory alternator. For $40.00 you can't beat it!



Frame got a paint job as well as the motor after we went through it. The Trans has been rebuilt as well.



Now that we're done with the lift back to our shop it goes!

 

awesome project!
that thing is gonna be sweet!

 

The customer wanted to know how many hours you have in to the conversion and what size truck you used for the application they have a standard cab long bed and they wanted to know if you used an extended cab. But mostly they wanted to know how long it took to do the frame work and body mounts.

Thanks you for your time.

Custom fab oregon86