Hey everyone. Thought I'd ask everyones opinion on this idea. I remember seeing somewhere that a dakota is about .5-1" difference in wheel base then my coronet. now having owned 3 1st generation dakotas i know a few things about them but what does everyone think of putting my 50's body on a 1st gen dakota chasis?
The stock frame is not a bad piece. Minor mods up front and a new rear seem to be adequate for most applications. What is the appeal of frame swapping? .
well for one the frame is tweaked from a bad accident the body is repaired but the frame is still tweaked. also dakotas are cheap and if i can find a running dakota i can sell the parts off of it to recoup. that combined with the fact i don't have to fabricate any motor mounts / trans mounts because of bolt in b / rb kits saves on fab time. also there are a pleathora of dakota goodies so i can make the car handle (im allready thinking addco sway bars front and rear.
I think I'd rather bang out a couple motor/trans mounts rather than all the body mounts, modify floors and all the **** that goes with a frame swap. But if your frame has had its *** kicked and cant be repaired, then go for it.
I plan to. the other thing is the wheelbase difference between a st cab long bed dak and my 50 is not even half an inch.. that makes things easy. the frame is wider so custom body mounts are in order. for some reason I feel more comfortable making body mounts and doing a channel then fabbing up motor mounts and all that. not sure why.
If the front is the part that was tweeked, why not just clip it infront of the firewall? Read about a few of these operations and it was fairly straight forward. Then all you need to fab is stuff for the doghouse.
could do that too.. tryin to get it all sorted out. i still have access to a volare front clip which could still be used... idunno..
I put a 89 Dakota clip on my 49 Dodge Wayfarer. Cant use the whole frame due to the frame kickup behind the cab. I posted pics of mine on moparts.com, couple others did too. I got help from Tim Adams on p15-d24.com, he has done a couple on there. The frame is cut and 'slides into the stock frame, right behind the front body mounts. Its not bad, I got the whole front, suspension, wheels, from local pick-in pull on 1/2 price wednesdays for $38.
yeah that sounds like the way to go... theres nothing wrong with the rear portion of the frame. thats exactly what im looking for. couple of questions though. I haven't measured the dakota frame yet but was told the dak's frame is wider then my 50's ill search moparts and see what ya did...
****, I'll sell you an almost complete Coronet 4 door for 500$. Sell the body parts and gl*** to make your money back then use the frame and whatever else ya need !
Like Lone Star Mopar said. '50 Dodge 4 doors aren't exactly rare and expensive, just a couple weeks ago a guy was going to rip the hemi and grille out of a '54 DeSoto and what was left would probably barely bring a s**** price unless a guy needed a parts car real bad. If yours is that ****ed up, just buy another one and put all the best parts on whichever car is best overall.
The 50's mopar has a boxed frame, different than the one in the moparts thread, but still similar. Heres some pics of mine.
how's the track width of the Dakota compare to the '50 Dodge? That's always been the issue with Volare or Camaro swaps, the damn wheels are clear out to the edges of the fenders (looks like **** IMO) What years of Dakotas will work? Which are 5 lug? Are the 5- and 6-lug parts interchangeable?
IIRC, 1st gen Dakotas are 5 lug (87-91?) the front rotors will swap. The rear axle ***emblies will too, or you can drill the axles and drums. 2nd gens had 6 lugs and V8s (only first gen V8s were the Shelbys). 3rd gens will fit a big block (more a body thing than a frame thing?) Track is different over the years. Best to get a measuring tape, since you will need a bunch of measurements to figure this all out.
