Greetings
I am a long time diesel nut, my first was a 1985 MBZ 300D, then 1989 Dodge D250 Cummins, then 1993 Cummins, with finally the 1972 Crew Conversion. I've been active on TDR/DTR and other sites as well under the same handle. The guys wanted to see my brownie and build thread on my truck so here it is.
The truck started out as a 1972 Dodge W200 Crew Cab Short Bed Adventurer. It had a 360/727 (2wd) to Divorced NP205 to 3sp Brownie with D60 Rear and D70( yes a 70) closed knuckle front axle. Project Kicked off fall of 2008. crashnzuk and I stopped to see the truck but didn't end up taking it home. After a while I decided to snatch it up. Here is a pic:
It had about 3 layers of carpet on the floor with the stock rubber mat on the bottom. After that was removed, some rot was discovered on the floor, but other than that it was virtually cancer free.
I ditched the D70F/D60 combo in favor of the axles that came under my 1st donor truck, the 1990 Dodge w250 diesel 5sp pictured here:
The original plan was to swap the entire 5sp drivetrain over as well but the project hit a standstill because of work travel and my lack of metal fab skills. I ended up selling the cummins/getrag/np205/gearvendor that was in the 1990 and parting the rest out, finally posting the carcass on craigslist for 'free' and a couple a Ruskies came and drug it away in a matter of hours.
So the project sat until mid Aug 2009 and I had since aquired a nice 1993 Dodge (in sig) which was taking up a lot of my wrenching time.
Months of posting the crew project for sale yielded no interest, so I finally got the gumption enough to continue the crew project with new inspiration. My original plan with the 4:10 axles was to have 'triple OD' which would be Getrag in 5th, Gear Vendor in OD, and Brownie in OD. That would be plenty to give the truck more than enough splits and tall legs on the hiway as well.
Well since I no longer had the drivetrain with all the OD, I had to think up a different approach. The answer was a 900 dollar 2x4 D250 donor truck I found in Paso Robles that had a lien title from an estate sale. Since I didn't need to mess with Rego, it was the perfect match. This truck has the non I/C cummins 5.9 with a non Od 2x4 727 Auto trans - the same trans the 1972 W200 came with from the factory. Turns out the trans mounted up perfectly, and I retained all the stock crossmembers and original Shift mounts for both the divorced NP205 and Brownie! This was going to be a quick swap I thought.... But it wasn't without a few hiccups. I almost lost the whole rig when I noticed my receiver hitch was cracking near the frame mounts!! I ended up stopping at a gas station on I-5 and took the hitch off the D250 and mounted it on the W250 and continued down the road!!
Here is a pic of the 1993 towing the 1991.0 Donor truck + a couple carnage pics:
I tried mounting the truck backwards on the trailer after the hitch swap but the sway was so bad I had to switch it back around again. Turns out the replacement hitch had a higher tongue weight rating. The pintle hitch stuck out too far though and I think added leverage to the hitch as well.
So With no OD now, the only OD was going to be from the brownie itself, which wasn't going to be enough for the 4:10 gears and the cummins to get up to any decent speed on the freeway. So upon investigating options I found that the stock aluminum kidney hole Mags that came with 1972 Crew were 16.5 and would fit the HMMWV 37" Good Year Wrangler Military tires... That in combination with my OD would be satisfactory to get up to hiway speed I thought:
And as you can see, by this point, the Engine/Trans is out of the crew and the front clip is off. I ended up having to replace both the engine and front crossmember/spring mounts on the 1972 with ones from a 1993 Ramcharger. I think any from 1974 and up would've worked. The 1972/73 had a weird shallow 3 piece engine mount that wouldn't clear the deep cummins oil pan. (I found out the hard way on this when I tried to put the original cummins in the truck last February)
Along with the xmember swap, I added a leaf to the already beefy front spring packs that were military wrap... and away we went...
