Ok well first let me say that if your a purist, and hate seeing anything other than a blue oval engine in a blue oval truck. But before we get into details about whats going where let me give you a little history of the truck since I've had it. When I was only 12 years old I had a job cleaning up at a local VFW. I saved up money and bought the truck for $800 from a local junk yard. My parents told me they weren't going to buy me a newer truck. For one thing we couldn't afford it and secondly they wanted me to build it myself so I would learn how to fix it when it breaks, and more importantly take better care of it. But we all know how teenagers are with cool trucks and hotrod go fast parts. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of the truck from when I first bought it. I know they were taken but they are no where to be found. Anyway just to make long story short, I put in a 351W and C6 and had it painted Canary Yellow with black racing stripes. So lets fast forward several years. I have just finished my 6 year contract in the Navy and the truck had stayed for the most part the same. Well a good opportunity showed its face in the form of a 2010 Ram power train at a killer price. So now I'm working on swapping in the 5.7 Hemi and 545RFE transmission, and converting it to 4 wheel drive using the NP-243D transfer case. Also, I am replacing the 1/4 ton leaf springs and ford 9" rear with the dodge 9.25 rear and coil springs along with control arms and a panhard bar. And for the front I am cutting out the twin I-beam suspension and replacing it with the dodge A-arms and installing the 8.25 front axle.
So yeah it's pretty much a Ram truck with a ford body. Now I know this is gonna make alot of you mad. But this is truck is being built into a usable street rod. Not some kind of off road beast. Plus it'll make for a really cool street rod. So once I figure out how to post these pictures I'll get them up. I have lots of them.

 

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[IMG][/IMG]The first bolt I attempt to remove on this truck breaks. Luckily this was the only time this happened so far.

 

Unless the Dodge's frame is toast, why don't ya just rebody it with yer Ford???

Hot rodding is hot rodding... bring on the Hemi.... Ya gotta call it a Fordge though...!

 

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... Take my word...... it won't be the last.

 

Lol yeah or a Dord, hey I'm having an issue uploading pics. So far everytime I try to upload a pic the first time it doesn't work, but after I make the post if I go back and edit it and do the exact same thing the picture shows up. What am I doing wrong?

 

 

figured out my picture issue, it was operator error.

 

You'll notice that in the one picture that you can see the control arm mount on the frame the mounts look kind of simple and weak. However I did only that just so I could move the truck around as I needed. I will be going back and reinforcing those mounts.

 

looks awesome man

 

Heres the 351, I'm just starting on taking it out at this point. Getting closer to pullin it out.

Pulled the core support cause well, its gotta come off.

A few more inches.

 

Here is the new front end that is going in. What I did here was measure the center line of the front wheels and the center line of the hubs on the new front end. From there I measure how far back the section of ram frame extended. And from this I figured out where I needed to cut the existing Ford frame.


The Ram frame is right about 3 inches wider than the ford frame and so it sticks out 1 1/2 inches on both sides.

Here is the frame welded in enough to hold the truck up.

Here is the Passenger side frame after it was all welded up. I boxed the frame in this area, and welded in gussets inside the boxed area.

And here is the Driver side, sorry for the picture quality. It was night time and I used my cell phone.

 

Thanks, its been alot of work lately.