Since I've owned 3 of em heres my knowledge of em really theres gen 1 (87-95) gen 2 (96-idunno) and gen 3 (idunno-present) (this is a very high tech article) gen 1's had 5 lug till 90 with the square nose. they also had the 7.25 junk rear end with the cover shaped like an octagon. and 5 lug wheels. 91's were an oddball year. if you have the chance to p*** on a 91 do it. in 91 they revised the LA 318 and added bosses for the triangular small block chevyish style motor mounts, and they were non magnum TBI injected (150hp ooh aaah) but did have roller cams. they put the areo nose on them so there was enough room for a v8 with a fan clutch. but this is a 1 year motor specific to the 91 dakota. i believe those are 6 lug wheels. by the time the v8 was available i believe they ditched the 7.25 rear and went to the 8.25 on all levels of trucks. 92 was the first year of the magnum 5.2 mpfi motors and the 3.9 magnum too i believe. they pretty much were unchanged from there with a standard trans back behind the v8 for a few years and a few other doodads like air bags and such added later. I don't know much about the gen 2 trucks other then they were mini ram styled and in 98 99 the 5.9 R/T was available with the 250hp 300tq r/t magnum 360 and backed only with a auto trans :-(
My 90 Dakota with a 3.9 and 5 speed has an 8 3/8" (8 1/4'?) with 5 bolt wheels. I think the stick transmissioned trucks got the 8 3/8" and the 4 banger and auto trucks got the 7 1/4", but with Mopar, who knows for sure? 91 started the 6 bolt wheels, but rotors and rear axles could be swapped (using the same rear axle size) by simply exchanging parts. Was that way until 96. 96 to 2004 (or 2003) used 6 bolt wheels also, but changes were made that required more effort to get the 5 bolt wheels. 2004 (or 2003) changed the wheel bolt pattern again to a larger 6 bolt pattern like a Viper has. Gene
ahaa! anyway ya slice it i love 87-04ish trucks the new ones are just fugly... same with the latest durango...
I'd like to see more pics, or a link. I have a '50 Wayfarer, that I was going to keep the original front under, and swap to a 5.2/518. Recently I came across a '99 Dakota RT with the 5.9/518/ 9.25 rear with 3.92 gears, that could be had for a good enough price to cut up. I hadn't even considered the Dakota clip job until this thread. The 5 or 6 lug doesn't concern me so much, as I want to run full 'caps, but I certainly don't want the goofy track width, subframed look.
just had a grand idea. use the 400 cordoba spool type motor mounts i was going to originally use and modify the dakota k frame to accept the spool mounts.. gotta get the frame welded up first then bolt on the cordoba mounts to the block and drop her in. it just may work
I did some measuring on a 92 dakota. the width seemed spot on. It is my grandma's truck so i was able to borrow it for a couple days. I was also figuring that the wheels on the dakota are a bit wider than the wheels on the old plymouth. The shortbed regular cab dakota frame would need to be lengthened a few inches. I'm just all about the rack and pinion steering ad cruising at 70 in 4th gear with a gear left. The A/C and gas mileage will just be a nice bonus. Plus i already have half of my floor cut out due to rust anyway, might as well cut the rest out and channel it up.
I'm putting a 48 Plymouth business coupe body on my 90 Dakota frame. I had to shorten my long box, standard cab frame 8", which came out just behind the rear cab mounts. To position the engine and trans correctly, I moved the engine & trans rearward 8". I'm using the Dakota floor pan, firewall, and all the Dakota componets. About the only thing left from the Plymouth will be the body shell (the car was rusted out bad). I moved the Dakota floor pan and firewall back 8" as well. Once in position, the coupe's front door posts matched up with the original location of the Dakota front door posts. The Dakota doors are about 3" shorter then the business coupe's doors are. I made mounts for the floor pan and it is bolted to the frame. The Dakota fuel tank is still in its original position in the frame. The frame splice is actually just in front of the fuel tank, and the floor pan rear cross brace and cab mounts are at the splice, putting the rear of the cab just in front of the fuel tank. I am using the Dakota box floor for the coupe floor pan behind the doors. I trimmed the 8' box floor and the front box cross member is sitting on top of the cab floor pan. The box floor is bolted to the frame at the 2nd set of box support mounting bolts. There is a 6" difference between the cab floor height and the height of the box floor pan. This would be at the original location of the back of the cab. My business coupe will be enclosed from there towards the rear. The car still has the rear wheel wells and they are in repairable condition, so I had to cut the box floor into 2 pieces to get it in the car. The box floor is cut into a front section and a rear section. They will be welded back together. I also used just the center of the box floor, between the wheel wells. The rear floor of the coupe was about 52" wide at the wheel wells. I will fill the floor in front of the rear wheels and along the wheel wells with filler pieces. The rear section is bolted to the frame at the 3rd set of original mounting bolts and new rear mounting points were constructed. The rear floor pan is probably 3" higher on the body then the original was, I say probably because there was no original coupe floor pan left to compare to. Someone before me cut 6" off the trunk lid and had it screwed to the body panels. I trimmed up the hack job on the deck lid and made a filler piece to attach to the body. The top of that filler piece is about 3" above the new floor. The car is outside, buried under 14" of fresh snow, and is not finished yet. I made new rockers, and had to rebuild the bottom 6" of the coupe body, but is not looking too bad for what it is. I took some pictures of the build, but not many, can answer questions if you have any. Gene
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