I am a long time diesel nut, my first was a 1985 MBZ 300D, then 1989 Dodge D250 Cummins, then 1993 Cummins, with finally the 1972 Crew Conversion. I've been active on TDR/DTR and other sites as well under the same handle. The guys wanted to see my brownie and build thread on my truck so here it is.
The truck started out as a 1972 Dodge W200 Crew Cab Short Bed Adventurer. It had a 360/727 (2wd) to Divorced NP205 to 3sp Brownie with D60 Rear and D70( yes a 70) closed knuckle front axle. Project Kicked off fall of 2008. crashnzuk and I stopped to see the truck but didn't end up taking it home. After a while I decided to snatch it up. Here is a pic:
You must be registered for see images attach
It had about 3 layers of carpet on the floor with the stock rubber mat on the bottom. After that was removed, some rot was discovered on the floor, but other than that it was virtually cancer free.
I ditched the D70F/D60 combo in favor of the axles that came under my 1st donor truck, the 1990 Dodge w250 diesel 5sp pictured here:
You must be registered for see images attach
The original plan was to swap the entire 5sp drivetrain over as well but the project hit a standstill because of work travel and my lack of metal fab skills. I ended up selling the cummins/getrag/np205/gearvendor that was in the 1990 and parting the rest out, finally posting the carcass on craigslist for 'free' and a couple a Ruskies came and drug it away in a matter of hours.
So the project sat until mid Aug 2009 and I had since aquired a nice 1993 Dodge (in sig) which was taking up a lot of my wrenching time.
Months of posting the crew project for sale yielded no interest, so I finally got the gumption enough to continue the crew project with new inspiration. My original plan with the 4:10 axles was to have 'triple OD' which would be Getrag in 5th, Gear Vendor in OD, and Brownie in OD. That would be plenty to give the truck more than enough splits and tall legs on the hiway as well.
Well since I no longer had the drivetrain with all the OD, I had to think up a different approach. The answer was a 900 dollar 2x4 D250 donor truck I found in Paso Robles that had a lien title from an estate sale. Since I didn't need to mess with Rego, it was the perfect match. This truck has the non I/C cummins 5.9 with a non Od 2x4 727 Auto trans - the same trans the 1972 W200 came with from the factory. Turns out the trans mounted up perfectly, and I retained all the stock crossmembers and original Shift mounts for both the divorced NP205 and Brownie! This was going to be a quick swap I thought.... But it wasn't without a few hiccups. I almost lost the whole rig when I noticed my receiver hitch was cracking near the frame mounts!! I ended up stopping at a gas station on I-5 and took the hitch off the D250 and mounted it on the W250 and continued down the road!!
Here is a pic of the 1993 towing the 1991.0 Donor truck + a couple carnage pics:
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
I tried mounting the truck backwards on the trailer after the hitch swap but the sway was so bad I had to switch it back around again. Turns out the replacement hitch had a higher tongue weight rating. The pintle hitch stuck out too far though and I think added leverage to the hitch as well.
So With no OD now, the only OD was going to be from the brownie itself, which wasn't going to be enough for the 4:10 gears and the cummins to get up to any decent speed on the freeway. So upon investigating options I found that the stock aluminum kidney hole Mags that came with 1972 Crew were 16.5 and would fit the HMMWV 37" Good Year Wrangler Military tires... That in combination with my OD would be satisfactory to get up to hiway speed I thought:
You must be registered for see images attach
And as you can see, by this point, the Engine/Trans is out of the crew and the front clip is off. I ended up having to replace both the engine and front crossmember/spring mounts on the 1972 with ones from a 1993 Ramcharger. I think any from 1974 and up would've worked. The 1972/73 had a weird shallow 3 piece engine mount that wouldn't clear the deep cummins oil pan. (I found out the hard way on this when I tried to put the original cummins in the truck last February)
Along with the xmember swap, I added a leaf to the already beefy front spring packs that were military wrap... and away we went...
You must be registered for see images attach
Last edited:
i love these old crew cab dodge trucks
Just kidding 
