Well, this morning THREE crew cab DRW truck AND BED all dropped off at the local wrecking yard... Shoot.
So what all is needed in the swap now?
Axle (obviously)
Springs?
Bed sides, if not entire bed
Brakes and driveline should be a direct bolt up, right?
Man, was not expecting to see this happen.
Axle and DRW fenders.
From what I've seen with mine the beds are the same except for the cutouts for the fenders. You can certainly cut up your bed and drill for the fenders, swapping the whole bed is less work in my opinion if there's a clean candidate.
My F250 has the same springs as my DRW F350 with the exception of the helper springs which you don't need anyway since you already have bags.
I will re-iterate make sure the truck you're pulling the axle from has the same width springs and might as well double check perch width. Better safe than sorry! I would make sure it's a real DRW rear too and doesn't just have spacers bolted on for a conversion!
You shouldn't have any issues with brake hoses and you'll probably want to replace wear parts anyway....
Driveline should be fine if it's a diesel, I think the gas trucks may have used a smaller u-joint but don't quote me on that. Easy to measure.
Something I'm curious about, drw doesn't really increase payload capacity, it just helps stabilize larger loads, right? Should I even bother doing this swap? Looking for opinions.
My F350 is way more stable with a load than my F250, but it also has helper springs so I'm not sure how much difference that makes. You have twice the sidewall resisting sway on a dually.....
My F350 is rated for 10k GVWR. Not sure what the SRW trucks were rated for as the only one I have is a 250.
The only downside to the dually swap is paying for more tires and if you ever have to replace the fenders they can be hard to find or expensive.
Make sure the "landing gear" for your camper can clear the wider hips. May need to build some brackets to space them out.